Gender in Gaming: Are Female Gamers on the Rise?

The Stereotype

Traditionally, one may have thought that the typical gamer is a teenage boy, and whereas it may have been true in the past, when gaming was just becoming popular, the stereotype has more than likely ran its course. This however may depend on how you approach the available data and whether you differentiate between individuals who have played games before versus those who self identify as gamers and play regularly.

The gender ratio in gaming really depends on the genre, and women are reported to be highly underrepresented in genres such as first person shooters as well as grand strategy games. This can because of a mix of some inherent lack of interest in these types of games, while on the other hand this may also be indicative of who these games are directed towards in terms of marketing efforts and, generally, how the game is built and geared towards a certain audience.

Reports suggest that, in general, the gender ratio hasn’t changed much over the past two decades, at least in the US. However, the statistics reported are a ratio, so whereas more female gamers may be present today than before, this comes at an equal rise of male gamers. Clearly, there are much more female gamers in platforms other than consoles, which according to research from Find Betting Sites have only around a 30% female gamer population.

How many males and females identify themselves as gamers?

In the United States for example, whereas 48% of women have been reported to have played video games in the past, only around 6% would actually identify themselves as gamers. This is in comparison to 15% of males who say they would identify themselves as gamers. This is quite a large divide, but perhaps, since it was traditionally seen that gaming is more so for guys rather than girls, the latter may be less likely to admit that they are gamers. Some individuals may see this stigma as weird, but it nevertheless may explain why there is such a larger number of males who identify themselves as gamers as opposed to girls, when some gender ratios, such as in PC gaming and video gaming suggest in general that the ratio is much closer to a 50-50 split than other data would suggest. However, some reports suggest that, when it comes to mobile gaming, the pendulum swings the other way. A 2012 report showcases that around 60% of mobile gamers in the USA are female and that a further 63% of these female gamers play mostly online multiplayer mobile games.

This data gets more interesting when it gets split by age groups. The initial 6% statistic for female gamers rises to 9% among ages 18-29, however the male 15% statistic actually rises to 33% in the same age group.

In Conclusion

There are many connotations to the word “gamer” and describing yourself as one and being seen as one also. Whereas female gamers are present, especially amongst PC and mobile gaming platforms, only about half of female PC gamers describe themselves as hardcore PC gamers, with about 63% of female mobile gamers regularly playing. Overall, gender ratios have not moved much across the different consoles between male and female gamers, while there is generally fewer female gamers than there are male gamers. There may be a lack of female role models in the world of gaming, as e-sports are predominantly male-driven competitions and a lot of popular youtubers and twitch streamers who stream video games regularly are also male. This may however change in the future, depending on how game developers choose to market their games to different audiences.