On April 30, 2010 the MMORPG Eve Online turned seven years old. It is hard to believe the game has been around that long and is still going strong.
But for the predominantly male population of New Eden space is cold and lonely without a special someone to mine resources or blow up spaceships with.
The creators of Eve Online (CCP) have reported that less than 5% of the player population is female. Aside from making it exceeding difficult for lonely space pioneers to get a date this statistic is highly suspicious given the Entertainment Software Association reports that 43% of virtual world and MMORPG users are females.
So where are all the girls at? And more specifically, why are they not logging into Eve Online?
The problem is receiving priority attention as CCP announced a blogging and writing contest aimed at sourcing ideas to recruit more female players. The contest titled “The Ladies of New Eden” runs through to the now extended date of May 7th, 2010 and offers the following prizes:
In practicality women tend to be predominantly social gamers and require a certain level of conversational interaction. In a campaign and first person shooter game like Eve Online, conversations can tend to be more tactical in nature. This may be a deterrent for the element looking to possibly date online via avatar as there is not enough of a social element to keep women interested. After you have completed your campaign you log out. There isn’t much else to do.
If you think it is difficult to have a man really listen to you imagine trying to get his attention while he is strategically planning the destruction of a space station. Now that is mission impossible.
The avatars in Eve Online also offer very minimal customization compared to other virtual worlds. In general both genders enjoy the option of individualizing their avatar to a limited extent, but what is really missing is the ability to look attractive in the game.
Whatever the peripheral issues are with recruiting and retaining female players in Eve Online from a business perspective it is definitely something to be concerned about as CCP is missing marketing appeal to 43% of virtual world or MMORPG players.
It’s going to take a little more than pink spaceships to get the gals in-game.
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Source: Web May 2, 2010
http://www.eveonline.com/news.asp
http://www.crazykinux.com
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Dousa Dragonash
[...] 4. Space-based MMO EVE Online is running a competition to increase it’s female player cohort. Apparently only 5% of players are female currently. [...]
May 4, 2010 | 5:23 am