That's no problem, I'm glad if people are enjoying the thread :-).

> My top 3 genres: FPS, Driving and Space Sims/Arcades

FPS because I started in PC gaming with Doom, Quake, Heretic, Duke Nukem and almost all classics

Driving because I like tuned and luxury cars so much (and even more after the Fast&Furious movie series came out)

Space arcades and sims because I'm a long time fan of sci-fi, I was only 8 years old when I watched: Space Above and Beyond, Startrek TV series and movies, Event Horizon, StarWars. People regularly called me a crazy/weird guy because kids were watching Power Rangers and Teletubbies except me)

> My top 3 "worst" genres (I don't like to call them worst, only "less played" for me): Point and click, platformer and fighting

Point and click because I suck when it comes to notice small things/clues.

Platformers because some of them are too hard, but when I'm in the mood, I try to advance a bit.

Fighting, well... I totally suck a them, again, sometimes I go into a game and play a couple matches.

> If you enjoy playing as a woman in games, what is it about playing as a woman that appeals to you?

I don't have any problem in playing female protagonist/heroine games, and this game: "Remember Me" wiped -if there was- any doubt for me.

I'm going for a $5.99 prize

I was referring to the dancing ladies, I know Jabba was in the original, but I can't remember if the dancers were added later. I think there was the skimpy slave girl who is fed to the creature in the pit, but I seem to remember some dancers and singers, but I think this may have been the enhanced 90's version.

I'm in. I'd like the incredible machine megapack.

As far as the discussion goes,

Top 3 favorite genres: Shooters (Schmups), RPG, and platformers. Probably because I grew up in the 16 bit era and I still enjoy SNES and turbografx-16 games to this day.

Worst: Fighting (I'm pretty terrible at them. I do enjoy playing them but the early arcade fighting games are brutal to me), Sports (Unless they're more arcade oriented. Sports don't really appeal to me all that much.. and games are, to me, meant to be something you couldn't really do in reality), and racing (again, unless they're more arcade oriented, and I don't really find the idea of a car mechanic simulation very interesting)

It's weird to say, but one of my first experiences with female characters is samus aran, before she was all screwed up with zero mission/other m. You run through the whole game knowing almost nothing about her, and at the end it's revealed. This idea of a female character being a total boss stuck through me in the years, and any game where I'm given a option I make a female.. some of them I give her a backstory.. I could write a novel on the life of my new vegas courier before she was shot and buried. Plus you can kill benny in a rather funny way if you play a female courier. (You can basically hit on him until he takes your offer to join him in his room alone. I like to lay plasma mines around the bed so when he walks in he steps over them.. and there's noone around to see him being blown up. Which is always funny to me, that he is so stupid that he'd believe the courier he shot and buried.)

*** GIVEAWAY CLOSED! ***

The giveaway has ended! I will pick the winners and announce them shortly.

Good luck!

Hey, it's not fair! Allow girls too, to have a chance at prize! At least one! I am not it myself (boy), just assume i was in for the giveaway, and let a girl who wants a lot one of the prizes, participate in my stead...

Come on people, this thing is not funny... Boys and girls are equal, and must play together. Otherwise, it is neither funny, nor fair.

I counter you awful voice acting with this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNOyRQEL_6k
You've been warned.

That the bad voice-acting hurt the game is obvious, but the mere fact of establishing voice-over as required standard in modern games is IMO harmful for the immersion for several reasons:

Once implemented in the game for the main characters it should be used everywhere, because mixing voiced and text-only lines would be more weird then left everything in plain text. Then every line, no matter how obscure or ambient must be recorded in the studio and adds considerably to the size of the game, while dialogues in text-only format can be easily created and modified, and creators are limited only by their writing abilities.
When you as a player read the same generic line over and over, it can be annoying but hey, some lines are deliberately generic, you can use your own imagination to make it sound always a bit different; when you hear it over and over in exactly the same tone and pitch, it's prime horror material. :)
Also, English grammar is quite regular, so you can make the game use templates for the written text with good results, while voiced sentence glued together from the parts sounds almost every time "unnatural".

*** GIVEAWAY RESULTS! ***

The guys giveaway has ended and the winners have been selected. Thank you to everyone who took the time to answer, the guys and the girls. It was very interesting (for me at least) and I have learnt some very interesting things about what actually goes on at a guys sleepover :-). It has been very interesting finding out some of the likes and dislikes of the guys, and while your sleepover sucked compared to the ladies, it was still nice to get a better picture of what you guys like. I found a few things surprising, such as the hatred for sports games, something I thought was very popular among the guys. I was also surprised to find out we had so many guys who prefer to play as female characters, and with some very interesting reasons behind it. Judging by the results, there were few girls who preferred to play as male characters, but there were lots of guys who enjoy playing as female characters. I still think it's because you guys are just so jealous of us girls that you will do anything to be like us ;-).

