I've never seen any indication anywhere -- from the game itself to interviews -- that indicates that Sims 4 is reaching out to male gamers. Quite the opposite, really -- the one interview with RF says that while the Sims audience is 50/50 male/female, they're reaching out to the female gamers. What they should do is look at what made previous sims games so popular with everyone.
My guess on what has happened would be: More males have joined the demographic. EA wants to capture even more. Right now they are going about it all wrong. You really can't widen your demographic by alienating your core. It seems like they haven't found the sweet spot to woo more males while keeping the female sector that has been there for years happy. I can't wait to see when they get it right, it will be legendary, and I can't wait to witness it.
Yeah, I don't know, just the trend doesn't make sense, so either Franklin is off, or Knight is off, or there's just a seriously weird trend going on of more and more males being drawn to the game.
Just wanted to tell you that I understand what you've been trying to explain, and I completely agree. Yes, many men play The Sims, but there are many who don't, and I believe that EAs marketing department has been attmepting to attract more pre/teen males to the game. That's also not to imply that there aren't females who want to play the way the males do, but neglecting a large customer base who always played the game differently is not going to make the game successful.
For some reason that I can't fathom, other than maybe their marketing research department isn't very good at what they do, I think they felt like they figured out the essence of the game and were surprised that not everyone loved it. They really should have figured out who their core fans were and tried to please them first. Instead they have pleased a relatively small audience that perhaps is 50% male (although truthfully I find it difficult to believe much of anything they say).
If that's true that they are marketing to that male then it's not working. At least for me it isn't. I'm a male teenager and I do not like the way they are currently treating this game at all.
I think they were of the opinion that most of the 'hard core' Sims fans would buy the game and everything they made for it regardless and therefore they could be ignored while EA tried to attract additional players.
I got this impression at the beginning when Gurus were saying things like 'you have to learn to like the game the way we decided to make you play it'. A lot of the 'hard core' fans then tried the game, didn't like the way it was changed and responded with a very definite 'NO we don't'.
This. Absolutely!
When they were promoting the game before release, I really felt like they were quite condescending toward anyone who complained. In reality, all they produced was an empty shell of a game and it is almost worthless to anyone whose play style was abandoned. We can't conjure it up in our heads, though I'm sure that's what they thought we would do while we waited for them to sell it back to us in bits and pieces.
And while I'm on the subject and infuriated now, how dare they be so callous toward any of features we hold dear! It's not like this is the first sequel and they just got it wrong, no...they've had 14 years worth of data on what we like and why we play. Maybe if they stop giving surveys to the kids and let the majority of the fandom take them, they'd get some actual useful information out of it. After all this time, they still act like they don't get it. It's really not that hard to get. Animations are important. We like seeing everything our Sims are doing. We want representations of all the stages of life that a human goes through. We want different interactions based on who your Sims are with, be it family, friends, or strangers. We want for their personalities to actually mean something. We want reactions to things based on their personalities. Dare I say it...we might actually want a simulation game?
My husband accuses me of being a walking encyclopedia - as at least 80 percent of every thing I have in my head so it takes me seconds to find the link. I seem to store keywords in my head or something. LOL.
LOL it's great and google makes it so easy to find anything. This is pretty interesting too how it takes an average of two hours to understand basics of a game. I guess that helps with the Game Time trials.
Huh this was interesting too: http://www.metacritic.com/feature/game-publisher-rankings-for-2014-releases
"The latter group was highlighted both by a strong new Dragon Age installment and the brand-new IP Titanfall, though the latter scored a lot better with critics than with Metacritic's users, and it is unclear whether it was the huge financial hit EA was hoping for. One definite disappointment—at least from a quality standpoint—was The Sims 4, which turned out to be the lowest-scoring major game in The Sims series to date (scoring 16 points lower than The Sims 3)."
Ok I must stop. I could talk about business things all night if I wanted. XD
It is very understandable that simmers who have been used to fantastic improvements for each version of the Sims game were disappointed because their expectations were rocket high. In the same way Apple's customers have been disappointed with the most recent models of iPhones and iPads because they didn't get the same fantastic new progress as earlier.
But I doubt that EA and Apple also were disappointed because people were less exited than earlier because the companies of course knew that they hadn't been able to make the same fantastic progress as earlier. EA know that it isn't easy to find ways to make such fantastic progress until the general technological progress makes it possible.
The new emotions, the multitasking and the new build mode weren't ideal. But they were still the best progress which the current technology allowed.
Removing the open world can't have been an easy decision. But if it wasn't done then all the problems from TS3 would also have been in TS4 and the options for making TS4 different would be limited. But EA knew that this would have given lower sales numbers for TS4 too. So they chose to remove the open world to have a chance that other things (especially in the expansions) would give the game acceptable sales numbers anyway.
An alternative probably was to turn TS4 into a 64 bit game because this would allow TS4 to both have an open world and connected worlds with many Sims in them. But I am sure that EA also knows that a lot of Sims games are bought as presents for very young teens who don't really play many other games. Such young teens usually only have cheap computers which they use for their schoolwork. Therefore it was important to allow the game to still run on such computers.
EA evaluated that the new multitasking and the new build mode were necessary improvements even though they weren't ideal. But the time they demanded obviously proved to be exceeding all expectations. Therefore EA just had to simplify other things to keep expenses low enough to give the game a chance to make profit because EA just couldn't raise the price for the game instead for obvious reasons.
I agree that EA probably should have done something different. I just don't know what it should have been. Maybe just postponed the game a few years until all people (even schoolchildren) had powerful 64 bit computers?
Open world was gone the moment the started on Olympus.
Maybe. But we don't really have any information on Olympus from EA. Therefore I think that we can believe almost anything - and half of it may not be true.
EA doesn't talk to the customers, but people who worked for them are more than willing to spill. I'd be willing to bet the main elements are truthful.The fact that the game was online tells me all I need to know. There are very few, true, open world online games, most are carved into tiny bits to improve performance on computers that should be gracing the landfill.
So true. No one should be using 32 bit pcs anymore - they are beyond over the hill, and game makers need to step up to just 64 bit. What sense is it we are running 64 bit systems on 64 bit OS for years now, my pc handle 32 gigs of ram, but right now with just half that ram 16 bits is still overkill - and it is ridiculous a studio comes out with a new game just 32 bit.
Believe me I am very excited by the new Fall out 4 - it even recommends 16 gigs of ram and is a 64 bit game with the biggest world around just about. It is 3 and a half times bigger than Skyrim and all open world. It is funny as technically I am not a war games kind of player - but after Sims 4 experience - I am looking forward to it.
EA itself has the same requirements for several of their games. They need to make a rule at EA - no more 32 bits period for pc games anyway.
Darley - what is that picture from that is in your signature? Just curious.
Hey there. It's a scene I composed in a 3D posing program.
My guess on what has happened would be: More males have joined the demographic. EA wants to capture even more. Right now they are going about it all wrong. You really can't widen your demographic by alienating your core. It seems like they haven't found the sweet spot to woo more males while keeping the female sector that has been there for years happy. I can't wait to see when they get it right, it will be legendary, and I can't wait to witness it.
Yeah, I don't know, just the trend doesn't make sense, so either Franklin is off, or Knight is off, or there's just a seriously weird trend going on of more and more males being drawn to the game.
Just wanted to tell you that I understand what you've been trying to explain, and I completely agree. Yes, many men play The Sims, but there are many who don't, and I believe that EAs marketing department has been attmepting to attract more pre/teen males to the game. That's also not to imply that there aren't females who want to play the way the males do, but neglecting a large customer base who always played the game differently is not going to make the game successful.
For some reason that I can't fathom, other than maybe their marketing research department isn't very good at what they do, I think they felt like they figured out the essence of the game and were surprised that not everyone loved it. They really should have figured out who their core fans were and tried to please them first. Instead they have pleased a relatively small audience that perhaps is 50% male (although truthfully I find it difficult to believe much of anything they say).
If that's true that they are marketing to that male then it's not working. At least for me it isn't. I'm a male teenager and I do not like the way they are currently treating this game at all.
I think they were of the opinion that most of the 'hard core' Sims fans would buy the game and everything they made for it regardless and therefore they could be ignored while EA tried to attract additional players.
I got this impression at the beginning when Gurus were saying things like 'you have to learn to like the game the way we decided to make you play it'. A lot of the 'hard core' fans then tried the game, didn't like the way it was changed and responded with a very definite 'NO we don't'.
This. Absolutely!
When they were promoting the game before release, I really felt like they were quite condescending toward anyone who complained. In reality, all they produced was an empty shell of a game and it is almost worthless to anyone whose play style was abandoned. We can't conjure it up in our heads, though I'm sure that's what they thought we would do while we waited for them to sell it back to us in bits and pieces.
