Mars and Venus in the Game Room

It looks like Mars and Venus can play together after all. The number of female gamers has grown in recent years, and with the variety of games out there, it’s a wonder that anybody out there is still not playing them. The taste in games may differ between the sexes, but at least the playing field is leveling.

When it comes to video games, the sexes are usually divided into two categories:  women who want to build things and solve problems (i.e. puzzle games), and men who want to blow things up (i.e. war games). Games like Cooking Mama and Brain Age are based on the idea of creating and focusing on a female audience, as opposed to games like Grand Theft Auto and Halo, which are based on destruction and dominance, and generally aimed towards males.

Consoles are geared towards specific genders as well. Men prefer multitasking systems like the Xbox and the PS3, while woman prefer more “casual” systems like the Nintendo DS or Wii. This is not to say that only men or women play these respective systems, however, and their choices might have more to do with the fact that some people don’t want to plunk down $600 on a console than anything else.

According to the Entertainment Software Association, women represent 40% of the gaming population now, proving that a whole new generation of women has been turned onto fragging in territory previously dominated by men. This percentage is enough to warrant the creation of gamer networking sites like MissVideoGame.com that are devoted to women who aren’t afraid to steal the controller. Now, instead of fighting for the remote, you can fight over the Wiimote!

With half of its players being women, one shining example of a unisex game is the Sims phenomenon. It’s the only game where you can truly build a home and then destroy it by improperly grilling a burger, so it works well for both sexes. This is just one more step towards games becoming more mainstream, and that’s a positive thing for people of either gender.