Industry facts

Industry "facts" from the ESA (Entertainment Software Association). A few comments about this information:

o "The average age of a game player is 29 years old," and "Ninety-two percent of all games are purchased by adults over the age of 18."

Could this be one of the key reasons for the Gamecube's demise? Has Nintendo's positioning as a kids- and family-friendly games maker come back to bite it? Me thinks so.

o "Thirty-nine percent of game players are women."

If we're talking online games like Spades, then yeah, I can believe this. But I truly doubt that women account for nearly 40 percent of retail buyers. I almost never see a female perusing games in my locale Gamestop or EB.

o "Computer and video game software sales grew eight percent in 2003 to $7 billion and are expected to show strong growth over the next few years."

Finally, an honest revenue figure that shows we're still a small fry compared to the movie industry.

Comments

[steve]

"But I truly doubt that women account for nearly 40 percent of retail buyers. I almost never see a female perusing games in my locale Gamestop or EB."

Ignoring anecdotal observations, it's also possible the women don't peruse; they know what they want, and go buy it. They don't linger over every box like guys tend to do.

But in a lot of cases, they may be buying games for their kids.

Also, on the PC, I've heard numbers like 30-40% of MMO players are women; I know that when we do a cover story on an MMO game, we get a lot of women writing in. (Our readership is about 20% female as well.)

"Finally, an honest revenue figure that shows we're still a small fry compared to the movie industry."

Yeah, that, "games are bigger than movies" was parroted around for so long, people started believing it.

[Brian Krueger]

"o "The average age of a game player is 29 years old," and "Ninety-two percent of all games are purchased by adults over the age of 18."
Could this be one of the key reasons for the Gamecube's demise? Has Nintendo's positioning as a kids- and family-friendly games maker come back to bite it? Me thinks so."

How does your assertion jibe with:
#6 - 63% of games are rated "E"
#7 - 70% of the top 20 best selling games are rated "E" or "T" (games for people under 18)
and
#9 - 96% of parents with kinds under 18 are paying attention to their kid's gaming content.

It would be easy to site those 3 items on the same list and argue that a youth/teen centric strategy would be the best policy. Clearly, there's more to the Gamecube/PS2/XBox performance than just the average age of the gamers.

[Elly]

"I almost never see a female perusing games in my locale Gamestop or EB"

Just because female gamers don't shop in the same places as male gamers doesn't mean they're not buying. I've had enough creepy and insulting experiences in game shops to know that I should shop elsewhere. Somewhere where I'm not going to be leered at by prepubescant shoppers (or assistants). Somewhere where it's not assumed that because I'm female all I play is Spades, or "Barbie Goes Shopping." Somewhere where I'm not going to bump into my little brother or any of his mates.

Having said that, 40% does sound rather high.....

[Mike]

"But I truly doubt that women account for nearly 40 percent of retail buyers. I almost never see a female perusing games in my locale Gamestop or EB."

I didn't notice anything about women purchasing games. If anything, I will speculate if in fact, male gamers are buying the games that their female significant others are playing.

If you took a survey of large screen TV buyers... Are the majority men? Would that surprise anyone? If so, might it be the case that their wife/girlfriend/daughter spends a similar amount of time with the TV?

This parallels purchase-gender-use activity in all sorts of other sectors. Another example: Do more women buy clothing than men? Do we not all wear clothing? And if you're like me, don't you let a women make your clothing purchases for you? :-)

Maybe women gamers let male gamers make their purchases for them. This might not be a direct conscious decision. I don't claim to know why, but I imagine part of the reason might be related to social attitudes.

Secondly, I've compared notes with other shareware game developers. Some of their products sell well over 50% to a female audience. The numbers might be statistically insignificant (it's a very small sample space), but with a little inductive reasoning, you've got to wonder... How many games did GameHouse sell to female players? How many female purchasers used another (male) person's credit card to place the order? Or have a male order for them?

I imagine some of these questions might take decades of market research to answer.

[Jeff Mackintosh]

I find the consumer-info numbers suspect. I could certainly agree with those numbers for the _purchasing_ base, but not necessarily the end-user. The high percentage of "female gamers" might, more accurately, reflect mothers purchasing games for kids (or husbands). The high average age of users (because 29 is a very high average age, imho) would be skewed by parents purchasing games for their kids.

