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"Girls and gamers"

This is a reply I intended to make to a comment I read about two weeks ago, but I forgot.

Anyway, forementioned column was lamenting the fact that (and I quote) "girls and gamers don't mix"! My first point was that being a girl and being a "gamer" (whatever that is, maybe I should say "playing games" instead) do not exclude each other. I would love to get a chorus of support from female contributors to these columns, but I feel my chances are slim, so I'll accept that they are perhaps a rare breed. But it was a bit of a patronising generalisation (don't get many of those these days) to infer that there are none.

Anyway, that was my initial rant, my warm-up for the main point, which is this. The vast majority of games players, and more importantly games buyers, fit into a single category, young and male. I think the breakdown of the posters in these discussions will probably reflect that, although anyone who isn't please let me know. The future of gaming holds in store a battle between four players, each of who will be trying to sell more units than the others. I presume this battle will be fought over the same set of buyers - young males. I wonder if any of the contenders has given much thought to capturing new sections of the market? And I don't mean by releasing things like Barbie's fashion studio either...

What do you reckon? Is it possible to expand the market at all, or is it a lost battle? If it is then HOW?

Not a bad idea! Actually, on the subject of my friends girlfriend, me and my friend were playing snooker, while we took turns to kill his girlfriend in Perfect Dark. I took a shot, friend got up, I killed her, friend took shot, came back and killed her, while I was taking a shot.
She is rather crap.
She walked out at the end of about 50 kills.
We had it on unlimited.

I forgot to say, my college is having a game scompetition next week, sort of a championship and out of 20 games we have to get the highest total for 1/2/3/4 player games and on different consoles (I tried to get the to play Wu-tang 4 player but it's an 18 cert and i'm only 16! so are my mates so we can't. Try and get your schools/6th forms/schools to get something like this going, if you tell them that everyone pays £2 entry fee then give that to charity then it's more likely to happen.

Lock n Load, your sister beat you at P Dark! wo, my sister couldn't shoot me if I was scratching my aris in another room, and I have Zelda but I had to beat all the bosses for her as she was scared of loosing (shes 19) my sisters probably different from all yours as shes really bad at every game I have, except Extreme G only because she uses my Neon bike and I have to use the others, which isn't unfair I guess but does give her a head start. Grix the only reason you got beaten by the girlfreind was because of begginers luck if she tried it again she would get whooped because you would concentrate more and she would be too confident about her last victory, unless you are just really, really bad. My mates sister is good at some playstation games and I did get beaten on tekken 3 the other day, but it was on handicap(I have to make some kind of excuse).

On his chat show. Most of the material was crap, but that was the best line in it.

When did he say that?

I actually do agree boys are naturally more aggressive and competitive than girls. Its in our nature to try and beat someone.
I think Mark Lamaar said, "If a man walked in here now, and declared himself the worlds best Fencer, there is not one man in here that would not think, I bet I could beat him."

Fantasymeister, the computer science degree at university has now developed into a degree that is mainly based on programming, so as the degree is probably the most popular degree available. So theres no reason why girls cannot do a computer science degree. The problem is that girls consider the degree as a degree exclusively for boys, which shouldnt be the case, but its this that causes the male domination of the industry to take place. More girls need to get into the industry, and well probably well see more girls playing games. Pokemon is a very unusual phemonomon, as it is played by different genders and different age groups(granted mainly the under 10's), and this hopefully me the first in a trend to encourage girls to become gamers. Nintendo are I feel really milking the Pokemon franchise for all its worth though...

And before the complaints come rolling in, the above post was tongue in cheek humour. Personally, I see no reason why girls shouldn't play a more active role in the gaming industry. If more programming techniques were taught in school, and more places at university made available for programming courses, then there is no reason why the fairer sex shouldn't have at least a 50% hold on the gaming market. More female programmers, please. The gaming industry could do with more variety.

The reason games don't appeal to girls as much as they do to boys is that girls need to take time out to do their hair, apply makeup and spray flowery scents on themselves at regular intervals, so cannot immerse themselves into a 4 hour session on a console. They also lack the competitive edge that boys have naturally, and give up far to easily when beaten. And, heaven forbid, they ever break a fingernail on a joypad. Just too dreadful to imagine.

Anon

(Ooops, did my name really appear next to this?)

Girls seem to play better on racing games or platformers.
MY sister managed to complete Zelda all by herself, and beat me once on Perfect Dark (I was messing about okay).