Ben Gonshaw: Digital Media Theorist & Game Design Consultant
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THE HORROR OF IT ALL

9th September 2004

There is something truly wrong with gaming when I’m greeted by the title THE FEMALE GAMER UNCOVERED not in some tabloid newspaper of dubious origin, but on a high profile site of the leading body of games professionals.  Discussing why women are not playing and how women can be enticed to play is a tragic state of affairs.  It demonstrates that gaming is immature in its approach and content to an absurd degree, and not just because women are not involved.  There is a fundamental muddle in their thinking here.  The question shouldn’t be ‘Why aren’t women playing?’.  The question should be ‘Why are the only people that play games a tiny demographic of competitive males and middle aged adolescents?’.  Similarly, their question of 'Why are only 25% of Western European gamers women?' is a bad question to ask.  The answers, in a male dominated and oriented industry are too obvious to warrant typing.  The real question is 'What is so wrong with games that only 16% of the population are gamers at all?' (Ben’s artistically licensed pseudo-statistic).

 At the crux of the article is the statement that the worldwide female audience has a potential €14billion of disposable income and this is why games publishers will never get their hands on that money.  Publishers might as well up sticks and try to sell them neon car underlights and fat rear mufflers; the result will be broadly the same.  Games do not appeal to women in the same way that showy car modifications do not appeal to them.   Women usually have different criteria than men when it comes to cars, and similarly, they have different demands of digital media.  Only by leaving gaming  behind and beginning to make mature digital media will any progress be made in capturing the imagination and the wallet of 'real' people.

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