[casual_games] Casual games and gender paper

[Ulrich Tausend]

Hello!
Why are casual games so popular with women?
I wrote an article about "casual games and gender".
You can download it from my blog:
http://casual-game-studies.blogspot.com/

I will be in Amsterdam (6.-9.2.2007) for the Casuality Conference. If you
want to discuss about casual games and gender feel free to contact me:
ulrich at tausend.name
My phone will work in Amsterdam:
+49-179-2951979


Abstract:

This paper discusses the question: "Why do more women play casual games than
men, if altogether more men play computer games than women?"

Gender seems to have an impact upon the affinity towards different kinds of
games and upon how much effort a person is willing to invest while playing a
computer game. This is indicated by the different gender ratios of casual
and hardcore gamers. Many potential gamers do not identify themselves with
the stereotype of 'real' gamers, i.e., hardcore gamers, who are often seen
as being young, male and lacking social skills. This could be one of the
reasons why women and older people more frequently play the less 'real' or
'typical' casual games while often not seeing themselves as 'computer
gamers'.

However, there are indications that the primary factor for the preference
towards casual or hardcore games is, in fact, not gender. On the contrary,
gender (as well as age) could cloud the more important variables, such as
experience with computers or time allocation.
For a better picture of the relationship between the different variables we
would need more empirical data.

I would be very happy about comments or suggestions concerning the text or
my future research. I plan to do conduct a quantitative survey on casual and
hardcore game sites starting March or April 2007.

Ulrich Tausend

www.neodelight.com

Phone - Mobile: +49-179-2951979
Phone - Skype In: +1 (347) 223-5845
Fax: +49 (30) 69088434
Skype: uli1000
email: ut at neodelight.com

Neodelight/Neokolor GbR (Ulrich Tausend, Florian Metzger)
Feuerhausstr. 11a, 82256 Fürstenfeldbruck, Germany,
Vat id: DE215258828
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