Why do men like video games way more than women?

Stilton Disco said:
I mean that actually is a massive problem modern society has.

It's like 1 in 5 families in the UK with dependent children (under 16YO kids basically) are single mothers.

Even taking into account the fact more women have kids than men, that's still a hell of a lot of fathers out there with more free time than the women they knocked up, but didn't stick around with.

Kind of a very minor factor in the subject at hand of course, but it is a factor.
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I've actually known and know women without kids or many responsibilities that just didn't or don't want anything to do with video games. They feel they were a waste of time, immature or for kids. Whenever I talked about games, either they stared blankly or even occasionally mention that they remember a classic game or two from back in the day.

I just think women and men minds are generally wired differently when it comes to entertainment. Women and men are normally into different types of movies, books, TV shows, music, etc. Women normally enjoy things like social media, shopping and make-up tutorials while men typically enjoy things like football, cars and video games. Of course there are women that enjoy video games, but from what I've seen they are normally very, very casual.
 
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down 2 orth said:
This is something I've thought about a lot over the years, and I've never really come up with a good answer.

Standing theory: It's just one of those things.

Like how young boys like to draw pictures of cars, dinosaurs, rockets, and the like, whereas girls like to draw pictures of flowers, houses, people, etc. These are traits that precede culture and education. So I guess it's just how we are biologically wired?

Even more interesting to me are the girls who game. I'm not the neckbeard type, and I've been fortunate to have done a healthy amount of dating, but I've never dated a girl who likes games. I'm kind of curious to know how they tick!

One thing's for sure: there's way more men gaming than women. I know: there are surveys that show otherwise, but I'll hazard to guess that the numbers within are misleading, and essentially define "gaming" as having played a few mobile games before or something along those lines. The way I see it is that some hobbies are just more appealing to a specific gender: men by and large like to game, and women by and large like to shop for clothes. Of course the boundaries are easily crossed, but that's just how most people are oriented.

Would love to hear from male and female GAF alike.
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Apparently Generally, men like things and women like people. Women are more socially switched on and find more value in that, whereas dudes love shit made of metal and plastic.

I think theres some truth, but how much is that a product of society? Maybe if boys werent given trucks and guns it would be different.

My ex liked games, but not playing them. Just watching.
 
Most women seem to play Candy Crush, which offers a good challange.

Puzzle games in General seem to fit female gamers than Male gamers, and to be honest, Puyo Puyo's stories feel like they are aimed at everyone but moreso to girls.

However, I have witnessed some older women love Sonic games (probably a combination of being a cute animal character and accessability in platforming).

Men and Boys tend to like Action or Fighting games where there is conflict and fast reflexes whereas female gamers tend to like thinking of solutions so go for Puzzle and RPGs (at least to those I have spoken to). Rhythm games is a huge one as well where girls are definitely better than guys at reaction times and memorisation.

Animal Crossing is a BIG game for girls and women as it offers a change to stylise your game and play it like a simulation away from the real world. It can be appealing but not certainly my thing.
 
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Eats shoots and leaves...

Why do men like video games way more than women?

Well video games are endlessly repayable, they don't tell you not to play with them - in fact they usually want to be played with.

Video games don't care if you forget the first time you played them, or if you played other games when you got bored but came back for another try...

And after you've got a video game they don't keep taking money or threaten to deinstall themselves if you don't play them enough.

That's why men like video games way more than women... except the money part because DLC is also hanging on my paycheck every month.
 
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I have 3 older sisters and had an NES in my household before i was born. None of them play games like me.

Yet, Final Fantasy 7 Remake came out, two bought the game and finished it.

One hadn't played a "modern" game since the PS1 days. She managed to get to Hell House on Normal mode before switching to easy.


I wager that 99% of the marketing going to boys is the biggest culprit. Games where marketing is completely neutral (cellphone games) don't have a gender disparity issue.

The other aspect is that alot of guys who exclusively play games are creepy as fuck whenever a woman shows up.


As guys who grew up on videogames, there's an entire culture to it that other people aren't really aware of TBH. Anyone who lived through the early MMO or XBL days knows what I mean.


But again, gender neutral games do not have this issue.

