Women Gear Up For Gaming Invasion

Women Gear Up For Gaming Invasion
Women are about to invade the male dominated gaming world, a games conference in Scotland is to be told.

Games consultant Ernest Adams will say the stage is set for an explosion of women gamers, especially in the area of massively-multi-pl ayer online gaming.

There needs to be a sea-change in the industry, with more female developers and more games for women, he believes.

Mr Adams is to address the 2005 Women in Games Conference being held in August in Dundee, Scotland.

The games that are likely to appeal to women are not the traditional "hack and slash" ones or time-consuming strategy games that men prefer.

"Women don't have free time even to set up a game. They require a game that is quick to get into and doesn't require a great time commitment," said Mr Adams, founder of the International Game Developers' Association.

The fact that women also tend to be more social means multi-player games will appeal more than single-player ones.

"We are soon going to be seeing massively-multi-pl ayer online games that are dominated by female players," he said.

"Existing online role-playing games are succeeding with women in spite of their subject matter, not because of it. When we get more games whose gameplay genuinely appeals to female players, we can expect to see huge growth there," he said.