Play like a Girl: the Rise of Female Gamers

An ever-widening audience of female electronic game players is bringing new meaning to the phrase, "You play like a girl." Despite the long-standing stereotype that dedicated electronic gamers are young and male, a number of studies have shown that adult women are giving the boys a run for their money, particularly in the online games arena.

More than half of the 117-million active game players in the US play online games and nearly 64% of these online game players are women, reveals Nielsen Entertainment’s 2006 Active Gamer Benchmark Study. These numbers are backed up by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA)’s findings that "women over the age of 18 represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population than boys age 17 or younger." Furthermore, adult women are also almost twice as likely as men to spend 20 hours per week playing PC games, reports the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA). Put simply, women of all ages love to play games.

So are women playing Halo all night long?

Not necessarily. These studies are using a broad definition of games, which includes old standbys like Solitaire and Hearts along with the more "hardcore" games like Halo. But that‘s what is so important about these findings