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SALT LAKE CITY -- More and more ladies are picking up the game controller. A recent study says the number of female gamers is up significantly.
Looking around at the Gamerz Funk in Taylorsville, I only saw one girl at the time, and she was just checking her MySpace page. But she's been known to play too.
She said, "Sometimes I come over here and play with my friends on ‘Demigod' (a multi-player fighting game)."
She started playing about a month ago and now says she comes in once a week to play. She also dabbles with "World of Warcraft" from time to time.
She's not the only girl getting the gaming bug. The NPD Group says there was a 4 percent increase in females in their Heavy Portable and Extreme Gamers categories since last year.
The survey also says there was a 5 percent increase in females playing console games, in large part due to the Nintendo Wii; the number of females using that console jumped by 19 percent.
Gamerz Funk gaming marshal Michael Hughes says he's noticed an increase in female customers just since November.
"We have one that comes in with her boyfriend all the time. They always play ‘Killing Floor,' which is a first-person zombie shooter," Hughes said.
Aw, romantic.
Hughes says most of the girls there get introduced to gaming by their boyfriends, and then become serious gamers themselves.
"With a lot of our female gamers, ‘Sims 3.' A lot of them like that game. Otherwise, they pretty much like a lot of what the guys like as well," Hughes said.
E-mail: pnelson@ksl.com