My fiance plays Animal Crossing just as religiously as I would any game, complete with youtube videos and looking up "Tier lists" for fucking animals (like, what?)

I've tried to get her to play all sorts of other games, to no avail.
 
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VertigoOA said:
They do. But it's still weighted heavily on one side. I cook for my house. In most families men do not. Cultural and gender traditions in a family unit are pretty consistent. Women have their time mostly occupied by their children when it happens
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Tbh I cook too, and do a lot of cleaning etc - I don't think I'm unusual in doing that, I'd say it's common among my generation at least (I'm 40), and almost certainly common among those younger than me.
 
It might be easier to gamify the disproportionately male proclivity to fight and compete in general. Marketing and history obviously play a role and we'll see more women over time not less because of that, but I'm very skeptical of the claim it's 100% sociological, as that always seems to be wrong.
 
ToadMan said:
Eats shoots and leaves...

Why do men like video games way more than women?

Well video games are endlessly repayable, they don't tell you not to play with them - in fact they usually want to be played with.

Video games don't care if you forget the first time you played them, or if you played other games when you got bored but came back for another try...

And after you've got a video game they don't keep taking money or threaten to deinstall themselves if you don't play them enough.

That's why men like video games way more than women... except the money part because DLC is also hanging on my paycheck every month.
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who hurt u bro
 
Bernd Lauert said:
Games that women love: Sims, Animal Crossing, good puzzle games. Oh and playing a healer in an MMO.
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This is the first time I've seen The Sims mentioned and weirdly it slipped my mind too.

The amount of times I've told a woman I'm playing a game and they straightaway ask if it's The Sims is crazy.
 
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Well, there is a clear pattern emerging here: women, generally, don't like violent games. 90% of mainstream games are violent to very violent. Seeing girl play CoD is taboo but jump into FF XIV and you'll see binders full of them as Mitt Romney would say. Animal Crossing is huge with women or so I heard. Mobile games etc. So I generally believe that number of 46% if you take into account mobile gaming, MMOs, Nintendo games etc.

It's just that, we, here on forums, usually talk about mainstream AAA titles and they are heavily skewed toward males. Just look at this or any other forum, where are the ladies? I agree with most of other analysis here, we're just different and that's ok. We have different hobbies and interests throughout life, not just gaming.
 
bellome said:
Testosterone
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Think thats part of it. Women don't really like violence most of the time unless they get really hyped up. So Animal Crossing or Nintendo games would probably be more appealing to them. Maybe athlete chicks would be more into the mature, violent games.
 
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RPSleon said:
Apparently Generally, men like things and women like people. Women are more socially switched on and find more value in that, whereas dudes love shit made of metal and plastic.

I think theres some truth, but how much is that a product of society? Maybe if boys werent given trucks and guns it would be different.
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Very little. If you have to replace a smartphone battery, a man is more likely to do it, but not because they're smarter, because they're curious to see how the phone is built and how it works.
Women don't care, they'll have you do it because they just want the phone back. Some women see the commodity in knowing how to do it, but don't care.
Same for bicycles, a man will go from replacing a tube from being able to take a bike apart and put it back together for the same reason. A woman will just want her damn tube to be replaced.

The other element that people forget/ignore is social expectations but for men, not women:
A man has to be interesting to be socially accepted and appealing to a woman, he has to have interests. A woman can have interests, but it doesn't really matter either way.

An exception is sewing, not because it's feminine but because it's helpful: stitching clothing saves lots of money. Same as fixing broken shoes. A lot of women manage the income in the household, and that's also due to the fact they don't splurge the money on "toys".
 
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Many OG game designers were men, and made games targeted to sell to men, and so men wanted to become game designers. A lot of it is just that simple I think. It started with guys and so kinda just became a guy thing
 
SlimySnake said:
why do men like sports more than women?
why do men like comic books more than women?
why do men like hunting more than women?

why do women like reading books more than men?
why do women like shoes more than men?
why do women like bad tv shows more than men?

its because they are women and we are men.
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🤡

Girls and boys are conditioned from an early age to like things.
Tv ads show boys playing w trucks and games
Tv ads show girls playing w barbies and being fashionable

it's changing now thanks to gay culture (thank god).

That is why. That's it.
 
