Do men like video games more than women?

Traditional video games have always attracted more male players than female, but why? Tune in as Molly and Cristen discuss possible reasons for this trend -- and what's changing it -- in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to steph Mom never told you?
From housetop works dot com. Hey, welcome to the podcast.
This is Molly and I'm Kristen. Kristen. Today, I want

(00:20):
to read you a listener email listen mail first, and
it's we are doing a change it because this email
inspired the podcast today. All right, it is from our
listener Nora Nora, who wrote, my husband grew up on
video games, and even now, at age thirty one, can
waste an entire weekend with his pretend civilization. I cannot
stand video games. My dad believe they'd rot brains, so

(00:42):
we did not have Nintendo. I can amuse myself for
a little time with Tetris or Mario Kart, but I
just don't understand game role playing games like the Sims
that don't really have any way to win and take
hundreds of hours. Nora writes, Although I know a few
women who like video games the extent my husband does,
I think many are like me. Do men like video
games more than women? Interesting question, Noura, That shall be

(01:04):
our question for the day. Molly, did you did you
grow up with video games? Yes, I had a Nintendo,
but I also had two younger brothers, so I don't
know if I would have gotten into them without that
sort of that going on in the house. I had
a game Boy that I was pretty proud of, but
I only had about three games, one of which was Tetris.
Who I do like some Tetris, which was awesome. Yeah,

(01:24):
I can. I can spend some time on Tetris. And
in college I did go through a brief Mario Kart
phase Marikart and some ill fated dance dance Revolution. Uh. Yeah,
you don't want tontil I see more ancdotes about that.
I mean, let's just say I kinda I have about
the two left feet, so I don't get I don't
last too long a dance since Revolution, but it's fun.

(01:46):
I try. I do think there's a conception that girls
don't like video games as much. You know, like you said,
in college, you went through phases, but my college experience
was walking down the halls and just hearing those guys
playing very loud shooting games with the Halo right, Molly,
And in addition to my Maria Carte phase in college,
I did also spend many unfortunate hours sitting on couches

(02:06):
and watching guys playing Halo when you'd rather just go
out and get a pizza. Yeah, do something else, Do
something else. So let's let's answer this question. Let's see
if we can answer Nora's question of whether men in
fact do like video games more than women. Our research
first led us to a study by Stanford University School
of Medicine which hooked up eleven men and eleven women

(02:29):
to f M r I machines and scanned their brains
while they played video games. And what the researchers found
was that the meso quarter colymbics center, which is the
reason region of the brain that is typically associated with
reward and addiction, which will be which is key to this,
is more activated, was more activated when the men were

(02:50):
playing the video game than the women. And they also
found that three certain brain structures, the nucleus cucumbents, the amygdala,
and the orbitofrontal quarte, influenced each other more in the men,
and the men performed better when they were when that
circuit of three brain structures was was better connected. Gotcha.

(03:12):
So basically, the researchers assumed that video games would be
more rewarding and more addictive for men based on their
brain activity, right, that they get more neurological reward from
the act of playing video games, which makes sense. Your
brain likes it, therefore you like it all right, all right,
so what a but what a statistics say? The statistics
about this are interesting, Christen. You know, we went with

(03:34):
the sort of assumption that males would play a lot
more video games women, but as it turns out, right now,
we're in the middle of some massive rise in female gamers.
According to Forbes magazine July six, two nine articles, so
pretty recent, uh, the number of female gamers has increased

(03:54):
of all US console gamers compared with twenty percent a
year ago. So they're saying about two million more girls
women's just started playing games in the past twelve months,
not even counting those who have been in it for
the long haul. So right now, there's a lot of
growth around this field for women and girls. Right. And
it's interesting that you say that the statistic is specifically
about console games, like with your uh PlayStation three, et cetera,

(04:18):
because that's what we think of when we think of
video gamers. Because I ran across um a study. It's
the Pew Internet and American Live Projects Survey from October
to December seven to December two thousand seven, excuse me, um,
And they broke down the demographics of adult gamers in
the US. And they're defining gamer as people who play

(04:41):
games online or offline using a computer, cell phone, or
any other kind of gaming device, not just video game consoles.
And they found that of the people surveyed, fifty of
American adults play games. And of that percentage, men make
up give take a few, and women make up. So

(05:03):
there's a very slim margin between between men and women
and gaming overall, not just video games when you open
up the definition a little bit and account for people
who might do crossroad puzzles on their phone things like that.
So women do enjoy games as entertainments. Right, But you know,
why are we in the middle of this huge uptick?
And for posits that's something a little something called the

(05:26):
WE might have something to do with it. Right. The
the WE has been very popular, not just among men
but also among women. It has uh pretty basic games.
There's basically a ban on sexist material and graphic violence. Um.
In WE games, you have things like tennis and bowling.
In that game where you have to cook things and

(05:47):
they're very easy to learn, you don't have to I
personally am turned off from video games sometimes if I
have to spend too much time figuring out just how
to make the controller work. And that's why I like
the Nintendo WE controller because you just kind of swing
it around. Yeah. Yeah, that's sort of I think been
the old conception about females as they like something that's
very easy to learn but takes them a lot of

(06:08):
master you know, it can continually be working on your
tennis swing something like that. We takes out that element
of having to learn a whole new controller when you
can just do emotion. And this sense of multitasking really
seems to be what appeals to women. The idea that
you can, you know, work on a skill, lose some weight, uh,
learn rhythm by playing guitar hero and rock band. Uh.

