More on the i-Play data

Keith over at the Guardian has gone into their "shock" (his words, not i-Play's) data a little more thoroughly:

- 48% of all females have played a preloaded game on their mobile – compared with…
- 44% of males

In the UK:
- 22% of females played for over 20 minutes compared to
- 15% of men

Are you shocked? I'm not. Ladies and mobile phones have always got on rather well. Ladies feel ownership of that particular technology, I'd wager, and they certainly get to know their phone's capabilities, in my experience anyway. Women aren't given the message that this tech or its content is for blokes, either.

Keith goes on to conclude:

Most of these are simple casual games, and in fact, Gameloft's fun social sim New York Nights is aimed specifically at women. The old theory about mobile phones being the perfect Trojan device to trick women into playing games may be sexist and patronising, but lord help us, it appears to hold some weight.

Now clearly he's a brave man, and he knows this sort of comment will be a red rag to certain non-bulls, but I promise that I won't go round and chew his leg off on this occasion. Nnngh. Keith - women don't need to be 'tricked', they need to be respected. With a message like that - in any form - is it any wonder women (anyone?!) might turn their noses up?

Anyway. We're getting the results of our national survey in at work, which we'll be releasing in the next few weeks, and the stats in that steamroller this opinion that women don't play games , once and for all. Women play games a lot, and in a few weeks we'll prove it to you.

Comments

[SharD]

I do agree that Keith's wording is not exactly great, but I can see where his sentiment is coming from.

I can see how a good deal of non-gamers (of either sex) could be introduced through pre-installed games on their phone.

[Alice]

The thing is, this sort of sentiment and opinion is universally held by the over-30s.

If you ask the teenagers (and I have), they look at you curiously if you say games are for boys. ALL the girls we asked, in London and Liverpool, were playing games. Regularly.

I'm not trying to make this stuff happen, it DOES happen. I'm trying to change the way it's reported by us oldies.

[SharD]

Less of the "oldies" thankyou, some of use are still clinging onto our 20's

But, again, I see your point, and if there is a nascent female market emerging through our youth, then this is going to need to be publicised well before we get it into the head of the marketing people.

[duncan]

Ah, i-Play and the Guardian :)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/mobilematters/story/0,12454,1486871,00.html

Always happy to hash up a press release as a story, always happy to hash up some stats as reportage.

[Seb Potter]

This certainly seems to be straight out of the fart-jokes-and-innuendo school of games journalism that doesn't recognise women as gamers. Fortunately, as younger journalists enter the field, especially female games journalists, these deep-seated prejudices are becoming less prevalent.

At least the Grauniad has Aleks to set the story straight. :)

[Cormac]

Universally? Snort. :) Not any of the folks I know in the game industry anyhow...

[Alice]

Feh, you know what I mean. If someone is shocked that girls play games, they tend to be old.

At least that's what I get, daily, so..