Two weeks ago i got my girlfriend to play Sins... i haven't played Sins in two weeks.
She is really good with Vasari... she had 100 ravastra and 4 Kortuls before the comp on hard could get even 3 caps and 30 frigs.

Wow. I must be liked blessed because I have 2 girls at my school who play RTSs. I have spent alot of time playing them in multi player in C&C Generals, C&C Tiberium Wars, and if I can convince them Sins too. But it is weird, I don't think I really treat them like girls anymore. I treat them like my guy friends who happen not to have the male equipment.

I think everyone's thinking about this the wrong way. It's not that girls are any better at them, it's that they like them because they're good at them. I've found that most boys (like myself) will buy a game and throw themselves at the AI consecutively losing for hours having fun and making progress on their skill as well as enjoying games that they honestly suck at, while the girls I've played with only like to play the games that they're particularly good at, which tends to be intuitive games like FPS rather than RTS/strategy. Coupled up with an innate female aversion to videogames, it turns out that most girls will never try them or like them while the few incredibly skilled gamers will pick it up and play. After all, what seems simpler to understand?

"Now move the right stick to aim, and shoot with R."

"All right now, get its population development up to three and build as many extractors as you can. Wait until you have enough to build a capital ship factory and build the free colony capital ship, build a fighter squadron and choose the colonize ability, then go to the nearest asteroid/ice/fire planet, then simultaneously target the same neutral ship with the capital ship and the squadron, and then do that for every single other ship there. Once that's done, colonize the planet and do what you did to the first one minus the capital ship factory. Now, moving on to step 2-17......."

For me, it's more fun to do something challenging until I'm good at it and make it harder again rather than to do something easy that tests me in how long I can play.

damn straight i'm a girl that plays RTS's!   

good to see some grls take interest in gal civ

PS
can i get your number

I myself am not a girl but I know several girls that play RTS games as well as various video game genres. One of which happens to be my wife...

I know a girl who plays Civ3 and 4. She likes the hotseat mode of play, but I have known her to play the computer also.I also know she likes Champions for ps2, she has played a elf cleric past level 50. Her fav seems to be sims2 , she has all the updates. Sims kick my butt every time . I keep getting killed cooking. I am still trying to get her to play gal civ 2 thou. She does like other things not gaming like cruising on our motercycle when we can get a baby sitter and -------wait,have to wrap this up she says its time for bed. Ya I married her, good night all.

I've known a couple girls that played starcraft and some wc3 and were actually fairly decent looking. I've also met a few that played counter-strike and some COD4.

And the biggest female-playing game that i know of is DEFINITELY world of warcraft. I know over a dozen girls, from ugly to very tasty that play WOW. And contrary to what I thought would happen, their characters spanned horde and alliance, healing and dps. I figured chicks would all be Night elf priests or druids.


The hottest girl I ever dated played a ton of console fighting games. I'd usually win half the time. Then I would take her clothes off. But that's another story altogether. We had to beat them to death with their own shoes...

My wife played red alert 2 (RTS, still good now even with it's dated graphics) all the time, and also really liked Caesar 3 (even more dated, but some great gameplay and decent graphics if you don't mind it not being 3d), managing to do better than me on that (I'd usually become bored 3/4 of the way through the campaign+stop, and then go back and start from the beginning a year or so later). On the other hand she found games like Halo a bit boring, and has never really been into the whole FPS type games.

So yes, some girls do play RTS's!

Two of the top-selling computer games of all time? Sims series and World of Warcraft.

Expanding your target demographic from 12-24 year old males to everyone with a computer can't hurt too much I guess. In each case, the player can identify with someone. In the Sims, you're basically playing with a dollhouse. Yes guys, you are finally playing with dolls, making up stories, and acting them out.

In WoW, it's all about social interaction. Sure you can get to level 70 solo, but if you want to do something as simple as a good instance run, better networking skills=better experience. My wife is a WoW gamer. Probably one of the top 100 warlocks in the world. Certainly in the top 250. She was dragged into the statistics part kicking and screaming all the way- by a friend who *was* a total stats geek. Then she got into the server-first guild, courtesy of another friend she made. Then she became a class officer, mainly by presenting a mature, calm and intelligent alternative to a bunch of college guys.

RTS though? There's no way to identify with the game in most cases. Jim Raynor and Kerrigan from Starcraft is about as close as you get. RPGs? Identification is built in. MMORPG? You are your character. Make friends to advance. Casual games? Well, they're casual. Who needs to make a connection to pick up Guitar Hero, fiddle with the controller, and rock your heart out on Easy mode? Even better, get a few friends over. Your fingers get tired after a bit and it's more fun to get offline friends involved.

Until that connection problem is bridged, you won't see a lot of females playing RTS games. It's going to be a serious challenge for game developers.

