Some great points about the value proposition and social networking capabilities required to capture a female audience.

I would like to point out a few (arguably scientific) points that are of crucial, but overlooked, importance to these questions. The main one being that there probably is no such thing a female/male gamer. These two terms are inaccurate. In terms of "gamer" it is more accurate to say "seeking reward" and in terms of "male/female" in the context of interactive entertainment (which does not, usually, involve the male/female body) the distinction is with brain structure. Brain structure is feminine / masculine which is a continuum rather than male / female which is one or the other. It is likely that these structures form 2 overlapping “bell” curves in terms if their differences.

What this means is that there is a good deal of overlap in behavior and preference, which is why you always hear contradictions when the topic comes to “girls and games”. It is very likely that a percentage of females will have a more masculine brain structure and hence be more likely to be rewarded by those events that reward the average male (especially status reward). Of course then the converse is true.

The question then is “what is rewarding for the average feminine structured brain” which is a bit more of a mouthful than “what do girls like” but answering the former will give your product enormous appeal whereas the latter will have you going round in self contradicting circles indefinitely. Anyway, from here when I say “female” I will mean “average feminine brain”.

As Ian B points out, and I can confirm from my own research and observations, "There" and games like “Tetris” are very popular. There because it extends what is popular with a female audience and that is pure social interaction and mirroring those events that are popular in real life. For most females, I would estimate, "There" is not used as a game but as a more interactive form of chat (I have used There quite a bit and they do not bill themselves as a game).

With games per se I have found through my research a few very distinct difference between those that males and female find rewarding that again mirror those preferences of masculine and feminine brains. The primary difference is that males are rewarded by increasing status (i.e. becoming “top dog”) and this is easy to achieve by defeating “enemies” or other human opponents. Females (please dont be offended by my rather sterile use of these terms) on the other hand are not rewarded by defeating opponents in that way. Defeating an enemy is rewarding for a male, it is not for a female. Building social hierarchies increases status for females and hence is rewarding. This is a very different concept to most games.

I guess the main take away point here is that entertainment needs to cater for a whole spectrum of factors to reward masculine to feminine brains, not simply male and female. Those masculine factors are by now pretty well understood, as yet the feminine ones are not.

Thanks for your comments, Ian. I'm writing a piece now on rewards in games that takes up some of these points, but I'll make the general point that the whole manner of engagement in games is a factor in this argument. For example, the entire notion of total time played as the most valuable metric for understanding games derives, in my opinion, from an entirely male perspective anyway -- one that assumes we're running a horse race and the women are running a breakaway.

From the perspective of marketshare perspective, this kind of measurement participates in the old guard modes of funding and greenlighting that will affect which games get made and which don't. But from the perspective of culture, it's infinitely more interesting to ask what women and men are doing in games, and why, and to what relative success. This is where market surveys will fail, leaving room for us researchers.

When I first logged into There, back in the early days of the beta, I very quickly befriended a woman who showed me around the worlds. She'd started a parent's group in There (in one of the bungalows you can rent out) and held virtual support meetings for new parents. I think the explicit orientation of the avatar world may have helped these parents kickstart their trust community moreso even than might have been possible in an Internet messageboard community.

I think There is an interesting reflection on life and it is more an enabling technology. I have spoken to quite a number of girls in There (for the purposes of research you understand) and as you mentioned they are using There to enable activities that they would do in real life if they could. Crucially There enables much richer social interaction by employing facial and body gestures in addition to text (and voice) conversation. This makes it a much more natural and rewarding social experience.

The point about "what men and women are doing" is the central question here. Essentially we do, in virtual environments, what we would do in real life, if we could. That is very different for men than women. If the average man had no constraints or consequences he would enjoy tearing around town in a sports car shooting at targets. Video games enable this. They do not generally enable the kinds of activities that the average woman would want to invest their time in.

“Games” in general evolved as a way for men to establish types of rank in social hierarchies (based on physical or intellectual prowess) in addition to the usual structures. Games in general then, and not just video games are a male province.

Women on the other hand enjoy participating in “play” that builds their necessary faculties for life, building social networks and support. Of course these behaviors are eons old and are now mixed with our advanced societies requirements but essentially they remain the same.

Current metrics, in any field, are woefully inadequate because for the sake simplicity and manageability (not to mention cost) they are too general and do not treat individuals as individuals. As I mentioned before there is great complexity in individuals preferences along dimensions such as physical gender, brain gender, age, personality, mood etc. As Ian stresses this is where we can discover and inform.

