Video Game Gender Segmentation

For years, gaming has been seen as a boys' club. However, several surveys and studies over recent years have revealed that in most places there are either more female gamers, or almost the same amount as male gamers.

Older studies, such as IAB’s (Internet Advertising Bureau) “Gaming Revolution” study, which was published in 2014, can still be deemed relevant because they showcase a point in the industry where suddenly marketers, developers and publishers had to become aware that they are ignoring a huge demographic.

But to reach this demographic, we have to examine exactly what they are doing with their games, and as the industry has matured, so has the way we consume video games. So simply looking at the data from surveys such as the one below and saying, “Okay, females play games on tablets, so they’re casual gamers”, isn’t enough.

Graph via Statista

Top Genres Enjoyed by Female Gamers:

There is a huge difference in the lowest-enjoyed video game genre and top genre by female gamers. The top being Family/Farm sim and Match 3, a kind of simple puzzle game like Tetris and Candy Crush. The Match 3 genre is enjoyed by 69% of female gamers. The least popular genre lowest is sports, with just 2% of female gamers enjoying the genre.

However, there are another 20 genres explored in Quantic Foundry’s report.

The Popcorn Gamer

As mentioned earlier, gaming has changed over the years as has our consumption of the media. A new persona dubbed “The Popcorn Gamer” has recent popped up; this refers to gamers who don’t always actually play games, but enjoy viewing video games. This is a particularly interesting group to keep an eye on, and not only because of the eSports boom, but also because of how conflicted the data is.

Quantic Foundry stated that, on average, only 4% of female gamers enjoy tactical shooters, and a Newzoo Segmentation Report stated that 46% of female gamers are Popcorn gamers, however despite this, games like XCom have strong viewership numbers.

There is potential that the lack of definition for tactical shooter is skewing a lot of data.

Transgender Gaming

There is still a huge amount of research to be conducted to identify how trans, nonbinary, and genderfluid+ gamers enjoy their content.

It’s clear that gamers outside the gender binary use the online world such as MMORPGS to explore their transition, but there is a lack of data about how they find this experience; I’d be really interested to see how this would be segmented too.

Summary:

Data on female gamers is conflicted and confused, and this will impact how you market your materials. If you are trying to reach female gamers, you will need to really study the genre, video streams, and interactions with where you choose to advertise. It will be even more difficult to reach other genders.