Are Girls Bigger Hardcore Gamers than Men?

[Rob Williams]

For as long as there has been gaming, there has been "hardcore" gaming. No, this doesn't refer to triple-X titles, but rather to those who devote a lot of time to a particular game, or genre, or gaming in general, and at the same time, being quite skilled overall. The fact that a lot of time is devoted pretty much lends to natural improvement, though, so it's hard to have one without the other.

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You can read the rest of our news post here and discuss it here.

 

[Doomsday]

This could also be cause girls spend more time at home than men.

or women can get more obsessive over something than men

 

[On_Wisconsin]

The lady gamers I know stick to fantasy, whereas the men are mostly FPS. A broad range of games are needed, and IMO I think at the end the sexes are about equal in hardcore gaming

 

[erick.mendes]

Wha?

I totally disagree with you Rob in your interpretation of "HARDCORE gamer" in the aforementioned research...

For HARCORE they meant a player that take the game more seriously then a casual player. A hardcore gamer on that sense is the gamer that put lots of effort and time on that game to get the most it can from it.

Geesh, wasn't we all sometime in the late 80s HARDCORE Super Mario players? (And is Mario anywhere close to be a hardcore game?)

I think that you said it just because the conclusion of the research is that women can be as hardcore players as men, and even more.

 

[Doomsday]

i'm more hardcore!! i have added the Razer Lycosa to my gaming PC! wohoo!

 

[killem2]

It really isn't a suprise that there are many more men gamers than women just to begin with. So there is always going to be a larger number of hardcore, but whether one is more hard core than another has to be on an individual basis really, unless yo just look at raw numbers then men will outnumber women just from the sheer number of players.

 

[madstork91]

Oddly enough, the last time i did any research into this (for a college class), there are almost as many girls as guys.

 

[Rob Williams]

For HARCORE they meant a player that take the game more seriously then a casual player.

I'm aware of that... I just can't look at an MMO and consider it to be "hardcore", in the same sense that an FPS is hardcore. If you are to play a game like Unreal Tournament III online, you can't simply dilly dally... you HAVE to focus. I don't know any MMO that requires you become so attuned to the game that if you are a second late on something, you're dead.

I admit I shouldn't have even mentioned it, but I still believe we're looking at more than one kind of "hardcore" here. If you play an MMO for 40+ hours a week, I'd consider that hardcore, but not that the MMO itself is a hardcore game.