EEDAR: Data breakdown of gender and platform. (surprise! Gender split pretty equal)

Cambiata

Maybe more surprising than the gender split is that they found that a higher percentage of players in the female demographic were "heavy" console players, and a higher percentage of players in the male demographic were "heavy" mobile players. (the differences in percentage of demographic were small overall however).

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2014-10-30-platform-not-gender-drives-gamer-differences-eedar

I can't inline the infographic because it's too large, but here is a link to it.

The Ender

It should be noted that for the purpose of this analysis, PC gaming was not separately segmented largely because it is difficult to obtain data that accurately represents the full breadth of the PC gaming experience - considering that the possibilities range from hyper-casual card games and browser-based social games, to Shooters and RPGs, and the hyper-core MMORPGs, and MOBAs. To provide some context for PC gaming, an examination of core PC (e.g. Steam) gamers suggests that the market is still largely male (65%), with male gamers tending to be slightly heavier players/payers than females (58% of men are heavy players/payers, compared to 40% of women). Despite this difference in investment, there is a heavy degree of overlap in genre preferences - with RPGs, MMORPGs and Strategy games being among players' top five genres.

...Huh. I find that weird.

TOGSolid

The Ender wrote: »

It should be noted that for the purpose of this analysis, PC gaming was not separately segmented largely because it is difficult to obtain data that accurately represents the full breadth of the PC gaming experience - considering that the possibilities range from hyper-casual card games and browser-based social games, to Shooters and RPGs, and the hyper-core MMORPGs, and MOBAs. To provide some context for PC gaming, an examination of core PC (e.g. Steam) gamers suggests that the market is still largely male (65%), with male gamers tending to be slightly heavier players/payers than females (58% of men are heavy players/payers, compared to 40% of women). Despite this difference in investment, there is a heavy degree of overlap in genre preferences - with RPGs, MMORPGs and Strategy games being among players' top five genres.

...Huh. I find that weird.

Why is that?

Rami

There's no information on sources or methods for any of this.

The Ender

TOGSolid wrote: »

The Ender wrote: »

It should be noted that for the purpose of this analysis, PC gaming was not separately segmented largely because it is difficult to obtain data that accurately represents the full breadth of the PC gaming experience - considering that the possibilities range from hyper-casual card games and browser-based social games, to Shooters and RPGs, and the hyper-core MMORPGs, and MOBAs. To provide some context for PC gaming, an examination of core PC (e.g. Steam) gamers suggests that the market is still largely male (65%), with male gamers tending to be slightly heavier players/payers than females (58% of men are heavy players/payers, compared to 40% of women). Despite this difference in investment, there is a heavy degree of overlap in genre preferences - with RPGs, MMORPGs and Strategy games being among players' top five genres.

...Huh. I find that weird.

Why is that?

PCs are so ubiquitous that, if anything, I'd have expected the numbers to be in parity.

The Ender

Rami wrote: »

There's no information on sources or methods for any of this.

EEDAR is a research firm; they are the source.


This is a rough idea of how they get their figures.

TOGSolid

With more than 92,000 physical and digital video game products providing over 100 million internally researched data points, EEDAR's enormous dataset of "Game DNA" enables previously unobtainable factual-based analysis and diligence services for the video game industry.

I dunno guys, this sample size seems kinda small.

The Ender wrote: »

TOGSolid wrote: »

The Ender wrote: »

It should be noted that for the purpose of this analysis, PC gaming was not separately segmented largely because it is difficult to obtain data that accurately represents the full breadth of the PC gaming experience - considering that the possibilities range from hyper-casual card games and browser-based social games, to Shooters and RPGs, and the hyper-core MMORPGs, and MOBAs. To provide some context for PC gaming, an examination of core PC (e.g. Steam) gamers suggests that the market is still largely male (65%), with male gamers tending to be slightly heavier players/payers than females (58% of men are heavy players/payers, compared to 40% of women). Despite this difference in investment, there is a heavy degree of overlap in genre preferences - with RPGs, MMORPGs and Strategy games being among players' top five genres.

...Huh. I find that weird.

Why is that?

PCs are so ubiquitous that, if anything, I'd have expected the numbers to be in parity.

I imagine that EEDAR can't get every little nook and cranny of PC gaming and they even admit that the PC Gaming category is kind of a mess.

It should be noted that for the purpose of this analysis, PC gaming was not separately segmented largely because it is difficult to obtain data that accurately represents the full breadth of the PC gaming experience - considering that the possibilities range from hyper-casual card games and browser-based social games, to Shooters and RPGs, and the hyper-core MMORPGs, and MOBAs.

With the data available to them I imagine that the old usual gender stereotypes lead to less women that build/tinker with their own PCs which might be contributing to the skew. Over time I expect that to equalize out more as those old stereotypes fall by the wayside (just like I'm seeing more female marine engineering cadets come out of the schools). However, I am not a statistician and am 100% just theorizing here.

