Well this is really interesting, because if these results are to be believed that everything we think we know about Sonic, including Sega’s own market data is completely wrong.
YouGov recently ran a poll to see which was the top 16 favourite video-games of the British public, coming in at number 1 was Candy Crush (no surprise there),with GTA coming in at number 2. Sonic manages to get on the table at number 13.
What’s more interesting is that the YouGov poll breaks down the results into percentages, and one thing is very clear…
Sonic is more popular with the ladies.
This is, really unexpected, for the following reason, Sega still markets and promotes Sonic as a ‘boys’ franchise. Even when Boom was announced, Sega’s own marketing material had boys as being the primary demographic for Sonic with girls as a secondary. Yet this poll shows that Sonic is nearly twice as popular with women over men.
However, there is one consideration to take with this. The poll doesn’t register the views of anyone aged under 16. Which is Sonic’s primary demographic. There is this huge lie which does the round a lot, that being, Sonic sells best on Nintendo? Erm no… Sonic sells best where the kids are. Which this poll doesn’t recognise, where-ever the kids are, that’s where you’ll find Sonic’s biggest sales.
But this is really interesting, since if it really is an accurate reflection of views worldwide it changes a lot of what was considered Sonic’s primary target demographics. Lets speculate for a moment that both this poll and Sega is correct and Sonic is more popular with boys (males aged under 16), after the age of 18, Sonic’s primary gender demographic shifts over to women. This isn’t the natural assumption to make for a character like Sonic, especially since there is little active female representation within the series (generally speaking), there is much more appeal to males.
Or.. and there is no way to independently verify this, Sonic actually has more appeal to girls than boys at all ages.
The full results of the YouGov poll can be found on their website, as well as what was the better console, the MegaDrive or the Super Nintendo, and who was a better character, Mario or Sonic… I’ll let you look that one up yourself.
Source: YouGov
Not a surprise to me. I remember reading an article somewhere stating that back in the 90’s Sonic was always more popular with girls than Mario was, I’ll try and find it.
It’s just a poll in England isn’t it? Sonic is really popular over there and it doesn’t surprise me that British Babes like Sonic more, but what about in America or other countries?
Most likely fanfic writers who pair themselves with Sonic/Shadow/Silver/all of the above.
A minority of a few hundred is representative of a population of 60 million now is it?
Well this is interesting
Sonic the hedge-stud!
Ahhh beat me to it!
Seem’s Zelda is more popular with the ladies too according to that poll.
heh makes sense, I’m a girl and I like cute things, sonic, zelda, kirby, mario, girls either like cute things or some like more violent things, but when it comes to handsome heroes there is of course FAN GIRLS! XD
So, I wonder when we’ll see Badnik Crush
Hey your profile pic looks familiar
Actually, I notice a phenomenon in media where works that have predominantly male characters have a high concentration of female fans while works with predominantly female characters tend to have a high concentration of male fans. I would assume the same principle is in effect here. Compare Sonic to Touhou if you want an example of this in action.
I’m not too shocked. Most people I see loving Sonic (you know, besides me… and Matt, the Owner of Tails’ Channel… and Donnie… and Clement… and-) are female. Most people I see bashing Sonic are indeed male.
… Yeah, I don’t like those implications, I guess, but this does feel a bit true to me. There’s plenty of male fans, but I see tons of females in comparison.
I also must ask if the same is true about the Sonic Boom TV series. When I roam the internet to see episodes, most of the supportive comments seem to be female. That’s probably a bad generalization, I bet.
Well, in the gaming community, women are pretty much in a lose-lose situation. If they like children’s games, they’re attacked for having stereotypically saccharine and easy tastes, thus not demonstrating female empowerment. If they like adult games, they’re attacked for being “fake nerds”, being unskilled (regardless of actual skill they demonstrate), and/or only playing the game to impress their boyfriend or otherwise get in men’s pants. So there’s no point for women to lie about what they like because it doesn’t help them to be accepted by the gaming community. Meanwhile teenage and adult men are pressured to shun children’s games for adult games in order to be considered “real, mature, manly men”, which inevitably leads to some lying about their tastes in order to make friends.
Luckily, that isn’t everybody. Actually, its really more oblivious perpetrators influenced by a vocal minority and their culture that do the attacking. Point is, there’s probably a fair lot of male fans of Sonic who are simply afraid to admit that they like Sonic (which has taken a child-friendly route in recent years) and only pick on him to fit in, while women fans feel less inhibited to do so because they probably wouldn’t completely fit in anyway so what’s the point in lying. Which is a pretty sad reflection of gaming culture, really. 🙁
(I checked the IMDb for Sonic Boom– http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3232262/ratings?ref_=ttawd_sa_3 . There are significantly less females than males who submitted ratings, but the female average rating was 6.1/10 while the male average rating was 6.3/10. The demographics that liked Boom the most were in the under 18 and over 45 age groups regardless of gender, while the demographics that liked Boom the least were in the 18-29 and 30-44 age groups with males in those groups tending to enjoy Boom more. Of course, that’s just one website so it can’t say any absolutes, but it seems to be pointing towards certain age groups enjoying Boom more rather than genders. Also, apparently it just got nominated for, like, four voice acting awards! :D)
Literally this. No need to say more.
True. Very true.
Wow. That’s incredibly true, I feel. I’ve never given it that much thought, not in terms of Sonic anyway.
(And wow, really? 4 voice acting awards? Holy crap, good job, Sonic Boom. 😀 )
Well, as a dude, you aren’t usually faced with these sorts of issues. If you’re a woman like me, however, you experience them at least once every few weeks. So I understand it not being a typical thought of yours.
