Women and games – Quantic Dream say Heavy Rain, Uncharted “broaden the audience”
Lewis Denby September 12, 2011 - 9:05 amWomen don’t really buy core games, thinks Quantic Dream’s Guillaume de Fondaumiere – but once games like Heavy Rain, Uncharted and Tomb Raider are in the house, they could help to “broaden the audience”…
Recent statistics demonstrate that over 40 percent of those who play games are female – but these stats refer to a wide range of games, including social and ‘casual’ releases. What about more core games?
According to Quantic Dream’s Guillaume de Fondaumiere, females don’t often go out and purchase “this kind of experience”.
However, games like QD’s Heavy Rain, Naughty Dog’s Uncharted, and – to a lesser extent – Crystal Dynamics’ Tomb Raider, could go some way to “broadening the audience” – because once these games are in the house, bought by a partner or whatever, they seem to appeal to women as much as men.
“[Women] do buy games, you know the female audience is growing, but they don’t buy these kind of games. But with Heavy Rain I think we showed that once it’s in the household, and once women see what the experience is and they’re drawn into it and they take the controller, I think that it’s a positive thing that could potentially broaden our audience in the future,” he said in an interview with GI.biz.
“Now there must be more games like this, because a lot of people tell me that the next thing their girlfriend or wife told them is ‘OK, what do we play next?’ And then they turned around and said ‘in the same genre?’ ‘Yes.’ And that’s it. And so I really hope, because to really make it a market and to really make a segment on its own we need more games like this.
“Uncharted is a good example. There’s Heavy Rain, there’s Uncharted, but there are not so many games in that vein. Tomb Raider next year is probably really looking great and it’s probably also going to be one of these games that could potentially appeal both to gamers and to a larger audience and in particular women.”
Talking of Tomb Raider, we’re quite excited about that one. Have a read of our Tomb Raider preview to find out why!