And while I'm on the subject and infuriated now, how dare they be so callous toward any of features we hold dear! It's not like this is the first sequel and they just got it wrong, no...they've had 14 years worth of data on what we like and why we play. Maybe if they stop giving surveys to the kids and let the majority of the fandom take them, they'd get some actual useful information out of it. After all this time, they still act like they don't get it. It's really not that hard to get. Animations are important. We like seeing everything our Sims are doing. We want representations of all the stages of life that a human goes through. We want different interactions based on who your Sims are with, be it family, friends, or strangers. We want for their personalities to actually mean something. We want reactions to things based on their personalities. Dare I say it...we might actually want a simulation game?
I agree, and especially love the quote I bolded. I am tempted to add that to my signature! That is spot on! I would add that they also need to allow for lots of creative tools and flexibility in the game's design. It needs to be a sandbox game with choices for the players!
And really, I think most of the game's long-time fans of all genders would agree with these points. I know there were many problems with this version of the game, starting with EA and their marketing department dictating that it be online and social then backtracking on that, but I also believe that they thought they were clever and figured out the "essence" of the game. This made them think they could just eliminate everything else but this 'core' and people would love the game. They were wrong. I also think they were genuinely surprised when it turned out to not be true, and some have been very defensive as a result - which just makes things worse.
On the bright side, if you could call it a bright side, they will now be able to give presentations at professional conferences on the topic; "How to destroy your relationship and credibility with your fans".
The Sims
Where are we going, and why am I in this hand basket?!
I agree that the market was recovering from the mishaps of the 90's when the Sims debuted.
I know that the reason all the hoopla was made about The Sims and its success was made because EA had captured the magical unicorn, getting a majority of women to support a video game title. It was absolutely unheard of at that time, for a mainstream game to have a fan base whose majority was female. I really wish I'd saved those articles now.
No, males were never majority in the beginning. Its killing me that I can't find the articles I read back in 2001-2004, I remember it so well because I was still in college getting my degree (and doing case studies for my classes) when I read them.
Everyone was shocked that the demographic majority was in favor of women from the beginning, because up until that point, aming was a male arena. The Sims really opened the eyes of devs, publishers, marketers, to the fact that women do in fact enjoy games, and will buy them. The current shift means that more males have entered into The Sims core demographic, not the other way around.
That's what makes the number of women and its historic majority surprising. Will Wright didn't design the game as a female game. It was a very welcome surprise that women embraced the game so well. That passion for the game from women is what launched the game into the best selling franchise of all time. Acknowledging that doesn't mean that it's girl game or that men don't play. It's just a happy fact in the history of the series.
Sims actually, at least on gaming boards, has always been considered a game for everyone. One of my favorite threads on a "hard core" board was people making Sims of their favorite videogame characters. I first asked about the Sims on a "hard core" gaming board and every guy there played, and all had strong opinions about Sims 2 and Sims 3 (and their preferences were STRONG).
I think it's the devs who misunderstood the market and thought it was a game that appealed primarily to girls.
I edited my message, but I'll repeat the edit here (in essence). As more and more women enter the gaming world, it doesn't make sense that their proportion of sim games would shrink, so if the numbers are 50/50 now, it's more likely that males have always been the majority of Sims players and females are a growing segment (from 20% to 50% just going from articles quoted here).
Even a 20% (that is the only figure backed up here, so that's the one I'm going with) would have been shocking in 2000. That's a lot of women gamers, far more than anyone thought would be interested in gamings due to the game devs screw ups of misunderstanding the market in the 1990s (I can get into that if no one knows what I'm talking about).
I wish you had those articles as well. The best I can find is Humble saying that the majority of their audience was teen girls, but I have a strong suspicion that he was going on his beliefs about the game instead of actual data, for the reasons I already stated -- the believed 50/50 male to female gamer ratio of Sims 3. Females are the growing market segment, not males, by a large amount. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if Sims followed the trend of women gamers -- no clue what our numbers were in 2000, though.
Edit: But again, even 20% women gamers in 2000 would have been huge and considered the magic unicorn.
I have been playing video games since the late 80's. I do not believe that female gamers is new even in 2000. I think that people may have started looking at demographics a certain time.
Oh, I've been playing videogames since before you Female gamers have always been a thing, but the devs have until recently been the good ol' boy network. In the 1990s, they decided to try to start making games aimed at girls, but went with what guys thought girls would like and slapped a coat of pink onto perfectly dreadful games, and then came to the conclusion that girls don't like video games. When I played MMOs, I was surprised (once vent became a thing) how many of the MMO players actually were female. Actually, that may have been what clued game developers in that women are a market.
Developers like Bioware are amazing in that they actually reach out in their stories to audiences other than straight males, and while that caused them a lot of backlash among parts that audience for their being content they wouldn't ever use (their forums at times in the past were a complete mess because of this), it earned them the loyalty of other parts of their audience which turns out is large enough that paid off for them. I even forgave them Dragon Age 2 for that reason
When I see numbers tossed around about what proportion of the sims gamers are what gender, I have to wonder how they're collecting that information. I have a feeling the methods are pretty flawed, in truth, especially since they all seem to have a different idea of what that number is.
I agree that the market was recovering from the mishaps of the 90's when the Sims debuted.
I know that the reason all the hoopla was made about The Sims and its success was made because EA had captured the magical unicorn, getting a majority of women to support a video game title. It was absolutely unheard of at that time, for a mainstream game to have a fan base whose majority was female. I really wish I'd saved those articles now.
No, males were never majority in the beginning. Its killing me that I can't find the articles I read back in 2001-2004, I remember it so well because I was still in college getting my degree (and doing case studies for my classes) when I read them.
Everyone was shocked that the demographic majority was in favor of women from the beginning, because up until that point, aming was a male arena. The Sims really opened the eyes of devs, publishers, marketers, to the fact that women do in fact enjoy games, and will buy them. The current shift means that more males have entered into The Sims core demographic, not the other way around.
That's what makes the number of women and its historic majority surprising. Will Wright didn't design the game as a female game. It was a very welcome surprise that women embraced the game so well. That passion for the game from women is what launched the game into the best selling franchise of all time. Acknowledging that doesn't mean that it's girl game or that men don't play. It's just a happy fact in the history of the series.
Sims actually, at least on gaming boards, has always been considered a game for everyone. One of my favorite threads on a "hard core" board was people making Sims of their favorite videogame characters. I first asked about the Sims on a "hard core" gaming board and every guy there played, and all had strong opinions about Sims 2 and Sims 3 (and their preferences were STRONG).
I think it's the devs who misunderstood the market and thought it was a game that appealed primarily to girls.
I edited my message, but I'll repeat the edit here (in essence). As more and more women enter the gaming world, it doesn't make sense that their proportion of sim games would shrink, so if the numbers are 50/50 now, it's more likely that males have always been the majority of Sims players and females are a growing segment (from 20% to 50% just going from articles quoted here).
Even a 20% (that is the only figure backed up here, so that's the one I'm going with) would have been shocking in 2000. That's a lot of women gamers, far more than anyone thought would be interested in gamings due to the game devs screw ups of misunderstanding the market in the 1990s (I can get into that if no one knows what I'm talking about).
I wish you had those articles as well. The best I can find is Humble saying that the majority of their audience was teen girls, but I have a strong suspicion that he was going on his beliefs about the game instead of actual data, for the reasons I already stated -- the believed 50/50 male to female gamer ratio of Sims 3. Females are the growing market segment, not males, by a large amount. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if Sims followed the trend of women gamers -- no clue what our numbers were in 2000, though.
Edit: But again, even 20% women gamers in 2000 would have been huge and considered the magic unicorn.
I have been playing video games since the late 80's. I do not believe that female gamers is new even in 2000. I think that people may have started looking at demographics a certain time.
Oh, I've been playing videogames since before you Female gamers have always been a thing, but the devs have until recently been the good ol' boy network. In the 1990s, they decided to try to start making games aimed at girls, but went with what guys thought girls would like and slapped a coat of pink onto perfectly dreadful games, and then came to the conclusion that girls don't like video games. When I played MMOs, I was surprised (once vent became a thing) how many of the MMO players actually were female. Actually, that may have been what clued game developers in that women are a market.
