The article at Girl">http://games.slashdot.org/story/09/12/23/2228258/Girl-Gamers-More-Hardco... Gamers More Hardcore Than Guys says:
Quote:Scientific American reports on a study published this month in the Journal of Communication, which found that women who engage in a role-playing game online actually commit more time on average than the male players do. The authors surveyed 7,000 players logged in to EverQuest II (PDF), and found that the average age of the gamers surveyed was 31, and that playing time tended to increase with age. Interestingly, however, the female gamers not only tended to log more time online (29 hours per week versus 25 for the males), but were also more likely to lie about how much they really play.
This helps to dispel the stereotype of video gaming being primarily a male pursuit. For the women, 29 hours per week is close to the time spent in most full-time jobs! Since this is just an average, it means that many women spend much more time than that playing. IMHO, I believe that it is likely the social aspects that generally appeal to these women the most, and they lie about how much they play partially because it is not considered acceptable for women to be playing games so much.
- John O.
[em]Carpe Diem![/em] (Seize the Day!)
To be honest, that article doesn't surprise me one bit. In my experience when I played, girls tended to fall at the extremes of the gaming spectrum: either extremely casual players or extremely hardcore/addicted players.
When temptation brings me to my knees, And I lay here drained of strength
Show me kindness, Show me beauty, Show me truth
(Dream Theater - Learning To Live, 1992)
WoW-free since July 11, 2008.
A friend of mine mentioned this article to me last night. I questioned how we knew that women lied more frequently than men about how much they gamed. I guess all we really know is that women report lying more often about how much they game - it could just be that men are lying to the interviewers, too ;)
lisefrac, since I don't believe that the survey was anonymous, they can just simply compare how many hours that the user claims to play to the actual hours that are logged. That is likely how they came to the conclusion about the relative amounts of lying.
- John O.
[em]Carpe Diem![/em] (Seize the Day!)
Interesting article--I too also found gaming ladies at the extremes, sheesh even the moms and grannies that I knew!
I too thought it was interesting the report that "women are more likely to lie about time spent gaming". Until we know more about the method on that one--I also have questions about it as it sounds frankly quite sexist.
Cheers, Desire to Stop
ALL quoted text (unless otherwise stated) comes from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous (with wording sometimes changed only to make it more relevant for gaming addiction). I will include page numbers.
Hoping & praying for a measure of recovery for all of us today.
But, at least in WoW, women were far rarer to find than men. Maybe one in 10 or 20 would admit to being female...course you never can tell who was what in real life. I can't count how many times I got called fag for acting like a woman because most gamers assumed you were a man playing a woman char or, if you acted like a woman playing a male char. They automatically called me, "dude" and "man", too.
I usually played female avatars, and laughed at the young guys sending me tell messages to say how sexy my Blood Elf was. It's hilarious... "I'm a dude IRL."
The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions.
-Alfred Lord Tennyson
____________________________________
The person i helped form the guild i was in was a female playing a male part,for the longest time i did not know.Then finally she told me she was, after much apprehension.It did not bother me one bit as she was relieved to find out.Fast forward 2 years and a couple months, and the fact i had to leave the guild for 3 weeks because of pc problems then came back.It was all different, she had blew the group up into a full raiding guild.well along with that i could not find her right away,because she had changed her character to a female One, because the new guys in the guild made fun of her voice on vent. Saying she sounded like a little boy instead of a girl.Anyways to make this story shorter,i thought that was sad that she let those people influence her in that way,trying to please them or whatnot.well in any case that was part of my reasons along with the time consumption, and everything people have posted on here for there quitting.I thought back to what my mom use to tell us kids, if you cant be yourself around other people in rl or the virtual one in this case,then its not worth hanging around them in the first place.Sorry if i rantted on,but i have strong feelings about those kinds of issues,especially those people who say they can be themselves ingame,because they are not judged on how they look in rl,but in my experences playing they wore false facades ingame to please the others online.
"It's all in your mind...Whatever you hold in your mind will tend to occur in your life.If you continue to believe as you have always believed,you will continue to act as you have always acted.If you continue to act as you have always acted,you will continue to get what you have always gotten.If you want different results in your life or your work,all you have to do is change your mind." Anonymous...
That's part of the allure for some addicted gamers, isn't it? To be what you want to be: male, female, younger, older, braver, wittier, cruder, funnier, sassier, ruder, sweeter, etc. etc. etc., than you are IRL. No one ever has to know "the real you." You can hide it from everyone. Especially yourself.
So true and sad,but i have learned a couple of things threw my experiences of my addiction to the game ,and reading the posts on here, which has been opening my eyes up more, and more each day.I would much rather be my real self,with all my flaws ,shortcommings,and personality quirks living in the real world,then to be an elite character in a false world with false surroundings,and friends you have based on your characters performance, as im sure alot of others on here do to.Its funny to me in a way,kinda reminds me of the wizard of oz, when all the characters finally go to meet the great wizzard and the curtain gets pulled back only to reveal a normal man behind it.The illusion is blown, just like it was for me in the game.I can only hope that more people will see whats behind there own oz curtain.Ty everyone on this site and stay strong.
"It's all in your mind...Whatever you hold in your mind will tend to occur in your life.If you continue to believe as you have always believed,you will continue to act as you have always acted.If you continue to act as you have always acted,you will continue to get what you have always gotten.If you want different results in your life or your work,all you have to do is change your mind." Anonymous...
Well said, fly by night. Ditto. :)