During a four-month period in late summer-early fall of 2004, I canvassed a cross-section of 110 women who were either currently engaged in playing active MMOs, or had spent a significant amount of time playing these games. The women came from all walks of life, all ages, professions or careers, all parts of the United States and Canada (and a small number from other countries). The only unifying and persistent quality these women had was their love of playing MMORPGs.

This is not a "scientific" survey, nor is it a globally comprehensive one. I visited a number of forums attached to guilds or social groups whose members boasted a comparatively high number of female players (see list of sources below). It is worthwhile to note that most of these forums/message boards had an EverQuest connection of some kind. I invited these girl gamers to answer my questionnaire, and a surprising number answered with enthusiasm. It appears that female gamers actually DO want to be heard. However, there were no control groups, nor was this, by any stretch of the imagination, a cross-section of all female gamers. Nevertheless, this study will offer insight into the make-up of female gamers, why and how they play massively multiplayer online role-playing games, what they like in a game and what they dislike. Many of the answers were frank and revealed a thoughtful and intelligent participation not only in this survey but in the way the women approached playing games.

It is important to note that this survey was done before a number of the blockbuster games in vogue today were out of beta--and some not even reached the beta stage. This includes EQII, World of Warcraft (was in beta at the time of the survey), EVE 2, Saga of Ryzom, and many other good games that were not available in the late summer and early fall of 2004.

With respect to the information regarding the number of players who listed EverQuest as their most important game, while the results are quite amazing, they are not unexpected, since nearly all of the forums I visited had some EQ connection. It would have been surprising if EQ were NOT the most cited game. This doesn't detract at all from the other games and should not be taken as criteria to judge which games are "good" or "not good" to play.

Finally, I want to point out something that was not anticipated in the questionnaire. Many of the women noted that they had been either the leader of one or more guilds in their game-playing career, or officers in a guild. It was a significantly high proportion, and I now regret that it was not one of my questions so that a more accurate demographic could have been obtained. I suspect that more women would have answered had this been one of the questions. In any event, although no definite conclusion can be reached, it would appear that female gamers often make good officer/leader material as compared to the overall numbers of men and women who play these games.