• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Gaming Industry: Gen Z is largest gaming population, women nearly half of gamerbase, ads in games are in its infancy.




Its obvious that Smartphone have really pushed the industry forward.

My opinion: Let's not forget globally that Gen Z in countries like India abd the Africa triple that of the western /Asian population yet still very young in developing their own gaming industry.


This is a good thing as we will start to see (if not already) more female led, female focused games.

My thoughts: in terms of comparing, i could see women within the gaming industry (developer, artist, etc) having MORE support from women game consumers than women within Sport industry (women coaches and players) from women sport consumers.


Fom Article Author: "Advertisers typically buy space near games based on an understanding of their audience, but they typically don’t have the level of data that game companies do. This knowledge gap could be an opportunity for media and entertainment companies to nail the right mix of channels, content, and ad tolerance. Getting ads in games may be a taller order. Be forewarned: A load screen ad on a mobile app may provoke little anger compared to an ad placed inside a popular game world. Brands should carefully consider where in the gaming ecosystem they can reach the right audiences with the right ad tolerance."

My thoughts: this.. Will be a inevitable situation to an extant. Film industry has lost their physical platform in theater and DVDs while Netflix and network stream like Disney + keep all the revenue and Music industry hs gone full streaming with Streaming services like Spotify abd Apple music make more thsn the artist. This will only steer Advertising companies to shift to Gaming abd find other way to make money.

 

Con-Z-epT

Live from NeoGAF, it's Friday Night!
What's up with the photo from the article? Didn't they found something better?

Gen-Z-Gamers-GettyImages-1185215909.jpg
 

Notabueno

Banned


Its obvious that Smartphone have really pushed the industry forward.

My opinion: Let's not forget globally that Gen Z in countries like India abd the Africa triple that of the western /Asian population yet still very young in developing their own gaming industry.



This is a good thing as we will start to see (if not already) more female led, female focused games.

My thoughts: in terms of comparing, i could see women within the gaming industry (developer, artist, etc) having MORE support from women game consumers than women within Sport industry (women coaches and players) from women sport consumers.


Fom Article Author: "Advertisers typically buy space near games based on an understanding of their audience, but they typically don’t have the level of data that game companies do. This knowledge gap could be an opportunity for media and entertainment companies to nail the right mix of channels, content, and ad tolerance. Getting ads in games may be a taller order. Be forewarned: A load screen ad on a mobile app may provoke little anger compared to an ad placed inside a popular game world. Brands should carefully consider where in the gaming ecosystem they can reach the right audiences with the right ad tolerance."

My thoughts: this.. Will be a inevitable situation to an extant. Film industry has lost their physical platform in theater and DVDs while Netflix and network stream like Disney + keep all the revenue and Music industry hs gone full streaming with Streaming services like Spotify abd Apple music make more thsn the artist. This will only steer Advertising companies to shift to Gaming abd find other way to make money.

This is fake news. We've been over those fake kind of statistics over and over again.

NO, there's not 87% of gen-Z nor 80% of gen-X people who play video games when a gamified app or "having tried a game once" is counted as playing video game, the same goes for 41% of them being women which is false for the same reasons.

I could find you the actual statistics, but it's hard to sort them out since there's a huge difference between playing preinstalled solitaire or candy-crush on your PC or smartphone, and regularly buying and playing into any kind of actual video games (campaigns, arcade or online).
 

ACESHIGH

Banned
Sony is the most hated brand in Argentina? My dumbass countrymen still pick the Playstation even when games are even more expensive than in the US with way lower wages... Even MS and backwards thinking Nintendo have regional pricing.

Time to talk with your wallet folks and stop buying "la play" to basically play FIFA.

This also applies to the rest of the Hispanic speaking world bar Mexico. Folks are clever around there.
 

AGRacing

Gold Member
Gaming is too big to mean anything by itself anymore. Most people do it in SOME way... but the idea that Call of Duty , Cuphead and Candy Crush are "gaming"... that's not a group. Have you run into a woman playing COD online 4 out of 10 times ? 2 out of 10? 1 out of 20? Of course you haven't. These numbers are useless to anyone without real context.

IF women are "gaming" as much as these numbers suggest ... you'd better find out WHAT they're playing specifically and why... because if you're a company dumb enough to run with this data and yell something like "Make Battlefield V for women!! Quick!". We know how that one turns out.
 
Gaming is too big to mean anything by itself anymore. Most people do it in SOME way... but the idea that Call of Duty , Cuphead and Candy Crush are "gaming"... that's not a group. Have you run into a woman playing COD online 4 out of 10 times ? 2 out of 10? 1 out of 20? Of course you haven't. These numbers are useless to anyone without real context.

