Archive notice: This article was originally published on October 13, 2008. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
The video game market is currently undergoing a fundamental shift towards the mainstream. Thanks above all to the successful Wii concept from Japanese console manufacturer Nintendo, the industry is increasingly trying to attract groups that games have not previously reached. Alongside older people, women in particular have become a new source of hope for the games industry. “All our research confirms that women are video game players too,” Tony Key, senior vice president of marketing at games publisher Ubisoft, tells the San Francisco Chronicle. The only remaining task is to supply this group with titles that interest them. “Girls like playing video games. They just don’t want to play the same things as their male counterparts,” Key says.
“The target group of female gamers is very important to us. That is also taken into account when games are developed,” Martin Lorber, Electronic Arts’ spokesperson in Germany, tells pressetext.de. Gaming has long ceased to be a male domain. “Men and women, boys and girls are now equally enthusiastic about computer and video games,” Lorber adds. According to the company’s own surveys, women already account for around 40 percent of the gaming community. “We are adapting the production and marketing of our products to this trend,” Lorber stresses. Last year, for example, EA launched its own casual-gaming label, intended to appeal to women with easily accessible games. “But we don’t only want to reach female gamers with it; we want to reach everyone interested in casual games,” Lorber clarifies.
The fact that more women are currently becoming interested in video games cannot be explained solely by new concepts in game content. “We are observing a general development in which computer and video games have arrived at the heart of society and have already become the leading medium for a broad section of the population,” says Lorber. Eric Jannot, spokesperson for the German Association for Interactive Entertainment Software (BIU), gives a similar assessment when asked by pressetext.de. “Video games are now largely part of everyday life,” Jannot confirms. The way people approach the subject is therefore very different today from only a few years ago. “We live in a society in which engaging with such media is becoming increasingly normal,” Jannot adds. Accordingly, inhibitions about playing have also steadily declined among women in recent years. “Women now have a more relaxed relationship with technology,” the BIU spokesperson says.
According to a BIU survey, women already accounted for 31 percent of all players in the German market last year. Compared with 24 percent in 2005 and 28 percent in 2006, this shows a continuous upward trend. Handheld devices are especially popular within the female gaming community. In this segment, the ratio of male to female players is already almost equal. According to the BIU study, women made up around 49 percent of handheld users in 2007, compared with 34 percent in 2005. “I am convinced that there will be just as many female as male gamers in the near future,” EA spokesperson Lorber concludes.
