A different a-gender

June 26, 2006 on 7:10 pm | In Game Development, The Casual Games Industry |

Whether you call it a fact, a cliché or a myth, there’s no doubting that almost anyone who has anything to say about casual games has something to say about the perceptions that women play casual games and men play hardcore games.

A big thankyou to Guilded Lilies (GL) for, at last, advancing this discussion beyond simplistic name-calling.

GL argues that women who play games are being placed into two different categories — the ‘girl gamer’ and the ‘casual gamer’. This isn’t the best way to make women who play games feel loved, GL says, because it does not approach them as individuals.

But what really caught my eye was the comment from Tekanji. She said that as a woman gamer, she’d prefer to be just a ‘person who plays video games’. Tekanji basically asks — why should we be classified as a ‘girl gamer’ or ‘boy gamer’? Why are we not just “gamers”?

It’s a good question. However, with my traditional marketing background, I know these classifications have probably come about because the easiest way to start segmenting markets is according to gender. And no business person can or should ignore the statistics showing that while women/girls account for about 44 percent of online gamers, they are far more likely to be playing casual games than hardcore games.

So, that’s probably why the gender categorisation has come about - its easy and the stats are exciting. But that doesn’t mean its the best way to start to segment potential markets. None of us thinks of ourselves as being part of a gender group or a constructed category when we go to find a game to play. None of us thinks of ourselves in terms of a stereotype. We’re Anne who likes Quake. Or Sam who is hooked on Solitaire. Or Wilhelm who’d rather play a virtual 18 holes of golf.

So what is the best way to categorise or segment? Because no matter what you think about it, segmentation remains an effective tool in any marketing or product development activity, including game development. But the most effective segmentation requires us to have a deep understanding of who plays, why they play and why they like it. We need to go beyond simple demographics of gender and age into the varied and subtle reasons why groups of individuals play games.

What follows then, is that as game developers, we need to be designing our games for groups of people with common interests. Rather than thinking of them as ‘boy games’ or ‘girl games’, we should think of them as games that appeal to people who like to be intellectually stretched. Or games for people who like a two minute break. Or for people who can’t get enough of the Smurfs. People who get bored on public transport. People who like to kill time (as opposed to the dentist) in the dentist’s waiting room.

If we do this successfully, the individual will never realise that they’ve ever been categorised in the first place. They just love the game and we know we’re giving players what they want.

Once we have that nailed, we can explore drilling down deeper still and looking at games adaptation based on user needs/wants within the game play experience. That’s probably a discussion for another day though…

The Little Gamer