The NPD Group just released a study which found that there has been a significant increase in the total number of female gamers over the last year – up as much as 28%. While the report does break things down in detail, it fails to give any hard numbers that might be of real help to many of the male gamers who spend the majority of their life online. Specifically of concern, but conspicuously omitted – what are the real odds that the party’s scantily-clad Elven warrior-priestess you’ve been chatting online with for weeks isn’t secretly wielding a sword? Or the possibility that the flirty new shooter calling herself “ImH0t4W11″ in your Conduit clan doesn’t carry an extra piece in her belt?

Unfortunately, science may never be able to give us those kind of specifics. However, the report was able to offer this ray of hope for those so concerned:

“These types of players ["extreme" femal gamers] account for just four per cent of total gamers, says the report, however their playing habits have become a little less extreme. While they still spend an average of 39 hours a week playing games, that average is down seven hours from 2008.”

GamesIndustry.biz has a few more specifics of interest from the very dense report.

If the low sales figures for Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars for the DS wasn’t evidence enough that mature games face an uphill battle on the Nintendo platform, then low sales numbers (66,000) for Sega’s MadWorld, which received positive reviews (like Chinatown Wars), should make it more than obvious. GTA doesn’t sell on the DS and MadWorld can’t move units on the Wii. Sense a pattern?

If MadWorld had been released on the PS3/Xbox, its sales would have been considerably higher. Perhaps now the the gaming industry will wake up to the fact that every platform has its demographic, and trying to cater to gamers who don’t fit that demographic is a recipe for disaster.