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General Category => Blog => Topic started by: kat on July 27, 2017, 09:29:04 PM

Title: Females, despite being 50%+ of gamers, spend 2/3rds less than males
Post by: kat on July 27, 2017, 09:29:04 PM


In the current "post-truth", "fake news" environment, where the moments narrative has greater merit and matters more, that permits an unapologetic use of tangential data to straw-wo/man counter-arguments, the following has been "fact-checked" to be "TRUE" and simultaneously "FALSE" because [reasons] (without any hint of irony).

Barclays Bank has published a financial market report, "Female gamers to spend more than £1bn on video games in the next 12 months, finds Barclays research (http://www.newsroom.barclays.com/r/3503/female_gamers_to_spend_more_than__1bn_on_video_games_in)", suggesting female gamers (are set/projected to) spend £1 billion GBP on games (c.$1.4 billion USD) over the next 12 months against the sectors total spend projections of £3.4 billion GBP (c. $4.5 billion USB).

In relation to other well documented and established publications and reports (https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=50%25+gamers+are+female&oq=50%25+gamers+are+female) that 50% of gamers are female (http://quanticfoundry.com/2017/01/19/female-gamers-by-genre/)[1], Barclays data highlights a disparity between industry facts, and the fiction advocated for in press and media, a dislocation that has female gamers spending 2/3rds less money on gaming and than their male counter-parts despite being 50%+ of the User base[3].

That's quite the anomaly. Its significant because it belies an ostensibly anti-white-male gamers narrative, that females are 50%(+) of the game playing public, are just a serious (https://www.google.co.uk/search?site=&source=hp&q=female+gamers+just+as+serious+as+male+gamers&oq=female+gamers+just+as+serious+as+male+gamers), and spend just as much time and money on games as their male counterparts (https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=female+gamers+spend+as+much+as+men&oq=female+gamers+spend+as+much+as+men). Pick an argument and stick to it, either female gamers are the same as male games, or they're not (the same argument also said in reverse). If not, there are better issues to be ruminating over.

Or put more plainly; if 'advocates', be they in press and media, represented by 'biased' blogs, lobbying or advocacy groups, constantly cherry-pick, misrepresent and cavalierly meander around facts and information because doing so better suits what they want, t'would seem only proper they be the last people on earth the computer and video games industry aught to be listening to because their "post-facts" world all too often flies in the face of observable reality and the arguments and assertions they are apparently trying to make.

*/Queue various leaps of irregular thinking to massage 'truth' from falsehood or misrepresentation. Q.E.D.



Footnotes:
[1] Other industry data points from ESA and their "Essential facts about the computer and video games industry" 2015 (http://www.theesa.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/ESA-Essential-Facts-2015.pdf) (44% of gamers female), 2016 (http://essentialfacts.theesa.com/Essential-Facts-2016.pdf) (41% of gamers female) and 2017 (http://www.theesa.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/EF2017_FinalDigital.pdf) (numbers not clearly defined (https://www.katsbits.com/smforum/index.php?topic=838.0)), Internet Advertising Bureau UK "More women now play video games than men (https://iabuk.net/about/press/archive/more-women-now-play-video-games-than-men)" & "The gaming revolution" (https://iabuk.net/research/library/gaming-revolution), Nielsen "Finding (and Acting on) the White Spaces in Mobile Gaming (http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2016/finding-and-acting-on--the-white-spaces-in-mobile-gaming.html)".

[2] Google search results are by no means an definitive measure of a claims 'veracity', they do go some way to providing an initial gauge as to what the Internet 'thinks' about certain subjects, topics and information. With this in mind the overwhelming narrative expressed in press, media, opinion pieces and blogs is that female gamers are 'equal' to their male counterparts. This is only 'true' selectively or electively as a consequence of narrowing focus on a particular topic of interest that is then politically weaponised at the expense of a broader 'truth' (https://www.katsbits.com/smforum/index.php?topic=948.0).
- c.11,500,000 - "50 of gamers are female report (https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=50+of+gamers+are+female+report&oq=50+of+gamers+are+female+report)".
- c.360,000 - "female gamers spend as much as men (https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=female+gamers+spend+as+much+as+men&oq=female+gamers+spend+as+much+as+men)".
- c.19,000,000 - "women play more games than men (https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=women+play+more+games+than+men&oq=women+play+more+games+than+men)".
- c.9,000,000 - "men spend less on game than women (https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=men+spend+less+on+game+than+women&oq=men+spend+less+on+game+than+women)".

[3] The claim, that female gamers spend 2/3rds less, or 1/3rd that of male gamers, is an intentional absurdity meant to highlight the way political advocates and acolytes, a politicised press, media and various 'rights' organisations, misrepresent issues, intentionally or not (given the amount of income they generate, and the degree to which doing so grants access to topic-specific experts, one can only conclude that much of the aforementioned's misrepresentations are intentional, if only for click-bait). Although the statement appears true at face value; 1/3rd does leave 2/3rds remaining, the actual figure is 1/6th, this is the disparity that would bring female gamers spending to parity with males given the projected totals - 3.4bn / 2 = 1.7bn per 50/50 split, females spending 1.1bn means they are only short c.600m, or c.1/6th, in which case it's more precise then to say "female gamers spend 1/6th or c.15% less on gaming than their male counterparts" which, whilst more truthful, is not as good a lead/traffic/interest generator (click-bait).