I simply have an enormous amount of difficulty believing those numbers accurately reflect the users. Buyers? Yes. I can easily believe that. Users? I think the data is enormously suspect.

[Scott Miller]

Brian, "63% of games are rated 'E'" includes The Sims, sports games and lot's of other games that are still primarily aimed at non-kids.

Unquestionably, Nintendo caters more to kids than the other two consoles, with all sorts of cartoonish mascot character-based games. Nintendo is the Disney of the console world, and I think this perception of Nintendo turns away a great percentage of teenage, and older, gamers.

My wife is a big game player, but she has never bought a game, nor gone looking to buy one; she only plays all of those free games that are on MSN's Zone and similar places. I suspect this is the case with a majority of female players. I doubt that they are a great source of direct revenue for the game industry.

Also, I've spoken to someone in a position to know about the demographics of EverQuest, and the number of female players has been over-estimated by a lot of people -- it's no where close to 50% as many believe. I forgot the actual figure, but I think it was in the high 20% range. Still good, but still quite lopsided in favor of males.

[benjamin graner]

The problem I had with the Gamecube was the lack of a killer app on launch. There was no game that launched with the GC that made me simple HAVE to own it. Contrast that with Halo and the X-Box, or the Final Fantasy series and the PS2.

As to females playing games, I think that for the most part games have NEVER been made in genres which are interesting to females.

*massive stereotype alert*
Guys like to play 'cops and robbers' while girls like to play 'house'
*/massive stereotype alert*.

Sound like GTA vs. The Sims? Which would you rather have produced?

Guys have Doom and Tribes and Duke3d for their action fix...what's the equivalent of the romantic comedy in video gaming for the girls? I can't think of it (aside from some esoteric Japanese games..and of course the Sims).

One of the best quotes I heard was that when you make a game, before any decisions are made the whole world is your market. As soon as you start making decisions (RPG vs. FPS) you elimiate parts of the world who are just not interested in that particular type of game. The ideal is to have the largest number of people still interested. If that's the case, why do most game designers start off with decisions that immediately reduce their potential market by 50%? It might not be an easy question to answer, but I think it's a very interesting one (ego++ ;)).

Anyhow I'm off to castrate myself for all that stereotyping before any girls I know quite rightfully do it for me.

[Brian S.]

Scott Miller said: "Nintendo is the Disney of the console world, and I think this perception of Nintendo turns away a great percentage of teenage, and older, gamers." While this may be true, I think the real reason Gamecube has failed (while Gameboy has not, yet) is because of its poor third-party developer support. Even though games like Zelda and the Super Mario variants still sell like hotcakes, there are barely any exclusives for Nintendo (the Resident Evil remake was a rare exception). Of the multiplatformers most of the Gamecube versions are the often the least impressive of the bunch. The industry is too big for a company to rely on just its own homemade games for its game system success.

[John Baez]

Scott said "The average age of a game player is 29 years old," and "Ninety-two percent of all games are purchased by adults over the age of 18."

Could this be one of the key reasons for the Gamecube's demise? Has Nintendo's positioning as a kids- and family-friendly games maker come back to bite it? Me thinks so.

Response:
1. The way the ESA has positioned these numbers really makes me believe they want to the general public believe that everyone buying and playing games are adults so don't bother suing us.

2. Yep, Nintendo did position itself as as the child/teen console in the beginning, but now since concept approval has been waived there is a slim chance for more indie developers to get on board. Some people will say it's too late for GameCube, but Nintendo learns its lessons well. (Quick, which was easier to develop for N64 or GC?) Look at the transformation GBA underwent- from a kludgy blob of plastic to a hip piece of hardware.

3. And now for the numbers....from our holiday poll where 65,000 gamers responded:
37% own GameCube
33% own Xbox
61% own PS2

Which means in the gaming community (not the guy who buys a PS2 to just play GranTurismo and that's the only game he'll ever buy...ever) gamers own multiple consoles. So don't write off GC just yet...

john
(happily working on a 3 SKU title)

[Jeff Mackintosh]

As to females playing games, I think that for the most part games have NEVER been made in genres which are interesting to females.
-----

I think that's very simply because the majority of game designers are males and they want to work on games that appeal to them (ego driving creative industries is a common problem that very few overcome…). Which is unfortunate because I think that a game seriously targeting female gamers could do exceptionally well.

