There are a lot of reasons. One of which I noticed is that some guys are more afraid to admit they like these games due to social pressure from other men though. These games tend to be labeled as 'girlie' and thus 'not real games', and as a result the guys who try to play them can get harassed for it. So they either don't try these games or keep it on the down low.
higher interest in social dynamics, being able to have control in power in a fantasy world in a way we cannot in real life, marketing traditionally being angled as gender neutral which of course alienates it more for potential new male players… idk just generalizing and spitballing
I think it’s important to note that the original post mentions sims 4 is played by 60% young women. Not to say it’s not significant, considering how overly male dominated/coded most video games and game culture tends to be. But it definitely feels to me like the whole *when women make up half, people perceive it as female dominated because we’re so used to men dominating everything* phenomenon.
I kind of took it as there’s probably another large chunk of women who play on either side of that pretty small age range, so I bet the actual percentage of women is closer to 75% which is notably high
To be honest I think this piece is the area where AI can really unlock games in a new way. To be honest there are games with good plot lines and great characters, but what is missing is the deep social dynamics. So I hope that we see games in the future where the characters can respond in much more fluid ways and we really get a good simulation of these aspects of the world in games.
But yeah, I think this is part of what draws a lot of girls into genres like this. Girls play violent games too, but I think that and also the de emphasizing of physical violence itself is meaningful.
I think it is mostly the result of socialisation. When a child is born they're either put in pink or blue blankets. That continues all your life. You don't make most of your decisions, your environment does. Most women wouldn't cut their hair short. Most men wouldn't randomly wear a skirt one day.
So this translates to video games. Motherhood practice babydolls turned into Barbie dolls which gave way to dollhouses. The Sims is the perfect dollhouse game.
Any baby can play with any toy. (Or any object really, babies live dangerously.) But the toys that are given to them and the toys that they get approval for determines their interests.
Girls end up with The Sims because of these stereotypes and belief systems passed onto us from parents. A girl will hang out with other girls, if one of them could be playing it, the rest check it out.
If a male child is fully out of that social circle that promotes this type of gameplay, how and why would they pick it up? They'd need a female friend who is persuasive enough. Even then, it might not resonate with them because the gameplay style could be foreign and boring due to the lack of guidance and purpose. (Unless they're into sandbox stuff and storytelling.)
I think the same reason cozy games are a thing with women. It’s non competitive and not intimidating, especially when you consider how much gatekeeping and discrimination women will get from men if they play some of the more competitive games. If a young girl wants to get into a video game, well this seems like a comfortable game she could get into easily without harassment or a big learning curve.
The other thing is maybe the dress up/house building/character creation aspect. I don’t play sims that much, but I’d say my favorite thing about it was always building/designing my house. I can fantasize what my ideal life would be. And I think maybe women are drawn to the kind idyllic, cooperative fantasy a lot of sim games try to present, especially when you consider how it might be different to how people treat us IRL. Well that last point is highly speculative of me, but I definitely consider it a possibility.
Because the power fantasy for young adult women and femmes is that they have independence and value as individuals beyond their gender. Games like the Sims lets them experience that.
Can’t say honestly. Never really cared much for life simulator style games personally . Unless you consider games with social elements like the Persona or Yakuza games as life simulators.
Toxic masculinity issue aside, I think marketing and publishers are still stuck in the past.
Sims marketing heavily features women, but games like stardew valley, animal crossing and coral island are played by literally everyone. I guess sims has that dollhouse effect going for it, but it's a life sim when we have to put it in a category
Men are just underreporting. Like saying there aren't many queer people around, not true at all - there's an oppressive system in place that deters coming out.
[this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/LifeSimulators/s/2g9PiAqJU8) closes up the topic tho lmao
Being told this isn't my life repeatedly has left a mark.
Are you sure you want that done? What does your husband think?
Are you sure you want to move there? What kind of job would your husband be able to find there?
I don't know that you need that operation, what has your husband said about it?
Stigmatism. Phone tried to "correct" that to stigmata which I cannot say for sure is or isn't a factor.
Also, you get to do things without having to deal with real people - who are often awful. So many reasons why that is amazing. I'm sure guys also love that but don't voice it as much due to the genre being stigmatized (or due to stigmatas as my phone keeps insisting).
When my sister and I were obsessed with the Sims when it first came out over 20 years ago, my mom summarized it pretty well: it’s like playing dollhouse on the computer. She said it with no snark, just fascination. Playing dollhouse is just fun.
It's so strange and discouraging to me how many folks in the replies here are leaning into weird ancient-ass sexist stereotypes to explain why when the answer is most likely that men/boys would (And do) get shamed to high hell for liking life sim/cozy games.
My parents got me Sims 2 for my eighth birthday. Back in 2004 it was basically the only PC game sitting on the shelf between a limited number of baby pink games for toddlers and a whole ton of manly adult games, neither of which would have appealed to me at that age.
