To find new games, more women value social circles, while men look to influencers
Newzoo: More women than men tend to value games that are easy to pick up and play quickly
Though the breakdown of gamers by gender is essentially equal, men and women tend to have different values when it comes to game discovery and gameplay.
In an analysis from Newzoo, the market intelligence firm found that women predominantly discover new titles through social connections, while men prefer online authoritative sources.
Per a survey of around 8,000 invitation-only respondents, 45% of women discover games through friends and family and 20% through social networks, compared to 32% and 16% of men, respectively. But 29% of men are alerted to new titles they want to play through online video channels and 19% do so through review sites, compared to 16% and 13% of women.
Another difference was demonstrated in gameplay preferences, with more men expressing preferences for completing objectives and achieving goals, challenging strategic aspects, player or character progression, and exploring worlds than women. The one area that more women expressed interest in than men was games that are easy to quickly pick up and play. This is somewhat demonstrated by what Newzoo reports as the top three most common games men played in the last three months (Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, and Super Mario) versus the top three that women played (Candy Crush, Super Mario, The Sims).
However, though there were distinct differences in what gameplay aspects mattered more, every category had interest from both men and women, and the biggest split in interest was a difference of only 13% (50% of men interested in exploring worlds and storylines vs. 37% of women).
