How Men and Women Discover and Choose Games in the West: Similarities and Differences
Contrary to mainstream sentiment, 46% of all gamers are women. While Newzoo’s Gamer Segmentation shows that 65% of the world’s Time Fillers are female, women also make up a significant share of more-core gamer personas worldwide, including Hardware Enthusiasts (40% women), Conventional Players (38%), and Ultimate Gamers (35%).
We recently released a fresh batch of data from our Game Brand Tracker, presenting a perfect opportunity to explore some of the similarities/differences between men and women who game. This Game Brand Tracker research covers four key markets in the West: the U.S., U.K, Germany, and France. We’ll mainly be focusing on how gamers discover and choose the games they want to play.
How Do Men and Women Discover Games?
On the surface, there are clear differences between the ways women and men learn about new games. For women who game, social circles are key, with 45% of them discovering a game through friends or family, and 20% through social networks. These shares are lower for men; 32% and 16%, respectively.
In contrast, men are likelier to discover new games via online video channels (29% vs. 16% for women) and review sites (19% for men and 13% for women). It seems, then, that men give more value to reviewers and online influencers, while women look more to people they know directly. Interestingly, similar shares of men and women discovered new games through advertising (both television and online).
What Draws Men and Women to Certain Games?
When it comes to gameplay, there are some differences in what appeals to men and women that are worth highlighting. For example, more than half of all the men we surveyed found the following important when deciding to play a game: completing objectives and achieving goals (55% of men vs. 49% of women), challenging strategic aspects (51% of men vs. 39% of women), player/character progression (50% of men vs. 38% of women), and exploring worlds and storylines (50% vs. 37%).
As you can see visualized in the image below, many of these factors are also important for a large share of women, so these differences should not be exaggerated.
There was just one factor that women found more important than men: games that are easy to quickly pick up and play (53% vs. 48% of men). It is also the most-common thing women find important when it comes to reasons for playing, and the only gameplay factor over half of female respondents chose. Still, men also find it important for games to be easy to pick up and play.
Given the high share of female Time Fillers, their affinity toward pick-up-and-play-style titles makes sense. This is also reflected in the most common games women played in the past three months, which are all intuitive and easy to learn from a user interface perspective (but not necessarily easy to master): Candy Crush, Super Mario, and The Sims. The Candy Crush franchise alone was played by a quarter of female gamers in the past six months.
Meanwhile, the top-three franchises for men were Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, and Super Mario. The former two titles have strong gameplay elements surrounding completing objectives/goals and player/character progression — particularly in their online modes. Interestingly, similar shares of men and women played Super Mario games, highlighting the franchise’s widespread appeal, nostalgia, and perhaps the sheer number of different titles/genres covered within the franchise (platformers, racing games, sports titles, party games, and more.) Of course, almost half of men value games that are easy to pick up and play, too, which could also partly explain Mario’s popularity.
So, there are certainly some differences between how men and women enjoy & discover games, but again, these differences are not to be exaggerated. As you’ll find out in our next Game Brand Tracker post (spoiler: it’s coming very soon), the gender divide between players gamers who play even the most core of titles is disappearing. In this next post, we’ll be focusing on two heavy-hitters in the RPG space: Cyberpunk 2077 and Pokémon.
Q4 Discount! Discover More Gamer Purchasing Behavior and Franchise Sentiment
Give your marketing or game-development strategy the boost it deserves: Newzoo’s Game Brand Tracker. Our unique insights into 80 top game franchises and their players can help you profile your gamers, benchmark your performance next to your competitors, and understand market differences and trends in terms of awareness, player numbers, NPS scores, willingness to spend money, and more.
Buy now and you’ll get a discount! Standard pricing for our Game Brand Tracker is $4,400 per franchise, but if purchase before 2020, you can get five franchises for just $9,900 — in for all four markets covered: the U.S., U.K., Germany, and France. Many of the leading publishers are already subscribed.
Email questions@newzoo.com to find out how our Game Brand Tracker can bring your franchise, game, or marketing strategy to the next level.