Rami

The Ender wrote: »

Rami wrote: »

There's no information on sources or methods for any of this.

EEDAR is a research firm; they are the source.


This is a rough idea of how they get their figures.

It doesn't really explain how they got anything.

I mean are these self-surveys packaged with games or what? How did they choose their sample? There's a whole bunch of potential problems here.

TOGSolid

To provide some context, the genres utilized for Console, Handheld and PC (which is discussed, but does not appear in the infographic) come from EEDARs classification system, and were intended to represent 14 key experiences across the platforms, including: the 8 genres in the graphic, Strategy, Narrative, Sports, Macro/City Simulation, and Skill/Chance (e.g. card or board games).This was, of course, not an exhaustive list, but was intended to represent both the most common experiences and the breadth (from casual to core) of options available across platforms.

As for the rankings – these were based on respondents’ selections of their favorites (up to 5) for each platform that they actively game on (e.g. have played in the past month), and were ranked based on the percentage who selected the genre as one of their favorites. The main purpose of including the basic rankings was to show that out of the breadth of options available, men/women tend to gravitate towards the same types of experiences on each platform (which, as you mentioned, tend to be those best suited and represented in the space). Unfortunately space did not permit a full outline of the responses/options.

To give a sense of the weighting, the average percentages were as follows: Handheld (61%, 51%, 46%, 38%, 29%), and Console (53%, 48%, 39%, 32%, 27%). Differences between groups at each ranking averaged 3-4%, with men tending to have higher percentages across the board (they were more likely to choose the maximum number of genres). All other genres fell below 22%, with an average of 15%.

Sounds like they had surveys/questionnaires out somewhere. They probably also get demographic info from the companies themselves.

Botznoy

I think you guys are conflating standards for a peer reviewed academic study and market research data (which EEDAR is)

SoundsPlush

Cambiata wrote: »

Maybe more surprising than the gender split is that they found that "heavy" console players are majority female (by a sliver) and "heavy" mobile players are majority male (by a sliver)

The platform breakdowns are per gender, not in total. A slightly larger percentage of the female console demographic are heavy players than men, but at two-thirds the size of the male console pool, that ends up being more like a 60/40 split looking at heavy console gamers exclusively.

Overall, though, those results suggest that men and women break down similarly across platform and enthusiasm, just that there's still slightly more men overall more men on consoles. Can't really say much about the overall without knowing comparative platform pools, but I expect it ends up being close to the 53/47 previously figured.

The Ender

Rami wrote: »

The Ender wrote: »

Rami wrote: »

There's no information on sources or methods for any of this.

EEDAR is a research firm; they are the source.


This is a rough idea of how they get their figures.

It doesn't really explain how they got anything.

I mean are these self-surveys packaged with games or what? How did they choose their sample? There's a whole bunch of potential problems here.

EEDAR's well-known services include GamePulse® (a continuously updated application converging data for physical and digital game industry research), DesignMetrics® (sales forecasting, SWOT analysis and custom research), Editorial Insights (mock reviews and outlet bias), discovery and recommendation technologies, investor due-diligence, expert testimony, and custom research services

Their figures also line-up with other research firms doing the same work, so it's not like this is especially controversial stuff.

They data mine, like any firm getting information about anything at all, they curate the data / smooth their curves and publish the results.

Cambiata

SoundsPlush wrote: »

Cambiata wrote: »

Maybe more surprising than the gender split is that they found that "heavy" console players are majority female (by a sliver) and "heavy" mobile players are majority male (by a sliver)

The platform breakdowns are per gender, not in total. A slightly larger percentage of the female console demographic are heavy players than men, but at two-thirds the size of the male console pool, that ends up being more like a 60/40 split looking at heavy console gamers exclusively.

Overall, though, those results suggest that men and women break down similarly across platform and enthusiasm, just that there's still slightly more men overall.

Ah I get it. I'll edit the OP.

Cambiata

So in thinking about it, it actually makes sense and is less surprising that of the women who play on console, a majority tend to be heavy gamers, and of the men who play mobile games, the majority tend to be heavy players. I'm thinking it's related to the stereotypes. As a guy you can own a console casually and there's nothing seen as wrong with that, whereas if you're a woman, people are more likely to wonder why you have it. Thus even just in owning a console you have to get over a bump of gender stereotype. So it makes sense that there would be less women buying a console casually.

Conversely on the mobile games side, those games are, for some reason, stereotyped as a woman's pursuit. Thus if a guy is aware of the stereotype, he might be more reluctant to play them at all, so fewer casual male players. So if you're playing at all, you're more likely to be playing because a particular game or games are compelling to you, making for the heavier players.