IF women are "gaming" as much as these numbers suggest ... you'd better find out WHAT they're playing specifically and why... because if you're a company dumb enough to run with this data and yell something like "Make Battlefield V for women!! Quick!". We know how that one turns out.
The casual women in my life are more profitable than casual men. Men literally only buy a PS5 for COD or FIFA. All woman I know be buying switches just in case a guest wants to play something. My gf spends 100$s in Sims, without batting an eye. I play Jackbox with her friends once. And now she has her friends buying PS5‘s just to play jackbox. She buys a PC, because she wants mods on her sim games. My sister bought a PC just to play among us. Yet all my friends just buy Call of Duty.

But this idea that woman dont play games or have an interest in them is beyond stupid. They just dont have interest in games that then to be marketed towards men. When I booted up Genshin Impact once my gf asked me, why are all the women dressed like sluts.

My friend wendy has all the classic final fantasy games on her phone. Shes a busy nurse. My friend Dayanna plays Resident Evil, Mortal Kombat, and Until Dawn Exclusively.

They need to make more co-op games, “until dawn” type of games, more party games.. idk but the women market is so untapped.
 

AGRacing

Gold Member
The casual women in my life are more profitable than casual men. Men literally only buy a PS5 for COD or FIFA. All woman I know be buying switches just in case a guest wants to play something. My gf spends 100$s in Sims, without batting an eye. I play Jackbox with her friends once. And now she has her friends buying PS5‘s just to play jackbox. She buys a PC, because she wants mods on her sim games. My sister bought a PC just to play among us. Yet all my friends just buy Call of Duty.

But this idea that woman dont play games or have an interest in them is beyond stupid. They just dont have interest in games that then to be marketed towards men. When I booted up Genshin Impact once my gf asked me, why are all the women dressed like sluts.

My friend wendy has all the classic final fantasy games on her phone. Shes a busy nurse. My friend Dayanna plays Resident Evil, Mortal Kombat, and Until Dawn Exclusively.

They need to make more co-op games, “until dawn” type of games, more party games.. idk but the women market is so untapped.

Exactly my point. "Gaming" is too large an umbrella to anyone worth a damn in marketing. You've identified several likely preferences here though - and that IS useful information.
 

Northeastmonk

Gold Member
Sure, GenZ is the majority. You have a generation growing up who watch streamers or play PC games while they wait for real life to kick in. What else are they going to do? Electronics are everywhere and they’re accessible. Video Games are more accessible than they have ever been. I agree in that stats don’t mean as much as they use to. It’s too large of an industry. I’m a millennial who grew up playing SNES and Genesis. I pick quite a few games to play and ignore the thousands of other games on the market. I feel as though gaming trips over its own feet at times. Nintendo proved that anyone at any age could play, but it typically boils down to ageism if you’re digging into it. Kids generally come in droves when there’s a video game to be played.

I think the female stats are great. I just don’t know more than maybe a couple who care about games. I think it’s easier for younger women to get on board with video games. It’s great when you see women in their 30’s-60’s play, but it’s kinda rare. People who game typically marry someone who probably games as well. I just think women still hold video games in a negative light at a certain age. I guess these stats might help make younger girls feel better about playing more.
 

Vaelka

Member
Advertising is usually the death of art.
Because as soon as the marketing department has any say any '' offensive, non family friendly content '' gets erased.

I already think this has sorta happened to some extent, most big games nowadays are very tame even God of War severely cut back on the violence to the point it kinda feels PG-13 and like an Avengers movie.
And that's not even getting into the censorship and ban hellscape that is Apple and Google or how in movies it's so rare to see R-rated movies and movies that should be R-rated aren't and get censored by the studio to make it more marketable.

Mainstream advertisers have sorta already begun moving over into the gaming industry in particular in AAA, it's not something I want to see get worse because it really hampers the artistic freedom of devs.
And the truth is that even if the game can be uncensored and have a higher rating it's usually easier and cheaper to just make it '' safer '' all-around.
We already have problems with this on consoles too with adults only games being straight up banned altogether.
Big budget games can often get away with more but mid to smaller studios can't and have to stay away from a lot of things even if it actually would make sense.

Even games like Papers, Please have gotten banned from mobile app stores before for pixelated nudity.
 
Last edited:

Keihart

Member
Girls play mostly either gacha games, rpgs or life roleplay games like Animal Crossing or the Sims (if you can mix all this genres, even better)

Asian devs know this, there is a fuck ton of gacha games with idol style characters aimed at girls and rpgs with gacha elements and dating sims with gacha elements, etc. The western market just haven't caught up since they are still dreaming on making grandmas play wii ( when in reality the ones that could be converted are already playing animal crossing) or believe that they can sell the double of cod games putting some girl avatars.

