[Classic drama] User suggests in /r/MensRights that women should be better portrayed in video games. MR users disagree: "I don't interfere with your romcoms and soap operas, why must you interfere with my games about shooting aliens?" (np.reddit.com)
SubredditDrama
69 ups - 0 downs = 69 votes
508 comments submitted at 04:17:51 on Aug 17, 2014 by I_post_reddit_drama
The casual/hardcore gamer debate is ridiculous. Oh you only play angry birds. That's not gaming. If people want to embark down that Road there will always be a more hardcore gaming. Oh you play titanfall? Casual. If you don't play 20 games of league a day your a casual plebian.
On the whole casual gamer thing
> So while I am all for gamer girls I think it is more likely a large piece of the 40% stat are middle age women playing words-with-friends rather than DOTA.
This come up in just about every thread where someone brings up the "40% of gamers are women stat"
It's like they can't accept that a woman could enjoy games as much as them
Or they have a problem with a raw stat being used to twist the actual demographics breakdown and general situation.
Or maybe, just maybe, forty percent of women are gamers and that chaps your ass for some weird reason.
Do those women not see the clearly labeled "no girls allowed" sign on the front of the tree house?
Hey, they went to a much smaller, less established tree house that let's them in. Now they're claiming to be members of a tree house! That's not fair, it's not our tree house so it doesn't count!
It really doesnt, but I see a distinction between them and other gamers that companies market to.
They didn't argue that 40% of women aren't gamers. They argued that the "40% of women are gamers" statistic is used while ignoring the breakdown of stuff like mobile, console, and pc gaming.
>mobile, console, and pc gaming
Oh, they want to nitpick and dismiss some gamers as "casuals". Yeah, that doesn't make them look better.
Edited to add: And they also want to dismiss all the women who don't play certain games because of the GamerBroDude culture that invades them and is not only off putting to women, but just gross in general.
Gamers nitpick about the "ur casul" shit. AAA Developers and publishers care about what demographic spends the most money on video games, and that demographic is unquestionably 18-35 year old men.
Mobile is invisible to them. Facebook gamers are not their concern. They want people who will drop $60 on the preorder and buy the DLC season pass as soon as it's released (oh and maybe $15 here and there for the map packs...).
Broadly speaking, that demographic does not overlap with the 40% of women gamers you're talking about (you got that backwards in your post above, btw) that chap our ass so. You want games that cater to you? Spend more money on games in general.
So in order for developers to make games that an untapped demographic that is spending millions of dollars on casual gaming will enjoy, that demographic needs to buy games they don't enjoy. Which would imply they do enjoy those games they don't enjoy, giving AAA developers no incentive to innovate.
Or they could put on their big boy pants and see how much other developers are making on low development budget apps, figure out that there's a massive untapped demographic with lots of money, take the "NO GIRLZ ALLOWED" sign off the door, and start developing games more accessible and appealing to them.
Wait, no, that would make too much sense.
That demographic is very much tapped, and guess what - they don't spend that much money on games, and they have no interest in non-casual games. LITERALLY millions of dollars to an industry that may well break 100bn in revenues this year is a fucking rounding error.
Define accessible and appealing for me, cause all I'm hearing is 'make a not AAA type of game' or 'become a mobile shovelware dev company'.
When we exclusively define AAA games as intensely expensive to produce with high-end ultra-realistic graphics and violent FPS / action-adventure gameplay, then that's probably a problem with our how married the AAA industry is to making the same fucking game over and over and over again.
Perhaps the other demographics would spend more on games if they had games that didn't perpetuate stupid stereotypes and tropes and gaming communities that weren't toxic cesspools.
You don't just cater to a target demographic, you know. That's shitty marketing. You try to expand your market.
It's worked out pretty well for the industry so far, what with their revenues eclipsing every other form of media on the planet and all.
and perhaps if it was raining lollipops we could cure world hunger
So you're saying that not being a sexist bunch of shitbags is impossible? Gotcha.
No, they are arguing that it makes no fucking sense to argue "women make up 40% of gamers, so why aren't more AAA titles catered towards women" which is what gets argued a lot by the people quoting the 40% statistic. It has nothing to do with casuals, it has everything to do with the mobile market being distinct from the console and pc markets. The console and pc markets, dominated by men, have quite a bit of overlap, especially when it comes to AAA titles.
Holy shit do you make serious assumptions of others.
No, I read what you write an draw obvious conclusions. It's not rocket surgery.
For the rocket's sake, I hope you're not as bad at rocket surgery as you are at "drawing obvious conclusions".
Im not a dudebrogamer, I don't dismiss women for anything, and I'm actually a causal gamer myself.
There aren't plentiful stats on the demographic breakdown of gamers as a whole really at all. The lack of stats for female gamers doesn't mean they don't exist.
and the actual stats show that AAA titles are overwhelmingly bought and played by men 18-35
Im not sure that's accurate. Nor do I think there's a lack of female gamers. Just less as a percentage.