How come mostly only guys play Paradox Games/grand strategy?

[Regina]

Aside from spying through our webcams (which is why I always dress well when playing Pdox games) how do you know?

Steam stats? If so: gib stats

Oh, you know about the spycams? Dammit.

To be honest - there are many different ways to see that - but it's all estimates and that is also why we don't have exact numbers.
But we can see that the number of female gamers are increasing through things like what gamers are on the forum, follows us and comments on social media, sales statistics and a bunch of others.

 

[Phibs]

Oh, you know about the spycams? Dammit.

I will spare you all the naughty jokes that are (t)rolling around in my head right now. But it ain't easy

 

[seeds24]

if we lived in a society where babies (boys or girls) were separated and educated on equal terms, without external influences, it would probably be 50/50.

Nope, not even close.

 

[klopkr]

Oh, you know about the spycams? Dammit.

To be honest - there are many different ways to see that - but it's all estimates and that is also why we don't have exact numbers.
But we can see that the number of female gamers are increasing through things like what gamers are on the forum, follows us and comments on social media, sales statistics and a bunch of others.

Does steam even give you statistics? If so what kind if information do you get?

 

[DunkFunk]

Does steam even give you statistics? If so what kind if information do you get?

names on credit cards and facebook.

 

[satyrlord]

Thank you Regina for your kind and considerate reply on such a touchy subject. Hopefully, once Paradox games start being more familiar to more people, the percentages will reach a normality of 50/50, as they should be.

 

[GoguRomania]

I am sure that my girlfriend would love PDS games! If I had one...

 

[Axe99]

Thank you Regina for your kind and considerate reply on such a touchy subject. Hopefully, once Paradox games start being more familiar to more people, the percentages will reach a normality of 50/50, as they should be.

What Satyrlord said .

 

[Secret Master]

Guess I should go tell my GF, and Secret Masters wife that they cannot play anymore Pdx games.

Don't tell her that. That will just make her angry. Do you know what happened the last time she got angry in a situation relating to a Paradox game? Philippe Capet's vassals (and their families) all ended up in prison and executed.

Seriously, she's a monster with those imprison and execute buttons when she's feels betrayed. Thank God I've never played against her when she's the Byzantines... :shudder:

 

[Okawoa]

Well, strategy games have never been really loved by women.

It's been speculated that men like these win-lose games because they are more competitive, whereas women like the more cooperative approach. Personally, I find this a bit nonsensical, as women can be incredibly competitive and combative. They also aren't averse to win-lose situations - at least where they think they can win.

My personal opinion is that the games favor reason, logic, and future modelling - and that the females of our species, whether through biology or social indoctrination (or both), are less adapted to such things. Take a look at female chess players. Even those who have dedicated thousands of hours to the game do quite poorly in comparison to their male counterparts. So, they usually shy away from them, as it's not where their strengths are.

looooooooooool
women are more organized then men, its just they've been playing with handicaps until the pill.

that said selling CK2 to women has been dificult. "Its like the sims: but you can murder your family in more ways then trapping them in the pool or operating the cooker in that zero doors garage"

 

[MaximumFailure]

In my personal experience, women just do not like strategy games. Or games in general.

Perhaps the fact that they tend to focus more on building social connections drives them away from hobbies that require some degree of isolation. I notice that most of the women I know, when playing games, tend to play games that are either multiplayer-focused games or games like the Sims.

That being said, there is almost certainly an element of cultural influence at work here. Women might be more open to strategy games if games were portrayed as being a hobby for people of all ages and genders, rather than a hobby of boys and young men (late teens to mid-twenties.) I know plenty of 30+ gamers, but the market seems to market exclusively for adolescent and early-mid twenties males, rather than females or people of an older age. In other media, games are seen as a childish thing, as the pastime of little boys. That's why they are always screaming about the saving the children. In reality, there are plenty of older people who play games. I have no doubt, despite my own experience, that there are also plenty of women who play video games. It's just that neither the marketing departments of major video game studios nor conventional media show such, leaving people to assume things that are untrue.

