Sony proves the existence of the rare female gamer
…In graph form! Via Joystiq, we have a handy-dandy piechart showing the breakdown of male v. female v. unidentified on the PlayStation Network. Hardcore!
Wow! Looks like the girl gamer is in fact a statistically quantifiable set of data, which appears to shock the commenters at Joystiq. I wonder how Sony can capitalize on this burgeoning number? I wonder how it was able to market a whole four to upwards of eight percent of its consoles to the sandwich- and baby-making class. It must be because they’ve featured women so prominently in their advertising:
It’s quite obvious that the key to increasing flagging sales of the PS3 is to feature more women in such a capacity! Although it may be time to do away with the PS3’s latest campaign…
Now, the good news is, that Sony (snarking aside) — is trying to lure more women into video game design with scholarships, but unless their entire marketing and corporate culture undergoes a serious overhaul to get rid of the sexism you see oozing from every crack, I really doubt it’s going to make much of a difference.
February 21st, 2008 at 1:21 pm
I’ve got a friend. Her husband stays at home and raises the kids. They own a PS3. There are 3 people who use the console– 1 woman 1 girl, and 1 man. I’d bet that Sony counts that as 1 male user, 0 female. Because if I had to bet, I’d bet that hubby signed up for the PSN and gave his own demographic information.
I wonder how often that sort of thing happens? How much data isn’t being captured by the survey?
February 21st, 2008 at 1:42 pm
I’m sure that’s exactly what’s happening.
As our generation advances, we see that gaming is a “family” event, not just limited to one or two members of the household. Sony just hasn’t accounted for this in their data.
February 21st, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Still, the data is weird and troubling. 4%? I know a lot of single women who play video games and wouldn’t be using an account set up by someone else. Do women really hate the PS3 that much? I mean, moreso than men do.
February 21st, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Expanding a tad: I wonder what the comparable numbers are for Xbox Live. Also, I’d be interested in the demographics of participants in the Everybody Votes channel on the Wii; that actually allows multiple users who are individually gender-identified on each console (and without forcing each to pay a separate membership fee, which would tend to push Xbox Live membership per household toward 1). Granted, not everyone participates in Everybody Votes, but it at least doesn’t have the problem Punning Pundit identified.
February 21st, 2008 at 5:13 pm
The next question is: how many women are identifying as men in order to avoid harassment.
February 21st, 2008 at 5:26 pm
I don’t know that the numbers for Xbox Live would be too much better. Of the people I play with, just under half of us are women and none of us use Xbox Live. We use the Xbox360 socially for a select few games (Rock Band, any of the Burnout titles, DDR, or retro games via emulator), or we just go with computer games (LAN-ing it up or playing MMOs). This means that we are either not “real” gamers, or that we are gamers falling under the radar of surveys like these. Given that we all invest at least a few hours a night gaming and go on weekend binges, I’m thinking it’s probably the latter. It really bothers me that data like this is seen as at all indicative of the gaming world at large. I only got through a few of the comments at Joystiq…so depressing.
February 21st, 2008 at 6:11 pm
Well, as usual as far as I’m concerned with these sorts of charts. They ask/count me, so it all a bunch of bull.
February 21st, 2008 at 6:11 pm
ugh… they DIDN”T ask/count me
February 21st, 2008 at 11:25 pm
I sense a Florida-style ballot rigging thing happening here. Most women I know play video games of some sort and not solitaire-at-work types. I’d call this survey’s finding questionable at best. I’d call it a lot more but this is a public forum.
February 24th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
Pundit: I know I don’t give my sex if I can help it. I’m gunning for a world where they don’t base their advertising campaigns on how many more men are using their product than women, so I don’t see why I should have to prove to them that women play games.
However many do or don’t is irrelevant. They have only to ask themselves if they want women to buy their products. Alienating a group of people does little to convince them to pledge their dollars to you.
February 26th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
Cola Johnson: I don’t give my age/ethnicity/gender when I can help it, either. It’s no one’s business but mine…
February 26th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
» Blogs To Watch - Mighty Ponygirl’s Feminist Gamers
April 1st, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Wow, nice advertising PS3. #>___> Just another reason not to buy the system.
April 2nd, 2008 at 2:10 am
I have a feeling also that PS3 is likely the least attractive console to women who are the “primary gamers” of their console.
April 2nd, 2008 at 11:41 am
The problem with not identifying oneself on surveys is that that is a lost number, a lost opportunity to increase a number by which CEOs identify a demographic. What we as individuals forget is that CEOs are typically people that have grown up in very sheltered lives, attended very private colleges, and have very few people skills. They are practically trained since birth to see everything in numbers and bottom lines. People are numbers, units are numbers, and whatever marketing says will make their personal accumulation of numbers increase by more numbers is what they’ll go for.
We could try to fight it, but you can’t fight the Matrix. Just like with you can’t claim ownership of a hash file, you can’t fight the corporate ministry that dominates our world.
All you can do is fall in line, obey the rules, and hope that someone proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that money and all things related to it are a poison more vicious than anything Vince McMahon can inject into the ratings this week. Or finds a way to humanize the corporate leaders that make the rules for us. I hear rayguns are useful in this regard.
April 3rd, 2008 at 7:50 am
Hi there! I’m a boy (if it matters) and i must say that the Sony has right…
in my experience i knew a lot of girls and wemen, and i can say that the percentual of them who plays videogame are about 1.2%!!!
(My girlfriend too ^^!)
April 3rd, 2008 at 7:54 am
You do realize that “you and your friends” does not a statistically accurate sample make, right?
April 3rd, 2008 at 8:40 am
I’m a girl, a gamer, and proud to be both.
April 3rd, 2008 at 8:48 am
Right on!
April 4th, 2008 at 10:01 am
first, i think in my world (not only my friends) unfortunatly the girl videogamers are pretty rare (very rare)… when i know a playing girl i say: “Miracle!”.
second, i think it doesn’t matters your gender to play videogames… i think it doesn’t matter your gender to do something… and i think the sexism (for males and females) is pretty (maybe with this i’ll be banned, buried and burned) idiot…
well, i saw wemen bend iron bars like tins with bare hands and i get kicked by my girlfriend (luckly for me just for fun… she likes fighting).
well, good luck to everybody and goodbye (maybe i’ll return under another name and e-mail…)
P.S.
Think a little bit on my thinking…
April 4th, 2008 at 10:19 am
We don’t have to think on your thinking, we live it every day. It’s called the patriarchy.
April 4th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
“touchè”… i said those things because i came from a country where the patriarchy it’s not much present, so i’m sorry for that i said… but like you i think that the patriarchy is sh’t… and that the matriarchy is the answer.
April 4th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Except that it is, you just don’t recognize it because it’s not keeping you down.
I don’t think that matriarchy is the answer. We should not have one gender repressed so that another gender can be in power. The disenfranchisement 50% of the population based on their sex organs is ridiculous.
April 5th, 2008 at 7:03 am
lol. Sorry, but because i’m not american or english i didn’t understand “defranchisement”…
April 5th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
I highly doubt that their stats are correct. First off many woman try to avoid being harassed when it comes to the online gaming world so they say they are male. Secondly, even if the whole household is full of women with one male, guess who they are going to count as the gamer even if he never picks up the controller.
I know more female gamers than male gamers, so I am pretty dang sure their stats are off.
The sexist advertising and objectification of women in games is also pretty sickening, take the first Smackdown vs Raw game, you are basically collecting the women as managers.
Thank goodness for games like Devil May Cry, at least Capcom gave it’s female gamers some eye candy for a change!