[MUD-Dev] "Men are from Quake, Women are from Ultima"

[Koster]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tess Snider
> Sent: Friday, January 12, 2001 8:46 PM
> To: 'mud-dev at kanga.nu'
> Subject: RE: [MUD-Dev] "Men are from Quake, Women are from Ultima"

> On Thu, 11 Jan 2001, Koster, Raph wrote:

>>> Interesting, Raph. Since the design element bias was eliminated,
>>> do you think the small number of women that turned out was due to
>>> the smallish population of women gamers versus men, or did it stem
>>> from how the society at UO evolved?
  
>> Both. Fewer women adopters because of audience bias, followed by
>> their being chased away in droves by playerkilling.
 
> That's just a shame, really.  Boy, how do I say this without making
> sweeping generalizations?  What I *want* to say is that I've always
> felt that UO had more to offer for women than the other games of its
> ilk.  That was always one of the things I gave it lots of stars for.
> You didn't wait for later versions or new technology to make the
> world interesting for women.

That's a fine (and very nice) thing to say. We tried hard, and judging
from the response to certain features, succeeded. In particular, the
tailoring/clothing options, the pets system, the economic system
(especially vendors and running your own shop) and the full
world-state (meaning, house decorating, rares market, etc) seem to
have been the key things that appealed to the female audience.

> At womengamers.com, Kestrel says:
> 
> 	"I can honestly say that in my opinion, women gamers can find a
> 	haven in this game."
> 
> That's *definitely* not something you hear too often!

I couldn't find this on the site...

> I think timing was the biggest killer on this one (with the PK issue
> being second).  Had the Internet population been what it is today,
> back when UO was released, things may have gone very differently.
> Now, everybody and her sister is online -- and even playing games.
> It's no longer a matter of getting women to sit down at the keys;
> it's now just a matter of getting them to put down the cards, and
> come play in your sandbox.

Hurm... not sure that's the case. The original female population of UO
seemed pretty large to me. Unfortunately, I don't have statistics on
it.

My understanding is that most of the women gamers are in fact playing
casual games, card games and the like. And my other understanding is
that the conversion rate from those games to subscription based games
is abysmal (sub 5%). Has anyone on the list seen a spike in female
players over the last five years, and does anyone attribute it to
increased gender balance on the Internet?

-Raph
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