 

[Clophiroth]

I don't think that's really true. Once you push girls out of "this will make me a loser" mind sets we tend to be about just as into the games and just as good. I've seen this the most playing DnD and Catan since it's easier to remove the stigma if you do it as a group. The few girls I've convinced to play grand strategy ended up liking it a lot too and being pretty good.

Paradox games in particular are really bad for getting new gamers to really get into it. I'm sure we all remember those first few hours of our first pdox game where nothing made any sense and everything was frustratingly hard to figure out. I know I would have never gotten into pdox games if it wasn't for the fact that I watched a lets play and realised it does get a lot more fun later.

As the local, female Pen and Paper DM (mostly D20: Pathfinder and trying to get my group into 13th Age, but also Call of Cthulhu, Traveller, Legend of the five Rings (this one as player, not GM) and others), I can tell you that: I have found (in where I live: rural Spain, not a good example of the western world. Moved to a bigger city when I started college, though), that I have found other female players maybe a bit less interested in starting (easier to convince a guy to join the game), but, once they are in, the most loyal and interested in continue playing XD

Curiously, that was back in my town, when I came to the bigger city, with a relatively large nerd community, allmost all PnP-players that I found were male (two girls tough: one a competent, really good player... In a game group I dislike and left, and a disinterested "I´m only here because my boyfriend is" one). Never thought in that, but I guess that, as the gamer arena was just starting in my town, there were less stereotype about them, more "Hey, let´s prove that new thing!" than "I can´t join an stablished, mostly male group without being seen as an outsider".

Just food for thought from my personal, limited experiences.

ABout the first hours of my Paradox games: Bizantium, next, I think, Ming China. EUIII. No idea I was doing, just moving sliders, gaining inflation and losing wars. Get bored of the game after losing everytime, stopped playig, get back to Medieval II and Rome. Next year, I pick Victoria II, really like it, found it easier to get intro, loves the era (thanks to the game, I became a Victorian-era fan) and plays it a lot. Then, I decide to try back EUIII, found it easier than the first time, and ends liking the game a lot.

I think a lot of people have a first experience like the mine, to quit the game, but, sadly, just to never have a second experience, then, shelving the game forever.

 

[Empress Matilda]

I play grand strat
Started playing SPI and AH boardgames back in the 70s and been a gamer ever since
Generalising about groups of people is always dangerous. More men than women play play grand strat but its a pretty niche market even for men. Why not ask why so few men play grand strat if you believe men are geneticly programmed to like it?

 

[Secret Master]

I play grand strat
Started playing SPI and AH boardgames back in the 70s and been a gamer ever since

Yep, that's a niche alright.

99% of men don't play that stuff. They'd think you were some kind of weirdo for playing that stuff even if you are a man.

 

[Fintilgin]

My wife loved CK1, and recently has gotten into CKII in a big way. Looking at her Steam profile she's played about 87 hours in the last ~2 months.

She has no interest in any other Paradox games that I can tell. She likes the character/rpg driven nature of CK. I sold the original to her back in 2004 when we met as "The Sims.... with murder".

It's been interesting watching her learn to play. The things she picks up easily and the interface things she misses. She has a low frustration level for learning the UI and was not happy with the tutorial early on. In fact I think we found some spots where it might not have worked right. I think it wanted her to declare war on the Canaries or something(?) which were out of the diplomatic range for where she was. I'm pretty sure she would have given up on it if she hadn't had me there as an old Paradox hand to guide her through the rough beginning.

Watching her get started definitely made me feel Paradox needs to do more to make getting started easier. What exactly? I don't know! :rofl: One thing that struck me was that she missed lots of things that you needed to dig into or know about ahead of time to even know existed. Like raiding. It might be helpful to have a 'beginner mode' where the game will detect you haven't used a feature and occasionally pop up a "My Lord, I see you haven't gone raiding, would you like to learn how?" With raiding hyperlinking to an ingame glossary/manual or something. Less of a guided tutorial and more pointing the player to contextual 'mini-tutorials' that pop up naturally and organically as you play your first few games:

"Sultan, I see you only have one wife. Did you know you could (and should) marry more?"