Why do women wear makeup and perfume? Because they're ugly and they stink

Why do more men play video games? Because we have great tastes and we're brilliant

Glad I could end the debate
 
Sander Cohen said:
Well, there is a clear pattern emerging here: women, generally, don't like violent games. 90% of mainstream games are violent to very violent. Seeing girl play CoD is taboo but jump into FF XIV and you'll see binders full of them as Mitt Romney would say. Animal Crossing is huge with women or so I heard. Mobile games etc. So I generally believe that number of 46% if you take into account mobile gaming, MMOs, Nintendo games etc.

It's just that, we, here on forums, usually talk about mainstream AAA titles and they are heavily skewed toward males. Just look at this or any other forum, where are the ladies? I agree with most of other analysis here, we're just different and that's ok. We have different hobbies and interests throughout life, not just gaming.
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Bro, 46% is the number of women who have admitted to playing a game before.
 
DrNeroCF said:
It's kind of a misnomer that mainly men like games. Mainly men like certain types of games, and to say that mainly men like games, you're discounting most video games, not just women.

Animal Crossing, Candy Crush, Words With Friends, the Wii games, Nintendogs, Brain Age, those Sherlock adventure games, and I'm going to bet that a good deal of indie games, are literally 50-50 to 60-40 in favor of women. So when certain figures take to YouTube and Twitter and complain about women in games, they're specifically saying that certain games, and a huge majority of games created, just don't count.

Really don't see how developers of those games aren't personally offended by that.
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That's the kind of games that account for 40~ish percent of women gamers. Still it is likelier that in terms of game hours, and being hooked, it likely affects more men.

Autism has been linked with strong obsession and dedication to hobbies, programming, mechanics, etc. Endeavors where you don't necessarily deal with people but with things. And there are hypotheses saying the autistic brain is a more extreme male brain.

Though there are some girls on the autism spectrum too.

brap said:
Women don't seem to be too into anything in my experience. Most hobbies feel like they're dominated by men.
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this.
LordKasual said:
I have 3 older sisters and had an NES in my household before i was born. None of them play games like me.

Yet, Final Fantasy 7 Remake came out, two bought the game and finished it.

One hadn't played a "modern" game since the PS1 days. She managed to get to Hell House on Normal mode before switching to easy.
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There's a difference between barely legible pixel blobs and a few lines of text on nes with chiptunes, and ff remake where you basically have an interactive movie with very easy gameplay.

Some rpgs with engrossing stories, and beautiful art styles, voice overs, etc. blur the lines between games movies and books.
 
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They don't. It's a false premise. I've met men who don't like video games and women who do. In fact it's mostly women I know who game. How much you like videogames is not determined by your genitalia. Dumb premise.

I think the market has a narrative that OP is upholding here but it's a false and outdated one.
 
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I actually think that women DO like video games as much as men do. I just think that everyone has different pressures in their lives that guide their priorities. My mom played a lot of games as I was growing up. In particular, she was really into the Civilization series, and she also played a fair amount of Zelda. My wife is also practically more of a gamer than I am. I wouldn't have guessed it at the time that I first met her, but she is much more dedicated to finishing Pokemon, Fire Emblem, and such type games than I am. She actually finished both Bravely games. We're currently battling over the PS4, sigh....

I don't bother drawing any conclusion about the types of games girls can be interested in, because some can handle gritty and intense action and some can't.

I definitely think that what pressures people's lives is what determines whether they will indulge in video games. It's fair to say that I meet far more men who aren't at all interested in video games than I do those who are! These men would rather landscape their property in their spare time, or remodel a house or what-not, than play video games. Like I said, what pressures your life orders your priorities.
 
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Hinedorf said:
Why do women wear makeup and perfume? Because they're ugly and they stink

Why do more men play video games? Because we have great tastes and we're brilliant

Glad I could end the debate
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This is the answer i needed. I will source this in future arguments with my girlfriend.

Thankyou.
 
Women like videogames just fine. The problem is that MOST mainstream videogames are all about violence, war, some form of murder and (especially in 360/ps3 era) have gray/brown color palette. Basically clearly catering to a male audience.

