An interesting survey on Obsidian forums
It was supposed to be about DLCs but said a lot about cRPG community and it's preferences:
https://forums.obsidian.net/blogs/entry/206-the-results-of-our-recent-dlc-survey/
https://forums.obsidian.net/blogs/entry/206-the-results-of-our-recent-dlc-survey/
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Larian also did their survey, currently, the pdf file is deleted, sadly (the second one is PvP):
But you can find the parts of it here: https://www.neogaf.com/threads/larian-ran-a-huge-survey-on-what-gamers-want-from-rpgs-results-are-in.1419928/ and on the Codex, including:
Was quite surprised to see it too. Even considering all limitations (survey was specifically about DLCs to Obsidian games) - still, it's a bit shocking.
Want to think in more modern RPGs we are closer to parity and those 48% / 52% are real.
If I'm excused for making even further assumptions, I'd say that this also correlates with rpgs very popular among women being more console friendly, like the Mass Effect games.
Strictly out of curiosity, not for arguing - why do you think so?
You are exposed to PCs all day long (at least on work), running a game on PC you already own (or around all the time) is a simple logical step regardless of gender and interests in games, while console you have to consciously buy first specifically to play games. So, for playing on the console you have to be a gamer already.
I can understand new generation - console is a simple no-brainer for a gift for many parents, so, kids are exposed to these from the cribs. But that would be genderless - all kids get it. But why would adult women, not men (who are supposed to like to gather for simple activities accompanied by a lot of beer, if we stick to cliche) prefer consoles?
The above was assumptions though, as stated, and I don't base them on anything much more concrete than "this is the impression I've gotten from people around me".
I guess I should also add that I don't think the numbers in the poll are an accurate percentage at all, they are far too extrend; I think they are very likely to habe been heavily skewed by the demographics of whatever communities they were presented to.
Just in case - I am not offended or anything, just genuinely curious why women could be considered TA for consoles. To be honest, other than a gift from someone or a decision of an already a gamer I can not imagine why would anyone decide to get a console. But it's a subject for another topic.
As for popularity of PC ... I don't know - have you seen how many console exclusives came to PC lately? Or how practically every game is PC too? (well, consoles war is still there, but outside of it - PC is almost always an option) I have a feeling PC market is growing.
Now, if we look at some random screenshots of recent Obsidian games, what do we see? Tiny icons and repulsively ugly portraits. Even if there's some kind of a story behind that (I don't know, haven't played those), there's still the interface design better suited for and associated with management and control, than for visual story telling.
I can't remember off the top of my hat even a single identified female strategy player I'd ever run into. But there're plenty to find if you look at the above mentioned Bioware, or in movies' discussions. Apparently women just don't seem to like tinkering with digits as much as men do.
I would argue about the comfort of playing Bioware games from the sofa, but yet again - what do I know? For me console and controllers is an abomination imposed by mega-corporations on a brainwashed audience and should be purged with fire. For any type of games.
Still, Bioware games include too many screen-switching to be called true console games (even when they try to adapt it for consoles). Visual storytelling - is not a true nature of Bioware games.
By "recent Obsidian games" you mean PoE1&2 ? Or Tyranny? And you missed on them all? Well, your loss. The games a great.
As for "ugliness" - they are very appealing visually and the game-engine is great, people use it in other games now days (Pathfinder, for example). No, ugliness has nothing to do with it. Isometric - associated with old games for nerds - that I can believe to be a reason.
Ah, this is the reason, why most of the bookkeepers, accountants, bank-workers are women! Because women hate "tinkering with digits"! Wait, what?
Seriously, that's here a true sexists generalization if I ever saw one. (Again - not offended or anything, just laughing)
I would not be so bold to divide games by gender. For example, The Sims should be classified as a "girls game" - should not it? Yet, I have not seen a girl running blog about dressing her Sims, while I can name guys doing so. Also, can not talk about popularity of strategy games among genders (I do know another girl who likes them, but would not call her or me an exclusive strategy player) but you would not argue that GTA or PUBG are more popular among guys than strategy games, would you?
Modders on Nexus could be, probably, a better indication of what aspects of the games are more appealing to what genders. Like improved weapons (or cheating weapons, and cheats in general) would come from guys, while improved clothes from girls. Nudity mod would be created buy a guy, proportional and appealing bodies - from girls. General tinkering with world textures - guys, improved textures for characters (hair, eyes, skins) - girls. And so on. (Hm... The Sims still has to be a girl-game!)
But again, it's just aspects, not the games in general.
https://www.polygon.com/2015/9/8/9273799/divinity-original-sin-2-women-female-players-pc-rpg
http://www.lar.net/2015/09/07/where-are-the-women/
Most likely, the results Obsidian got are because of the same factors Swen had mentioned.
Very interesting read, thank you!
I have PoE1, DoS1 and Tyranny, and basically zero inclination to install any... There're many great things in life I'm gonna miss regardless, adding a few more to the list won't make a difference.
