Men seem to prefer FPS over RPGs, while women prefer the latter - study

The latest report out of SuperData Research finds women are now the largest group playing RPGs, and when it comes to MMOs, two out of five players are females.

Men make up 46.5% of RPG players compared to 53.6% of females. In the MMO market, men are still the majority with 66%, but two of every five players are female, per Joystiq.

“Players between 18 and 30 account for 50% of the US MMO audience," said SuperData in its report. "These players represent the largest age group, many of which started playing MMOs as children, during the segment's early years, and have continued into their adulthood.

"This generation is expected to expand the older markets as they age since they are the first generation to have grown up with MMOs."

Speaking of MMOs, last week SuperData issued its annual MMO report (thanks, VentureBeat) and the firm expects the category to generate $11 billion in annual revenues by the end of this year, which is "21% of the worldwide digital games market."

By 2017, the firm expects MMOs to generate $13 billion, with League of Legends contributing $946 million to the figure.

Now on to mobile: 57.8% of players are women while 42.2% of males enjoy playing as well. This doesn't surprise me in the slightest. I can't tell you how many hours I have spent playing Angry Birds, The Simpsons: Tapped Out and Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff on my Samsung tablet. I even play Farmville 2: Country Escape - and I am not ashamed to admit it.

The report also states 50.2% of ladies play on PC compared to 49.9% of men, which is a very small margin and includes social titles as well as other video game genres.

Male console players make up 63% of players compared to 37% of women, and men are still the main first-person shooter demographic with 66% of males playing the genre compared 34% of women.

While there isn't an overly large disparity between the any of the figures, save for consoles and fps games, the report shows more people are playing games than ever before, which is a good thing. The more mainstream it becomes, the more variety of titles we have to play.

You can look over a synopsis of both reports through the links.

Thanks, MCV.