If they want the mainstream female population, they should be catering to the gameplay trends of the demographic.
 
Last edited:

Vaelka

Member
Girls play mostly either gacha games, rpgs or life roleplay games like Animal Crossing or the Sims (if you can mix all this genres, even better)

Asian devs know this, there is a fuck ton of gacha games with idol style characters aimed at girls and rpgs with gacha elements and dating sims with gacha elements, etc. The western market just haven't cough up since they are still dreaming on making grandmas play wii ( when in reality the ones that could be converted are already playing animal crossing) or believe that they can sell the double of cod games putting some girl avatars.

If they want the mainstream female population, they should be catering to the gameplay trends of the demographic.

Which is funny considering all of these dudebros in the industry insisting that what women want is characters like Abby from TLOU2.
Not saying that there aren't women who want that, but at the same time it's pretty ridiculous how the whole narrative from devs and game journalists insist that women find characters like in Genshin Impact offensive.
 

Radrigal

Member
I have never seen a gamer girl irl.(a real enthusiast) I know they are out there, but they have been...elusive to say the least.

In my country what has really taken off is streaming mobile(smartphone) games on facebook. 99% of them are girls with their titties out.

Man, I really fucking hate mobile gaming.
 

Northeastmonk

Gold Member
GenZ feed themselves with micro transactions and dumb multiplayer games as surrogate for their social life.

this is a disaster.

Like it or not, they are the future because companies can easily milk them for money, see sport games like fifa and NBA2k
I don’t think this is just Gen Z. I was talking to a client at work and her husband plays World of Tanks on his Kindle. She says he spends a lot of money on there. I think you have more and more people who are interested in games and they end up paying for DLC because it’s part of the game experience. They don’t have enough experience to say, “last years version didn’t do this” or “I’m use to paying for the whole game”. The whole F2P market has got a lot of non-gamers downloading mystery apps because it’s right there on their phone. They don’t need to spend another $500 plus for a premium get up to play games. Sports fans don’t have much else to spend money on. The licensing agreements for each sport has caused the increase in micro-transactions. You don’t have a whole lot of options.
 

ripeavocado

Banned
I don’t think this is just Gen Z. I was talking to a client at work and her husband plays World of Tanks on his Kindle. She says he spends a lot of money on there. I think you have more and more people who are interested in games and they end up paying for DLC because it’s part of the game experience. They don’t have enough experience to say, “last years version didn’t do this” or “I’m use to paying for the whole game”. The whole F2P market has got a lot of non-gamers downloading mystery apps because it’s right there on their phone. They don’t need to spend another $500 plus for a premium get up to play games. Sports fans don’t have much else to spend money on. The licensing agreements for each sport has caused the increase in micro-transactions. You don’t have a whole lot of options.

Older gamers that play those games are a minority, many of them rarely play or stopped playing altogether, this is another reason why the industry it so focused on gen z
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
How loose is this term "Gamer?" Are they counting phone games? Because those don't count.
Basically any device and any genre.

Maybe a month or two ago there was a chart here that surveyed what games women play.... Sports, RPGs, MMO etc.... It was that chart that had horizontal bars per genre and %. Shooters were at 2%. Sports I think was 5%.

Women skewed heavy to a handful of genres.... I forget which ones. Most genres were guys, so it showed guys play a wider selection of genres spread out.

All these kinds of articles saying women should get into more gaming dev or play tons of games because it's like 60/40 or 50/50 men to women means nothing for broad based gaming for women because they skew heavy to certain kinds of games. So if advertisers want to promote their dollars to market products or make games women like, it should be skewed there.

Instead, there's this giant notion that if gaming is 60/40 guys, every game or studio should skew to 60/40 guys even for a hardcore military sim based on The French Revolution.
 
Last edited:

cormack12

Gold Member
I always wondered who was buying those copies of GTA V. Welcome to the white male toxic battlegrounds ladies.
 
I might be getting old but I really can’t get into mobile games. Everything is too dumbed down to a point it looks the game is missing something. This is an issue that has annoyed me with many recent Switch releases (not to say games designed to phones). When it come to the number of female gamers I highly doubt the numbers.
 

Vaelka

Member
Vn3tBAf.png
This is from a breakdown I saw not too long ago.

Keep in mind too that this is in spite of FPS games in particular trying REAAAAAAAAAAALLY hard to reach that female demographic.
They've been trying super hard in recent years.

One thing that's strange tho is the lack of fighting games on the list.
I don't believe that it's so small it wouldn't even be 1%, fighting games actually have quite a lot of online personalities at least and even some pro players ( especially outside of NA ).
Not sure why it's not on the list.
 