Developers like Bioware are amazing in that they actually reach out in their stories to audiences other than straight males, and while that caused them a lot of backlash among parts that audience for their being content they wouldn't ever use (their forums at times in the past were a complete mess because of this), it earned them the loyalty of other parts of their audience which turns out is large enough that paid off for them. I even forgave them Dragon Age 2 for that reason
When I see numbers tossed around about what proportion of the sims gamers are what gender, I have to wonder how they're collecting that information. I have a feeling the methods are pretty flawed, in truth, especially since they all seem to have a different idea of what that number is.
In the 1980s almost all gamers were boys. At that time girls discussed why their boring boyfriends used so much time on something so boring as computers. But since then things have graduately changed. Most games have still most males among their fans. But even shooters, war games and sports games are now also more and more played by girls.
For the Sims games I believe that things have changed the other way around because I believe that TS1 was almost exclusively played by girls. But now there are not nearly the same difference between the number of male and female simmers.
In another area things have changed even more even though I don't know if those changes have any relations to the changes in gaming. But in Danish high school most pupils in the 1960s and 1970s were boys and probably only every third pupil were a girl. But today 2 out of every 3 pupils in Danish high schools are girls and the boys in high schools are just fewer and fewer. Is this also something that happens in other countries than Denmark?
From my perspective, I believe the Sims made news because it captured a huge number of female fans which was rare for gaming. 50% female is unheard of for a major AAA game and 20% at the beginning with Sims 1 was equally as revolutionary.
It would be hard for me to believe that the Sims started out with a majority female player base given the fact that, back then, the gamer population was heavily skewed towards males. I don't think the Sims 1 could have been regarded as such a mega hit with an above 50% female ratio, there just weren't enough female gamers back then.
I also don't think the Sims was ever made as a "girls" game. My friends and I, all male, liked the Sims because of its originality and later on, the freedom to be creative and set up situations. There were so many things you could do in Sims 2, like make a dog fighting arena and charge people to come watch, the losing dog is killed on the spot. Unfortunately a lot of the options were removed with Sims 3, but at least we had open world which made up for what was lost and more. The Sims was one of the first sandbox type games that gave the player control over the world in a big way, this was revolutionary and attracted a lot of people. I can't emphasize how revolutionary Sims 1 was with no goals and no way to win or lose, along with the ability to change the game world and alter the environment.
It's incredibly insulting for people to insinuate that Maxis made Sims 4 to appeal to more males. A watered down game that removes many of the sandbox features and creative options doesn't appeal to me or any male gamers I know. If anything, the gaming industry is moving towards more sandbox and open world. Look at the success of The Witcher 3 which is open world. Fallout 4 is sure to be a hit because of its open world and sandbox modability.
The Sims 4 was just a game which attempted to attract more new simmers by advertising about "More intelligent Sims than ever before who can now even multitask. New emotions will control your intelligent Sims. New and more advanced build mode than ever before."
But to make those things work took too many resources and too much time. Therefore other things had to be omitted or simplified. But those things weren't seen as important for EA's advertising anyway.
The plan was to release some of the missing things and other things in free updates to keep people interested in the game. But the budget for making free stuff was of course limited. But by introducing the new GPs too it became possible to release new things every month so people hopefully wouldn't lose interest in the game. I believe that was EA's plan all the time - and probably even before the basegame was released.
The frustrating thing is that EA never announces new content before necessary because EA believe that curiousity is the best way to keep us interested in the game. So we can ask questions about future stuff as much as we want. But we won't get any answers anyway. We can only wait to see what will happen.
I agree that the market was recovering from the mishaps of the 90's when the Sims debuted.
I know that the reason all the hoopla was made about The Sims and its success was made because EA had captured the magical unicorn, getting a majority of women to support a video game title. It was absolutely unheard of at that time, for a mainstream game to have a fan base whose majority was female. I really wish I'd saved those articles now.
No, males were never majority in the beginning. Its killing me that I can't find the articles I read back in 2001-2004, I remember it so well because I was still in college getting my degree (and doing case studies for my classes) when I read them.
Everyone was shocked that the demographic majority was in favor of women from the beginning, because up until that point, aming was a male arena. The Sims really opened the eyes of devs, publishers, marketers, to the fact that women do in fact enjoy games, and will buy them. The current shift means that more males have entered into The Sims core demographic, not the other way around.
That's what makes the number of women and its historic majority surprising. Will Wright didn't design the game as a female game. It was a very welcome surprise that women embraced the game so well. That passion for the game from women is what launched the game into the best selling franchise of all time. Acknowledging that doesn't mean that it's girl game or that men don't play. It's just a happy fact in the history of the series.
Sims actually, at least on gaming boards, has always been considered a game for everyone. One of my favorite threads on a "hard core" board was people making Sims of their favorite videogame characters. I first asked about the Sims on a "hard core" gaming board and every guy there played, and all had strong opinions about Sims 2 and Sims 3 (and their preferences were STRONG).
I think it's the devs who misunderstood the market and thought it was a game that appealed primarily to girls.
I edited my message, but I'll repeat the edit here (in essence). As more and more women enter the gaming world, it doesn't make sense that their proportion of sim games would shrink, so if the numbers are 50/50 now, it's more likely that males have always been the majority of Sims players and females are a growing segment (from 20% to 50% just going from articles quoted here).
Even a 20% (that is the only figure backed up here, so that's the one I'm going with) would have been shocking in 2000. That's a lot of women gamers, far more than anyone thought would be interested in gamings due to the game devs screw ups of misunderstanding the market in the 1990s (I can get into that if no one knows what I'm talking about).
I wish you had those articles as well. The best I can find is Humble saying that the majority of their audience was teen girls, but I have a strong suspicion that he was going on his beliefs about the game instead of actual data, for the reasons I already stated -- the believed 50/50 male to female gamer ratio of Sims 3. Females are the growing market segment, not males, by a large amount. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if Sims followed the trend of women gamers -- no clue what our numbers were in 2000, though.
Edit: But again, even 20% women gamers in 2000 would have been huge and considered the magic unicorn.
I have been playing video games since the late 80's. I do not believe that female gamers is new even in 2000. I think that people may have started looking at demographics a certain time.
Oh, I've been playing videogames since before you Female gamers have always been a thing, but the devs have until recently been the good ol' boy network. In the 1990s, they decided to try to start making games aimed at girls, but went with what guys thought girls would like and slapped a coat of pink onto perfectly dreadful games, and then came to the conclusion that girls don't like video games. When I played MMOs, I was surprised (once vent became a thing) how many of the MMO players actually were female. Actually, that may have been what clued game developers in that women are a market.
Developers like Bioware are amazing in that they actually reach out in their stories to audiences other than straight males, and while that caused them a lot of backlash among parts that audience for their being content they wouldn't ever use (their forums at times in the past were a complete mess because of this), it earned them the loyalty of other parts of their audience which turns out is large enough that paid off for them. I even forgave them Dragon Age 2 for that reason
When I see numbers tossed around about what proportion of the sims gamers are what gender, I have to wonder how they're collecting that information. I have a feeling the methods are pretty flawed, in truth, especially since they all seem to have a different idea of what that number is.
In the 1980s almost all gamers were boys. At that time girls discussed why their boring boyfriends used so much time on something so boring as computers. But since then things have graduately changed. Most games have still most males among their fans. But even shooters, war games and sports games are now also more and more played by girls.
Maybe in your country but not here in USA in the 80's. I know girls that gamed including myself. We sill game
I agree that the market was recovering from the mishaps of the 90's when the Sims debuted.
I know that the reason all the hoopla was made about The Sims and its success was made because EA had captured the magical unicorn, getting a majority of women to support a video game title. It was absolutely unheard of at that time, for a mainstream game to have a fan base whose majority was female. I really wish I'd saved those articles now.
No, males were never majority in the beginning. Its killing me that I can't find the articles I read back in 2001-2004, I remember it so well because I was still in college getting my degree (and doing case studies for my classes) when I read them.
Everyone was shocked that the demographic majority was in favor of women from the beginning, because up until that point, aming was a male arena. The Sims really opened the eyes of devs, publishers, marketers, to the fact that women do in fact enjoy games, and will buy them. The current shift means that more males have entered into The Sims core demographic, not the other way around.
That's what makes the number of women and its historic majority surprising. Will Wright didn't design the game as a female game. It was a very welcome surprise that women embraced the game so well. That passion for the game from women is what launched the game into the best selling franchise of all time. Acknowledging that doesn't mean that it's girl game or that men don't play. It's just a happy fact in the history of the series.
Sims actually, at least on gaming boards, has always been considered a game for everyone. One of my favorite threads on a "hard core" board was people making Sims of their favorite videogame characters. I first asked about the Sims on a "hard core" gaming board and every guy there played, and all had strong opinions about Sims 2 and Sims 3 (and their preferences were STRONG).