I'm sure the stakes aren't that black and white, Ian, but I don't think you intended to portray them as such. In any case, it's probably better to insist that games do different things, and many women want to do different things with games. Still, the diversity of goals among women alone must vary -- surely the 13 year old girl is doing something different from the 45 year old mother.

Right, a thread running through my posts is that nothing is black and white but instead various shades of grey but this is rarely taken into account for reasons of simplicity, time and cost.

I am curious, has anyone actually done any research on gender issues in games?

This is definitely an area that needs to be painted in shades of grey - perhaps using gender-neutral terms might be a better way of distinguishing between "female brain structures" and "male brain structures" - something like socially-oriented vs competition-oriented?

What about all those Bejewelled and card games that are supposed to be preferred by women? They're not social. Are they auto-competitive (let's see if I can be my best score?)? Or are they something else entirely?

I think Bejewled and its ilk are something else entirely. I think they have more in common with doodling, knitting, and magazine reading than with other kinds of "normal" gameplay activity.

Ian, what do you mean when you say "normal" gameplay activity?

I think the problem is that the concept of game itself is a very fuzzy one. As Wittgenstein said, there are no necessary and sufficient features that describes all games. It covers things like children's games, board games, card games, games that are played by a single person, by people in competition by people in cooperation, and so on and so forth.

But I can't agree that Bejeweled is like knitting or those other activities you mentioned. For one thing, nobody's ever felt guilty about knitting or magazine reading and nobody is going to accuse you of wasting your time just because you're doodling on a piece of paper :-)

For another, they "feel" different - when I'm knitting, I don't think of myself as "playing", I think of myself as "doing craft work", creating something that will last. That is not something I've ever felt while playing a game.

Sylvie -- I take your point about knitting; there is a product involved, and that's different. I still think doodling may be a good analogue. I don't think Bejeweled is a waste of time... I just think it functions as a distraction activity like some of these others. Sitting on the john reading Cosmo could be construed as a waste of time too, I suppose.

As for "normal," the inverted commas are there for precisely the reason you note... what is "normal" gameplay anyway? I suppose the industry still perceives casual gaming as a kind of knock-off gaming, which is too bad.

But don't all computer games act as a kind of distraction activity? I know I've managed to avoid doing loads of things by playing my favourite RPG game instead :-)

I agree with you that casual gaming deserves more respect. I would venture to suggest that one reason may be that the industry insiders don't play that kind of game and so perceive it as beneath their interest. An interesting hypothesis. Or maybe they just think they can't make enough money from that category of games?

Maybe "distraction" is the wrong word. And I don't think playing Bejeweled is anything to be embarrassed about.

I don't think casual games are simply an avoidance strategy either. Rather, I wonder if the structured, predictable, and controlled pattern-play has some kind of a calming effect. Not like meditation, certainly, but maybe like music, or knitting in its non-productive aspects (even if knitting can be more automatic than Collapse).

Well, this is really interesting. I never thought women liked playing computer games let alone online games. I have always been thining that their brains are not up to it. But, of course, there might be some exceptions.

After reading that 40 year old women are more likely to play online games than any other demographic, I was confused. I thought to myself, “when have I ever seen a 40 year old woman play online games, let alone be on a computer?” I read the theories and points of logic presented by the author. He said that women over 40 play a lot of casual games while they are doing other things like talking on the phone or watching TV. I immediately remembered where I had seen 40 year old women playing online games on computers. It was in high school. When I would go into the offices or classrooms of teachers outside of their regular class periods, they would often be playing “casual” online games at their computers. They would be eating lunch, reading essays, or talking on the phone, all while playing a puzzle or crossword game online. I think that a large proportion of these 40 year old woman gamers are teachers and librarians. Maybe it’s just me being overly dependent on my observations, but now that I think about it I’ve seen so many of my teachers and friend’s moms playing games on the computer. 40 year old women enjoy expressing their amazing vocabularies in games that mean nothing. And this statistic, I think, shows that.

I suspect the last person to comment has not spoken with many of his fellow players. I am a 40+ year old woman, and I play WoW, FFXI, and Eve Online. In WoW and FFXI, I have met many women my age and older. Eve online does not seem to attract many female players--perhaps because of the pvp emphasis.

I think older women do not reveal their age indiscriminately because some of the other players can be rude.

I am a professional career woman with no children, and I find MMORPGs to be a nice way to spend the evenings. I like interacting with an international group, and chatting with people. I have established new networks on each game, and some of the people I have met online have become personal friends.

I may be outside the normal demographic for 40+ year old women players, but I suspect some bias in your assumptions.