How many female players out there?

[MirotheDragon]

I'm glad the click-bait conclusion of the article sticked with you, but did you also read the actual article?

Spoiler

“hardcore” gaming is clearly still rooted in its traditional user base (playing games is considered the most entertaining media amongst males aged 16-24)

I did just finish reading a very interesting article on another gaming study done in response to the criticism of the previous study. http://quanticfoundry.com/2017/01/19/female-gamers-by-genre/

So yes, the average percentage of female gamers is still lower for a lot of the genres but for most of the genres it is still a sizeable chunk, and for some individual games like Dragon Age: Inquisition, it is almost 50:50. So to dismiss women as "generally uninterested in gaming" is still very much wrong.

 

[lomvicmarko]

"generally uninterested in gaming" is still very much wrong.

No it is not, that is fact. Generally women are not interested in games, and female gamers are unicorns.
Even my mom plays match 3 like an addict that doesn't make her gamer.

These statistics doesn't tell a damn thing and it doesn't tell anything we didn't know so no surprise there.
There is huge spike in popularity of women in games like Dota, CS, and other hardcore games. this is where you should
look for statistics. Want to see true popularity of western rpg then we need insight on how many loved games like planescape torment.
I can tell you right now that 26% it bullshit.

 

[MirotheDragon]

@lomvicmarko: Then show me your source(s) if you think the one I linked isn't viable.

 

[lomvicmarko]

Maybe look up steam spy they gathered some data and I think it says something like 5-7% is female on steam.
But I have no idea how data is gathered. I can only go by my extensive experience and I can tell you that women
are not that interested in games(in general) and to me it is undeniable fact.

 

[Karajorma]

You do realise that there are a large number of women players who just simply don't let on that they are women, right?

 

[frbfree]

Some things here. Actually, a lot of things. I will probably forget more than I post.

First, Sunsibar is not a male? I am probably one of the guilty when it comes to using the wrong pronoun. Apologies.


Following that, the view that women are a minority by numbers in the gaming world is pretty irrelevant regardless of the statistics. Even if they outnumbered us 4 to 1, male gamers would still treat them as inferior. This argument (which I don't want to relive on these forums) is tired. Women are women. Gamers are gamers. There's no need to subdivide the notion of "women" into "non-gaming" women and "gamer girls". There's also no need to subdivide "gamer" into male or female. There's no need for "shields" or "badgers" or "SJWs".

The view that female representation in commentary (any commentary) is important and valuable doesn't have to be feminist, and doesn't have to be shouted down by people who think it has no value, since "female gamers are unicorns". lomvicmarko couldn't be more wrong about it, but you'll never convince him. I don't need the data to know this. My sister kicked my ass in Double Dribble on the NES for years, and can beat Contra without losing a single life. My girlfriend played through Skyrim twice, the first time with 100% completion. And my girlfriend knows enough about CCGs and Gwent in general that she's more than capable of explaining detailed dynamics to any man in the top 1000. If there were no female players at all, her commentary would still be as valuable and entertaining if not moreso than the current team.

The idea that every time someone suggests a desire for diversity should automatically be equated to "catering to" some particular group, is dumb. There's no other word for it other than dumb.

 

[4RM3D]

I was waiting for the SJW-bomb to drop. We are entering a hazardous zone here. Be sure to suit up and protect yourselves from toxicity and radiation. One tear in your suit and you're a goner. And then I have to Scorch your sorry remains off the face of this thread. So, please be a responsible person and proceed with caution. 'kay

 

[frbfree]

I was waiting for the SJW-bomb to drop. We are entering a hazardous zone here. Be sure to suit up and protect yourselves from toxicity and radiation. One tear in your suit and you're a goner. And then I have to Scorch your sorry remains off the face of this thread. So, please be a responsible person and proceed with caution. 'kay

Ha!

Actually, my entire point can do without that statement. Feel free to edit it out. But, I would like the record to show that I was targeting both sides of the aisle.

 

[Tapiir]

The idea that every time someone suggests a desire for diversity should automatically be equated to "catering to" some particular group, is dumb. There's no other word for it other than dumb.

It is not dumb, it depends heavily on context. I see no reason why there couldn't be female Gwent hosts or whatnot, but on the other hand there are indignant people over Game of Thrones having, in their opinion, too few black people. In other words, diversity shouldn't be forced into places where it is nonsensical just for the sake of it.

I don't need the data to know this.

Yes, you do. We all do. Personal experiences, while potentially valuable, are often misleading and biased. As other's have pointed out, there is data on the subject and it shouldn't be neglected.