"My Lady, Duke Larry is plotting against you. Did you know you could drop your spymaster on his capital to discourage plotting?"

"Lord, I see you are low on gold. Did you know you could borrow from the Jews?"

 

[Ceranai]

That's wrong on so many levels, I don't even know where to start. Girls do play video games and mostly they play the same games that boys play. I mean, sure. At certain age it's more likely that parents buy Sims to their daughters and GTA to sons, but as they grow up, these things equal out. There's absolutely no reason to say "girls don't play video games and if they do, it's what their male friends play". Please let's not forget that they are people capable of independent thought.

But I have two main theories as to why guys are (seemingly) more likely to play grand strat.

1. You just assume that most of the people here are guys, because there isn't much to indicate sex in most usernames.
2. Girls don't want to participate in the forums for obvious reasons (see: gamergate).

Of course, there is some truth to the fact that generally, girls are not expected to like such things and are somewhat discouraged from it, but I think if we take the younger generations, ie people in their 20s or younger, this isn't very much the case anymore.

You are making just as many assumptions with even less data, at least OP referenced a 98% male viewing stat. I'm not saying that I think 98% is entirely accurate but just from personal experience I've only ever known on girl gamer and she used to play LoL. Men are the more aggressive gender, we tend to be more dominant so it doesn't seem like a stretch to me that men are more interested in games that center around world domination. I mean I live with 2 girls and one other guy, he plays Wow, they watch things like one tree hill, made in Chelsea etc.

Saying women are people capable of independent thought is all well and good but you don't consider that that independent thought might be different to what men think about.

 

[Sarius1997]

You are making just as many assumptions with even less data, at least OP referenced a 98% male viewing stat. I'm not saying that I think 98% is entirely accurate but just from personal experience I've only ever known on girl gamer and she used to play LoL. Men are the more aggressive gender, we tend to be more dominant so it doesn't seem like a stretch to me that men are more interested in games that center around world domination. I mean I live with 2 girls and one other guy, he plays Wow, they watch things like one tree hill, made in Chelsea etc.

Saying women are people capable of independent thought is all well and good but you don't consider that that independent thought might be different to what men think about.

If you think Men are the less aggresive gender, you should listen to my LoL ranked team play. XD

 

[klopkr]

After looking at the recent pdox ads I can't help but think they really cater to the young male demographic. If ck2 had some ads running or some kind of promotion featuring women and reinforcing its RPG elements I wouldn't be surprised if more women picked up the game.

Still the major problem with pdox games is that unless you really really want to play them it's extremely hard to get into because the tutorials tend to suck and be out of date and everything is confusing for the first several hours of gameplay.

 

[Jamey]

I wouldn't make generalizations about gender from forums. You don't know much about people other than what they choose to reveal.

Many of the female gamers I know don't broadcast their gender because some guys get weird about it.

I know a lot of female gamers who play games which are stereotypically male games. One college friend has played Paradox and other strategy games with his wife. One female friend in my MMO guild beat all of us guys at Halo death match pretty consistently at a guild convention. My girlfriend likes co-op action games like Dynasty Warriors on the Xbox.

I could go on with examples, but that would get tedious. Point is, the women I know play good games. Sure, I know more male gamers than female, but that is changing over time.

 

[GarfunkeL]

You are making just as many assumptions with even less data, at least OP referenced a 98% male viewing stat. I'm not saying that I think 98% is entirely accurate but just from personal experience I've only ever known on girl gamer and she used to play LoL. Men are the more aggressive gender, we tend to be more dominant so it doesn't seem like a stretch to me that men are more interested in games that center around world domination. I mean I live with 2 girls and one other guy, he plays Wow, they watch things like one tree hill, made in Chelsea etc.

Saying women are people capable of independent thought is all well and good but you don't consider that that independent thought might be different to what men think about.

You attack zharliette for making assumptions and immediately proceed with making your own, based on your housemates.

Nice logic mate. Also, take a course or two in Sociology.