I think that the popularity of Animal Crossing, Sims, LBP, Quantic Dream games, Wii games etc. shows that when we have more inclusive games, more vibrant games, more varied games will bring more women into the mainstream hobby.
 
leo-j said:
🤡

Girls and boys are conditioned from an early age to like things.
Tv ads show boys playing w trucks and games
Tv ads show girls playing w barbies and being fashionable

it's changing now thanks to gay culture (thank god).

That is why. That's it.
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I am not buying this conditioning thing. I am raising two boys and i never conditioned them to do anything.

We purposefully gave them my wife's dolls and they never played with them. They have seen Frozen and have never asked for a Frozen toy. I showed my eldest a couple of action scenes from Avengers at the age of 3 and he went nuts for avengers. he now has every single avenger including the female avengers. i dont have cable tv and we only watch stuff on netflix. they dont ever watch commercials. there is no conditioning going on here. their favorite tv show is masha and the bear and yet they have never asked for a Masha toy.

My eldest is now into mario, sonic and zelda. i hate platformers and couldnt give two shits about nintendo. so where did he learn this from? hes seen me play everything form uncharted to bloodborne and cod, and yet mario is the only game that resonated with him. this is a five year old. he likes what he likes. i never shoved mario down his throat (im not that cruel) he just found my 3ds one day and started playing zelda and mario 3d land. hes never asked for a princess peach or zelda doll. all he cares about is link, bowser, mario and luigi. i wonder why.

i grew up around girls. we played everything together growing up in my neighborhood. we had fake weddings. we played tag and all those school yard games. literally all day and night. we rode bikes together all day. then we grew up and got into sports and we simply drifted apart. it happened very organically. no one forced these girls out. no one forced boys to play sports. there were some like my brother who simply didnt care about sports. but we couldnt get a single girl to come join us. these were our best friends growing up. our dads didnt force us to play sports. i see this in my neighborhood right now. little girls ride bikes. just like boys. they play games together with boys, but i just know that they will hit an age where boys will go do their own thing and girls will do the same.
 
My girlfriends loves games too but I guess the types of game she likes fit the "girl game" prejudice of being colorful, not much violence and happy. When a new Lego game comes out, she will platinum it lightning fast but she won't play the games I love like Sekiro, Final Fantasy, Doom etc

Nintendo sure brings us together for gaming.
 
I've been playing video games for as long as I can remember, but that also probably stems from me constantly watching my brother game and joining in. I've never clicked with mobile and/or puzzle games. I'm a big fan of open-world games and FPS games. My most played games are Oblivion, Skyrim, COD (more when I was younger), Halo 3, Overwatch, theHunter: Call of the Wild, and Fallout NV.

Don't get me wrong, I am still into some of the stereotypical 'girly' games, but I have to be in the mood for 'em tbh. I prefer more gritty games that give me a big metaphorical beard and make me feel like a badass. It's a nice escape.
 
Melon said:
Don't get me wrong, I am still into some of the stereotypical 'girly' games, but I have to be in the mood for 'em tbh. I prefer more gritty games that give me a big metaphorical beard and make me feel like a badass. It's a nice escape.
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What are the girly games? Because I might be too.
 
OSC said:
There's a difference between barely legible pixel blobs and a few lines of text on nes with chiptunes, and ff remake where you basically have an interactive movie with very easy gameplay.

Some rpgs with engrossing stories, and beautiful art styles, voice overs, etc. blur the lines between games movies and books.
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Playing through Final Fantasy 7 Remake on normal mode has more difficult fights than the endgame content present in the PS1 titles.

It's absolutely more difficult than the original FF7, which they both finished.

That said, both of them actually completed more sidequests than I did on my initial playthrough.


My oldest sister actually told a funny story about the first quest in the game (killing 3 rats) that she misinterperted, and thus spent a LITERAL hour farming rats in the wrong portion of the map waiting for the quest enemies to spawn.

Interesting to hear non-gamers' stories about interacting with modern games and quest markers

That of course would have driven me mad, but she apparently enjoyed it.
 
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LordKasual said:
Playing through Final Fantasy 7 Remake on normal mode has more difficult fights than the endgame content present in the PS1 titles.

It's absolutely more difficult than the original FF7, which they both finished.
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There are a few tough fights on the newer one, definitely harder than original ff7 main game. But emerald and ruby on ffvii are practically impossible unless you use one of the broken materia cheese strategies.
 