(06:29):
It seems to be very appealing to women. Because we're
reading an ABC News article that talked about how female
players sometimes under report the number of hours they spend
playing video games and they think it might be because
of guilt, Like, you know, females that aren't supposed to
spend hours and hours in front of a computer, in
front of a TV playing these games when they have

(06:50):
so many other things to do. So when you bring
something in like the We where you can learn something
while you play, that's very appealing. Right. And in addition
to being able to learn something of having a video
game perhaps have a practical application, there's also a social
element to games like Guitar Hero and and We where

(07:11):
you're not just sitting there playing by yourself, You're you're
engaging with other people. But I think it really appeals
to women, right. That same ABC article is talking about
women most enjoyed playing video games when they can play
it with a boyfriend or other romantic interests. You know,
it's sort of again multitasking. You're kind of on a date,
but sitting on your couch and probably a lot more
enjoyable than just watching that boyfriend playing Halo Yeah, or

(07:35):
any game that has, you know, a very sexualized female character.
And you know, we were reading uh sena article that
was talking about a keynote speech given by Sherry grain
er Ray who's a game designer for the past sixteen years,
and she says, you know, pretty obvious things that women
might be turned off by having to play with avatars
or characters who are essentially just sex sympols, you know,

(07:57):
sexually explicit clothing, uh, bedroom eyes indicating their ready to
the bedroom, whereas uh, they're really looking for a character
that can make kind of an emotional connection with We
see the SIMS and a lot of these articles talking
about being the ultimate girls game because they kind of
get to shepherd these little people through their lives right.
The SIMS has been hugely popular among women, and one

(08:18):
interesting statistic that I ran across I thought was telling
about this idea of women being turned off by highly
sexualized female video game players was a tidbit from an
article in The Guardian that said that according to a
study that was published in the journal My My Favorite
Journal Cyberpsychology and Behavior UM, it says that up to

(08:41):
seventy of female players say that they choose to use
male identities while inside internet games where they're able to
design their own characters with any race, gender or appearance.
And it may be because it's kind of easier to
navigate through those worlds, especially through UM multiplayer online games
like World of war Craft, if you are actually a

(09:01):
male character instead of a female character. There have been
a lot of anecdotes of women who are female characters
being hassled a lot more in these online worlds than
if they're just men. Yeah, it seems like the you know,
the main problem to me as a person who doesn't
know much about video games is on the one hand,
you've got these very sexualized women, and then on the
other hand you have almost these like cartoonish stereotypes of

(09:23):
what video game designers think that I want, which is
like shop and do pink things. And you know, there
are a lot of I think, sort of bubbly, frivolous
games on the other side of that, and not really
knowing where you fall in the in the serious game
action middle and one thing that might change that that
we'll get to a little bit later. Um. In regard
to the SIMS, which we mentioned was so popular, there

(09:45):
was an interview in Forbes magazine with one of the
game designers named Will Wright, and he was saying that, uh,
the SIMS did so well with women because of the
development team on that game were women, and so they
might have been a old to design a game you
know that they knew would appeal a little bit more
to to our demographic and like Kristen said, we'll get

(10:08):
back to this issue of who's making the games, which
is obviously a big part of this. But to go
back to the issue we're talking about multitasking. We all
like games where we kind of feel like we're learning something, uh,
you know, doing something that's not just sitting from the television.
We're reading and Discover magazine just how good video games
are for the brain. Yeah, some researchers think that, uh,

(10:31):
we are not wasting time spending hours and hours in
front of video games because according to this Discover magazine
article uh from two thousand and seven, This is uh
AT tracks the research of a professor at the University
of Wisconsin named James g Or g g e Uh.

(10:52):
He says it's successful gamers have to focus, have patients
develop a willingness to delay gratification and prioritize scarce resources,
which Professor Gee thinks is really building up you're thinking skills, right.
And one thing he said that was very interesting to
me is, you know, we hear about athletes who just
picture themselves making the shot and then eventually they'll make it.

