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Essay on The Gaming Industry Should Market to Women

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As soon as the video game world pressed the start button on their business, they never stopped playing. Like any video game, they hit major checkpoints and beat levels. From Pac-Man with joysticks to Angry Birds on iPads, the video game industry has a consistent history of success. Today, everyone knows someone who plays or has played a video game. New games and gaming consoles are constantly being advertised and released. They are even an entertaining method of keeping people up with the growth of technology. According to Melissa Terlecki, a psychology professor, “Involvement and experience with current computerized technologies…is important to provide both men and women…Because computer video games are a seamless lead-in to the …show more content…

These successful early games made the entire industry a total of 27.3 billion dollars by just 1982. One of the first iconic characters of this generation was Pac-Man, which in its great success, led to the release of its partner in crime, Mrs. Pac-Man. This spinoff greatly expanded their audience. Joyce Worely conducted an interview in the Electronic Games Magazine in 1982 with Stan Jarocki of Midway upon the game’s release, he stated, "It expanded our customer base and made Pac-Man a hit. Now we're producing this new game, Mrs. Pac Man as our way of thanking all those lady arcaders who have played and enjoyed Pac Man.’" Due to Mrs. Pac-Man being the first iconic female protagonist in the female gaming industry, it resulted in a huge spike in female gamers. There was also little controversy surrounding the character being female due to lack of sexist qualities and undoubted success.
The industry spends its money towards more male-oriented gaming than towards female-oriented gaming because they believe that there is a higher demand for their male audience. These high numbers result in high profit for these industries. Mike Williams, a writer for Game Industry magazine, concluded that “14.8 billion dollars was spent on gaming in 2012”. Now, according to Gartner, Inc., the world's leading information technology research and advisory company, the video game industry

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