[MrDrone]

What leads you to that conclusion? What do you think the average Steam user looks like? What about them doesn't fit your idea of this?

[piker]

Average? Well, male for one.

It's not my point, but I don't think you're giving a strong rebuttal either.

[DoctorOW]

I'd say about half of Steam players aren't male. The "video games are for boys" thing is kind of a self fulfilling prophecy because anyone who believes that will obviously not play with a woman.

[gpt5]

From SQ Magazine (not sure how reliable they are):

92% identify as male, 7% female.

https://sqmagazine.co.uk/steam-statistics/

I think that it's true that games are definitely being played by both males and females today, but I think that statistics is that mobile games skew female, and PC games skew male.

[starkparker]

The ESA, which covers only the US ages 18+: 53% male, 68% white, 87% straight, median age 37. https://www.theesa.com/resources/essential-facts-about-the-u...

A female share of around 40-48% has held steady in this report since around 2007.

Quantic Foundry's research largely backs that women prefer more casual-genre games like match 3, with a mobile bent that wouldn't show up in Steam data: https://quanticfoundry.com/2017/01/19/female-gamers-by-genre...

But they also show a heavy preference for third-person MMOs that are also less likely to show up in Steam data: https://quanticfoundry.com/2023/01/27/perspective/

[eldaisfish]

the comment you replied to is a homophobic dogwhistle.

The tech sector is rife with blatant homophobia, racism, and a false sense of intellectual superiority. Hacker News is an excellent cross section of the typical techbro culture.