Well, that's not how the NPD put it. They say that this year young girls are fitting more gaming into their busy girly schedule than they did last year.
The NPD Group's study, called -- no kidding -- Girl Power: Understanding This Important Consumer Segment, says that younger girls still prefer to play with traditional toys, but they're now also migrating to computer and videogames.
Socialization is gearing up among the pre-teens, and the advent of interactive gaming really hits home with these girls who are looking for friends from the confines of their homes.
When we say "young," we mean 9-12 years of age. Like, ohmigod. The study found that ages 13 and 14 were also gamers, but they also like to send text messages and listen to their MP3 players. Hey, that sounds just like Destructoid's teen correspondent, Taylor Tiffany.
“The growth in use of social networking and virtual world websites by girls is a natural extension of this core value which needs to be recognized by manufacturers who count girls as primary market for their goods and services," said NPD's Anita Frazier.
Does this mean that we're training the next generation of MMO girls?
[Via Edge]
Dale North is Destructoid's Editor-In-Chief, a founding editor, and specialist in Japanese gaming. An accomplished musician, Dale was reporting from Japan during the earthquakes of 2011. Luckily, he got the fuck out alive and is home in America now with his wife and beloved corgi, Einstein. Dale is also a co-founder of Destructoid's sister anime site
Japanator. Likes Corgis, Sega Saturn, PSP, iPhone, Photographic tools.
Meet the rest of the team
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Contest:
11:02 AM on 09.25.2008
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Sorry don't know how 12 year olds talk nowadays...I haven't been 12 for 12 years.
Anyway, this isn't surprising. Social networks and online gaming have been popular with the tween girls for years. You know social networks did exist before myspace. Anybody remember webrings, user groups, and other such online relics of the 1990s.
Before having online games of bejewel or scrabble or the multitude of shovelware online pc games that market to tweens, many girls would use online forums to play text based games with each other. Forum based games...you don't see that shit anymore.
Body image issues. It's about time we stopped spreading them.
That's what I meant all along.