 

[4RM3D]

frbfree

It was not solely directed at you. The topic can be discussed, at long as people remain civilized. However, knowing this topic is a powder keg waiting to explode, I pre-emptively left a reminder.

 

[frbfree]

Yes, you do. We all do. Personal experiences, while potentially valuable, are often misleading and biased. As other's have pointed out, there is data on the subject and it shouldn't be neglected.

No. No, I really don't. That's your problem, not mine. I can tally experience and form an opinion based on that experience, without concern for bias. Just because you can't touch it, or don't have a counterpoint for it, doesn't mean I need to cite a third party source that you can spend your precious time discrediting. That's not how it works. Not in the real world.

If a 95 year old veteran of World War Two told you that he survived a battle where 12,000 men were killed, and that mustard gas and gattling guns were bad for your health, you wouldn't look at him and say, "Personal experiences, while potentially valuable, are often misleading and biased. Please cite sources." Asking someone to educate you, in response to their point, is not a valid argument. Present a counterpoint. Tell me, "You're wrong, and here's why." Because trust me, I'm not inviting you to my house so you can verify my sister's Double Dribble skills.

It is not dumb, it depends heavily on context. I see no reason why there couldn't be female Gwent hosts or whatnot, but on the other hand there are indignant people over Game of Thrones having, in their opinion, too few black people. In other words, diversity shouldn't be forced into places where it is nonsensical just for the sake of it.

Have you read Martin? Not just seen the TV Show? If you have a source that says all of Westeros is populated only by white people, please share it.

DO YOU SEE? Do you see how ridiculous it is of me to demand that you spend the rest of your night paging through 15,000 pages of literature?

################################################## ################################################## ##################


But I'm off topic. To the OP's point, I know 4 women outside of this forum who play Gwent. About 6 gentlemen. That's just IRL numbers, from my personal experience, which is apparently biased.

 

[Rayquorz]

No. No, I really don't. That's your problem, not mine. I can tally experience and form an opinion based on that experience, without concern for bias. Just because you can't touch it, or don't have a counterpoint for it, doesn't mean I need to cite a third party source that you can spend your precious time discrediting. That's not how it works. Not in the real world.
If a 95 year old veteran of World War Two Veteran told you that he survived a battle where 12,000 men were killed, and that mustard gas and gattling guns were bad for your health, you wouldn't look at him and say, "Personal experiences, while potentially valuable, are often misleading and biased. Please cite sources." Asking someone to educate you, in response to their point, is not a valid argument. Present a counterpoint. Tell me, "You're wrong, and here's why." Because trust me, I'm not inviting you to my house so you can verify my sister's Double Dribble skills.

The goal of this thread is to figure out if there are any female players out there. This could be resolved by somehow retrieving the sex of every player, which would immediately answer the question. Unfortunately, that is not possible.

So what do we do? We sample. You sampled 10 people and found that 4 out of 10 were female. That could be a plausible answer to the question, were it not that Gwent has some 150k (?) players. The variability in such a small sample is extremely high. Any other person sampling 10 people might find there are 2 females, and another person might find 10 females.

Increasing the sample size reduces the variability. So-called 'data' is nothing more than a really big sample. Much bigger than yours, which is why it is given much more credibility. When people ask for a source, they want some credibility. Your sample size is too small to make any credible claims, so you have to find/gather some data to make your claims more credible.

Now, with this information in hand, let's tackle your example:

If a 95 year old veteran of World War Two Veteran told you that he survived a battle where 12,000 men were killed, and that mustard gas and gattling guns were bad for your health, you wouldn't look at him and say, "Personal experiences, while potentially valuable, are often misleading and biased. Please cite sources." Asking someone to educate you, in response to their point, is not a valid argument. Present a counterpoint. Tell me, "You're wrong, and here's why." Because trust me, I'm not inviting you to my house so you can verify my sister's Double Dribble skills.

It is true that personal experiences are often misleading and biased, but they can be true. There is just no way of knowing without sufficient data. Luckily, there is a lot of data. Mustard gas has been around since WW1 and its effects have been thoroughly studied. By now, it is common knowledge that mustard gas is bad for your health, hence we don't need to bother the old man by asking for sources. Also, some common sense gets you a long way. We are fairly certain gatling guns hurl bullets at high velocity. We also know that object with high velocity tend to damage the human body upon contact. We also know damage to the human body is is bad for your health. Hence, we can conclude that gatlings guns are bad for your health (at least when aimed at you).

I hope you learned something.