As I did with the girls giveaway, I have made a quick list of the different genres that the guys seem to prefer and listed them below. The list is in no particular order, but the more popular genres are near the top of the list. I have included the results from the girls giveaway as well, so you can get a better picture of the similarities between the kind of games the guys and the girls like. I also included a combined list of the least liked games, again in not exact order, but the most disliked games are at the top of the list.

It seems that the guys prefer more Strategy and FPS/Shooter type games, while the ladies prefer Point-and-Click and Action games more. But both seem to have a love of RPGs. Despite these minor differences, you can see that both lists are very similar, with the guys and the girls both enjoying the same kind of games. Of course, these results are in no way accurate for all male and female gamers, they are just the results from the people who took part in the two giveaways.

GOG Guys' favourite game genres:
- RPG & jRPG Games
- Strategy Games
- FPS / Shooter Games
- Point-and-Click / Adventure Games
- Action / Adventure Games
- Platformer Games
- Scary / Horror Games
- Stealth Games
- Simulation / Managerial Games
- Driving / Racing Games
- Puzzle Games
- Fighting Games
- Sport Games
- Tower Defence
- Artillery Games
- Flight Simulators
- Hack and Slash Games
- Hidden Object
- MMOs
- Shoot 'em ups

GOG Girls' favourite game genres:
- RPG & jRPG Games
- Point-and-Click / Adventure Games
- Action / Adventure Games
- Strategy Games (with RTS games the least popular of the genre)
- Platformer Games
- Puzzle Games
- FPS/Shooter Games
- Dark & Eerie Games
- Hack and slash Games
- Roguelike Games
- Sandbox-Craft-Survival Games
- Scary / Horror Games
- Simulation / Managerial Games
- Stealth Games
- Sport Games

I must confess that I always considered Sports and Driving games to be quite popular among the guys, but judging by the number of you who listed them in your least favourite genres, it seems that you dislike them almost as much as the ladies. I was not surprised to see so many people list FTP/FTW games as some of their least favourite. Games with a * are the more popular male games that were voted least popular among the ladies. The rest are similar dislikes between both genders

Least favourite game genres:
- Sport Games
- Platformers / Casual Games
- FPS / Shooter Games *
- MMO / MOBA Games
- Free-to-Play / Pay-to-Win Games
- Strategy Games *
- Driving / Racing Games
- Simulation / Managerial Games
- Fighting Games
- Point-and-Click / Adventure Games
- Scary / Horror Games
- Tower Defence
- Co-op / Multiplayer Games
- Shoot 'Em Ups
- jRPG Games
- Action / Adventure Games
- Card Games
- Hidden Object
- Music / Rhythmic Games
- RPG Games
- Educational Games
- Flight Simulator Games
- Hack and Slash Games
- Roguelike Games
- Sandbox-Craft-Survival Games
- Space Game

Now onto the prizes. Thank you to all the guys who took part, I have entered all of your names into a raffle and picked the lucky winners. The winner of the guys giveaway is... Ingsoc85, congratulations! And because Ingsoc85 nominated toxicTom, toxicTom will also be getting a $5.99 prize. Congratulations to the winners! Please send me a PM and let me know what game you would like for your prize (and don't forget the current weekend promo is still on).

Thank you to everyone who took part in this and the girls giveaway.

Congratulations to Ingsoc85/toxicTom, and big thanks to ddickinson for both the great giveaway and the opportunity to take part in this discussion. :)

EDIT: typo :/

WOO-HOO!!! :-DD

Cheers ddickinson for your generosity and for the interesting discussion (though I've still not caught up with everything). :-)

Many thanks to ddickinson for the great giveaway and also for this interesting, funny and generally very enjoyable thread. And for aggregating the results of the question into some neat lists.

And of course congrats to Ingsoc85 and many thanks to him for nominating me.

It seem RPG is the uncontested top genre for the GOG community (and I think the bestsellers on the site reflect this pretty well). Maybe it shows the "maturity" of the audience here - proof that we desperately need more pillow fights in skimpy pink pyjamas lest we all end as grumpy old gamer girls and boys.

Congrats to Ingsoc 85 and toxicTom and thank you ddickinson for the generosity & attentive hosting, as usual with a mix between grace and a bit of implied terror ;)

The guy's results turned out more or less as I expected and I'm not the least bit surprised that most everyone dislikes sports games. The girl's results on the other hand did surprise me. For one, I thought a decisive majority of women didn't like strategy games (especially RTS) at all and am quite surprised that this genre shows up in 4th place. I would also have expected the scary/horror genre to be more popular with women as well as the simulation / managerial genre - I'm a bit confused because I understand the managerial/sim genre to be a subgenre of strategy games. From this list it's not entirely conclusive where games like The Settlers would fit in, strategy or managerial?
I always thought managerial games like the Theme / Sim / Tycoon / Anno / Patrician series etc* were equally popular among men and women.

*EDIT: And not to forget about Caesar/Cleopatra/Zeus