Note: I am focussing this article from the point of view of a male gamer attempting to get their non-gamer female partner interested in gaming. I make no assumptions or generalisations about anything to do with either gender. These are all observations based on the tiny demographic of my wife and I, and our circle of friends. Feminists, please do not feel I am painting all of woman-kind with a wide and stereotypical brush. If you're a female gamer reading this and find any of it offensive, chances are none of it was aimed at you to begin with. On with the article...

Talking to friends and browsing around on forums, the discussions among male gamers often fall to subject of the wife/girlfriend, and that they "just aren't into gaming". Those of us with partners who enjoy gaming are often called "lucky", as we have someone in our lives who not only understands and accepts our hobby, but also joins us from time to time.

I'm a firm believer that there's a game for everyone. Play is a natural state for all mammals, and humans are no different (if anything, we seem more dedicated to it than other mammals). In my experience I've yet to find someone who doesn't like gaming at all. Instead, it usually boils down to finding the right sort of gaming for that individual.

There is a broader, psychological argument to overcome for some, of course. I can name off the top of my head a dozen friends with wives who think gaming "is for children", and thus a complete waste of time and money for anyone over the age of 12. If your partner falls into this category, you have a larger battle on your hands than what I'm aiming to cover in this article. My advice is tread wearily. The war will only be won when SHE decides that gaming is fun for adults also, and not just children. How you arrive there will depend entirely on you, and whether you fight with tools of intellectual logic (citing quotes from psychological journals explaining how play is beneficial to our psyche), or just get sneaky about it and leave your Nintendo DS lying about with games you think she'd enjoy. Either way, I won't focus on that aspect of it all. This article assumes your partner is not necessarily anti-gaming, just that she "doesn't find them fun" (yet).

Everyone is different, and there are no hard and fast rules as to how you can convert your significant other to regular gaming. However in my direct experience these last few decades, I've noticed a few general ideas that often help. In no particular order:

1) A matter of taste.

Find games SHE DOES like. Note the dual-word emphasis. Don't find games YOU THINK she may like. Don't force YOUR games on her. If there's a game you think she may like, and you purchase it, don't get cranky if she never plays it. There may be much trial and error (and financial outlay) to find her style of gaming. Don't assume you'll find it first go.

As I mentioned above, "play" is a natural state for all humans. Try to find what's she's interested in NOW, and see how those tasks can be related to gaming. A blatantly obvious one for me was seeing my wife play Bejewelled on MSN Chat with friends. It was fairly obvious that after seeing her play this time and time again, that style of gem/puzzle game was of interest to her. Similarly, she likes Sudoku puzzles. There's no deep analysis needed to see Sudoku is a low-pressure, non-time-limited puzzle game. I'm sure any long-term gamer can think of many games that would suit that sort of desire (entire chunks of the RPG genre come to mind).

Whatever you do, don't stick her in front of a game YOU LIKE without first having a good hard think about whether she'll like it or not. I don't know any of my friends' wives who would find any sort of enjoyment playing Left 4 Dead, Street Fighter, or some such other game.

Don't force games on her, or berate her for not liking games you like. If after 10 minutes of God of War she says "I hate this", don't launch into a 20 minute diatribe about how the game is pure art, and she doesn't know what she's talking about. Accept that it's not her thing, and move on.

I'll cover more specific examples of games I've found generally favourable by women in my own social circles at the end of the article.

2) There are no winners.

DO NOT play versus games. I'd go as far even as to say avoid any 2 player game in the short term. Yes, clobbering your mates at Tekken is funny, but I've yet to meet a wife or girlfriend who enjoys it. They also detest when you let them win (yes, they can tell). Leave highly competitive gaming alone.

Two player gaming can be fun, but be careful. Even the most friendly of co-operative games can turn competitive in the blink of an eye (who gets high score, who collected the most items on the level, who reaches the checkpoint first, etc, etc). As mentioned, start with one player games. Leave two player for a few years down the track (unless she's the one pushing to play them -- and if she wants you to play SingStar with her, man up and play it).

3) Let them fall.

Let her make mistakes. Also called the "don't be a backseat gamer" advisory. Yes, it's funny to make fun of your friends when they suck at a particular game (particularly when you're beating them), but the sure-fire way for my wife to drop a controller and walk out of the room is when I'm standing over her shoulder telling her how to do something in a game.

It doesn't matter if you can complete the level in under a minute when it takes her an hour, or you can pull of a 30 hit combo without missing a single move when she can't get two hits in a row. If she's playing the game and "not doing it right", just shut up. If you can't shut up, leave the room (go make her something to eat/drink for extra brownie points).

4) Fun for all.

Encourage games as a social activity. "Party games" are named so for a reason. Combine with a few of your wife's mates and a few bottles of champers for an entertaining evening for all (take that as you will).

5a) Nerds R US part 1.

Stop the tech talk. Yes, the PS3's Cell processor is a marvel of modern engineering, and Crysis looks like sex on the beach as it utilises every ounce of your godly $800 DirectX10 video card. She doesn't care, so get over it.

If she doesn't find the game "fun" (remembering point 1: HER definition of fun, not yours), then it doesn't matter how many polygons are in the scene, or if it utilises the latest HDRI-enabled game engine. If she tells you that Pac Man is the most fun game on the planet and she doesn't want to play anything else, then by golly go out and buy her every version of Pac Man the world has ever seen.

If she comes to you and says she saw an interesting game on the Nintendo DS, and you swore that Nintendo wouldn't get a single dollar out of you ever again for only pandering to the casual gamer market: get over it. Remember the motto "Happy wife, happy life". Buy that NDS, and see the joy that is a wife who will play it sitting next to you as you tackle the hoards on PS3 into the wee hours of the morning.

5b) Nerds R US part 2.

