Is Online Gaming More Popular Amongst Men or Women?

The stereotype of teenage boys playing video games alone in their bedroom is thought to be well and truly dead now. Yet developers in this industry still tend to target their games according to this stereotype. People tend to think of video games being packed with weaponry and football, but the most popular gaming device is in fact the smartphone and the most popular game genres are more puzzle based trivia and word games.

Women now account for 52% of the gaming audience and this infographic from Liberty Games shows that out of the 1,500 gamers they surveyed, 57% played Candy Crush a big 16% more than men and 23% still played Pokémon Go, showing that women may just be the biggest mobile gamers.

Liberty Games

Other studies show that there are more people over the age of 44 playing mobile games, which is considerably more than the children and teenage audience. This rise in popularity of gaming is thought to be related to the smartphone and how popular it has truly become.

Smartphones have made video games easily accessible and available to a wider audience. Free to play games like Candy Crush are the most popular due to them being intuitive, accessible, and low cost. 56% of females over 44 have played mobile puzzle games, which happens to be the most popular gaming genre over all.

Sexism in video games with the under representation of women characters in games is a huge topic of discussion in the video game culture. Whilst many people object to these social games being proper games and considered lesser in the ‘traditional’ gaming world, they are seen to be the most popular, appealing to more women than men. This may be due to the fact that these games seem to be so much more personal, finally letting you choose whether you want to play as a female or male, choosing what the character looks like, what they can wear and the opportunity to choose whether they are gay or straight in some games. These features make the game more interactive and progressive compared to the majority of games out there.

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