Imagine a really well-designed Sailor Moon (for example) video game. Put in all the elements of good game design expected of a "male" action game (because, really, Sailor Moon has copious amounts of action...) plus a compelling story filled with love (not Harlequin-bubble-gum romance - love - there are numerous games that prove that male gamers aren’t opposed to romantic sub-plots) and don't treat the game’s audience like they’re children. The majority of games I've seen that were targeted at women also treated women like 12-year old girls (or outright stupid...).

I can't think of a single title that targeted female gamers while also attempting to design, from top to bottom, a solid game (I'm sure there are some that I'm not thinking of, but they are most certainly the exception and not the rule).

For the most part, targeting females has almost always equated with targeting _girls_. Want a niche market (going back to a previous discussion) that is ready to be tapped?…

[steve]

"I doubt that they are a great source of direct revenue for the game industry."

"I forgot the actual figure, but I think it was in the high 20% range. Still good, but still quite lopsided in favor of males."

These two points contradict each other, somewhat. I've asked Sony in the past about women EverQuest numbers, as well as Blizzard for Diablo players, and it's anywhere from 25-35%. So are you going to really argue that 25-35% of all EverQuest or Diablo players aren't a great source of revenue?

For EverQuest, that would be over 100,000 people paying $15/month and about $60-80 at retail for expansions. And if you assume similar numbers for Ultima Online, Dark Age of Camelot, etc.... that's a fairly significant potential chunk of money you're choosing to ignore.

And Diablo, if it's 20% of, what, a couple of million people, that makes it "only" 200-300 thousand women players. We won't even get into the Sims and its expansions, and its 55% women players. These are insignificant numbers.

The industry wants to always expand its reach, and completely ignoring women as a potential audience has been curious since it's such an obvious growth area.

But it's a lot easier for companies to just say, "Forget women; men are the majority of the market, so let's go for them" rather than figure out what women might be interested in.

[steve]

"I can't think of a single title that targeted female gamers while also attempting to design, from top to bottom, a solid game (I'm sure there are some that I'm not thinking of, but they are most certainly the exception and not the rule)."

I think The Sims, and its expansions (Hot Date, for example) qualifies.

[Gestalt]

"an honest revenue figure that shows we're still a small fry compared to the movie industry"

Although of course that's only US figures you've got there. Including Europe, Japan and the rest of the world the figure's more like $20bn IIRC. Still a long way off the movie industry though, especially once you take DVD sales, pay-to-view, TV licensing etc into account instead of just looking at box office figures.

[PJ]

Ever stop to think that maybe you guys are the REASON you never see any female gamers around? We do exist. My group of friends is fairly evenly gender-distributed, yet more girls own PS2 or similar level hardware than the guys. NONE of them bought in store, because every time any of us goes into a store we are talked down to. I've been playing computer games (and no, not "house" style games since I happen not to conform to your sexist view of women) since I was 6 years old, yet I'm still talked down to by some 15 year old who came late to the party with Doom 2. So I shop online. I only ever go into games stores to pick up older titles that aren't published anymore (in their second hand sections) and now with the advent of eBay I don't need to anymore.

As for the differences ... yes, granted for certain demographics men are more likely to play games than women. But have you thought that perhaps this is more due to women not often being in significant jobs in the marketplace and therefore having less exposure to computing in general? No one who has hardly had enough exposure to a computer to play Solitaire before they're 40 is likely to go out and buy an Xbox. Horror shock. But these days young women are every bit as comfortable with computers as the men. And we play a lot of games ... we pay for them, we buy the hardware -- we even hack it when the fancy takes us. What keeps them from being as obvious in the stores, on the message boards, as gamers on the street? Because guys like you assume girls don't play ... and talk down to us when we do. With figures like that, you should worry that you don't believe them ... if women are buying 40% of games, companies and developers should start taking notice. And if the games that girls like are really that different from what you lot want to play, watch out -- the money's moving and you're not.

[Scott Miller]

-- "These two points contradict each other, somewhat."