I think it's the devs who misunderstood the market and thought it was a game that appealed primarily to girls.
I edited my message, but I'll repeat the edit here (in essence). As more and more women enter the gaming world, it doesn't make sense that their proportion of sim games would shrink, so if the numbers are 50/50 now, it's more likely that males have always been the majority of Sims players and females are a growing segment (from 20% to 50% just going from articles quoted here).
Even a 20% (that is the only figure backed up here, so that's the one I'm going with) would have been shocking in 2000. That's a lot of women gamers, far more than anyone thought would be interested in gamings due to the game devs screw ups of misunderstanding the market in the 1990s (I can get into that if no one knows what I'm talking about).
I wish you had those articles as well. The best I can find is Humble saying that the majority of their audience was teen girls, but I have a strong suspicion that he was going on his beliefs about the game instead of actual data, for the reasons I already stated -- the believed 50/50 male to female gamer ratio of Sims 3. Females are the growing market segment, not males, by a large amount. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if Sims followed the trend of women gamers -- no clue what our numbers were in 2000, though.
Edit: But again, even 20% women gamers in 2000 would have been huge and considered the magic unicorn.
I have been playing video games since the late 80's. I do not believe that female gamers is new even in 2000. I think that people may have started looking at demographics a certain time.
Oh, I've been playing videogames since before you Female gamers have always been a thing, but the devs have until recently been the good ol' boy network. In the 1990s, they decided to try to start making games aimed at girls, but went with what guys thought girls would like and slapped a coat of pink onto perfectly dreadful games, and then came to the conclusion that girls don't like video games. When I played MMOs, I was surprised (once vent became a thing) how many of the MMO players actually were female. Actually, that may have been what clued game developers in that women are a market.
Developers like Bioware are amazing in that they actually reach out in their stories to audiences other than straight males, and while that caused them a lot of backlash among parts that audience for their being content they wouldn't ever use (their forums at times in the past were a complete mess because of this), it earned them the loyalty of other parts of their audience which turns out is large enough that paid off for them. I even forgave them Dragon Age 2 for that reason
When I see numbers tossed around about what proportion of the sims gamers are what gender, I have to wonder how they're collecting that information. I have a feeling the methods are pretty flawed, in truth, especially since they all seem to have a different idea of what that number is.
In the 1980s almost all gamers were boys. At that time girls discussed why their boring boyfriends used so much time on something so boring as computers. But since then things have graduately changed. Most games have still most males among their fans. But even shooters, war games and sports games are now also more and more played by girls.
Maybe in your country but not here in USA in the 80's. I know girls that gamed including myself. We sill game
I was a gamer in the 80s...I played all my Atari games everyday. I saved up my allowance to by or rent new Atari games every week. I've been gaming since I could hold a controller and my parents could afford a computer.
I think it is belittling to negate female gamers. Just because games weren't aimed at us doesn't mean we weren't playing. It's not my fault society thinks I only like pink sparkly things. If they bothered to ask, I'm sure they would see women are just as diverse in what they like as men.
I agree that the market was recovering from the mishaps of the 90's when the Sims debuted.
I know that the reason all the hoopla was made about The Sims and its success was made because EA had captured the magical unicorn, getting a majority of women to support a video game title. It was absolutely unheard of at that time, for a mainstream game to have a fan base whose majority was female. I really wish I'd saved those articles now.
No, males were never majority in the beginning. Its killing me that I can't find the articles I read back in 2001-2004, I remember it so well because I was still in college getting my degree (and doing case studies for my classes) when I read them.
Everyone was shocked that the demographic majority was in favor of women from the beginning, because up until that point, aming was a male arena. The Sims really opened the eyes of devs, publishers, marketers, to the fact that women do in fact enjoy games, and will buy them. The current shift means that more males have entered into The Sims core demographic, not the other way around.
That's what makes the number of women and its historic majority surprising. Will Wright didn't design the game as a female game. It was a very welcome surprise that women embraced the game so well. That passion for the game from women is what launched the game into the best selling franchise of all time. Acknowledging that doesn't mean that it's girl game or that men don't play. It's just a happy fact in the history of the series.
Sims actually, at least on gaming boards, has always been considered a game for everyone. One of my favorite threads on a "hard core" board was people making Sims of their favorite videogame characters. I first asked about the Sims on a "hard core" gaming board and every guy there played, and all had strong opinions about Sims 2 and Sims 3 (and their preferences were STRONG).
I think it's the devs who misunderstood the market and thought it was a game that appealed primarily to girls.
I edited my message, but I'll repeat the edit here (in essence). As more and more women enter the gaming world, it doesn't make sense that their proportion of sim games would shrink, so if the numbers are 50/50 now, it's more likely that males have always been the majority of Sims players and females are a growing segment (from 20% to 50% just going from articles quoted here).
Even a 20% (that is the only figure backed up here, so that's the one I'm going with) would have been shocking in 2000. That's a lot of women gamers, far more than anyone thought would be interested in gamings due to the game devs screw ups of misunderstanding the market in the 1990s (I can get into that if no one knows what I'm talking about).
I wish you had those articles as well. The best I can find is Humble saying that the majority of their audience was teen girls, but I have a strong suspicion that he was going on his beliefs about the game instead of actual data, for the reasons I already stated -- the believed 50/50 male to female gamer ratio of Sims 3. Females are the growing market segment, not males, by a large amount. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if Sims followed the trend of women gamers -- no clue what our numbers were in 2000, though.
Edit: But again, even 20% women gamers in 2000 would have been huge and considered the magic unicorn.
I have been playing video games since the late 80's. I do not believe that female gamers is new even in 2000. I think that people may have started looking at demographics a certain time.
Oh, I've been playing videogames since before you Female gamers have always been a thing, but the devs have until recently been the good ol' boy network. In the 1990s, they decided to try to start making games aimed at girls, but went with what guys thought girls would like and slapped a coat of pink onto perfectly dreadful games, and then came to the conclusion that girls don't like video games. When I played MMOs, I was surprised (once vent became a thing) how many of the MMO players actually were female. Actually, that may have been what clued game developers in that women are a market.
Developers like Bioware are amazing in that they actually reach out in their stories to audiences other than straight males, and while that caused them a lot of backlash among parts that audience for their being content they wouldn't ever use (their forums at times in the past were a complete mess because of this), it earned them the loyalty of other parts of their audience which turns out is large enough that paid off for them. I even forgave them Dragon Age 2 for that reason
When I see numbers tossed around about what proportion of the sims gamers are what gender, I have to wonder how they're collecting that information. I have a feeling the methods are pretty flawed, in truth, especially since they all seem to have a different idea of what that number is.
In the 1980s almost all gamers were boys. At that time girls discussed why their boring boyfriends used so much time on something so boring as computers. But since then things have graduately changed. Most games have still most males among their fans. But even shooters, war games and sports games are now also more and more played by girls.
Maybe in your country but not here in USA in the 80's. I know girls that gamed including myself. We sill game
I was a gamer in the 80s...I played all my Atari games everyday. I saved up my allowance to by or rent new Atari games every week. I've been gaming since I could hold a controller and my parents could afford a computer.
I think it is belittling to negate female gamers. Just because games weren't aimed at us doesn't mean we weren't playing. It's not my fault society thinks I only like pink sparkly things. If they bothered to ask, I'm sure they would see women are just as diverse in what they like as men.
I agree that the market was recovering from the mishaps of the 90's when the Sims debuted.
I know that the reason all the hoopla was made about The Sims and its success was made because EA had captured the magical unicorn, getting a majority of women to support a video game title. It was absolutely unheard of at that time, for a mainstream game to have a fan base whose majority was female. I really wish I'd saved those articles now.
No, males were never majority in the beginning. Its killing me that I can't find the articles I read back in 2001-2004, I remember it so well because I was still in college getting my degree (and doing case studies for my classes) when I read them.
Everyone was shocked that the demographic majority was in favor of women from the beginning, because up until that point, aming was a male arena. The Sims really opened the eyes of devs, publishers, marketers, to the fact that women do in fact enjoy games, and will buy them. The current shift means that more males have entered into The Sims core demographic, not the other way around.
That's what makes the number of women and its historic majority surprising. Will Wright didn't design the game as a female game. It was a very welcome surprise that women embraced the game so well. That passion for the game from women is what launched the game into the best selling franchise of all time. Acknowledging that doesn't mean that it's girl game or that men don't play. It's just a happy fact in the history of the series.
Sims actually, at least on gaming boards, has always been considered a game for everyone. One of my favorite threads on a "hard core" board was people making Sims of their favorite videogame characters. I first asked about the Sims on a "hard core" gaming board and every guy there played, and all had strong opinions about Sims 2 and Sims 3 (and their preferences were STRONG).
