I would assume 90% of excel-sheet space-strategy nerd game players are male. At least that is my experience with this. Those kind of games just appeal to the logical man-brain I think. Never seen many Twilight Imperium female player, or many Eve Online female players. 

Working on strategy games myself (build-up city games) I know we have also about 80% male. 

How is it with ES and ES2? 

I got to that when I saw that the devs seem to try to keep a good 50/50 ratio of male/female portrays of races. Then I thought: But is that even relevant when looking at the target audience?

Here's a strawpoll:

http://www.strawpoll.me/14878458

Giving that the average age of players who plays strategy games are much higher than other genres, especially in the 4x genre. Therefore I don't think a man after 20 years old would care if the heroes are female or male. Because there is so little group of female gamers, there is not even a focus group for them. Age has the most significant role in gaming and I don't think the (male) audience care for genders after a certain age. So my point is, the ratio is irrelevant. 

Dreepa wrote:

I would assume 90% of excel-sheet space-strategy nerd game players are male. At least that is my experience with this. Those kind of games just appeal to the logical man-brain I think. Never seen many Twilight Imperium female player, or many Eve Online female players. 

Working on strategy games myself (build-up city games) I know we have also about 80% male. 

How is it with ES and ES2? 

I got to that when I saw that the devs seem to try to keep a good 50/50 ratio of male/female portrays of races. Then I thought: But is that even relevant when looking at the target audience?

Yes.

End of.

Dreepa wrote:

WeLoveYou wrote:

Dreepa wrote:

I would assume 90% of excel-sheet space-strategy nerd game players are male. At least that is my experience with this. Those kind of games just appeal to the logical man-brain I think. Never seen many Twilight Imperium female player, or many Eve Online female players. 

Working on strategy games myself (build-up city games) I know we have also about 80% male. 

How is it with ES and ES2? 

I got to that when I saw that the devs seem to try to keep a good 50/50 ratio of male/female portrays of races. Then I thought: But is that even relevant when looking at the target audience?

Yes.

End of.

Relax, I didn't complain. It is not going to change, it's all cool.

I was just being curious in terms of what business practice is applicable here. Say: If I know my game is played by 80% female, or 80% male, would it be good to design things differently with that information available? 

That's an interesting topic to be honest.

On the one hand, designing more gender specific might actually cost you potential customers from the other gender, as you design a "self fullfilling prophecy". On the other hand, if that target audience is just too stereotype, maybe it might backfire. 

Like the new Star Trek Discovery. I love the cast. It is really nicely mixed up. Very modern, yet Star Trekkish. Some I know hate it. I love it. Then, in some certain situations I think it is just too much, and oozes "political correctness" in a way that is detrimental for the plot and the staging of a particular story arc.

The biggest Issue today is the debate that can come up when you don't do it. Different Genre and Example but when Ubisoft for example announced Rainbow Six Siege it didn't took a day until some of the gaming magazins labeled the games as "sexist" because the hostage was female and was rescued by male Operators. When the Game was released and had more male then femal Operators aswell that topic came back up. Since then they do 1 male/1 female Operator each DLC. The debate is probably the biggest risk for a Company (the smaller it is the bigger it is), even more then 1 or 2 Customers beeing upset that their favorite faction is using a hero from the opposite gender

The ratio of female- to male-identifying players of our games is largely irrelevant to us. Our games aim to represent peoples and societies, and based off the only sentient societies (ours), these numbers are pretty roughly 50-50, so it makes sense for us to want to represent the societies in-game the way they are.

If the society is wildly different (neutral or non-binary entities, or even a society based on scarcity of reproduction like the Cravers), then our approach can change, of course!

Hope that sheds some light on our process.