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Women are from Keleth in, I argued that male and female MMORPG players have very different mo tivations and reasons for playing. The graph above plotting gender against age highlights another very impor tant gender difference. Male players tend to be between 12 and 28, while female players tend to be between 23 and 40. Rather than categorizing M MORPG players as male and female players, it perhaps makes more sense to think of the two main groups as younger male players and older female p layers.
Add To Hotlist Comments This is a contrast I noticed when I was playing rpg's via irc chat. The m ale players tended to be late teens/early 20s while the female players t ended to be in their 30s and 40s. I have a theory about why this is, but it's hard to tell if it would stand up to testing. My theory simplified for quick statement is this: idealized males (for mating purposes) are the ones in their 30s and 40s while idealized females are in their late teens and twenties. People of those ages are having more success in face to face interactions. People of the ages you see online benefit more fr om the idealization that occurs when you imagine your online interlocuto rs. Posted by: Merriam on January 10, 2003 08:32 AM While I would agree that most of the female player of any online game ten d to be older then the males for. This humble and quite possibby wronmg it has more to due with popularity in RL. For people devolpe like and dilikes at a very early age. Their not static and lifeless but evolve while at leat in my life I was stuck play in AD &d wich lead me in to a life of crime but thats well,,,, You see Ad&d in stilled the love of fantasy so while the unpopular garvitated to ward el ves and goblins they , the popular kicked the balls around and chassed t he girls. Thier I bet you thouht I had for gotten about them(girls)e for it seem to me that the reason for the female player tends to be to soci alize with other and as they stay rooted to one man and thier circle of friend grows smaller , at leat the onesthat actually count. I ve seen it in manmy woman that play games or go on chart room but the vurve is cha nge rapidly as the gender barier is toren down. Posted by: Michael on January 10, 2003 09:18 AM As one of the over 30 female players of MMORPGs I can tell you that it ha s nothing to do with popularity or face to face interactions, (women ove r 30 are very capable of socializing) it has to do with who has the most free time. Though times have changed, there are still more women at hom e and out of the workplace than there are men. So, after exciting years of college and employment and interaction, many women are now at home al l day long with children and need an adult diversion; while many men are too busy with their careers for the dedication of an MMORPG. That is my theory, based upon being an over 30 player and knowing over 30 players, though I am not married myself, I am in graduate school, and so technic ally I'm still 23. All my life i played sports, dated constantly and was always popular. I could have been out at th e movies with a girl or "kicking the ball around" with my friends but i played games more because i enjoyed them. As to the ages of M/F Constanc e is probably right on the money. I am now a student/stay-at-home-dad an d so probably fall into the same catagory that many females over 30 fall into. I have a lot more time at home than most men over 30 do and get t o play online games a lot more. Posted by: ValeShadowind on January 10, 2003 11:23 AM There may be a simpler hypothesis for this 1) the population counts are v ery different. The signif icance isn't as great when you compare a small population (female gamers ) to a larger one (male gamers). Another reason this might be the case is by this age I bet money most of your women are married, or dating someone. I would do a crosstable by ag e and marital status to see, but my guess is the real findings is teen a nd 20's male gamers, and married female gamers over 30. They are married to male gamers, however this is where the population size comes into pl ay. The male married gamers over 30 form maybe 15% of players. That same *number* of female players is like 52% of the female gamer universe Posted by: Laurenthial on January 10, 2003 11:39 AM The female/male age difference raises many questions for me. Is it not po ssible that the social focus of the game attributed as primarily female is not an age dependent factor rather than a gender factor? It seems to me that these statistics make contrasts between females and m ales much less convincing, since the genders have such differing age dem ographics (and all factors associated with age: income, stability, famil y structure). Posted by: Teucer on January 10, 2003 12:25 PM As a female player that falls into the demographic I have to say that I a lso feel that it has nothing to do with good or bad RL interactions. Tha t theory continues the stereotypes that gamers are all RL losers. I agre e with Constance that it has much more to do with time. Also, males in g eneral play a lot more video games than women. Teenage boys start playin g MMORPGs as a natural extension of an interest in ALL video games. They play through High School and College, and somewhere around the time the y start to pursue a career, have a family etc... Women on the other hand would have more time to play as their children ar e older and more able to take care of themselves. These women might also discover the game via their children who would mos t likely be teens when the start playing accounting for the older age gr oup. Posted by: Slapfish on January 12, 2003 01:02 PM just want to post my comments, it seems to me that women in the 20's and teens ranges are busy doing oth er things like dating and college etc. when they get to 30's etc and above it seems to me that the glory of thei r marriage and dating life is less interesting and they're looking for o utlets from stress their having. men tend to come home and relieve stres s from work at home, while women can't really relieve stress at home bec ause that might mean yelling at the kids and they usually don't want to do that. statistics are statistics and if they're done properly you can't really b end things the fact that there is a differing age for men and women game rs is a reliable finding. Posted by: noahriding on January 12, 2003 03:14 PM I'm an over 35 female player. Most of the age 29+ female players I know p lay because we have male friends, romantic or otherwise, who intoduced u s to the game. Posted by: Doebi on January 13, 2003 03:33 PM Most women between the ages of 14 and 28 feel MMORPGs are beneath them. I t's my theory that most women have inflated opinions of themselves at th is age and don't think gaming is a befitting pasttime for a princess. Th is delusional thinking is largely beaten out of women by the age of thir ty by the harsh realities of life, and they no longer see MMORPGs as ben eath their station. Men, on the other hand, begin to realize, at the age of thirty or so, tha t they are indeed kings of their castles, masters of their domain, and M MORPGs are seen as beneath the dignity of princely endeavor. Unfortunate ly, these male delusions are not rectified by life's vicissitudes, and o nly death can effect a cure. That and the fact that most men over thirty can't stand to be around teen age boys, or worse yet, the immature 20-somethings. Posted by: Arlin on January 14, 2003 07:46 AM It doesn't seem that anyone who's posted a comment so far has actually lo oked at the graph. The graph shows that women 23-28 actually comprise th e largest group of female players with women over 35 a close second, so the premise that women in their twenties are too socially active to play simply doesn't make sense considering the statistics that these are the most frequent players. The average age for both marriage and motherhood falls squarely within the 23-28 age range for females, so the hypothesi s that female players are those who are not busy in either the social wo rld or the homefront simply doesn't hold up, at least not given these re sults. Posted by: Kaydee on January 1...
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