I think it's the devs who misunderstood the market and thought it was a game that appealed primarily to girls.
I edited my message, but I'll repeat the edit here (in essence). As more and more women enter the gaming world, it doesn't make sense that their proportion of sim games would shrink, so if the numbers are 50/50 now, it's more likely that males have always been the majority of Sims players and females are a growing segment (from 20% to 50% just going from articles quoted here).
Even a 20% (that is the only figure backed up here, so that's the one I'm going with) would have been shocking in 2000. That's a lot of women gamers, far more than anyone thought would be interested in gamings due to the game devs screw ups of misunderstanding the market in the 1990s (I can get into that if no one knows what I'm talking about).
I wish you had those articles as well. The best I can find is Humble saying that the majority of their audience was teen girls, but I have a strong suspicion that he was going on his beliefs about the game instead of actual data, for the reasons I already stated -- the believed 50/50 male to female gamer ratio of Sims 3. Females are the growing market segment, not males, by a large amount. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if Sims followed the trend of women gamers -- no clue what our numbers were in 2000, though.
Edit: But again, even 20% women gamers in 2000 would have been huge and considered the magic unicorn.
I have been playing video games since the late 80's. I do not believe that female gamers is new even in 2000. I think that people may have started looking at demographics a certain time.
Oh, I've been playing videogames since before you Female gamers have always been a thing, but the devs have until recently been the good ol' boy network. In the 1990s, they decided to try to start making games aimed at girls, but went with what guys thought girls would like and slapped a coat of pink onto perfectly dreadful games, and then came to the conclusion that girls don't like video games. When I played MMOs, I was surprised (once vent became a thing) how many of the MMO players actually were female. Actually, that may have been what clued game developers in that women are a market.
Developers like Bioware are amazing in that they actually reach out in their stories to audiences other than straight males, and while that caused them a lot of backlash among parts that audience for their being content they wouldn't ever use (their forums at times in the past were a complete mess because of this), it earned them the loyalty of other parts of their audience which turns out is large enough that paid off for them. I even forgave them Dragon Age 2 for that reason
When I see numbers tossed around about what proportion of the sims gamers are what gender, I have to wonder how they're collecting that information. I have a feeling the methods are pretty flawed, in truth, especially since they all seem to have a different idea of what that number is.
In the 1980s almost all gamers were boys. At that time girls discussed why their boring boyfriends used so much time on something so boring as computers. But since then things have graduately changed. Most games have still most males among their fans. But even shooters, war games and sports games are now also more and more played by girls.
Maybe in your country but not here in USA in the 80's. I know girls that gamed including myself. We sill game
I was a gamer in the 80s...I played all my Atari games everyday. I saved up my allowance to by or rent new Atari games every week. I've been gaming since I could hold a controller and my parents could afford a computer.
I think it is belittling to negate female gamers. Just because games weren't aimed at us doesn't mean we weren't playing. It's not my fault society thinks I only like pink sparkly things. If they bothered to ask, I'm sure they would see women are just as diverse in what they like as men.
#NotAPrincess
Agree, Me too and no Princess here either. I don't like pink . Way too girly for me
I agree that the market was recovering from the mishaps of the 90's when the Sims debuted.
I know that the reason all the hoopla was made about The Sims and its success was made because EA had captured the magical unicorn, getting a majority of women to support a video game title. It was absolutely unheard of at that time, for a mainstream game to have a fan base whose majority was female. I really wish I'd saved those articles now.
No, males were never majority in the beginning. Its killing me that I can't find the articles I read back in 2001-2004, I remember it so well because I was still in college getting my degree (and doing case studies for my classes) when I read them.
Everyone was shocked that the demographic majority was in favor of women from the beginning, because up until that point, aming was a male arena. The Sims really opened the eyes of devs, publishers, marketers, to the fact that women do in fact enjoy games, and will buy them. The current shift means that more males have entered into The Sims core demographic, not the other way around.
That's what makes the number of women and its historic majority surprising. Will Wright didn't design the game as a female game. It was a very welcome surprise that women embraced the game so well. That passion for the game from women is what launched the game into the best selling franchise of all time. Acknowledging that doesn't mean that it's girl game or that men don't play. It's just a happy fact in the history of the series.
Sims actually, at least on gaming boards, has always been considered a game for everyone. One of my favorite threads on a "hard core" board was people making Sims of their favorite videogame characters. I first asked about the Sims on a "hard core" gaming board and every guy there played, and all had strong opinions about Sims 2 and Sims 3 (and their preferences were STRONG).
I think it's the devs who misunderstood the market and thought it was a game that appealed primarily to girls.
I edited my message, but I'll repeat the edit here (in essence). As more and more women enter the gaming world, it doesn't make sense that their proportion of sim games would shrink, so if the numbers are 50/50 now, it's more likely that males have always been the majority of Sims players and females are a growing segment (from 20% to 50% just going from articles quoted here).
Even a 20% (that is the only figure backed up here, so that's the one I'm going with) would have been shocking in 2000. That's a lot of women gamers, far more than anyone thought would be interested in gamings due to the game devs screw ups of misunderstanding the market in the 1990s (I can get into that if no one knows what I'm talking about).
I wish you had those articles as well. The best I can find is Humble saying that the majority of their audience was teen girls, but I have a strong suspicion that he was going on his beliefs about the game instead of actual data, for the reasons I already stated -- the believed 50/50 male to female gamer ratio of Sims 3. Females are the growing market segment, not males, by a large amount. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if Sims followed the trend of women gamers -- no clue what our numbers were in 2000, though.
Edit: But again, even 20% women gamers in 2000 would have been huge and considered the magic unicorn.
I have been playing video games since the late 80's. I do not believe that female gamers is new even in 2000. I think that people may have started looking at demographics a certain time.
Oh, I've been playing videogames since before you Female gamers have always been a thing, but the devs have until recently been the good ol' boy network. In the 1990s, they decided to try to start making games aimed at girls, but went with what guys thought girls would like and slapped a coat of pink onto perfectly dreadful games, and then came to the conclusion that girls don't like video games. When I played MMOs, I was surprised (once vent became a thing) how many of the MMO players actually were female. Actually, that may have been what clued game developers in that women are a market.
Developers like Bioware are amazing in that they actually reach out in their stories to audiences other than straight males, and while that caused them a lot of backlash among parts that audience for their being content they wouldn't ever use (their forums at times in the past were a complete mess because of this), it earned them the loyalty of other parts of their audience which turns out is large enough that paid off for them. I even forgave them Dragon Age 2 for that reason
When I see numbers tossed around about what proportion of the sims gamers are what gender, I have to wonder how they're collecting that information. I have a feeling the methods are pretty flawed, in truth, especially since they all seem to have a different idea of what that number is.
In the 1980s almost all gamers were boys. At that time girls discussed why their boring boyfriends used so much time on something so boring as computers. But since then things have graduately changed. Most games have still most males among their fans. But even shooters, war games and sports games are now also more and more played by girls.
For the Sims games I believe that things have changed the other way around because I believe that TS1 was almost exclusively played by girls. But now there are not nearly the same difference between the number of male and female simmers.
In another area things have changed even more even though I don't know if those changes have any relations to the changes in gaming. But in Danish high school most pupils in the 1960s and 1970s were boys and probably only every third pupil were a girl. But today 2 out of every 3 pupils in Danish high schools are girls and the boys in high schools are just fewer and fewer. Is this also something that happens in other countries than Denmark?
In the 1980s, devs were stunned that girls liked Mario, which is what started the pink paint coats on crappy games, which lead them to the belief that girls weren't interested in video games rather than that girls, like boys, weren't interested in crappy video games. As a girl gamer back then, I knew plenty of other girl gamers. And yes, girls complained when their boyfriends played videogames too often rather than hang out with them, which is STILL a complaint in truth.
Edit: In the US, I believe there is a trend for more women to complete their college education than men, but I don't think it's a huge difference.
I do like hot pink! and I've been gaming since games started! I prefer not to play PVP type games, but, I have played them and was quite good at them...even with a lag monster of an internet back in the day. I did not hide that I was female either.
I agree that the market was recovering from the mishaps of the 90's when the Sims debuted.
I know that the reason all the hoopla was made about The Sims and its success was made because EA had captured the magical unicorn, getting a majority of women to support a video game title. It was absolutely unheard of at that time, for a mainstream game to have a fan base whose majority was female. I really wish I'd saved those articles now.
No, males were never majority in the beginning. Its killing me that I can't find the articles I read back in 2001-2004, I remember it so well because I was still in college getting my degree (and doing case studies for my classes) when I read them.