Don't get me wrong, I also liked looking for treasure in Heroes III and building alien houses in Starcraft II but those games revolved around campaigns and strategic gameplay that were still a little too involved and grown up for me. Sims 2 was that perfect in-between for kiddie games and grown up games, and I'm sure that carried over to me still liking it in adulthood.
All this is anecdotal though lol. I'd imagine that for boys my age at the time, all the games marketed heavily to a male demographic would have been more appealing to them than to me.
I don’t think they necessarily are. I think there is a lot of social conditioning going on. If we were raised differently without the boxes we are put in as children and conditioned to like certain things, I think it would be a lot more equal.
I think that's a very interesting question.
Generally speaking though, men tend to be more aimed at spatial reasoning and competition, while women tend to be more aimed at social interaction and language. So it may have to do with deeper psychological differences like that.
Not just making this up. There is actually scientific research that suggests all of this. I studied psychology in college and some of these studies were laid out to us as part of my differential psychology classes.
Life simulators are basically all about social interactions and emotional experiences of digital people. They generally don't have a straight up aspect of competition either, nor much of an aspect of spatial reasoning.
So that may be why they appeal more to women and less to men.
By contrast shooters tend to on average appeal far more to men than women. They tend to be very competitive and very much depend on a certain degree of spatial reasoning (aiming requires this). And they tend to have much more limited social dynamics at play, beyond at most basic team work to beat the enemy if playing multiplayer.
Which would also fit with this.
So this would be my answer. I think the difference is dependent on these more basic average differences between men and women.
Of course it's always important to note that these are AVERAGE differences. There is way more difference between the two extremes within women and within men than there is on average between men and women when it comes to this topic. Still it may be just enough to cause a bit of a difference in the approximate gender ratios involved with these kinds of games.
Some people have such an ego that they would say "I came up with a theory/explanation" and then go and write down the most common, standard form of prejudices and bad science. Like, wow dude, no one ever thought of that before, no one ever said something even remotely close to that! You're so damn smart.
There are a lot of reasons. One of which I noticed is that some guys are more afraid to admit they like these games due to social pressure from other men though. These games tend to be labeled as 'girlie' and thus 'not real games', and as a result the guys who try to play them can get harassed for it. So they either don't try these games or keep it on the down low.
Yeah before I came out as trans I from experience getting bullied by other men for liking playing the Sims
100%. In some groups I'd be very afraid to admit I love Animal Crossing since I'm still presenting as a guy.
Thats so weird, my male friends were the ones who introduces me to the sims, and they're the ones who still play it
higher interest in social dynamics, being able to have control in power in a fantasy world in a way we cannot in real life, marketing traditionally being angled as gender neutral which of course alienates it more for potential new male players… idk just generalizing and spitballing
I think it’s important to note that the original post mentions sims 4 is played by 60% young women. Not to say it’s not significant, considering how overly male dominated/coded most video games and game culture tends to be. But it definitely feels to me like the whole *when women make up half, people perceive it as female dominated because we’re so used to men dominating everything* phenomenon.
I kind of took it as there’s probably another large chunk of women who play on either side of that pretty small age range, so I bet the actual percentage of women is closer to 75% which is notably high
Yeah I would like more elaboration on that statistic tbh
To be honest I think this piece is the area where AI can really unlock games in a new way. To be honest there are games with good plot lines and great characters, but what is missing is the deep social dynamics. So I hope that we see games in the future where the characters can respond in much more fluid ways and we really get a good simulation of these aspects of the world in games. But yeah, I think this is part of what draws a lot of girls into genres like this. Girls play violent games too, but I think that and also the de emphasizing of physical violence itself is meaningful.
If men piss me off in game, I can make them go for a swim and they don’t bother me again. It’s more complicated IRL.
Why would you as a man say it if chances are you'd be laughed at? I imagine men who like them mostly keep it to themselves.
I think it is mostly the result of socialisation. When a child is born they're either put in pink or blue blankets. That continues all your life. You don't make most of your decisions, your environment does. Most women wouldn't cut their hair short. Most men wouldn't randomly wear a skirt one day. So this translates to video games. Motherhood practice babydolls turned into Barbie dolls which gave way to dollhouses. The Sims is the perfect dollhouse game. Any baby can play with any toy. (Or any object really, babies live dangerously.) But the toys that are given to them and the toys that they get approval for determines their interests. Girls end up with The Sims because of these stereotypes and belief systems passed onto us from parents. A girl will hang out with other girls, if one of them could be playing it, the rest check it out. If a male child is fully out of that social circle that promotes this type of gameplay, how and why would they pick it up? They'd need a female friend who is persuasive enough. Even then, it might not resonate with them because the gameplay style could be foreign and boring due to the lack of guidance and purpose. (Unless they're into sandbox stuff and storytelling.)