My point is that overall, I do not think women are a great source of industry revenue, and in the case of EQ -- one the rare commercial games that does have a high number of female players -- the percentages have often been touted around 50%, which is overblown (that was my point with mentioning EQ). So, taken in that context, I don't think my two points clash.

However, I do agree with the observation that a good many boyfriends and husbands buy games that their female partners end up playing. Still, in these cases, it's hard to give full credit to women as the sales drivers, and at least 50% of the credit must still go to the men who make the actual purchase, as I think that had men not made these purchases, at least half of these games would have remained on shelves.

[Brian S.]

This topic of gender balance is old and rehashed since Brenda Laurel spectacularly flamed out with Purple Moon with commentators like Chris Crawford (see http://www.erasmatazz.com/library/Game%20Design/WomenWant.html) providing analysis why the industry has failed to make much progress since. His indictment is beyond the excuse that because the male-dominated industry doesn't like to make games that would appeal to women, it isn't doing so now.

Except for the Sims there have been few successes at attracting females to gaming, especially those not already inclined. And except for Barbie variants there have been no outwardly girl-biased games that have become best-sellers. Game publishers do not market their games in places where women frequent. I have not seem too many game advertisements of AAA titles in publications like People, US Weekly, Vogue, and Cosmo whereas they are apparent in GQ, Maxim, Sports Illustrated and Men's Health.

This topic is interesting as I had made similar comments on comp.games.development.design last October under "Why games fail to attract women/girls." Keep it up.

[benjamin graner]

"NONE of them bought in store, because every time any of us goes into a store we are talked down to."

"I've had enough creepy and insulting experiences in game shops to know that I should shop elsewhere."

Sorry if I have put myself in that category.

What I should have said in my post was "As to females playing games, I think that for the most part games have NEVER been made in genres which are interesting to the majority of females. "

In genre z, x% of players are female and y% of players are male. What I was trying to say is that there is no genre z which has had x > y (to my knowledge anyways). That isn't to say girls don't like the types of games which are being made, but that there is no genre which specifically interests women more than men (contrasted to movies where you have the romantic comedy..again note that it's x > y, not x >> y).

Also, if G is the number of girl gamers in the world and M is the number of guy gamers in the world, then what genre maximizes (G*x + M*y)? Would it be possible to have a maximum even if x > y? I personally believe it is.

The really great films transcend their genres and their demographics and the same is true of great games. That being said there are a lot of profitable movies being made which target either male or female audiences, and I believe the same is possible for games.

[Toonster]

We've developed some titles for eGames. eGames sells valueware titles (priced $10-$15) primarily through large outlets like Wal-mart, and they sell quite a few. They told us that the center of the purchasing demographic is a 40 year old woman (but admitted they don't know who they buy the games for - themselves, spouses, children, etc.). But in any case, for certain market channels, there are a lot of women doing the actual purchasing.

As far as how to make "games that women like", the trick isn't to make "games for girls", but simply to make "games for people" that aren't specifically targetted at teenage boys.

[Thomas Warfield]

-- "As far as how to make "games that women like", the trick isn't to make "games for girls", but simply to make "games for people" that aren't specifically targetted at teenage boys."

Amen to that one.

Our customers run 60-70% women, and it is not because they are specifically targeted to women in any way, it is that they appeal to a general audience rather than typical gamers.

There might also be factors such as "women are more likely to buy stuff than men" or "women are more likely to pay for a shareware game rather than pirate it" that could be influencing this.

In any case, the traditional game companies lose out on a lot of sales by not appealing to half the population.

[Tadhg]

Yes, but the gamecube hasn't really failed, has it? It doesn't occupy the dominant position in the world, for sure, but it seems to be doing quite well nonetheless. It has plenty of consoles sold worldwide (about the same number as xboxes), it has a pretty good software range, and Nintendo don't make a large loss on every machine (unlike Microsoft again). So it's doing all right.

Nintendo/Disney is a good analogy. There is often a space in any sector for special-style manufacturers that don't capture the full market, but do well enough and breed loyalty. Nintendo is one. Apple is another.

About women, I can believe that 40% of retail sales are those by women. I used to work in a mainstream games chain for several years, and Christmas always brought out tons of them. Similarly, many women buy consoles and games for their children or their boyfriends on a very regular basis. However, the number of female gamers that I used to see were relatively few.