Everyone was shocked that the demographic majority was in favor of women from the beginning, because up until that point, aming was a male arena. The Sims really opened the eyes of devs, publishers, marketers, to the fact that women do in fact enjoy games, and will buy them. The current shift means that more males have entered into The Sims core demographic, not the other way around.
That's what makes the number of women and its historic majority surprising. Will Wright didn't design the game as a female game. It was a very welcome surprise that women embraced the game so well. That passion for the game from women is what launched the game into the best selling franchise of all time. Acknowledging that doesn't mean that it's girl game or that men don't play. It's just a happy fact in the history of the series.
Sims actually, at least on gaming boards, has always been considered a game for everyone. One of my favorite threads on a "hard core" board was people making Sims of their favorite videogame characters. I first asked about the Sims on a "hard core" gaming board and every guy there played, and all had strong opinions about Sims 2 and Sims 3 (and their preferences were STRONG).
I think it's the devs who misunderstood the market and thought it was a game that appealed primarily to girls.
I edited my message, but I'll repeat the edit here (in essence). As more and more women enter the gaming world, it doesn't make sense that their proportion of sim games would shrink, so if the numbers are 50/50 now, it's more likely that males have always been the majority of Sims players and females are a growing segment (from 20% to 50% just going from articles quoted here).
Even a 20% (that is the only figure backed up here, so that's the one I'm going with) would have been shocking in 2000. That's a lot of women gamers, far more than anyone thought would be interested in gamings due to the game devs screw ups of misunderstanding the market in the 1990s (I can get into that if no one knows what I'm talking about).
I wish you had those articles as well. The best I can find is Humble saying that the majority of their audience was teen girls, but I have a strong suspicion that he was going on his beliefs about the game instead of actual data, for the reasons I already stated -- the believed 50/50 male to female gamer ratio of Sims 3. Females are the growing market segment, not males, by a large amount. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if Sims followed the trend of women gamers -- no clue what our numbers were in 2000, though.
Edit: But again, even 20% women gamers in 2000 would have been huge and considered the magic unicorn.
I have been playing video games since the late 80's. I do not believe that female gamers is new even in 2000. I think that people may have started looking at demographics a certain time.
Oh, I've been playing videogames since before you Female gamers have always been a thing, but the devs have until recently been the good ol' boy network. In the 1990s, they decided to try to start making games aimed at girls, but went with what guys thought girls would like and slapped a coat of pink onto perfectly dreadful games, and then came to the conclusion that girls don't like video games. When I played MMOs, I was surprised (once vent became a thing) how many of the MMO players actually were female. Actually, that may have been what clued game developers in that women are a market.
Developers like Bioware are amazing in that they actually reach out in their stories to audiences other than straight males, and while that caused them a lot of backlash among parts that audience for their being content they wouldn't ever use (their forums at times in the past were a complete mess because of this), it earned them the loyalty of other parts of their audience which turns out is large enough that paid off for them. I even forgave them Dragon Age 2 for that reason
When I see numbers tossed around about what proportion of the sims gamers are what gender, I have to wonder how they're collecting that information. I have a feeling the methods are pretty flawed, in truth, especially since they all seem to have a different idea of what that number is.
In the 1980s almost all gamers were boys. At that time girls discussed why their boring boyfriends used so much time on something so boring as computers. But since then things have graduately changed. Most games have still most males among their fans. But even shooters, war games and sports games are now also more and more played by girls.
Maybe in your country but not here in USA in the 80's. I know girls that gamed including myself. We sill game
I was a gamer in the 80s...I played all my Atari games everyday. I saved up my allowance to by or rent new Atari games every week. I've been gaming since I could hold a controller and my parents could afford a computer.
I think it is belittling to negate female gamers. Just because games weren't aimed at us doesn't mean we weren't playing. It's not my fault society thinks I only like pink sparkly things. If they bothered to ask, I'm sure they would see women are just as diverse in what they like as men.
#NotAPrincess
It isn't about belittling you at all. But we all know that there even today are differences in interests between boys and girls even though the differences become smaller and smaller. This isn't just about gaming but also about other things.
When I studied on university French was the most popular study for girls with about 90% girls and only 10% boys. In general girls preferred to study languages (with French as the most popular) while boys preferred economics, law or science. Those studies (and medicin too had more male students than female students. Physics was the most male dominant study with between 90% and 95% males.
But today female students are the majority in nearly all studies at university. The reason obviously is that 2 out of every 3 pupils in high school are female now. And even worse if you want equality between the sexes is the fact that boys now get much lower grades in average in Danish high schools compared with girls who get higher grades. So it seems that even is the most ambitious boys who now attempt to get a good life without getting an exam from our high schools.
In gaming it doesn't really matter for the society if we get equality between the sexes as it does in our education system. I know that females now games as much as males in average. But there are still differences between the preferred games for females and males even though those differences change too.
About preferred subjects -- girls and women used to be steered away from STEM programs. My mom ran into that -- she wanted to go into physics, and her adviser put her in classes that he knew she would fail so she ended up dropping that dream thinking she just wasn't smart enough (she ended up with a PhD in econ so her intelligence probably wasn't the issue). Things are not like that any more (thank goodness), but there are still pressures on girls to go into more liberal arts type studies and boys are more strongly encouraged to go into STEM programs in many areas.
I think we have an equal amount of male and female gamers, it's sort of a stereotype that females don't game as much as males.
It depends on the type of game, The Sims have a pretty equal gender gender ratio, games like Call of Duty have more male players and games such as WoW (Mila Kunis anyone?) have some more female players. I've never touched WoW, I've seen how addicting it is.
I'm looking for Denmark education gender ratios, and the only thing I could find is Unicef which shows more female than male students at the secondary level, but not nearly at the 2/3 to 1/3 ratio. But it's from 2009, so a lot could have changed since then. Sometimes our perception of things does not tell a complete picture, which is why a common saying is "the plural of anecdote is not data."
My sources are in Danish language. The article on http://gymnasieskolen.dk/gymnasiet-taber-drengene says 60% girls and discusses the problem in more details. (Maybe you can attempt a google translation.) But the article is from 2011 and the problem becomes worse all the time.
Still we should mainly discuss differences in relation to gaming and TS4 though. Otherwise we should probably go private or switch to the offtopic forum
I agree that the market was recovering from the mishaps of the 90's when the Sims debuted.
I know that the reason all the hoopla was made about The Sims and its success was made because EA had captured the magical unicorn, getting a majority of women to support a video game title. It was absolutely unheard of at that time, for a mainstream game to have a fan base whose majority was female. I really wish I'd saved those articles now.
No, males were never majority in the beginning. Its killing me that I can't find the articles I read back in 2001-2004, I remember it so well because I was still in college getting my degree (and doing case studies for my classes) when I read them.
Everyone was shocked that the demographic majority was in favor of women from the beginning, because up until that point, aming was a male arena. The Sims really opened the eyes of devs, publishers, marketers, to the fact that women do in fact enjoy games, and will buy them. The current shift means that more males have entered into The Sims core demographic, not the other way around.
That's what makes the number of women and its historic majority surprising. Will Wright didn't design the game as a female game. It was a very welcome surprise that women embraced the game so well. That passion for the game from women is what launched the game into the best selling franchise of all time. Acknowledging that doesn't mean that it's girl game or that men don't play. It's just a happy fact in the history of the series.
Sims actually, at least on gaming boards, has always been considered a game for everyone. One of my favorite threads on a "hard core" board was people making Sims of their favorite videogame characters. I first asked about the Sims on a "hard core" gaming board and every guy there played, and all had strong opinions about Sims 2 and Sims 3 (and their preferences were STRONG).
I think it's the devs who misunderstood the market and thought it was a game that appealed primarily to girls.
I edited my message, but I'll repeat the edit here (in essence). As more and more women enter the gaming world, it doesn't make sense that their proportion of sim games would shrink, so if the numbers are 50/50 now, it's more likely that males have always been the majority of Sims players and females are a growing segment (from 20% to 50% just going from articles quoted here).
Even a 20% (that is the only figure backed up here, so that's the one I'm going with) would have been shocking in 2000. That's a lot of women gamers, far more than anyone thought would be interested in gamings due to the game devs screw ups of misunderstanding the market in the 1990s (I can get into that if no one knows what I'm talking about).
I wish you had those articles as well. The best I can find is Humble saying that the majority of their audience was teen girls, but I have a strong suspicion that he was going on his beliefs about the game instead of actual data, for the reasons I already stated -- the believed 50/50 male to female gamer ratio of Sims 3. Females are the growing market segment, not males, by a large amount. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if Sims followed the trend of women gamers -- no clue what our numbers were in 2000, though.
