As you know here at Thumb Bandits we’re an extremely friendly site where inclusivity is of the utmost importance. Our demographic clearly shows this but we want more! We don’t want a pro female gaming platform, what we want is diversity and inclusion regardless of gender, race, ability etc, is it a fantasy or can we make it happen..... well we’re certainly going to give it a try, but there’s a few questions we need to look at to try and glean a clearer way of going about it whilst gaining an understanding of what the actual crux of the problems are within the inclusivity argument. Obviously one of the big areas within this debate it that of the female gaming dilemma, so it's this that we're going to take a look at today.

First up we have the rather Darwinian suggestion that the male / female gaming dilemma is actually based on the fundamental differences between the sexes, and that this coupled with an overall misunderstanding within the gaming industry of just what makes up the female gamer demographic is the actual problem and not JUST a misunderstanding within the industry itself.


An examination of some of the more ‘academic’ literature that exists on the female gamer dilemma (if indeed it is a dilemma) tends to show that it may be the male view that the gaming dilemma is intrinsically linked to these fundamental differences and therefore harkens back to the ‘natural’ model of male and female. Men therefore are seen as the 'natural' the hunters and protectors, whilst women are the 'natural' gatherers and carers. Can it thus be suggested that women are therefore more likely to enjoy games that have these aspects within their structure? It has actually been suggested that this may be why MMORPGs are of particular interest to the female gamer, because women are, by definition, social creatures and it is therefore the social aspects of the MMORPG genre that attract a female audience. A recent AOL poll suggested women gamers who regularly played MMORPGs do so to relieve stress whilst their male counterparts were far more likely than women: 35 percent vs. 29 percent (hardly ‘far more likely’), to say that they liked the competition factor of gaming. Additionally, more men than women said that they play to increase their skill levels. Well it would appear to be quite clear cut then, argument over, no need to carry on, women gamers are apparently not interested in competition, they just want to schmooze and gossip, no inbred stereotyping there then


Here’s the problem, there are so many confounding factors within polls such as this one previously mentioned that to even use it as any sort of evidence defies logic, the women that took part in the poll, are for one thing, women who take part in polls, they’re on their PCs, are they console gamers? What ages are they? Geographically where are they? And the list goes on and on. So with so many variables where does that lead us? Right back to the start.


Following the Women’s Game Conference in Austin reports emerged that seemed to suggest that whilst some of the male faces within the industry banged on about diversity and social inclusion they showed said support by non attendance to the women’s section of the conference. How strange. Needless to say this is a gross generalisation and goes no way in examining this puzzle piece by piece but you can see the irony of such reports it is assumed?

A broader face to the gaming market is what is needed, and ignoring what is at present rumoured to be around %39 of your audience is not only a huge risk but illogical in a business sense. Stemming the traditionalist thought that women lean towards certain kinds of games (role-playing, puzzles or adventure games) is a difficult task given that less than %10 of the development workforce is presently female. Despite most female gamers disputing that certain genres appeal to them, marketing and ad campaigns continue to perpetuate the ideology of the ‘female gamer’ when all women gamers truly want is the same thing as their male counterparts, value for money and a good game that is inclusive of them as a player. Because video games have been made by men for men for many years it is obviously going to take time for these changes to take place (as is the case with anything) and in the meantime girl gamers and women gamers alike are just going to have to hope that those within the industry of a more vocal nature will get the message out there that girls want to play the games boys play with the choice to be female within the gaming world, it’s not a big ask.