What makes ladies happy? - The first study ever here?at all?

From my wife:

* Non-lethal gameplay (no killing creatures/other players)
* Ability to stay in game until the end, even if you can't win
* Indirect competition (or very soft direct competition)
* Simple systems (nothing more complex than Tikal or Pokemon TCG)
* Complex strategies (must provoke thought and have options)
* Social interaction (either the game must be easy enough to talk over it, or involve talking to other players as part of the game.

Yes his list is offending, but be objective: women and men differ.
Essence's list are a way better, but if you take a look at it there is the "simple system" criteria. That's what my wife prefers as well. She hates Risk for example... There are exceptions probably.

The question is good, but GC's answer is a bit offending.

Speaking with my wife...

Men play games for the feeling of winning, conquest, bettering the dude across the table from you. They internalize the conflicts and easily become a part of the game.

Women play games as a means of connecting with the people playing, and could care less about the game itself. Don't get me wrong, they still like to win, but see a victory less as "master of the game" like a guy, and more as "I beat my hubby in a man's game".

So as someone already stated, social interaction. My wife plays Bunko with her girlfriends, and half the time, they don't even get around to playing because they are enjoying talking too much. But if the game bogged her down in the rules, or required players to stick their nose in a manual to play, there's gonna be a serious turnoff factor.

I've even played a lot of RP games with women, and again, they like to win as much as the men, but value the "outside of the game" interaction more than the game immersion factor.

And lastly, with everything in life, there are exceptions....

My wife does indeed like games that are more social. Werewolf is a favorite, and she like party-style games, except for trivia, which I, too, loathe. But when it comes to abstracts, whe's not really enthusiastic, and boardgames in general leave her a bit cold. She still wins almost everything she plays*, but she'd not really into these types of game.

I've put in a lot of time on this issue, wondering what factors make certain games more appealing to men or women. There's got to be a huge amount of socialization involved, but I suspect there's some inherent factors, too. It's a mystery!

* By win, I mean to say that she absolutely destroys people at games. She grumbles when she begins, and pretends that the games are all very complex, and then proceeds to do truely terrible things to her opponents. She's beaten me at my own games by degrees I didn't know were possible.

Even though I play almost exclusively with women, I can only offer a few things, and nothing that hasn't already been said. :)

But still, the main things are:

They tend not to like the deaths of their pieces. They don't like to lose *anything* if they can't get it back somehow. The loss of a key piece, whether it be Chess or D&D Miniatures, can bring great unhappiness to female gamers, which in turn often generates great unhappiness to any males in the general vicinity.

Simple(r) mechanics. I play Magic: The Gathering with my mom and aunt, and they love the game until it gets to some of the card reactions that require studying the rules to understand. I think the main thing is that they like to know for themselves why something worked out or not, rather than trust the other player that the outcome is the valid one.

And, of course, the main one - social interaction (gasp!). A game where you need to declare your moves (such as MTG or Yu-Gi-Oh) seems to do the trick. Although none of the women I play such games with *ever* declare their moves (which tends to annoy me), they seem to enjoy those games more. In fact, it may have nothing to do with that at all - it could be something different altogether that I've missed. Something to think about.

My experiences... and of course there'll be generalisations, because everyone is different, etc.

The most important realisation, I think, is that for women playing a game is a medium, not a goal in itself. A bunch of guys can get together to play "Axis & Allies" for an evening, and their focus will be on playing the game. When women get together, it's often more to talk and socialize. They may decide to play a fun game together, but this will not be the focus of the event. So, men play games for the competition, women play games to socialize.

A number of things result from this:
- Women prefer games with less rules and less complexity, not because they are dumber than guys (they aren't), but because they don't want to put all their focus and energy into the game, there should be time left to talk and socialize
- Women play games for the social aspect, and winning is usually less important
- Women prefer games where the mechanics encourage interaction. Think the trading mechanic in Settlers, or Bohnanza

There are differences between men and women in the way the brain works. This result in the following:
- Women have more trouble with spatial aspects of a game.
- Women are better at juggling various factors at the same time, and keeping different goals in mind. Men are more "single minded" and usually want to focus on one path, or one strategy. I suspect this is why a lot of women often beat their hubbies at games such as "Lost Cities" or "Ticket to Ride".

Some more tidibits from my wife:

*Cooperative play (This is really an extention of the "indirect conflict".)
*Simple or no spatial restrictions (Settlers setup is hard, 'cause you have to pay attention to the distance between settlements to maximize available placement space.)
*Game lengh is NOT an issue
*Simplistic Focus (object is an easy one like "get most VP", rather than "Play a specific card at a specific place on the board under a given complex set of conditions")
*Mentally challenging (requires thinking ahead and having a plan)
*Little to no hidden information (FreeCell is better than Solitare, etc.)
*Prettiness (The game should be visually attractive, either in the "cute" or "beautiful" way)

Essentially, most everything everyone has said seems to boil down to a few concepts:

1) Socialize! Whether it's because the game makes you or because the game LETS you, females love to interact with the other players.

2) German games. Interestingly, almost all of the specifc traits that have been mentioned in this thread are traits of German games. Emergent complexity, players staying in the game to the end, indirect conflict, managment of a variety of resources...it sounds like the German games were practically made for female players.

3) Beauty/Cuteness. While it's been undermentioned in the thread, I think it'd be hard to argue that a game built to be visually attractive is going to do better in the female marketplace than a gritty/dark/silly game.

I just remember that I had an idea of a game (origianlly video game ) that would had been called matriarchy.

The setting of the games was taking place like in the antique roman civilisation ruled by a bunch of womens. The goal of the game was to make a place (civilisation, city, castle or temple) where it was fun/beautiful to live in.

So you had to create beautiful things (gardens, bath, statues, etc ), but creating great stuff could require hard work from the slaves, lowering the global happyness of the population. So the idea would be to build something good without having a rebellion at your door.

I have not develloped the game more for now, but I thinks that this is some kind of idea that could interest womens.

Doh.

Its 999 topics, not posts, must make new post quick...

True to the Catan call... my fiancee and sister (that's two different people, smart guys) both love Catan and play it regularly.. ditto Carcassonne. They will both play Risk, but neither will touch Axis and Allies... maybe it's the abstraction of theme that's appealing? (or more specifically, non-off-putting?) Games are about conflict (games ARE conflict), so often they have a framework (theme) that reflects direct conflict in one of its obvious forms.. fighting, battling, slaying, cannibalizing ;). Maybe women generally aren't into that kind of stuff... Axis & Allies features tanks, planes, soldiers, artillery, etc, whereas Risk features mobs of generic pips... the POINT is the same, beat the other guy, but the REPRESENTATION is different. Perhaps since the military representation is more appealing to males (a generalization, but hey...), they are able to better swallow the complexity of games that attempt to make the representation a main part of the experience.

~Josh