Edit: But again, even 20% women gamers in 2000 would have been huge and considered the magic unicorn.
I have been playing video games since the late 80's. I do not believe that female gamers is new even in 2000. I think that people may have started looking at demographics a certain time.
Oh, I've been playing videogames since before you Female gamers have always been a thing, but the devs have until recently been the good ol' boy network. In the 1990s, they decided to try to start making games aimed at girls, but went with what guys thought girls would like and slapped a coat of pink onto perfectly dreadful games, and then came to the conclusion that girls don't like video games. When I played MMOs, I was surprised (once vent became a thing) how many of the MMO players actually were female. Actually, that may have been what clued game developers in that women are a market.
Developers like Bioware are amazing in that they actually reach out in their stories to audiences other than straight males, and while that caused them a lot of backlash among parts that audience for their being content they wouldn't ever use (their forums at times in the past were a complete mess because of this), it earned them the loyalty of other parts of their audience which turns out is large enough that paid off for them. I even forgave them Dragon Age 2 for that reason
When I see numbers tossed around about what proportion of the sims gamers are what gender, I have to wonder how they're collecting that information. I have a feeling the methods are pretty flawed, in truth, especially since they all seem to have a different idea of what that number is.
In the 1980s almost all gamers were boys. At that time girls discussed why their boring boyfriends used so much time on something so boring as computers. But since then things have graduately changed. Most games have still most males among their fans. But even shooters, war games and sports games are now also more and more played by girls.
Maybe in your country but not here in USA in the 80's. I know girls that gamed including myself. We sill game
I agree that the market was recovering from the mishaps of the 90's when the Sims debuted.
I know that the reason all the hoopla was made about The Sims and its success was made because EA had captured the magical unicorn, getting a majority of women to support a video game title. It was absolutely unheard of at that time, for a mainstream game to have a fan base whose majority was female. I really wish I'd saved those articles now.
No, males were never majority in the beginning. Its killing me that I can't find the articles I read back in 2001-2004, I remember it so well because I was still in college getting my degree (and doing case studies for my classes) when I read them.
Everyone was shocked that the demographic majority was in favor of women from the beginning, because up until that point, aming was a male arena. The Sims really opened the eyes of devs, publishers, marketers, to the fact that women do in fact enjoy games, and will buy them. The current shift means that more males have entered into The Sims core demographic, not the other way around.
That's what makes the number of women and its historic majority surprising. Will Wright didn't design the game as a female game. It was a very welcome surprise that women embraced the game so well. That passion for the game from women is what launched the game into the best selling franchise of all time. Acknowledging that doesn't mean that it's girl game or that men don't play. It's just a happy fact in the history of the series.
Sims actually, at least on gaming boards, has always been considered a game for everyone. One of my favorite threads on a "hard core" board was people making Sims of their favorite videogame characters. I first asked about the Sims on a "hard core" gaming board and every guy there played, and all had strong opinions about Sims 2 and Sims 3 (and their preferences were STRONG).
I think it's the devs who misunderstood the market and thought it was a game that appealed primarily to girls.
I edited my message, but I'll repeat the edit here (in essence). As more and more women enter the gaming world, it doesn't make sense that their proportion of sim games would shrink, so if the numbers are 50/50 now, it's more likely that males have always been the majority of Sims players and females are a growing segment (from 20% to 50% just going from articles quoted here).
Even a 20% (that is the only figure backed up here, so that's the one I'm going with) would have been shocking in 2000. That's a lot of women gamers, far more than anyone thought would be interested in gamings due to the game devs screw ups of misunderstanding the market in the 1990s (I can get into that if no one knows what I'm talking about).
I wish you had those articles as well. The best I can find is Humble saying that the majority of their audience was teen girls, but I have a strong suspicion that he was going on his beliefs about the game instead of actual data, for the reasons I already stated -- the believed 50/50 male to female gamer ratio of Sims 3. Females are the growing market segment, not males, by a large amount. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if Sims followed the trend of women gamers -- no clue what our numbers were in 2000, though.
Edit: But again, even 20% women gamers in 2000 would have been huge and considered the magic unicorn.
I have been playing video games since the late 80's. I do not believe that female gamers is new even in 2000. I think that people may have started looking at demographics a certain time.
Oh, I've been playing videogames since before you Female gamers have always been a thing, but the devs have until recently been the good ol' boy network. In the 1990s, they decided to try to start making games aimed at girls, but went with what guys thought girls would like and slapped a coat of pink onto perfectly dreadful games, and then came to the conclusion that girls don't like video games. When I played MMOs, I was surprised (once vent became a thing) how many of the MMO players actually were female. Actually, that may have been what clued game developers in that women are a market.
Developers like Bioware are amazing in that they actually reach out in their stories to audiences other than straight males, and while that caused them a lot of backlash among parts that audience for their being content they wouldn't ever use (their forums at times in the past were a complete mess because of this), it earned them the loyalty of other parts of their audience which turns out is large enough that paid off for them. I even forgave them Dragon Age 2 for that reason
When I see numbers tossed around about what proportion of the sims gamers are what gender, I have to wonder how they're collecting that information. I have a feeling the methods are pretty flawed, in truth, especially since they all seem to have a different idea of what that number is.
In the 1980s almost all gamers were boys. At that time girls discussed why their boring boyfriends used so much time on something so boring as computers. But since then things have graduately changed. Most games have still most males among their fans. But even shooters, war games and sports games are now also more and more played by girls.
Maybe in your country but not here in USA in the 80's. I know girls that gamed including myself. We sill game
Agreed.
My mother bought an Atari with a months worth of wages she loved gaming so much. I inherited it and grew up gaming-including playing early flight simulators when I was ten! Hardly 'girly' computer games, they were hard work!
About preferred subjects -- girls and women used to be steered away from STEM programs. My mom ran into that -- she wanted to go into physics, and her adviser put her in classes that he knew she would fail so she ended up dropping that dream thinking she just wasn't smart enough (she ended up with a PhD in econ so her intelligence probably wasn't the issue). Things are not like that any more (thank goodness), but there are still pressures on girls to go into more liberal arts type studies and boys are more strongly encouraged to go into STEM programs in many areas.
This is generally still the case. And mostly because companies still genderize toys and games. And toys and games are important for children to learn, but since the cool toys are in the "boy" aisles, girls lack basic mechanics and problem solving skills that they need to become interested in it in the future when they have career choices.
And bringing it back to this topic, I'd take offense if someone said they were dumbing it down to appeal to a certain gender. Most people that play games do so for the complexity and problem solving involved. That's what makes them fun in the first place. And The Sims used to have complexity, but it also added creativity and manipulation to the game. It was a "build your own game" game.
About preferred subjects -- girls and women used to be steered away from STEM programs. My mom ran into that -- she wanted to go into physics, and her adviser put her in classes that he knew she would fail so she ended up dropping that dream thinking she just wasn't smart enough (she ended up with a PhD in econ so her intelligence probably wasn't the issue). Things are not like that any more (thank goodness), but there are still pressures on girls to go into more liberal arts type studies and boys are more strongly encouraged to go into STEM programs in many areas.
This is generally still the case. And mostly because companies still genderize toys and games. And toys and games are important for children to learn, but since the cool toys are in the "boy" aisles, girls lack basic mechanics and problem solving skills that they need to become interested in it in the future when they have career choices.
And bringing it back to this topic, I'd take offense if someone said they were dumbing it down to appeal to a certain gender. Most people that play games do so for the complexity and problem solving involved. That's what makes them fun in the first place. And The Sims used to have complexity, but it also added creativity and manipulation to the game. It was a "build your own game" game.
*Applauds* I think it speaks very poorly of the opinion of teens if they think dumbing down is the way to appeal to teenagers.
About preferred subjects -- girls and women used to be steered away from STEM programs. My mom ran into that -- she wanted to go into physics, and her adviser put her in classes that he knew she would fail so she ended up dropping that dream thinking she just wasn't smart enough (she ended up with a PhD in econ so her intelligence probably wasn't the issue). Things are not like that any more (thank goodness), but there are still pressures on girls to go into more liberal arts type studies and boys are more strongly encouraged to go into STEM programs in many areas.
This is generally still the case. And mostly because companies still genderize toys and games. And toys and games are important for children to learn, but since the cool toys are in the "boy" aisles, girls lack basic mechanics and problem solving skills that they need to become interested in it in the future when they have career choices.
