News > Culture > Women Prefer Gaming To Sex – But There’s a Frigging Difference Between Fragging and Farmville

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TUESDAY JULY 19 2011 8:30 AM

Women Prefer Gaming To Sex – But There’s a Frigging Difference Between Fragging and Farmville

Submitted by Bob

Edited by nicole_powers

by Bob Suicide

A study which purported to highlight the equality among the sexes when it comes to computer gaming was recently published in the uber-reliable Daily Mail. The survey was funded by the scientifically-minded, and above-bias team at Doritos, which lends further credence to the findings.

That's right, Doritos. Now why would the chip company -- known philanthropically funding scientific discovery in key areas such as how to make ranch "cooler" -- waste it's time researching women's interest in computer games when it could be curing cancer, you say? Well, it doesn't have anything to do with the recent launch of their own online computer game: Doritos Dip Desperado. No sir.

I'm honestly surprised that the survey didn't find that "women say that computer games taste great and are less filling than the leading chip brand," it's that blatantly obvious this is a sad marketing ploy. But what the press release of an article did say was:

That while 50 per cent of men readily admit to frequent online gaming, a surprising 49 per cent of women confess that they too are addicted to Internet games.

And while men spend 22.3 per cent of their time online playing games, women trump them, whiling away 23.2 per cent of their time online playing games.

Revealingly, the study showed that not only are women just as keen on gaming as men -- but that the majority would rather spend time playing on their gadgets than having sex.

Sure, women love gaming more than sex -- but not more than CHIPS! And the only way to appeal/pander to the carb-craving, sex-shirking, mouse-clicking female geek is to download the new Doritos app. *eye roll*

Don't get me wrong, I support ongoing research into both the subtle and blatant differences between the sexes and their gaming preferences. After all, it's that kind of information that inspires better game development that appeals to both sexes in a more accurate and realistic way.

However, regardless of the issues of the survey’s reliability and dubious source, it does inadvertently but nonetheless usefully highlight one issue -- namely what should be defined as "gaming" for the purposes of collecting and analyzing such data?

The survey argues that the difference in gender preferences lies in the "type" of game they choose:

Women, it found, are more likely to play games with a social element or that test their brain power, with almost half the women surveyed admitting to be fans of such games compared to just a quarter of men.

So while women download apps, solve problems or exchange bushels of hay on the popular Facebook app Farmville, men, who were found to be far less selective in their gaming habits, are more likely to be shooting up virtual opponents in an online war game (over a third play regularly), or gambling, with one in five admitting to logging on to such sites.

However, it seems to me that the question that needs to be asked before such gender comparisons can be made is: "What do we consider a computer game and what do we consider a social media application?"

As a hardcore gamer myself, I don't feel comfortable touting the impressive statistic of 49% if over half of those women consider chucking sheep on Facebook's Farmville to be on the same level as my attempts to syphon little girls in Bioshock. It feels almost as dirty as comparing the average gaming enthusiast to someone who would walk into a Game Stop to buy a used copy of Burger King's Sneak King. (You know who you are, and you should be ashamed!)

I know I've rallied the war cry of the female gamer in past blogs, and make no mistake we're out there fraging with the best of the boys, but the hardcore female gaming community is never going to be taken seriously if we don't clearly define and respect the differences between apps, casual, and hardcore gaming. Until then, when attempting to profess your genuine interest and dedication to the gaming community people can sadly legitimately make comments like, "Oh you play games? You probably play Farmville and shit like that," and companies like Doritos can use our very existence as a shocking, tongue-in-cheek marketing ploy to push a stupid app.

We're worth more than that. We deserve more. There's a frigging difference between fragging and Farmville -- and the difference is that REAL women FRAG.

Image: Leon Ryan
***

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Comments

motorfirebox

Pittsburgh, PA

March 2004

JUL 19, 2011 09:48 AM

...Now I want some Doritos

I think marketing material er I mean studies like this are, overall, more a positive step than a negative one, in terms of spreading acceptance of girl gamers. They're somewhat falsely inflating the definition of "gamer" in order to jam more girls in. Human society being what it is, successfully popularizing the idea that something is popular makes that thing popular. It comes a at a cost to gamers as a whole, I guess, but that's a group I have a hard time summoning sympathy for.