 

[Tapiir]

No. No, I really don't. That's your problem, not mine. I can tally experience and form an opinion based on that experience, without concern for bias. Just because you can't touch it, or don't have a counterpoint for it, doesn't mean I need to cite a third party source that you can spend your precious time discrediting. That's not how it works. Not in the real world.

If a 95 year old veteran of World War Two told you that he survived a battle where 12,000 men were killed, and that mustard gas and gattling guns were bad for your health, you wouldn't look at him and say, "Personal experiences, while potentially valuable, are often misleading and biased. Please cite sources." Asking someone to educate you, in response to their point, is not a valid argument. Present a counterpoint. Tell me, "You're wrong, and here's why." Because trust me, I'm not inviting you to my house so you can verify my sister's Double Dribble skills.



Have you read Martin? Not just seen the TV Show? If you have a source that says all of Westeros is populated only by white people, please share it.

DO YOU SEE? Do you see how ridiculous it is of me to demand that you spend the rest of your night paging through 15,000 pages of literature?

################################################## ################################################## ##################


But I'm off topic. To the OP's point, I know 4 women outside of this forum who play Gwent. About 6 gentlemen. That's just IRL numbers, from my personal experience, which is apparently biased.

Yes, your opinions are clearly, clearly not biased at all. Female gamers are galore since your girlfriend played Skyrim. Well done. Funny you should mention the "real world" because in that mystical place a whole lot of stuff requires a tad more than "my friend does X". If the word "potential" is unknown to you, it means "capable of being or becoming", so personal experiences can indeed be useful. In the case of mustard gas it is quite easy to make out that that particular experience is trustworthy, and the detrimental health effects of said gas are well documented. A more apt example using mustard gas would be that, eventhough we know it's often deadly, you would claim otherwise because your mother and friend survived a dose. In this case your personal experience is wrong. Let's say your girlfriend and mother also play NHL and you base your argument, that loads of women play sports games, on this. However poll analysis tells us that only 2% of sports gamers are female. Again, your personal experience is wrong. I would think that baseless claims are everyone's problem, if you follow the news at all you'd see that there are quite a few of those around.

Did I claim that the entirety of Westeros is white? I didn't think so. In fact it's quite obviously the opposite, with there being multiple dark skinned characters and entire continents made up of mostly black people. My point was, that if someone wants, let's say black northeners, there's no reason for there to be many if at all based on factors such as time period or evolution. In that case you would be forcing diversity into nonsensical places, and criticizing such is far from dumb.

 

[nunqmuo]

Theres a thread like this in every gaming community. C'mon...

 

[Sunsibar]

Okay, let's leave the World War, skin color and TV series discussion out of this.

 

[Mnorojo]

Hmmm. A lot of interesting views here. Perhaps it was dumb of me to ask how many women play gwent. There really is no way of knowing. But I also wanted to know how women came to play it? In my case it was because of Witcher 3. That's probably why most people took it up, right? But maybe the female perpective is different. I just know that I'm not familiar with any female players, so I have no one to ask directly.

 

[Sunsibar]

Hmmm. A lot of interesting views here. Perhaps it was dumb of me to ask how many women play gwent. There really is no way of knowing. But I also wanted to know how women came to play it? In my case it was because of Witcher 3. That's probably why most people took it up, right? But maybe the female perpective is different. I just know that I'm not familiar with any female players, so I have no one to ask directly.

I could guess that at this point, when Gwent is not yet officially released, Witcher 3 might explain a lot. Of course it's not the case for everyone, but probably one very popular explanation.

And this is just my personal and very uneducated guess

 

[idomyownstunts]

Wow, this turned into a shitstorm of a drunk horror show. Who would've thought that. It was all a bit Klaus Kinski Crawlspacey for me.

 

[a_page06]

Anyhow, this practice is common for a lot of different kind of events. But the question remains, do you really want to go down this road?

I'll bring this train back onto the tracks by saying that it would depend on the women in question who would be in said bikinis.

At any rate I came from the Witcher 3 as well. My sisters both play video games, with differing tastes from me. I never really felt the need to analyze it or suspect why they may have wanted to play...hell, I got enough shit about playing video games growing up I just figured they might wanna just be accepted for wanting to play.

 

[Draconifors]

I too come from Witcher 3. Loved the Gwent minigame, so naturally I was excited for the standalone.

I've liked many kinds of games (card, board, video) ever since I was a young girl. My best friend had a Nintendo 64, and we used to play Super Mario and Donkey Kong on it.
After the original Xbox came out my brother and I bought one that's still played on every now and then.

To be honest I've never understood why it's commonly thought that mostly males play videogames (referring to "casual" gamers here). Especially when it comes to games like Gwent.