And in the intervening 7 years, I'm not sure that much has changed.

[Shahar Eldar]

nintendo isnt disney.
Not by a long shot. The company is one of the most original developers out there, their games actually explore territories which wont be touched by other similar companies, they have a tendancy to take more risks, (my own oppinion, based on games like animal crossing, pikmin, mario party and many others) experimenting with both gameplay and graphics, beyond what is avaliable in the marketplace. I've been a late entry into the whole console thing, coming from a country where consoles were extremely expensive for normal people to get (israel) but owning nintendo systems, (N64, GBA, GC) I think they really are the only large company out there really on the forefront of trying out new things in games.

[Nathan Peterson]

I would be curious to find out some numbers for online free games like gunbound.

Since its pretty much a WORLD game, easily accessible, and non-gender specific. It could be a very good light into the actual numbers of female gamers.

[Caryn Law]

I think there's a definite chicken-and-egg issue that comes into play here. Women don't play games because there are no games made that women like, yet no one's making games that women like because women don't play games.

I was going to take issue with Scott interchanging game BUYERS with game PLAYERS when he made the quote, but someone else here brought that up. I don't think the fact that a significant portion of women are PLAYING these games is trivial. I think these women aren't buying the games because they're not the ones the companies are trying to reach, and certain the environment itself isn't conducive to them wanting to buy anything (I've had two idiotic experiences buying games in a game store, one when I was looked at like a bug under glass by the clerks, and the other when I was downright refused help in favor of a male customer standing next to me).

However, the fact that they're playing the games at all is something a company, I think, would do well to pay attention to rather than deliberately perpetuating the chicken-and-egg issue. I believe that 20% figure that Scott quoted is simply because of outside issues preventing it from growing, not because women themselves don't want it to grow. And I think a company that hits the right buttons with that crowd is going to see that number rise significantly in their favor.

[Joseph]

Interesting site some great minds at work it seems. Yeah women are routinely dismissed by Gamers as nonexistant. Biowares big mistake was in killing Aribeth a woman hero in the game NWN. I cant imagine that this mistake is going to play to well with potential sales to women. Where are their good female role Model type characters? certainly not to be found in their bland npc characters. Biowares not the only ones at fault in over looking the Ladies as has been mentioned. They are however just my most recently noticed for making that mistake.So do the women go for Britneys dance beat? I think not. little girls maybe. But the older mature audiance is where the cash is at. Give the women gamers a serious plot, with romantic influences through it, good game play and a character who is seen as both human {meaning that they are not barbie doll proportioned} and a hero and you will have a hit game. Very possibly even a hit game that crosses over genry as well.

[Jim]