Dane

Member
Keep in mind too that this is in spite of FPS games in particular trying REAAAAAAAAAAALLY hard to reach that female demographic.
They've been trying super hard in recent years.

One thing that's strange tho is the lack of fighting games on the list.
I don't believe that it's so small it wouldn't even be 1%, fighting games actually have quite a lot of online personalities at least and even some pro players ( especially outside of NA ).
Not sure why it's not on the list.
Fighting Games nowadays are sadly not strong sellers, so they might not have even bothered to do research. Dead or Alive 4 and Soulcalibur 2 and beyond were the favourites.

Vn3tBAf.png
This is from a breakdown I saw not too long ago.
Pretty much this, but I disagree in MOBA, at least for League of Legends I think the gender split is even or close.
 

Wildebeest

Member
Pretty much this, but I disagree in MOBA, at least for League of Legends I think the gender split is even or close.

Where did you hear that? 10% seems about right for a game like League, and I guess even that is way up from what it would have been five years ago.
 

Edgelord79

Gold Member
These surveys are always skewed to be partial to mobile gaming and then the resulting concluding analysis is applied to all of gaming when this is not the case at all.

Either people want this to be the result very badly or they are not qualified to make these types of extrapolations.
 

Dane

Member
Where did you hear that? 10% seems about right for a game like League, and I guess even that is way up from what it would have been five years ago.
A lot of girls play these games at least this is what i've seen in my country (brazil), it was really 50/50 or close to that.
 

nkarafo

Member
Mobile "games".

Sure. My mother plays Sudoku and Texas Hold'em all day. Add her to the female gamers pile.
 

Wildebeest

Member
A lot of girls play these games at least this is what i've seen in my country (brazil), it was really 50/50 or close to that.

I'm assuming this is a US survey. I think globally, the Chinese market for MOBA is very significant, with their mobile game Honour of Kings being huge. I think the gender divide there is more even, but the design is also easier to pick up and games are faster.
 
There are only around 20%-25% that play actual games, and 10% non core gamers that have some varied connections to real games.

95% of smartphone games aren't real games, in relation to the traditional gaming industry anyway. People are trying to integrate games across different industries and it doesn't work.

Most games on smartphones are the new generation of flash games and browser mmos.

Most actual games on mobile, if they show up, don't do that well or fail outside big name brand ip or studios.

Some random fools, or women, or purple zebras for all I know, swiping their screen 10 minutes everyday on a train are not "gamers", just like how people playing stick figure flash game #27754 around 17 years ago weren't considered "gamers" in the same sense as console or even PC players who brought discs or used services (or floppies) were.

You can't look at the Witcher 3, Farmville, Angry birds, and Halo 5 and act like the games are the same, the targets are the same, the design philosophies are the same, the industries are the same, the goals are the same, the infrastructure is the same, etc. Because none of it is the same.

Mobile is a separate thing entirely from consoles and PC.

The Wii also gives a good example of what the mobile audience actually contains. With phones and tablets the last several years you don't need a gimmick waggle machine anymore, you don't need to buy $60 games or wait for $5-$10 bundle deals. You can play free or $.99 with all the same in game transactions, and you can play it anywhere you go. Distract yourself for a few minutes.

If you want something more substantive get a Switch but the phone attachrate will be 400x higher.

You will never see actual gamers on PC or Consoles have a game with 100 million active players on just one platform. For nearly all games outside a few, they can't even reach that on all gamer platforms together. But just a game only on Iphone can do that, multiple games, even 200 million even.

Mobile is just a different market. There are not 2 billon "gamers", Microsoft and Sony both made that mistake, that number is imaginary.
 

Vaelka

Member
Pretty much this, but I disagree in MOBA, at least for League of Legends I think the gender split is even or close.

Tbh I have a really hard time believing that, I just think that it might seem more like it because of the '' stans '' for League of Legends ( because of the Kpop crossovers ).
Altho they released it on mobile too so probably an increase but that's on mobile not PC.

It's just that on social media there's fairly vocal stans who like the Kpop crossovers and ship characters.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Mobile "games".

Sure. My mother plays Sudoku and Texas Hold'em all day. Add her to the female gamers pile.
Technically she is.

Therefore game companies should be spending bucks advertising to her, as well as purposely skewing their employees hired to take into account your mom because high level stats make everyone equal on a 1:1 usage and revenue scale.

So even a studio known for making military shooters should be focusing marketing on gamers playing card and puzzle games.
 
Last edited:

junguler

Banned
this just goes to show bully hunters were ahead of their time, shame nobody took them seriously, i'm sure telling people online to not be toxic to women is going to show them the error of their ways and repent of their shameful actions.
 
Top Bottom