(Actually, miscounted. Its five. :D)
Sonic is an awesome entity. I’m not surprised that the gender matrix here is unstable because of that. Plus, I am a boy and that’s all that matters to me. 😉 Boys rule girls drool!
But surely what’s important here is that Sonic appeals to everybody and that’s how I see it.
Well, I guess that makes sense. Males are more likely to be total jerks about stuff compared to females.
And so Jazwares wasted everyone’s time and money for no reason. What did they do to justify neglecting female fans and female characters? Some internal survey between the jerks who made the sculpts? Or the guy who cleans their sink?
So boys like My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic more and girls like Sonic the hedgehog more. Are you seeing what I’m saying?
Sonic is Classic, My Little Pony is not, therefore it’s not weird if girls like Sonic because he has that classic appeal for everyone, but boys liking My Little Pony?
You can like whatever you want, but your not making an impression on me!
Well, actually My Little Pony FIM’s a remake of a classic ’80s franchise but it was even more girly back then (I collected the toys when I was little, before you make assumptions, I’m female) so I get what you’re saying. I still don’t get the whole thing with men liking My Little Pony… What’s next, men liking Bratz or Barbie?
Hopefully that’ll be the day I croak!
I’m a female and I don’t (thank the lord) have any of THAT feelings toward Sonic or other male animal characters. I’m not a girly girl entirely, HOWEVER, I still have a soft spot to like cute things though Sonic is not on the adorable type for me.
Both genders can enjoy the blue blur.
Well said.
So my hypothesis of Sonic as the Justin Bieber of the Gaming world has some weight in it?
Sonic actually tries, remember?
Sonic is more like the Adam Sandler of gaming. Able to have great games but struggles so much more than he needs to.
@BlueLightning You sir, have just won this comment section.
Sonic has had more than one good game in recent times though. Besides that, you’re sadly right.
It’s enough to keep light on the hope. Sonic Runners is a really good comeback, though I’m still really ticked about how they handle extra playable characters.
Yeah, roulette is BS, lol. But the core gameplay is good. Gives hope for the console titles anyway, since they likely won’t have all that yucky freemium stuff.
Well in a world today where shows marketed for little girls 30 years ago are appealing to men of all ages in their most current forms, is it really such a surprise something primarily targeted towards boys can be appealing to women of any age as well? Typically, whenever I go to any sort of convention, I find that there tends to be more female fans of anything present than males, at least as far as the fandoms I care about go, I could just be generalizing (scratch that, I definitely I am). At the very least I tend to see a bigger number of females who are into the more crafty side of fandoming, namely the fan art, the costume work, and the fanmade merchandise. While typically I’ve always seemed to find the stereotypical male ranter being the most common form of fan I see online (certainly here more often than not), I also tend to find the passionate female artist, crafter, cosplayer, what have you, to be the most common form of fan I come across in the real world. Now I’m not saying that only women make up the passionate not-scary part of every fanbase and that only men make up the entirely scary rant beasts that we’ve all become unfortunately familiar with. There are certainly plenty of female ranters out there (I’m currently dating one) and there are thankfully plenty of male cosplayers, artists, etc. who put in the kind of passion and love that you hopefully want to see from everyone. What I am expressing is how in my life I HAVE noticed a reoccurring pattern with a lot of the various intricacies of our fandom-centric culture, based on my own experiences at least. But I still realize that that doesn’t paint the whole picture, and it IS reassuring to know that there is lots of variety out there. I just hope that some day that positive trend will extend to be equally apparent on all ends of the spectrum.
I believe it. Been a fangirl for 25 years and going on forever 🙂
Well, I decided to test this on a sonic the hedgehog fan group on facebook with over 15,000 users and asked them what gender are they, and so fat the majority are women
“so fat the majority are women”
(One of the worst typos that can ever be done.)
Woah hold on I never seen in my own eyes & sight is That Mario has 57 votes & Sonic has 43 votes so that means Mario is better than Sonic in the gaming history & Console wars back of the 90s in YouGov that’s is so sad to me or others has to come with this nooooo!
This doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. Cute characters, colourful visuals, romantic pairings all over the shop, fun gameplay. All of these equate to the things girls and women enjoy the most within a franchise. I mean, for other prime examples, look at Pokemon, Kirby, Mario, Spyro, Crash Bandicoot, most rhythm games, Klonoa, Digimon and Rayman. These are just some of my own personal favourites (I, myself am female) with which a lot of fellow fans I’ve met are also female and that either feature all the things I mentioned already or some of them.
If I adored small Sonic, this is because I thought he was cute and Tails, I not speak. The characters are friendly and above all, those are animals, I think she likes girls. ^^
I’m pretty sure a survey of around 3000 people only represents the views of those 3000 people.
i’m not suprized really, i myself am a female and a collector i love sonic stuff (minus boom) and from previous people i have met a lot of the big merch collectors are female, so it’s no surprize that the game sales are also mainly female i mean, sonic is a cute blue hedgehog, (who used to have badass aspects) whats not to like xD things that are cute and also cool tend to apeal more to women.
i mean if sonic was like not cute anymore and gross and mutated or it went all COD or LOL, then yea i assume it would apeal to men a lot more.
since sonic has that cute aspect i can see why it would apeal to young boys, i always said sega needed to market more female merch, there has been female underwear and a few more female tops for kids and adults so. i can see they are noticing there is a lot of fans that are women/girls they just prefer to keep their market aimed mainly at guys, but in a way i don’t think they shold change that, i think one of the reasons it apeals so much to women is because it’s aimed at guys, imagine if it became suddenly girly and whatnot, it wouldn’t work anymore people wouldn’t like it xD