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Half of Tween Gamers Are Girls, But What Kind of Games Are They Playing?

by Jamie Frevele | 2:07 pm, May 1st, 2012


Thanks to mobile devices and their wide availability, tweens — that is, young people between the ages of eight and 12 — are gaming a lot. And in an interestingly normal bit of news, half of those gamers are girls! It makes total sense, since roughly half of tweens are also girls! According to a survey by the site GirlsGoGames, a solid 50 percent of tween girls are turning to online gaming, whether it’s on the internet at home or a mobile device. Of course, some of those games are what you might say are “catering to gender stereotypes” — makeover, cooking, and dress-up games — but who’s to say that some of those girls aren’t slaying dragons, too?

In case you’re not familiar with GirlsGoGames, it’s owned by Spil Games, based in Amsterdam, and features a hot pink site with a ton of free online games geared towards the most stereotypical “tween girl” stereotype imaginable. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, because girls do like makeovers, designing cupcakes, and dressing up. (But it does shed some light on the kids they may have been reaching with their user survey.) Boys do too, but if they’re afraid that getting caught on a hot pink web site that “is for girls,” they might not try their hand at fashion, tween-online-gaming-style. (Doesn’t mean they aren’t playing in the privacy of their own rooms, though, does it?)

Anyway, that aspect of the story out of the way, 7.6 million U.S. visitors were surveyed about the games they preferred, how they played the games (what devices, etc.), and what their favorite parts of the games were. Among the biggest attractions to online games was the social element, the ability to share the gaming experience with others, as well as creating an avatar for role-playing. The most popular genres among the girls surveyed were games about cooking, dressing up, and quizzes as well as makeover games and games that feature animals. (Who doesn’t love animals?) It was also shown that iOS-based devices were more popular than Android devices: “24% own iPads, 19% have iPod Touches and 11% use iPhones.”

And, much like tweens through the decades, today’s tween girls are heavily influenced by celebrities, especially in the paper-doll-inspired dress-up genre of games. The top five, in order from most to least: Beyonce, Justin Bieber, Angelina Jolie, Miley Cyrus, and Jennifer Lawrence. I’ll let your collective gasp subside on that last one, now that we know kids are still reading books and seeing movies in addition to playing all those video games. Because not only are there more girl gamers, but they’re gaming longer than before — a survey last year showed girls gaming an average of 38 minutes at a time, now they play for an hour and 18 minutes.

True, the site in question is not the most, um, progressive “site for gamer girls,” their survey doesn’t say that the girls who are gaming are gaming exclusively on their site. The same girl building the perfect wedding cake might be planning a raid that same night.

(via Mashable)

Previously in Girls and Video Games

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  • http://wolfsilveroak.insanejournal.com/ Wolf

    My 11 yr old niece plays Little Big Planet I and II, Oblivion, WoW, Sims3, the PS2/3 Lego games and wants to play Skyrim when I finish it.

    And she hates Justin Bieber.

    Yeah.

  • Lisa Jonte

    My girl is no longer technically a tween, but she plays Guild Wars, LotRO, Wizard101, a couple of younger kid games, (holdovers from her actual tween years) an assortment of console adventure games and just about everything that Kongregate offers.

    She tried WoW, but its meager f2p offerings didn’t impress her. 

  • Anonymous

    wait, are half of tween gamers girls, or half of girl tweens gamers? the article states both are true…

  • http://www.facebook.com/1shewolf JoAnna Luffman

    Yeah, my 9 year old loves Left4Dead, Counter Strike, and Minecraft. She’s actually picking up L4D pretty well, and soon I may start grooming her for competitive play, if she keeps it up. We’ve already got a server with CEVO config, just have to find confogl….

  • Anonymous

     Sounds like a kid after my own heart :-)

  • http://twitter.com/RockShrimp Willow

    Are stereotypically “girlie” games necessarily bad? I like to play time management/sim games when I’m bored (running restaurants, spas, w/e) and one of the things that’s nice is a lot of them have female protagonists who aren’t overly sexualized – and they own their own businesses!.

  • http://www.youtube.com/cherubicwindigo Laura

    The site’s pretty cute, I can see how the 13-year-old me would be all over it. If I had a young daughter, this is the kind of site I’d want her on, with a community of gamers her own age.

  • http://twitter.com/Besomyka Besomyka

    Yeah, my niece has been enjoying Pet Shop games on the iPad.  Sure, it’s about making pets look pretty on the surface, but the game is about time management, allocation of resources, and juggling conflicting demands.  It’s an old style of game, and well executed.  The veneer isn’t so important.

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