Introduce your wife to the Warlords:Battlecry series.

pfft girls on the internet is a lie lol

I saw this repeated several times in the thread, but, really women do not have an aversion to videogames, innate or otherwise. Women do have an aversion to people who like to make gross generalizations about women, though - as I'm sure many men are averse to people who make gross generalizations bout men.

There is cultural pressure against women adopting geekish pursuits - interests in Star Trek or playing video games. But that's cultural, not innate. Stating that there is an innate aversion is just reifying that cultural pressure all over again.

I've played FPS, RTS, RPG, 4x, puzzle games, Sims, etc. I don't play multiplayer most of the time (outside MMORPGs) because most of the online gamers tend to be foulmouthed gits (and, for that matter, those foulmouthed gits tend to be men). I do know that when I win a game against someone who knows I'm a woman, then I'm somehow exceptional...but if I lose, then I represent all women (http://xkcd.com/385/ describes this kind of phenomenon), and that also doesn't lend itself to an inviting atmosphere for women.

Then there's the not really funny "women don't really exist on the internet" meme that just that just never seems to die. If you're like the guy who posted above, you suck for using a stupid, tired joke.

Anyway, women who game are gamers. We aren't alien intellects, we don't approach games in a drastically different way than men. We're not inherently incompetent at gaming. We're not genetically wired to hate science fiction, fantasy, superheroes, or war simulations.

can we please let the girls have a chance to post? umm... *hint* maybe topic should be like, where are the "girls that play rts"    

"please let the girls have a chance to post?"

What are you getting at?

Visit sweden. You'll have a hard time finding a girl here that isnt a huge WoW / Diablo 2 fan, seriously

whoop's i was off topic.

how many girls here are under cover and play's sins. please show yourselves   

A good friend of mien is a gamer of sorts. She enjoy playing wow, aoc, civ4, warcraft 3 and dawn of war. She also plays what I call her "stupid games". They consist of odd little bargain bin games like puzzles and villager creators and what not. I will say the funniest thing I have ever seen her do wa in a game of Masquerade. I was teaching her the fundamentals of steathily sneaking up on your pray and feeding before anyone knew what was going on. Well, she had her own plans. She picks up the nearest bat and runs headlong into the gangbangers all the while reminding me that she was "an ass kicking vampire of death". After smashing the hell out of the first one the goons in the house began shooting out the windows trying to get to her. She draws them all out and slaughters every one of them with her "bat of doom". After that fiasco I tell her that theres mroe in the house and she should try a little subtlety. I tell her to go turn the switch next to the generator, to turn off the lights. Well, it seems that "ass kicking vampires of death" dont believe in using switches. 2 swings later the generator explodes knocking her on her ass and drawing out the remaining goons, whom she promptly grand slammed. Fairer sex my ass.

I...downloaded the Sins demo earlier today. Not sure when I'll get around to playing it, though, or if I'll buy the game.

I still have yet to play through all of the Dawn of War games, the LotR RTS games, Company of Heroes, Supreme Commander, and so on. Been too busy with RPGs, and currently Galactic Civilizations.

The thing about Sins is that I've never liked mixing 4x and RTS . . . so I'll give it a try, but I'm not holding out high hopes that I'll like it. That's not a comment on quality, just my preference.

Im glad to see every forum on the internet has a "do gurls p14y games?" thread.

Seriously who cares, who REALLY cares?

I do. Why? Because EA seems to think the vast majority of girls like adorable pink, cute and cuddly games. That may infact be true, I don't know. But I don't care about that, I'm not a girl so Im not the one being patronised.

HOWEVER... When EA (or any dev/publisher) thinks they can take a perfectly good violent bloody game with all sorts of things christians hate in it (which is perfectly fine for girls to play remember, killing fictional people is not a men only activity) and tone it down with pink cuddly graphics to appeal to that huge market - I CARE.

been there done that ya swedish girls are insane gamers hell i got stod up once cuz the gfs guild was raiding aq lol

I find most games specifically aimed at girls to be extremely patronizing.

That said, I don't think there's anything wrong with designing and marketing games with women in mind. I don't think any really big budget projects are likely, though, for the same reason that Fox canceled Firefly (even if they can get a large female audience, they don't want that audience).

I also think that lots of guys do spend too much time discussing whether women play video games (and how well or poorly we allegedly play).

I know a girl who plays Warcraft 3. I have a bunch of girls on my XBL flist who play GTA. Which surprised the hell out of me. I'm sure there's alot of girl gamers out there who just prefer not to be known as a girl gamer. Once people find out their in a game with a girl, oh god, let the sex shit fly, and thats true of any game I've ever played with a girl in. I can understand exactly why they try to hide or why they don't talk much. And to all the female gamers out there, I'm sorry we're a bunch of idiots who can't keep our mouths shut just because your a girl.

I play GTA. I have GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas. Been too lazy to pick up IV.

People play games they like regardless of their sex.

You'll find girls playing Total-War games and you'll find guys playing Hello Kitty adventures*.

* I don't mean that to be sterotypical, just for an example...and to poke some fun.