Comments on: Ability, not gender, affects video game play

By: Aunt_Foxy

Aunt_Foxy — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:10:34 +0000

I am a 24 year old girl who loves FPS games. I kick “***” at them too. Perhaps all the sexist and obviously blind people out there need to pay better attention. I run into tons of other female gamers when playing online. The amount of female gamers has sky rocketed in the last few years. I also noticed alot of these postings are about World of Warcraft and Sims…. “**** that ****,” other games are out there; the Socom series, Call of Duty, racing games, and many others. We play those too. The biggest issue is not genderization in games (female characters and such) but the lack of awareness that females and older gamers exsist, and in larger numbers than given credit for.

By: Bcadada

Bcadada — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 22:37:03 +0000

I think girls dont like violence and shooting, they play dress up games and puzzle games, haha

By: dr. b.

dr. b. — Sun, 05 Mar 2006 18:11:14 +0000

To say that girls play certain games and boys play others is fairly essentialist. I agree with the thought that there do need to be different genres of games that cover the same subject matter for edugaming, but I worry that saying that certain games are for girls and others are for boys will only serve to perpetuate a stereotype. There are more and more women playing FPS and sports games (note the rise in female clans). I also wonder how Sherry’s POV would change if he were to work with updated stats that show that the average age of the gamer is increasing as video game console prices continue to rise. The ESA finds that the average age of the game buyer (this does include parents admittedly) is 37 (http://www.theesa.com/facts/gamer_data.php), companies like EA have disclosed that the player base for their Sims series is female and over 30 (43% of them having children of their own), and the president of the ESRB, Patricia Vance, (www.esrb.org) has placed the average age at 29. There are discrepencies, but the point is that the gaming population is aging. Gamers don’t stop gaming as they grow older.