Any woman who is even posting on this site obviously has some affinity towards gaming, that is transcending these supposed "industry-implemented" market limitations. Therefore, and I'm sorry to say it, because I mean no disrespect, their opinions cannot be taken as the opinions of women en mass. The truth is that there are basic differences between men and women, and unfortunately our society has been taking the idea of equality too far, and causing a belief that there is no difference between men and women. Men and Women, fundamentally, are drawn to different things. I'd like to use the analogy of board games, since there is a significantly larger amount of data on these than on video games. There are board games that are targeted at only men, only women, and both. But what I have found is not that women would prefer to play a game targeted towards women, but more that they would rather spend their time doing things that are more interesting to them, such as watching a romantic movie. If given the choice of playing Risk or Trivial Pursuit, I guarantee a majority of women will choose Trivial Pursuit. But if given the choice of playing Trivial Pursuit or watching a romantic movie with their significant other, they would rather watch the movie. Why? Because, fundamentally most woman would prefer to watch a humanly-driven story than play a game. I think that this may root to male's larger tendancies to be aggressive and competitive- because of this, the simple prospect of winning is reward enough for playing a game. This is not to say that women don't enjoy winning, it's just not as thrilling- a woman would probably enjoy the socialization that occured during a game of Trivial Pursuit more than the actual act of winning, whereas a male would feel oppositely. This same principle can be taken to another level. When watching a movie on a brand new, super in-home movie theatre system, a male would probably be more excited about using the new system, while a female would be more excited about watching her favorite movie. She would laugh at the male for caring so much about the "stupid system." Men are excited by technology, women are excited by what technology can do for them. For instance, males in general would be very excited about purchasing, and simply owning, the latest computer hardware, whereas females would most likely only be excited if they could see a notable difference in what they are able to do with their computer due to the new hardware- a basic example would be buying a better video card to improve resolution- a male would most likely be excited simply because they owned the state of the art graphics card, and a female would find the purchase wasteful because the old card worked, why would they need to spend $100's+ on something that did the same thing, only slightly better? The same then applies to video games- a female will only be excited by something that they could not accomplish elsewhere- Why play a romantic video game, when one could focus on an actual love life? Males, for the most part, play video games to experience, in some fashion, activites they could not otherwise experience. AKA violence, ruling nations/empires, questing in a fantasy world, etc. These are all far-fetched things in real life, but are innately inriguing to the male psyche. For the most part, females are not attracted to these same sorts of things, and the things they are innately attracted to are addressed, much more successfully than a video game would be capable of doing, by other media, such as books, movies, television, etc. As has been said many times, The Sims is one example of a female-appealing game, and it does focus on something females can relate to-relationships. However, because it is so difficult to relate female interests to a video game, it becomes difficult to make any games besides those similar in theme to The Sims that appeal to females. The majority of women are interested in society, culture, etc. And yes, I am stereotyping. But how many girls played cops and robbers as children? How many played house? One cannot deny that a cast majority played house. There are those that played cops and robbers, and they're playing video games today. Sweet, that's awsome for them- I personally don't even consider whether people I play with are male or female. I know I've rambled, so I'll sum my points up into something coherent: 1)Men and Women have basic differences 2)These basic differences are best addressed by different media 3)Men's higher interests in technology and, admittedly more simple competitive tendencies (than women's relationship-drive) are very well addressed by interactive video games (men want to be able to, for instance, be in control and inflict violent actions) 4)Women's interests are better addressed by other media, because the complex stories they would like to experience are better, and more interestingly, expressed in novels, movies, TV, etc. 5)Therefore, it is not that the video gaming industry is ignoring a large, prospective female market, but is instead recognizing its own limitations in realistically being able to make successful games that are of interest to females........ A person could make a board game based around a foot race, but it wouldn't be very appealing. People would rather play a video game of it, or actually run a race. One could make more female oriented games, but women would rather have novels, movies, and other more relevant media to address their needs. This situation is not arisen from ignoring anyone, it's arisen from the realization that everything has its limitations- where video games lose market space in their inablity to successfully sell to women, another industry gains market space.

[Scooby]

How many female developers do you know? I have met very few in ratio to the men. Open a studio of "girl power" (all female) developers and you are on the path to development for women. There ARE enough women in the industry to make this happen, though they seem to be more interested in working where the men work. Otherwise, men will continue to make games that they WANT to make and play... hence games more geared toward men.

[J Neilson]

Sure you dont see females looking at every box in the game store. But I think that female gamers are becoming more and more popular. I for one am a dedicated gamer who spends more time playing games than any of my male gamer friends. I think that males just can't accept the fact that games are not made purely for them. I think they like to believe that the gaming world is purely male but the truth of the matter is that it is no longer totally male at all.

[tyler]

I am just looking for info about halo becuze its a school project

[hoool]

hoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool......hoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool....hoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool...

[Scott Young]

I don't know if anyone is going to bother reading this (seeing as I decided to browse the archives) but what the hell...

You guys should really take a look at Chris Crawfords analysis of the ESA study. His note was, it was unscientific. Simply because, without releasing the methods of how you retrieved your data, the study is impossible to replicate, and is therefore not worth the paper it is printed on. We can all assume they were reasonably accurate, but if they won't release their methods you might as well just make up your own statistics.

Any anyone who says a team of women would make a good selling game for women is complete bullshit. That is like saying that men are more adept at creating videogames (usually geared towards males) then women. Taking a small select group of women (the developers) and trying to extrapolate their interests to ensure a successful game is a fallible concept.

Besides, the industry is trying to target female players *who currently don't play games* so getting female devs (who most likely play games themselves) is probably not a good idea because you are only "preaching to the choir"

my 2cents...