And bringing it back to this topic, I'd take offense if someone said they were dumbing it down to appeal to a certain gender. Most people that play games do so for the complexity and problem solving involved. That's what makes them fun in the first place. And The Sims used to have complexity, but it also added creativity and manipulation to the game. It was a "build your own game" game.
*Applauds* I think it speaks very poorly of the opinion of teens if they think dumbing down is the way to appeal to teenagers.
Comments
This. Absolutely!
When they were promoting the game before release, I really felt like they were quite condescending toward anyone who complained. In reality, all they produced was an empty shell of a game and it is almost worthless to anyone whose play style was abandoned. We can't conjure it up in our heads, though I'm sure that's what they thought we would do while we waited for them to sell it back to us in bits and pieces.
And while I'm on the subject and infuriated now, how dare they be so callous toward any of features we hold dear! It's not like this is the first sequel and they just got it wrong, no...they've had 14 years worth of data on what we like and why we play. Maybe if they stop giving surveys to the kids and let the majority of the fandom take them, they'd get some actual useful information out of it. After all this time, they still act like they don't get it. It's really not that hard to get. Animations are important. We like seeing everything our Sims are doing. We want representations of all the stages of life that a human goes through. We want different interactions based on who your Sims are with, be it family, friends, or strangers. We want for their personalities to actually mean something. We want reactions to things based on their personalities. Dare I say it...we might actually want a simulation game?
Hey there. It's a scene I composed in a 3D posing program.
I agree, and especially love the quote I bolded. I am tempted to add that to my signature! That is spot on! I would add that they also need to allow for lots of creative tools and flexibility in the game's design. It needs to be a sandbox game with choices for the players!
And really, I think most of the game's long-time fans of all genders would agree with these points. I know there were many problems with this version of the game, starting with EA and their marketing department dictating that it be online and social then backtracking on that, but I also believe that they thought they were clever and figured out the "essence" of the game. This made them think they could just eliminate everything else but this 'core' and people would love the game. They were wrong. I also think they were genuinely surprised when it turned out to not be true, and some have been very defensive as a result - which just makes things worse.
On the bright side, if you could call it a bright side, they will now be able to give presentations at professional conferences on the topic; "How to destroy your relationship and credibility with your fans".
Where are we going, and why am I in this hand basket?!
Oh, I've been playing videogames since before you
Developers like Bioware are amazing in that they actually reach out in their stories to audiences other than straight males, and while that caused them a lot of backlash among parts that audience for their being content they wouldn't ever use (their forums at times in the past were a complete mess because of this), it earned them the loyalty of other parts of their audience which turns out is large enough that paid off for them. I even forgave them Dragon Age 2 for that reason
When I see numbers tossed around about what proportion of the sims gamers are what gender, I have to wonder how they're collecting that information. I have a feeling the methods are pretty flawed, in truth, especially since they all seem to have a different idea of what that number is.
For the Sims games I believe that things have changed the other way around because I believe that TS1 was almost exclusively played by girls. But now there are not nearly the same difference between the number of male and female simmers.
In another area things have changed even more even though I don't know if those changes have any relations to the changes in gaming. But in Danish high school most pupils in the 1960s and 1970s were boys and probably only every third pupil were a girl. But today 2 out of every 3 pupils in Danish high schools are girls and the boys in high schools are just fewer and fewer. Is this also something that happens in other countries than Denmark?
It would be hard for me to believe that the Sims started out with a majority female player base given the fact that, back then, the gamer population was heavily skewed towards males. I don't think the Sims 1 could have been regarded as such a mega hit with an above 50% female ratio, there just weren't enough female gamers back then.
I also don't think the Sims was ever made as a "girls" game. My friends and I, all male, liked the Sims because of its originality and later on, the freedom to be creative and set up situations. There were so many things you could do in Sims 2, like make a dog fighting arena and charge people to come watch, the losing dog is killed on the spot. Unfortunately a lot of the options were removed with Sims 3, but at least we had open world which made up for what was lost and more. The Sims was one of the first sandbox type games that gave the player control over the world in a big way, this was revolutionary and attracted a lot of people. I can't emphasize how revolutionary Sims 1 was with no goals and no way to win or lose, along with the ability to change the game world and alter the environment.
It's incredibly insulting for people to insinuate that Maxis made Sims 4 to appeal to more males. A watered down game that removes many of the sandbox features and creative options doesn't appeal to me or any male gamers I know. If anything, the gaming industry is moving towards more sandbox and open world. Look at the success of The Witcher 3 which is open world. Fallout 4 is sure to be a hit because of its open world and sandbox modability.
But to make those things work took too many resources and too much time. Therefore other things had to be omitted or simplified. But those things weren't seen as important for EA's advertising anyway.
The plan was to release some of the missing things and other things in free updates to keep people interested in the game. But the budget for making free stuff was of course limited. But by introducing the new GPs too it became possible to release new things every month so people hopefully wouldn't lose interest in the game. I believe that was EA's plan all the time - and probably even before the basegame was released.
The frustrating thing is that EA never announces new content before necessary because EA believe that curiousity is the best way to keep us interested in the game. So we can ask questions about future stuff as much as we want. But we won't get any answers anyway. We can only wait to see what will happen.
Maybe in your country but not here in USA in the 80's. I know girls that gamed including myself. We sill game
I was a gamer in the 80s...I played all my Atari games everyday. I saved up my allowance to by or rent new Atari games every week. I've been gaming since I could hold a controller and my parents could afford a computer.
I think it is belittling to negate female gamers. Just because games weren't aimed at us doesn't mean we weren't playing. It's not my fault society thinks I only like pink sparkly things. If they bothered to ask, I'm sure they would see women are just as diverse in what they like as men.
#NotAPrincess
I was a gamer in the 80s...I played all my Atari games everyday. I saved up my allowance to by or rent new Atari games every week. I've been gaming since I could hold a controller and my parents could afford a computer.
I think it is belittling to negate female gamers. Just because games weren't aimed at us doesn't mean we weren't playing. It's not my fault society thinks I only like pink sparkly things. If they bothered to ask, I'm sure they would see women are just as diverse in what they like as men.
#NotAPrincess
Agree, Me too and no Princess here either. I don't like pink . Way too girly for me
In the 1980s, devs were stunned that girls liked Mario, which is what started the pink paint coats on crappy games, which lead them to the belief that girls weren't interested in video games rather than that girls, like boys, weren't interested in crappy video games. As a girl gamer back then, I knew plenty of other girl gamers. And yes, girls complained when their boyfriends played videogames too often rather than hang out with them, which is STILL a complaint in truth.
Edit: In the US, I believe there is a trend for more women to complete their college education than men, but I don't think it's a huge difference.
The Cowboy and the Mermaid
When I studied on university French was the most popular study for girls with about 90% girls and only 10% boys. In general girls preferred to study languages (with French as the most popular) while boys preferred economics, law or science. Those studies (and medicin too had more male students than female students. Physics was the most male dominant study with between 90% and 95% males.
But today female students are the majority in nearly all studies at university. The reason obviously is that 2 out of every 3 pupils in high school are female now. And even worse if you want equality between the sexes is the fact that boys now get much lower grades in average in Danish high schools compared with girls who get higher grades. So it seems that even is the most ambitious boys who now attempt to get a good life without getting an exam from our high schools.
In gaming it doesn't really matter for the society if we get equality between the sexes as it does in our education system. I know that females now games as much as males in average. But there are still differences between the preferred games for females and males even though those differences change too.
It depends on the type of game, The Sims have a pretty equal gender gender ratio, games like Call of Duty have more male players and games such as WoW (Mila Kunis anyone?) have some more female players. I've never touched WoW, I've seen how addicting it is.
Still we should mainly discuss differences in relation to gaming and TS4 though. Otherwise we should probably go private or switch to the offtopic forum
Agreed.
My mother bought an Atari with a months worth of wages she loved gaming so much. I inherited it and grew up gaming-including playing early flight simulators when I was ten! Hardly 'girly' computer games, they were hard work!
https://twitter.com/sparkfairy1
This is generally still the case. And mostly because companies still genderize toys and games. And toys and games are important for children to learn, but since the cool toys are in the "boy" aisles, girls lack basic mechanics and problem solving skills that they need to become interested in it in the future when they have career choices.
And bringing it back to this topic, I'd take offense if someone said they were dumbing it down to appeal to a certain gender. Most people that play games do so for the complexity and problem solving involved. That's what makes them fun in the first place. And The Sims used to have complexity, but it also added creativity and manipulation to the game. It was a "build your own game" game.
*Applauds* I think it speaks very poorly of the opinion of teens if they think dumbing down is the way to appeal to teenagers.
https://twitter.com/sparkfairy1
Preach! I totally agree.