I'm not sure what could there be to take offence at in the first place? A "***ist generalization" is the most proper and reasonable thing to do when observed statistics (4%) suggest it's true. In the absence of other known factors anyway.
In any case, I've been trying to figure a reason as to how those 4% came to be, that's all.
I feel like I've read that article few years ago. Could be, but the female to male ratio on BG modding boards certainly wasn't 4% during their better days. BG wasn't a low budget indie title at the time of its release, of course, so I guess its demographics split would be comparable to that with contemporary titles. But the recent wave of retro RPGs certainly does not live up to modern expectations of high end graphics you'd normally see in AAA titles.
So, either there're reasons, some of which we've guessed, why only male audience cares about isometrics, or Swen might be onto something here:
PS That's interesting, kinda answers my curiosity why so many female artists are drawing anime girls but rarely dudes.
From what I know, traditionally the anime industry used to be very heavily male-dominated, but as the genre took off and diversified, a lot more female artists are coming in. As you mentioned, they're especially common in the VN sector, and they're also a lot more common in South Korea and other Asian countries rather than Japan (which still seems to be fairly heavily male-dominated).
edited for spelling. The best part is, I spelled the same word right twice and misspelled it 2 different ways in the same comment. I don't know how I do these things.
It's not restricted to Bioware stuff, either. Alesia hasn't been active on the Obsidian forums for a while, but she's the one who started up the no-reload Pillars of Eternity discussion at the Obsidian forums, and she did a lot to set the foundation for the metagame.
Which brings us back to what I said about dated graphics not particularly being associated with immersive story. Even if you know there is some inside. While browsing Steam, I occasionally get some RPGMaker recommendations, and they proclaim in description to have an epic story of X... okay, yeah, I'll take your word for it, but I wouldn't really bother even if I knew for a fact it was written by CA and GRRM duo.
That's a bit like saying that Marie Skłodowska Curie is just one physicist and chemist. Being alone, or in the minority, or just in a lesser group, still breaks an argument re/"tinkering with digits" totally.
And there're more. @Arvia is now doing great RPed playthroughs of BG and NWN, and expressed a desire to try Pillars of Eternity. There're dozens of female users on this forum who enjoyed PoE and liked characters there to the point of even creating fanart, eg. @Buttercheese.
It's a sensitive subject, so it's probably better not to mention any percentage. I really think Swen has explained where those low %% came from - there're errors in the approach of estimation, there're reasons female players, who played the games, didn't participate in the survey.
Apparently I was mistaken and there was no real interest in finding out where the figures in the poll may have come from, if it has as much as a chance to contradict the dogma of modern social religion. Apologies for dragging my ugly bigoted nazi self here.
I believe there is a real interest in finding out where the figures in the poll may have come from, it's just that I can't agree with your observation.
It would be helpful if you clarified the point more so that it's not missed.
Also, I might be misinterpreting the word "identified" in this case, but it's worth pointing out that plenty of women online don't have usernames that immediately identify them as female. If there's a player you know, and you don't know that they are male, it's fully possible that they're actually female. Besides, a fair number of women in male-dominated gaming communities have a habit of posing as male in order to avoid harassment and so forth (kind of disturbing, honestly), and while that doesn't relate to a presumably anonymous poll, it does mean some of the male gamers we know may actually be female as well. Another reason I wouldn't assume.
I'm not surprised there's a gender imbalance in an audience of gamers; I just wanted to point that a "single" female player of any genre isn't normally that hard to find.
Trinity: "Most guys do."
There might be more women among us, but some may choose to remain anonymous, for various reasons. I've never felt it necessary to pretend to be male, but that's because this is an unusually civilized community here, with a high level of moderation and rules that strongly encourage a respectful tone. I've been reading in other places where I didn't feel comfortable enough to register and post.
We're just assuming that our fellow forumite is male until proven otherwise, because the majority is. We're prejudiced and think we can tell, at least to an extent, who is male and who is female based on their behavior and the way they write, and it's wrong. (That doesn't explain why less women participated in polls, of course. There are obviously more male than female gamers And more women might be playing games without ever joining a forum)
Fun fact: Prejudices go both ways. I thought for a short while, some months back when I joined the forum, that @semiticgod might be a woman, because of the "tone" of some posts, and the screen name and avatar picture don't indicate anything. But he's just thoughtful, kind and well-spoken, and that's related to personality, not gender.
The percentage of MotB owners does however suggest that the majority of respondents were new players (age figures suggest that too). And since MotB came out five years after BG2, I would speculate even fewer respondents used to be BG players.
That may sound contradictory to the fact PoE was advertised specifically to BG fanbase, but then it's already been two years since its release when the poll was made - which is a long time nowadays, when games are piling up faster than they can be complete even once. And the sales figures of PoE2 (and Tyranny) tell me the majority of PoE1 players, aka original BG fanbase, weren't particularly interested in staying with the company.
PS Actually, have taken another look at games distribution, and NWN almost matches PoE there (Tyranny is very dead though). So apparently most of them were players of FNV, of which I honestly know next to nothing about.