On a recent trip up to Chicago, I attended an event called “A Girlfriend’s Guide to Gaming” — a sweet little cocktail soirée aimed at twentysomething women and introducing them to the Nintendo brand.

Champagne + snacks + Wii + DS sounds like a fabulous time for me, but many of the other ladies in attendance (1) weren’t familiar with the Nintendo brand and (2) weren’t interested in gaming. And some of them still weren’t at the end of the night.

Obviously, the disconnect between girls and gaming is something that marketing people have been studying for quite some time, but I wonder what’s so different between gamer girls and our non-gaming peers?

Let’s break things down into the fundamental reasons women might say they’re “just not that into” games. I snagged these basic categories from the marketing types at that event, although this list is by no means a complete profile of non-gamer girls. I’ll throw my initial responses in, but I’d love to see where this goes in the comments.

Don’t have time.
Gaming can be time-consuming. It’s extraordinarily easy to lose track of five or six hours while you level grind/build a franchise/work your way through a story. And who are we to tell anyone how to spend their time?

Okay, so maybe some of us spend more hours every week playing games than we do sleeping, but shopaholics spend tons of time in their favorite stores, and foodies devote many hours to tasty treats — people make time for things that are important to them.

It’s a given that gaming isn’t going to be a priority activity for everyone. But what about those minutes and hours when there’s nothing to do? Like train commutes, bus rides, long lines, waiting rooms? Perfect gaming opportunities. Handheld and mobile games are still real games, after all. Bonus: you can play video games on the train or in waiting rooms; you can’t shop or eat.

Aren’t familiar with gaming systems/games.
Shocking as it may be to those of us who grew up with a controller fused to our hands, there are plenty of women who do not have a clue what FPS and RPG stand for. They can’t tell the difference between a PSP and a DS (is that a portable DVD player?), and Halo is an accessory for angels.

Something drew us into gaming. I’m sure it was something different for all of us — maybe we grew up alongside the industry and had consoles during every generation, maybe we played pen and paper games and video games were a natural next step, maybe we had boyfriends who were really into World of Warcraft — but there was some thing that brought us into gaming culture, and there was a reason we stayed.

Guitar Hero, Wii Fit, and the like are definitely a great step towards bringing more women into the market. They truly invite participation in a way that many other console and PC games aren’t able to do. Casual games like Bejeweled and TextTwist are doing a great job of capturing women’s attention, even if they’re not as “hardcore” as most retail games. There’s still room for growth, but I think it’s key that women can find at least one game that resonates with them. After all, the girl who tries out Mario Kart might decide to check out Wii Sports. And after that? Maybe she’ll be picking up a copy of Madden.

Don’t think it’s fun.
Shooters, sports, and sci-fi/fantasy (and action/adventure, strategy, sim, etc.) really deliver on fun for hardcore gamers, but they’re not necessarily interesting or fun to girls who aren’t already into gaming. And besides that, there’s still a very present “nerd culture” that surrounds games.

Breaking the “fun” barrier is tough, because you really just can’t educate someone in regards to what they will or will not enjoy. It’s doubly difficult if they have preconceived ideas that something will not be fun. I think the solution here is similar to what I said above regarding casual games and music games. In order to dispel the “games are for nerds” idea, girls have to encounter a game that they enjoy. Maybe they have to play a game without realizing – per se – that they’re gaming, to break that stigma.

So, gamer girls: what are your thoughts on the disconnect? Non-gamer girls: is there something I’m missing, or do you have a different take on why you’re  just not that into games?

I should begin, to be fair, with my immeasurable love for all things campy. I enjoy reading fantastic fan-fiction and I got just a little weepy during Sam Hart’s YouTube debut of Mario Kart Love Song. So it shouldn’t be a surprise when I say that I have yet to come across a game turned film franchise that I couldn’t get excited about.

Now don’t get me wrong; the excitement doesn’t always last. As an avid fan of Dark Angel I admit that the first three minutes of Xavier Gen’s Hitman had me out of my seat and on my way out to my car before the opening credits had even finished rolling. It took me a couple of tries over many years but at this point I have managed to sit through the entire movie. Once. I consider it a minor miracle. The same feeling can be turned towards movies like Max Payne and Resident Evil: Degeneration. While visually stimulating and semi-successful at the box office they were otherwise lacking in pizazz. Then there are movies that can only be described as pure, unadulterated, Fan Candy. I am talking about the greats of gaming/movie madness. Super Mario Brothers, Dead or Alive, Mortal Kombat, Wing Commander, these are movies that I can watch over and over again and infinitum until the day my brain melts and starts leaking out my ears.

Whether they were heart warming, rage inducing, or brain melting, in the past quarter of a century American Cinema has seen about 40 versions of game turned movie. That number includes a variety of things like game spin-offs, very loose adaptations, and straight up big screen copies. Some of them have been insane blockbusters (Tomb Raider, Resident Evil) some have been great fun but financially unsuccessful (In the Name of the King , Alone in the Dark) and most dwell in the misty grey world of fandom (BloodRayne). Now lets recap…40+ movies in 25+ years. So color me surprised when I discovered that there are at least 30 movies in the works to be released within the next few years. The rough math, for those of us who don’t like math, would be 30+ movies in 3+ years.

With these overwhelming numbers the question begs: Will it be too much?

With titles like BioShock, Resident Evil 4, God of War, and another Mortal Kombat (with Lambert!!!!!) as just a few of the movies soon to hit the Silver Screen do we even care? Given that movies based on games are rarely successful I find myself wondering why Hollywood thinks there is going to be a change in that trend. Do they know something we don’t? Have they kidnapped Theresa, every hero’s favorite sister, and forced her to rat out the blockbusters of the future? Maybe the executives finally got their hand’s on a decent 8-ball

All in all it looks as though we gamers are going to have a few good years of fan candy ahead of us. With so much looming over the horizon, the anticipation may just kill me.