women-gamers
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15 Minutes of Fame: Amazon grace, how sweet these guilds
15 Minutes of Fame is WoW.com's look at World of Warcraft players of all shapes and sizes -- from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you'd like to hear more about. Why would players want to play only with others just like themselves? Members of special interest guilds tell us their groups allow them to play away from others who either inadvertently or purposely seek to harass or offend. GLBT guilds, Christian guilds (scroll down to Recruiting) and similar groups offer a haven for players seeking a peaceful place to hang out with like-minded souls. This week, we look at a new group that offers not one, not two, but three special interest guilds. The Goddess guilds of Nesingwary and Winterhoof, along with a brother guild also on Nesingwary, welcomes females - actual, physical females, not female characters - with a friendly, events-focused environment. We visited with long-time gamer and Goddess guilds founder Myredd to find out why so many women appreciate playing in a females-only environment.
NPD: Girls increasingly becoming gamers
NPD's new study, Girl Power: Understanding This Important Consumer Segment, finds that girls between 2 and 14 years old are increasingly wasting spending their time gaming. The gaming disease apparently strikes between ages 6 and 8 and finally metastasizes in the brain between 9 and 12, when girls begin "migrating to computer and video games, especially virtual world online games."NPD's industry analyst, Anita Frazier, says that 50% of girls between 2 and 14 years old still play with "traditional" items like "dolls, plush, and arts & crafts" in this digital age. She notes that the growth in use of social networking and virtual world sites by women should be recognized by manufacturers who, you know, want money from the ladies.
Girl gamers applaud choice
One of the features in the upcoming Mass Effect is the ability to choose your gender. For a game which revolves around one central character (Commander Shepard) and the related storyline, it's an interesting addition, though not entirely novel.However, it may have more appeal than a first glance would imply. We spoke to several female gamers at E3 who insisted that being able to play a female character is a crucial differentiator between games they like and games they love. It doesn't strike a game from the favourites list -- many of these women loved Halo 2 -- but it's a selling point that turns out to be surprisingly important to the female audience.
