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

[Shumpitostick]

We have both female and male gamers for all our game series and the number of female gamers are increasing on a daily basis.
Our latest games - Europa Universalis IV and Crusader Kings II - tend to have more female gamers than we previously had and it might be as simple as the fact that the games weren't as well known before.

A lot of men and women that have discovered our games through EU4 & CK2 might have played other strategy games before finding grand strategy.
However we can see that both men and women that discovered those games becomes interested in our earlier game series such as Hearts of Iron III and Victoria II.
regina

You mention a certain reason for the male demographic has been missed here. Males tend to get into less popular things more than females. Males are more common in underground music, cult film, or just unpopular game, film, and music fanbases. Maybe it is because of the higher sociality of women. They tend to get into things recommended by their friends than search on their own (you can see most women mentioned here are girlfriends/wives of players)
I must mention this is only my impression and if someone can prove/disprove this with statistics it would be great.

About the "It's how society wants them to be" vs. "It's biological differences" argument here. This question is a classic nature vs. nurture argument. I believe that like most things in a man/woman's character it is a combination of both. The natural tendency of women towards things has been turned into a social dogma, to the point some women are afraid to go against it.

Also, about the difference between believing women are different than men and just being a stupid sexist: saying "women tend to be more x than men" is okay, saying "all women are x" is not. The difference is in tolerating difference. That means if a girl is not into normal girl things she shouldn't be looked upon as weird and as an exception

 

[Saint Gwynllyw]

My two cents,

The older I have got, the more I like more challenging strategy games. Also I care less for the fancy GFX.
Growing up I loved the first COD, GTA 3/Vice City, BF1942 etc. I imagine female gamers stop playing games sooner than male gamers and don't drift into grand strategy as I believe (my assumption) we are the oldest average gaming demographic. My wife thought Crusader kings was some sort of history educational tool at first and didn't even think I was playing a game. "so you basically just sit there clicking between fast and slow and pause?"

Grand strategy, no offence, is quite hardcore and definitely not mainstream. You drift in slowly from Age of Empires, to Total War, to Civilisation or at least that's what happened to me. I find the more I understand game mechanics, the less I enjoy it as I want to be in a state of constant learning.

Whilst I imagine there are a fair amount of female AOE players I bet the numbers dwindle through each tier of strategy game.

 

[Soph]

I actually managed to sell Crusader Kings 2 to a few female friends of mine arguing it's a medieval simulator of a standard soap opera where you pick a character and try to control your fief with all the struggle for power, money, piety and lust involved.

Far too bad the game is just not catered well enough to play with female rulers, in a lot of events you're being called a "he". There's event chains where you get pregnant, get a child and then accuse your husband of making this child with his lover. (Come on I was pregnant...). There's a plethora of other hilarious encounters I had playing female rulers, while making the game a tad little more difficult to boot. The females I told to play the game played it, but they did come up with a lot of these sync issues in events which were only catered to male individuals.

Oh, and as a tribal female ruler of a powerful tribe, let me be able to make my male slaves into concubines, after waging war on neighboring kingdoms, you bet my queen wants to have relaxation time with her concubines. But I digress, game is not optimized for female rulers, making it harder for females to identify the game being catered to them as well. This is all just about crusader kings though, for EUIV I always had a harder time trying to get females to play the game, although a univ friend played a few games as Portugal with a random new world on my pc, she just loves to explore vast tracks of uncharted seas.

Now my own situation is fairly special, being a huge "geek" on several occasions while still having a big amount of female friends who are generally influenced fairly fast by my opinions, so these few females that played the game due my judgement about it are far and few in between. Seriously though, we should all try to get as many females to play these games as well to make them more playable for both genders, and not just catered to males only.

 

[Empress Matilda]

My two cents,

The older I have got, the more I like more challenging strategy games. Also I care less for the fancy GFX.
Growing up I loved the first COD, GTA 3/Vice City, BF1942 etc. I imagine female gamers stop playing games sooner than male gamers and don't drift into grand strategy as I believe (my assumption) we are the oldest average gaming demographic. My wife thought Crusader kings was some sort of history educational tool at first and didn't even think I was playing a game. "so you basically just sit there clicking between fast and slow and pause?"

Grand strategy, no offence, is quite hardcore and definitely not mainstream. You drift in slowly from Age of Empires, to Total War, to Civilisation or at least that's what happened to me. I find the more I understand game mechanics, the less I enjoy it as I want to be in a state of constant learning.

Whilst I imagine there are a fair amount of female AOE players I bet the numbers dwindle through each tier of strategy game.

I suspect Civ would have the most female gamers because its the least wargamey. There are alternative ways to win besides conquering the world. Although I'd played board wargames before Civ was the 1st computer strategy game I played.

 

[victimizer]

I think the nerdy type women who could find the time to play strategy games are mostly interested in fantasy and historical literature, and WoW, not games that Pdox produces unfortunately. This is at least from my experience.

I don't think the issue is differences between typical men and women. Most people don't play Pdox games at all. it's rather that nerdy women are somewhat different from nerdy men.

 

[drakeheath]

Most women I know of who play strategy games play Starcraft or X-Com, or other games that are more mainstream than PDX games.

Hardcore gamers are majority male, and even among hardcore gamers people who play PDX are a small number. PDX games are a niche in a niche, they're like the EVE Online of strategy games, which is why its mostly men, all things being equal, it's just how you cut the demographics chart.

Taking a shot in the dark, I'd imagine CK2 is the most popular with women, because it's kinda like Game of Thrones and a lot of women like Game of Thrones.