Make games easy to get to. By that I mean the stuff around the console (rather than the game itself). Don't make your games setup or TV unit so complex that she needs to turn on five devices and switch them all to the right combination of inputs and outputs to make them work.

If you're setting up emulators on a computer, don't show her front-ends and menus. Put an icon on the desktop that she can double-click, and ensure the USB gamepad works every time without manual configuration.

Make everything "turn on and play". If you make gaming hard to get to, she won't play it.

Games I have seen enjoyed by "non-gamer" women:

The above title makes me cringe a little. No matter how I word this, I feel I'm going to come across as some sort of troglodyte, trying to lump all "non-gamer women" into one category. But any ways, as above this is based on the tiny demographic of me. No wide research was done other than using my own eyes and ears to see what my wife, sister, and friend's wives (all of whom would probably class themselves as non-gamers) enjoy playing on a regular basis:

Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords (Nintendo DS, PlayStation Portable, Xbox Live Arcade, Wii, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Mobile phones, iPhone/iPod Touch).

Bejewelled with spells. Yes, that's really all it is. But it's massively popular, and seems to work a treat on almost anyone. Match up gems in four-of-a-kind patterns to get points and bonuses, and beat your opponent. It seems to be on almost every platform known to man, which is a pretty good start (a nice way to experiment on a game without needing to shell out on new hardware). This was the game that converted my wife. I took the risk and bought her a Nintendo DS with this game. A year (and many other games) later, she buys me a DS so we can play 2-player Puzzle Quest and Tetris DS. Winner!

Bubble Bobble (Arcade/MAME, NES, Gameboy, Gameboy Advance, Nintendo DS, Playstation 1, Mobile Phone, PC. Also as part of "Taito Legends" on XBOX, PS2 and PC.)

Bub and Bob are two kids turned into tiny dragons who can blow bubbles, encasing enemies and bursting them to clear levels. Sickeningly cute music, and incredibly addictive gameplay. I remember well when this was in arcades the first time around, and it attracted many female gamers.

Falling block puzzle games -- Tetris, Columns, Puyo Puyo, Puzzle Fighter, etc, etc. Too many games and platforms to list here. Also variants like Puzzle Bobble (shoot bubbles upwards to make three-of-a-kinds to clear the level). Again, way back when my local university arcade had a few of these machines in them, and they were always populated by women. Find me a lady who doesn't like Tetris DS, and I'll eat my hat.

Certain Super Mario titles. I find Mario 1 and 3 is loved by many a bloke, but not frequently the ladies. Mario 64 (N64, Wii Virtual Console, Nintendo DS) and Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) on the other hand were popular with my wife. I'm going to attempt introducing her to Super Mario World (Mario 4) soon to see where it falls in the scheme of things.

Yoshi's Island (SNES, N64, Gameboy Advance [as a SNES port], Nintendo DS). Again much like the Mario titles. The beauty of these is that the game is packed full of secrets. At face value they're quite easy to finish (rewarding for non-hardcore gamer). But the tricky part is getting 100% in all sections, which will drive the challenge up for even the mos experienced platform gamer.

The Legend of Zelda. Any of them. No joke (well, except Zelda II). I think this game has the largest female following in the world. If you're a Wii owner, you've got access to Twilight Princess directly, Four Swords and Wind Waker on GameCube (as well as the GC collector pack, but it's a bit harder to find), and Zelda 1 (NES), Zelda 3 (SNES) and Ocarina of Time (N64) via Wii Virtual Console. There's something infinitely appealing about the little green-garbed hero to men and women alike.

Professor Layton and the Curious Village (Nintendo DS). A collection of puzzles (typically ones requiring a little bit of lateral thinking) wrapped up in a game. Zero replay ability, but still popular with folks who don't like games that pressure them to do something in a particular time limit.

Sing Star / Lips (Playstation 2, Playstation 3, Xbox 360). Grab a microphone and sing. Match some sort of arbitrary guideline to be awarded points (see "competitive gaming alert", point 2 above). If your wife enjoys god-awful top 40 pop rubbish like mine does, this is the game for her. Although truth be told there's a fair few of these titles out there now to appeal to wider musical tastes. Although that doesn't stop me scoring appallingly on all of them (see the "shut up and play if she tells you to" point 2 clause above). Note that I have yet to find a single female who enjoyed Guitar Hero. I've not attempted the obvious "Rock Band" style mix.

Buzz! (Playstation 2). Game show buzzer style title. Obvious choice for a party game (see "women + party games + champagne = win" point 4 above).

Boom Blox (Wii). Stacked blocks must be thrown, pulled, smashed in particular order to pass levels. Great little physics engine too (warning! See "no geek talk" point 5a above). I personally love the game, but it seems the title is getting attention from a lot of people, casual and hardcore gamers alike. Tonnes of fun, and apparently there's a sequel due out late 2009.

Dance Dance Revolution (and others). These also seem to be on every modern console, and very popular with the ladies. I'm still at a loss why Sing Star and DDR are hits with the ladies, and Guitar Hero is not.

Soul Bubbles (NDS). Use the power of wind to blow bubbles through mazes. Another game that sounds simple at face value, but will see many hours of play. The game authors print a warning on startup: "This game contains no licensed racing cars, post-apocalyptic soliders, elves, orca, magicians or gang fights but don't panic: everything's going to be hunky-dory". That alone should be enough to convince the better half that she should give it a whirl.

Pinball. I'm not enough of a pinball aficionado to say which ones in particular, but as a type of game it seems to always be popular amongst the fairer gender. Although I have some good friends who are pinball collectors, and they too note that having more than two pinball machines in your house will still be frowned upon, even if the lady of the house enjoys the odd hit of silverball. They all mention something about the "why do you need another one when you already have a working one", which I've heard a few times about my arcade machines too.

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