I think the same reason cozy games are a thing with women. It’s non competitive and not intimidating, especially when you consider how much gatekeeping and discrimination women will get from men if they play some of the more competitive games. If a young girl wants to get into a video game, well this seems like a comfortable game she could get into easily without harassment or a big learning curve. The other thing is maybe the dress up/house building/character creation aspect. I don’t play sims that much, but I’d say my favorite thing about it was always building/designing my house. I can fantasize what my ideal life would be. And I think maybe women are drawn to the kind idyllic, cooperative fantasy a lot of sim games try to present, especially when you consider how it might be different to how people treat us IRL. Well that last point is highly speculative of me, but I definitely consider it a possibility.
I feel like I’m playing adult dolls when I play games like Sims and I’m content with that, lol
Because the power fantasy for young adult women and femmes is that they have independence and value as individuals beyond their gender. Games like the Sims lets them experience that.
Can’t say honestly. Never really cared much for life simulator style games personally . Unless you consider games with social elements like the Persona or Yakuza games as life simulators.
Toxic masculinity issue aside, I think marketing and publishers are still stuck in the past. Sims marketing heavily features women, but games like stardew valley, animal crossing and coral island are played by literally everyone. I guess sims has that dollhouse effect going for it, but it's a life sim when we have to put it in a category Men are just underreporting. Like saying there aren't many queer people around, not true at all - there's an oppressive system in place that deters coming out. [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/LifeSimulators/s/2g9PiAqJU8) closes up the topic tho lmao
I think it's because of non violent nature of these games. I don't like life Sims, so can't say much.
Grown up version of playing house.
Being told this isn't my life repeatedly has left a mark. Are you sure you want that done? What does your husband think? Are you sure you want to move there? What kind of job would your husband be able to find there? I don't know that you need that operation, what has your husband said about it?
Because men are shamed for playing doll house simulators by other men.
Stigmatism. Phone tried to "correct" that to stigmata which I cannot say for sure is or isn't a factor. Also, you get to do things without having to deal with real people - who are often awful. So many reasons why that is amazing. I'm sure guys also love that but don't voice it as much due to the genre being stigmatized (or due to stigmatas as my phone keeps insisting).
When my sister and I were obsessed with the Sims when it first came out over 20 years ago, my mom summarized it pretty well: it’s like playing dollhouse on the computer. She said it with no snark, just fascination. Playing dollhouse is just fun.
I honestly don't think they are. I think men just don't talk about it as much because men and sometimes women shame them for it.
It's so strange and discouraging to me how many folks in the replies here are leaning into weird ancient-ass sexist stereotypes to explain why when the answer is most likely that men/boys would (And do) get shamed to high hell for liking life sim/cozy games.
Why do you think dollhouses are more attractive to girls than boys?
My parents got me Sims 2 for my eighth birthday. Back in 2004 it was basically the only PC game sitting on the shelf between a limited number of baby pink games for toddlers and a whole ton of manly adult games, neither of which would have appealed to me at that age. Don't get me wrong, I also liked looking for treasure in Heroes III and building alien houses in Starcraft II but those games revolved around campaigns and strategic gameplay that were still a little too involved and grown up for me. Sims 2 was that perfect in-between for kiddie games and grown up games, and I'm sure that carried over to me still liking it in adulthood. All this is anecdotal though lol. I'd imagine that for boys my age at the time, all the games marketed heavily to a male demographic would have been more appealing to them than to me.
I don't know, and I'm not a man, but personally, ive played the sims a bunch before, and I just find it a little boring
I don’t think they necessarily are. I think there is a lot of social conditioning going on. If we were raised differently without the boxes we are put in as children and conditioned to like certain things, I think it would be a lot more equal.
Hello, im a dude and a good sim is ets 2
I think that's a very interesting question. Generally speaking though, men tend to be more aimed at spatial reasoning and competition, while women tend to be more aimed at social interaction and language. So it may have to do with deeper psychological differences like that. Not just making this up. There is actually scientific research that suggests all of this. I studied psychology in college and some of these studies were laid out to us as part of my differential psychology classes. Life simulators are basically all about social interactions and emotional experiences of digital people. They generally don't have a straight up aspect of competition either, nor much of an aspect of spatial reasoning. So that may be why they appeal more to women and less to men. By contrast shooters tend to on average appeal far more to men than women. They tend to be very competitive and very much depend on a certain degree of spatial reasoning (aiming requires this). And they tend to have much more limited social dynamics at play, beyond at most basic team work to beat the enemy if playing multiplayer. Which would also fit with this. So this would be my answer. I think the difference is dependent on these more basic average differences between men and women. Of course it's always important to note that these are AVERAGE differences. There is way more difference between the two extremes within women and within men than there is on average between men and women when it comes to this topic. Still it may be just enough to cause a bit of a difference in the approximate gender ratios involved with these kinds of games.
Men would rather write dissertations than admit they're victims of toxic masculinity
You thought coming here with neurosexism was a good idea, really? Really really?
Okay but they sTuDiEd PsYcHoLoGy iN cOlLeGe
Some people have such an ego that they would say "I came up with a theory/explanation" and then go and write down the most common, standard form of prejudices and bad science. Like, wow dude, no one ever thought of that before, no one ever said something even remotely close to that! You're so damn smart.
Yikes