For a long time, gaming was seen as something of a hobby for guys, even though there have obviously always been girls who play games. As the gaming industry began to realize this, more and more titles aimed at a female audience started to be released, and major titles today are significantly more gender-neutral, with things like the ability to choose the gender of your main character being a given.
However, the analysis and research company Ampere Analysis (via VGC) still believes there is much to be done. Even though 48% of gamers today are women, this means that there is a great deal of untapped potential. Analyst Katie Holt says:
“But at such a large scale, this 4% difference does represent 93 million fewer female gamers [than male].”
So there is huge money to be made from increasing the number of female gamers. The research firm has also tried to find out what makes women refrain from gaming. More women than men responded with “I don’t like the culture or community” or “it’s hard to find games that suit my needs,” where the former is perhaps not entirely surprising and points to a well-documented problem, while the latter shows that there could be more female gamers if only games that appeal to them were released.