Mitska

HOPEFUL

New York, NY

JUL 19, 2011 10:46 AM

As a scientist who works with lung cancer patients, it makes me wonder how this kind of study got approved and more importantly, funding. In order for me to get funding for my studies, I have to write extensive grants with preliminary results. In any case, I'm not sure if their results have any significant impact on genders/society, but I guess any additional fact cannot hurt. I know for sure, if you were to put me in front of a game station, I'd be hooked on racing games for hours...but then again, how would I get any of my work done. But to those hardcore female gamers out there, I say, "Party on!!"

Suri

SUICIDEGIRL

Pennsylvania, USA

JUL 19, 2011 11:33 AM

As a hardcore gamer myself, I don't feel comfortable touting the impressive statistic of 49% if over half of those women consider chucking sheep on Facebook's Farmville to be on the same level as my attempts to syphon little girls in Bioshock.

Right, because your time playing Bioshock is so much better used then my Tetris obsession.

I hate the macho hierarchy of gaming, why is Bioshock better? The graphics? The violence? The write ups by cool blogs? The niche it has carved out with the mostly male gaming community? Or is it just that Farmville is somehow worse because it is associated with women and girls?

Girl gamers have to stop being such macho assholes about games they don't like. How the heck is it hurting you if I play Harvest Moon?

Th0mps0n

Australia

February 2008

JUL 19, 2011 11:37 AM

Bob

SUICIDEGIRL

California, USA

JUL 19, 2011 12:02 PM

Suri said:

It's not about being macho and expounding on which game has more "balls"...it's about defining what amounts to a "game."

I feel like there's a big difference between a game that was developed for the enjoyment of it's players (which I would include Tetris and Harvest Moon...the former being in my top 10 of games) and a social networking app that was created for the exploitation of it's players.

At no point did I mention Harvest Moon or Tetris...OR ANY OTHER GAME LIKE THEM. Both are exceptional games available across multiple platforms and neither require ongoing subscriptions or promote the harassment of a players friends to join in the pixelated pyramid scheme.

Farmville and it's various spin offs are not a game, they're a money syphon...and inflating the numbers of female players by adding these kinds of applications to the qualifications of "games" does us a disservice overall. Women aer labeled in a negative way for falling into the trap that these social networking apps have underneath their cute pixels. And, quality developers are loosing the war to the juggernaut that is Zynga because the're quality, enjoyable game can't compete with an application that was designed to continually suck at the player's wallet.

After all, the point of this whole article was to highlight how Doritos is using these inflated numbers based on money-siphoning app and internet gambling to promote their own money siphoning app about a pixelated chip bandit. Further promotion of these negative platforms begets more negative products in the guise of "numbers that say women love it."

Jonathan Blow said it really well explaining the difference between these kinds of applications and true video games:

I still wouldn't tell people, "Don't make that game" exactly, I would say, "Think about what you're making and be careful when you make it and try not to exploit players." But I mean now that we've got FarmVille and stuff like that, I pretty much would say "don't make that kind of game" because I don't see much value in it.

It's only about exploiting the players and yes, people report having fun with that kind of game. You know, certain kinds of hardcore game players don't find much interest in FarmVille, but a certain large segment of the population does. But then when you look at the design process in that game, it's not about designing a fun game. It's not about designing something that's going to be interesting or a positive experience in any way -- it's actually about designing something that's a negative experience.

It's about "How do we make something that looks cute and that projects positivity" -- but it actually makes people worry about it when they're away from the computer and drains attention from their everyday life and brings them back into the game. Which previous genres of game never did. And it's about, "How do we get players to exploit their friends in a mechanical way in order to progress?" And in that or exploiting their friends, they kind of turn them in to us and then we can monetize their relationships. And that's all those games are, basically.