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Ehh, that seems pretty reductive. I could just as easily claim women love games with character customization or games with deep stories. All of these things may have some truth to them. But (1) it’s unclear how universal this is and (2) it’s unclear if this differentiates women from men or is just something people in general like. “Good character design” is incredibly vague and appreciated by a lot of people.
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Wait, do we have actual gender breakdowns for each of those games?
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There are no concrete numbers for Valorant that I know of, but the “Head of Esports Partnerships and Business Development for North America & Oceania Riot Games” Matthew Archambault was quoted saying the Valorant player base is 30-40% women [1]. That seems plausible to me based on my own experience playing Valorant.

[1] https://gamesbeat.com/how-riot-games-wants-to-ensure-that-va...

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You have to be kind of careful with that too

In my experience there's a substantial number of women who are fans of something like overwatch, but not of actually playing Overwatch. They like the designs and the world, they make fanart and fics and such, but they don't actually play

Now, that might still be a real success for something that is billed as an esport, but if you're trying to move actual copies of your game you have to be aware that there may be a real big disconnect between your fans and actual paying customers

The usual disclaimers apply: I'm not trying to imply that no women play games or that women are "fake gamers" or whatever. This is just my personal observation

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> In my experience there's a substantial number of women who are fans of something like overwatch, but not of actually playing Overwatch. They like the designs and the world, they make fanart and fics and such, but they don't actually play

I'm the same way with Warhammer 40K. I love the lore, but have no interest in actually playing with the miniatures.

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Yep! There's nothing wrong with this. It doesn't make you lesser or anything

But from the company's sales perspective it's important to recognize the difference between fans and customers

How many games or products had huge social media followings and then flopped hard when they came out? Plenty.

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