 

[Retrograde]

I think it's mostly because military history tends to focus on hyper-masculinity and the actual RARGH WAR GLORIOUS BATTLE bits, as well as overall sexism from the community tbh.

 

[FerdinandVeblen]

I've yet to meet a woman who had any real interest in history.

On the other hand, when I think of "popular history" writers, many of the names who come to mind quickly are women: Barbara Tuchman, Margaret MacMillan, Sarah Vowell...

 

[Will Steel]

I think females just simply aren't interested in WW2 and 1936-48 timeframe, which is where the OP took his demographic from.

I bet there are many more females who play CK2. I saw at least one writing a review on Steam store page.

 

[delra]

I love how a whole bunch of dudes in this thread presume to know what women want or like or are interested in, and with that expert knowledge of female psyche try to answer a question that can really only be answered by actual women.

Reminds me of my time at the uni, economics is really math + history (very similar to PDS games in many regards), two things women allegedly aren't interested in nor according to many (men) are actually capable of understanding. Half of students on my year were girls. Two of them were ahead of me at the finish line (totally deserved it too), most dudes I studied with (looking at the entire year so few hundred people) were bested by at least a couple dozen girls as far as the averages go. Go figure?

 

[Phibs]

I love how a whole bunch of dudes in this thread presume to know what women want or like or are interested in, and with that expert knowledge of female psyche try to answer a question that can really only be answered by actual women.

Reminds me of my time at the uni, economics is really math + history (very similar to PDS games in many regards), two things women allegedly aren't interested in nor according to many (men) are actually capable of understanding. Half of students on my year were girls. Two of them were ahead of me at the finish line (totally deserved it too), most dudes I studied with (looking at the entire year so few hundred people) were bested by at least a couple dozen girls as far as the averages go. Go figure?

I say you're talking out of your behind.

Because I disagree with your post? No.

But because I violently envy you your avatar.

GIB. :laugh:

 

[Spartanlemur]

I wonder if women post on book discussion boards wondering why there are so few men who read the same things that they do

Women just have generally different interests to men. That's not really a problem.

I mean what would be your reaction if women asked you to start reading the same books as them? You'd probably just be completely disinterested in surrendering quality Victoria 2 time to do that! And I expect the majority of women feel the same way about grand strategy.

There's no pressing need to change this (nor is there a need to keep it the same), but if more women decide to take up grand strategy, of course we can provide a warm welcome.

I say you're talking out of your behind.

Because I disagree with your post? No.

But because I violently envy you your avatar.

GIB. :laugh:

I envy both that, and his post count!

 

[Sarius1997]

I wonder if women post on book discussion boards wondering why there are so few men who read the same things that they do

Women just have generally different interests to men. That's not really a problem.

I mean what would be your reaction if women asked you to start reading the same books as them? You'd probably just be completely disinterested in surrendering quality Victoria 2 time to do that! And I expect the majority of women feel the same way about grand strategy.

There's no pressing need to change this (nor is there a need to keep it the same), but if more women decide to take up grand strategy, of course we can provide a warm welcome.

Depends on which books. I like enjoying some quality time with an good historical, sci-fi or fantasy book. (Or also know as: God damnit, the weekend is already over? XD)

 

[Secret Master]

I wonder if women post on book discussion boards wondering why there are so few men who read the same things that they do

Women just have generally different interests to men. That's not really a problem.

I mean what would be your reaction if women asked you to start reading the same books as them? You'd probably just be completely disinterested in surrendering quality Victoria 2 time to do that! And I expect the majority of women feel the same way about grand strategy.

Umm, I read things women recommend all the time. And written by women, too (thankfully, Helen Cooper is an easy read for the work I do).

Funny thing, it turns out that regardless of the body parts in question, I like to spend time with people who share my interests.

Rather than ruminate, "Why don't women like history/games/PDS/WWII?" you should probably ask, "Since women are human beings, and human beings are a class of objects that contain people who like history/games/PDS/WWII, where can I find/meet/hang out with the inevitable women who must have these same interests?"

Then go take a look at peer-reviewed articles in JSTOR and see how many women are doing real academic history work, even beyond this forum and its arm chair historians. You might be surprised.

 

[Pallidum]

I will just say one thing, and you may read into it as you wish.

As a woman who is a hardcore strategy gamer (among other things), there's a reason for why I don't feel comfortable posting in this thread.

 

[petertel123]

I've yet to meet a woman who had any real interest in history.

I don't know why this is, but there seems to be a general anti-intellectualism among women, with the arts being the only subject they appreciate. These are, of course, just tendencies; you can cherry-pick as many counterexamples as you want, but they don't override the trend.

I study history at university and classes are pretty equally divided between men and women, difference is that women are often far more interested in cultural history instead of political history

 

[fatherorbb]

I will just say one thing, and you may read into it as you wish.

As a woman who is a hardcore strategy gamer (among other things), there's a reason for why I don't feel comfortable posting in this thread.

Should this thread be closed? There's some terrible generalizations in it and I feel that it just invites people to post more.

 

[Empress Matilda]

Should this thread be closed? There's some terrible generalizations in it and I feel that it just invites people to post more.

Nah, people should just remember that generalisations and anecdotal evidence don't prove much of anything.

 

[fatherorbb]

Nah, people should just remember that generalisations and anecdotal evidence don't prove much of anything.

And still both of those things make up the meat of this thread.

 

[zharliette]

And still both of those things make up the meat of this thread.

But it isn't very disorderly. All bigotry and sexism is firmly within bounds of politeness and the thread hasn't derailed into namecalling.

Although, I think this particular discussion should find it's place here: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?784350-Where-in-the-World-is-Anita-Sarkeesian or in the OT generally, rather than on more "official" parts of the forums.