(11:15):
He sees video games as a way to mirror this
process in the brain by running through all these virtual worlds.
He says, basically that you're modeling a simulation. In this
video games are externalizing how the mind works. So basically,
if you're ever I guess ana war zone, you've already
kind of been through the simulation and would know almost
where to go. And there have been instances where they've

(11:36):
used video games to train members of the army and
other armed forces. Right and uh. Similarly, um, there was
a study that found that laparoscopic surgeons who played games
for more than three hours a week made thirty per
seven fewer errors than their non gaming peers. And things

(11:56):
like this. You know, these are good statistics for the
guy who likes video games to throw around. Women in
particular might be interested to learn about a study at
the University of Toronto that evaluates spatial skills after playing
a video game. I, for one of them, not very
good at spatial skills like reading a map. But they
were suggesting that in the study, after playing a few
hours of video games, my lack of spatial skills would

(12:19):
essentially be eliminated. In relationship a man after playing a
few hours of video games, Both men and women had
the same abilities at spatial skills tests interesting and as
if all of that data is not enough to persuade
you that video games might be beneficial. In October two
thousand and six, the Federation of American Scientists actually endorsed

(12:40):
video games as a potential means for teaching quote, higher
order thinking skills such as strategic thinking, interpretive analysis, problem solving,
plan formulation and execution, and adaptation to rapid change. These
things sound like miracle workers. Yeah, maybe I need to
go pick up a game of Halo. That's so, But

(13:02):
why are we not attracted to a game like Halo?
You talked earlier about how it seemed that games that
were designed by women appeal to women. More, let's talk
about who actually makes these video games? Yeah, right now,
One of the big problems might be that women simply
are not developing many video games. According to an article
in The l A Times, UH, there was a survey

(13:24):
conducted by Game Developer magazine found that women comprised fewer
than one in five workers in the video game industry,
and those who were in the industry were making significantly
less than their male counterparts, about ten thousand less. They
were making sixty four thousand men were making about seventy
food and what this all goes back to. We've talked
about it before, UH is girls early years in math

(13:47):
and science, and basically they're saying, if girls aren't encouraged
in those fields early on, then by the time you know,
it comes to recruit people who have those upper math
and science skills, the girls just aren't there. Right. Women
might just not be tracking heading on attract towards computer
programming in general. In addition to that, you know, it
can be kind of hard to think as a young

(14:08):
girl to be like, I want to grow up and
develop video games, particularly when up until a few years ago,
there were recruitment parties with strippers and there were booth babes.
If you went to a electronics expo of some sort,
there'll be, you know, a girl in bikini showing you
the video game. This is starting to be on the
decline according to the l A. Times, but it wasn't
very real issue for girls a few years ago. But

(14:30):
there does seem to be a potential benefit in getting
more women developing video games because in the same l A.
Times article, UH cited a two thousand five Michigan State
University city that found that girls rated games that were
designed by all female teams higher than those designed by
all male teams, without, of course, the study participants knowing

(14:51):
whether or not men or women had developed a game.
So it's very interesting, interesting stuff. I will say that
all this learning about what video games around the brain
have me convinced to play more video games. But I'm
really not a big video game expert. So if any
of you are out there, we'd love to hear what
video games you play, what your experiences with video games are.
I played some guitar here, that's all. I got a

(15:13):
little guitar here. You know what, Molly, I played a
video game the other night. I played this, this car
racing game, because and I love car racing games, as
in a Mario Kart. But uh, but I was pretty terrible.
I got to improve practice. Yeah, maybe I can practice
and improve my VISEO spatial capabilities and analytics to discover magazine. Um,

(15:35):
but speaking of mail and writing in, we've got a
little bit of listener mail. First. We need to start off,
Molly with a couple of birthday shoutouts. Yeah, we love
when our people take time out of their birthdays to
write us. Yeah, and by now. Um, this is a
belated birthday, but Molly and I would like to wish

(15:56):
it very happy if late birthday to Rapa in Jerusalem.
Happy birthday, and also especially happy birthday to Sebastian in Paris.
Thanks so much for writing in. Happy birthday, guys. And
one thing that we've been doing recently Molly is reading
out what people are reading, and this reading list is

(16:18):
from Claire. And Claire has been reading Portrait of an Artist,
a biography of Georgia O'Keeffe. Sounds interesting. Um. She's also
reading the Worldly Philosophers, Lincoln's Virtues and Brave New World,
to name a few. And on top of that, Claire
reads every Rolling Stone and in style she sounds like

(16:40):
a busy girl. I like that variety, a lot of variety. Yeah.
So if you have a reading list to send in,
please send it on to me and Molly at Mom's
Stuff at how stuff works dot com, or your video
game list or your video game list, and of course
you can also check out our blog how to Stuff
you see what's happening, And as always you can find

(17:01):
more information on video games and gaming consoles and all
that on how stuff works dot com. For more on
this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff
works dot Com. Want more how stuff works, check out
our blogs on the house. Stuff works dot Com home

(17:23):
page brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready, are you