CGDC '97 Roundtable Report

Apparently this question was of tremendous interest to male as well as female gamers. I hosted three roundtables around this topic and each time the numbers grew. From 40 participants at 10 AM Sunday morning (who would have imagined?!) to 80 participants on Monday afternoon. As far as the gender mix it was 60/40 (females to males) in the first session, about 50/50 in the second session and 30/70 in the last. Discussion was extremely lively in all sessions and it wasn't easy to curtail the idea exchange after the hour was up. In the last session discussion continued, independent of structure, for another 15 minutes or more.

So what was "decided" re: What Female Game Players want from the industry? Apparently, it may not be games at all. Many female participants shared the fact that they don't play existing computer games because they seem like a major waste of time. (This was an across the board comment from the women who could not understand how men could spend dozens of hours on a game like Myst. Where do they get that much time to do nothing but play games?! One participant summed it up eloquently, when she said, "The last time I had 30 hours to spend I was in a hospital having a baby!"

It was also discovered that men and women have different definitions of what "fun" is. For what it's worth: Men seem to be more interested in racking up points and destroying life forms, women seem to get more pleasure out of social interaction. Women love email and chat. Is that a game? Not by traditional standards. Is it "fun"? Women think so!

Bottom line was that thinking and feeling women and men want more variety out of the entertainment software industry. Many men attested to the fact that they were bored with the same old seek and destroy type games. As for women, they've never liked them and they say they'd be interested in buying computer games of a different genre and playing them.... if they only had the time!