Executive Summary

Women hardcore gamers are a potentially huge and yet virtually untapped market. Advanced research using Strange Agency¡¯s unique game content analysis technology has established a recipe for the kinds of games these women would like to play.

This market sector is of great interest to publishers and developers alike. Hardcore gaming uses familiar PC and console technology so any change would not require the learning of new delivery platforms, such as mobile or handheld, or gameplay styles particular to casual gaming markets.

To discover what women enjoy in their games, the game playing preferences of 76 hardcore female gamers were gathered for analysis. This identified a representative yet diverse sample of 232 games and game franchises. Strange Agency¡¯s advanced content analysis technology was then used to identify a set of common principles, a ¡®perfect recipe¡¯, to which games for women should adhere.
The results show that game playing preferences, for this very influential and growing number of women, are counterintuitive to the commonly held stereotypes of female gamers and far easier for the industry to satisfy by using their existing knowledge and skill bases.

The results also show that there are a large number of games produced for the traditional male market that would also be attractive to female gamers, if marketing strategies were suitably adapted.

This report serves several main purposes:
1. identifies games women enjoy in terms of gameplay preferences
2. provides design and marketing guidelines for this hidden sector
3. shows how to better exploit established console and PC game production methods
4. shows how to attract a huge new audience of women hardcore gamers who would normally be non-gamers or casual gamers
5. demonstrates that games for women can be equally attractive to a large section of the male audience
¡®Games Women Play¡¯ is an invaluable resource that will enable publishers and developers to create games for this large and growing market sector.

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Email: jo.clay@strangeagency.com, URL: www.strangeagency.com