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The Future of Female Gaming

Being female and playing video games should in theory be a fairly harmless activity. Once you’ve got past the usual stereotyped images of women in games, it can be a great way to spend time.

With recent reports that females now make up the majority of gamers, it seems that things are becoming a little more open for women gamers. This has been particularly notable in the Android community.

Take for example, the latest update from Minecraft, which seeks to address the gender gap in its default characters. While the default character would be known as “Steve” with supposedly male characteristics, now, developers are keen to create a default female player known as “Alex.”

Blogger Owen Hill wrote: “Now, everyone loves Steve. He’s probably the most famous Minecrafter in the world, and has excellent stubble. But jolly old Steve doesn’t really represent the diversity of our player base.”

This is probably one of the biggest reasons that Minecraft continues to top the Android App Store charts. It’s not the only Android game to introduce female characters however. Previously male-only games such as the Call of Duty have now welcomed characters such as Tanya Pavelovna.

Over in the mobile gaming world, many owners of Android devices will be enjoying the perks of Jackpotjoy, which has a crack team of marketers who are trying to cater towards a more “female-oriented” market. This is largely because of the recent acquisition of Gamesys’ assets by Intertain, who, as part of a £425.8 million deal, are trying to extend their markets by offering traditionally ‘female’ games such as online bingo.

There is still work to be done, but as time wears on, the female influence in the world of modern gaming is slowly growing. Currently, only 3 per cent of all games programmers are female, but with the recent success of women in the industry, this is a number which is certainly set to rise.

For example, Business Insider recently listed a selection of women gamers who have managed to win large cash prizes in professional gaming competitions. Amongst these were Katherine ‘Mystik’ Gunn, who made an incredible $122,000 from three separate tournaments by playing Dead or Alive 4 and by winning the championship prize in Halo: Reach.

Such successes are essential in building female role models in the gaming community. Thankfully there are the likes of Rumay ‘Hafu’ Wang who, after taking home a very respectable $16,200 from World of Warcraft competitions, now hosts her own Twitch channel where she streams her latest gaming exploits in Hearthstone.

Whether or not this goes against stereotypes, women have a huge future in the gaming industry, with the increasing offering from Android only adding to this. As the range of games titles continues to grow at an amazing rate, it is hopeful that there might be a little more choice than Kim Kardashian: Hollywood in the future!

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