ddickinson: What are you top 3 game genres and why?
1.) Combat strategy games Strategy games where the focus is on combat. Preferably squad level and preferably turn based but I also like real time or hybrid style strategy games. Army level and grand strategy are also fun but I like getting a little bit more down and personal with individual units and little or if possible no losses on my side which is practically impossible in larger scale strategy games.
2.) Build & conquer / build & manage games Includes peaceful games like Sim City and Transport Tycoon but also Caesar, Settler and Anno series. There's only one thing all these games have in common: You build and manage more than you fight and they're criminally addictive.
3.) Point & Click adventure games I hate this genre. I love this genre. I could write entire books about how much I hate and how much I love this genre!
This year, I've played mostly point & click adventure games because they can be finished in a reasonable amount of time. I've played a couple strategy games this year (e.g. Cossacks, Dark Reign) but have only finished Stronghold Crusader. These kinda games take up more time than I can spare, Stronghold Crusader has 80 missions and it's quite impossible to plow your way through this in a weekend. Fortunately, it was around New Years time when I got around to playing that game. I recently bought Hearts of Iron 3 and have absolutely no idea where I will take the time to play that.
A question for the girls here: Why are strategy games, especially the combat type (both TBS and RTS) so seemingly unpopular with female audiences? Of course there are girls who like these kinda games but by and large, the entire strategy genre seems to be the least popular among the female population. I don't have any stats that back up my suspicion but it's something I noticed over the decades.
I'm fairly sure the reason is not the violent or scary content because games like Assassin's Creed, Metroid, Halo, Silent Hill, Borderlands, Left 4 Dead , L.A. Noire, Team Fortress 2, Call of Duty, Bioshock, Mass Effect, Tomb Raider, Dragon Age and Skyrim are widely popular among female audiences who seem to like these games just as much as the guys do
What is it about strategy games that the majority of girls don't like? (except for Fire Emblem, Civilization and a handful others that do appear to have female fans in large numbers)
Some girls are big time strategy aficionados but they seem to be a very small minority, I'd personally estimate it at less than 10% of all female gamers. The strategy genre in general is one of the less popular ones among all gamers but girls seem to enjoy them in much lesser numbers than guys and I have no idea why.