Women by nature prefer people/social activities over material things, this can be seen throughout pretty much our entire society.

Men tend to choose jobs that involve tinkering and material objects, such as engineering while women prefer jobs that involve personal relations, such as teachers and nurses.
 
RPSleon said:
Apparently Generally, men like things and women like people. Women are more socially switched on and find more value in that, whereas dudes love shit made of metal and plastic.

I think theres some truth, but how much is that a product of society? Maybe if boys werent given trucks and guns it would be different.

My ex liked games, but not playing them. Just watching.
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It's entirely biological, and can even be observed in very young babies, as well as other apes.

It's part of the reason we know trans individuals genuinely have the wrong brain sex for their bodies and aren't just suffering dellusions from a psychological illness.

The entire idea that male and female behavioural differences are social constructs is based solely on the falsified evidence of a single abusive child psychologist, that tried to turn a boy who had suffered a botched circumcision into a girl, and lied about the results.

If you want to know more, as well as learn about a really tragic and short life with a dose of body horror and revulsion at the evil in men's hearts, look up David Reimer, and then tell the next cunt that tells you 'gendered behaviour is a social construct' to go fuck themselves.
 
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OSC said:
There are a few tough fights on the newer one, definitely harder than original ff7 main game. But emerald and ruby on ffvii are practically impossible unless you use one of the broken materia cheese strategies.
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Well Ruby is literally the hardest boss in the game, and I don't really know anyone who beat them in a stand-up fight without cheesing them. It's just way easier to cheese them.

But my point is that FF7Remake, on its Normal setting, is actually pretty demanding. I struggled myself on quite a few fights on Normal.

When i heard that both of them decided to play on Normal (after yelling and struggling to beat the Guard Scorpion) I was quite surprised. Even moreso when i heard that they didn't tap out until Hell House, which was probably the hardest non-optional boss in the game. There are threads on this forum of players complaining about that fight.


My point is, women WILL play games if they are interested in them, no matter how complex.

The issue is mostly that AAA and high-profile game franchises aren't (and historically have not been) marketed towards women at all. They might INCLUDE them, but they are not for them.

Final Fantasy is a little different. They generally have love stories attached to them, and the male characters lean more towards fanservice than male power fantasy.
 
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We don't. It's cultural. We are told as a society that men like video games more than woman so its kind of a self fulfilling stereotype. But woman love games too and the numbers are probably closer than you think. I think men tend to gear towards hardcore games more, and thats only cause they are promoted as super masculine products, plus theres a major learning Curve to a game say like cyberpunk 2077 that give most men the advantage since we started playing when we were young because many girls were told its for boys.
 
Stilton Disco said:
It's entirely biological, and can even be observed even in very young babies, as well as other apes. It's part of the reason we know trans individuals genuinely have the wrong brain set for their bodies and aren't just suffering a psychological illness.
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You going to have to share sources for that because that sounds kind of bro sciencey.
 
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Do they? My wife seems to be enjoying playing Pokemon way more than I enjoy dying in Sekiro. Arguably a small sample size, but in my "real life" circle of friends only very few (men as well as women) actually play any video games. We have grown-up problems, like mortgages, kids, trying to not lose our job during a global pandemic, those sort of things.
 
trapanesenyc said:
You going to have to share sources for that because that sounds kind of bro sciencey.
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Yeah, no problem, just go to this cool new website I found called Google, and type in "behavioural differences between sexes in infants".

Also David Reimer, who, again, was the single case study upon which the entire idea that gender is a social construct originates from.
 
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My wife plays more hours than I do but she plays on her ipad (daily). I play far less but on PC (mostly on weekends). Our relatives only consider me the "gamer" in the family, often with an undertone of criticism due to my age.
 
girls get their dopamine fix largely from social media: likes, RTs, Tinder matches, etc... Then when they grow out of it, these women tend to gravitate to the easiest hobbies, like TV. Older people in general don't typically start (& stick with) gaming

I believe most girls/women that game to the extent we do are outcasts. Something tells me they don't squad up in party chats on a Friday night with their other girl friends

That said, obviously the paradigm is shifting, especially with places like Twitch where attractive girls can easily thrive
 
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