(As we all know) Women are not new to gaming.

[Tippy]

By the same logic, Men have started watching My Little Pony to impress women. I think a web comic made that comparison recently somewhere around here...hm.

That webcomic was pure sarcasm, men watch MLP because it's a great show with adorable characters and for no other reason (watching it with their partners doesn't count as trying to impress them). It's completely unrelated to this

Anyway back on topic, here is my one and only request for you: Please find some statistics regarding what percentage of women help DEVELOP games. Not just play them (as they're so eager to point out), I mean help in actual game development teams and studios.

Because even though I can't find any actual statistics, everytime I see a "staff photo" of game development companies I see roughly 1 female per 10 males, usually even fewer. Take Blizzard or Crytek for example.

My theory is that a large percentge of women may PLAY games, but they're not as interested in MAKING them - yet they demand equal and fair representation. They demand that male developers cater to their tastes, their wants and needs. This is of course, purely a theory and I'm yet to find actual statistics to back it up (I'm still looking, help me!).

Ideally if 40-50% of game developers were female, we would see 40-50% of games which cater to females, correct? They would feature over-sexualized males with their shirts (and maybe pants) off, female characters taking the lead, men being the victims of "female gaze", treated nothing more as objects, etc (the polar opposite of what you see in games today).

But this is FAR from the case, so something is definitely not right.

So far I remain convinced that the overwhelming majority of game developers are male (I hypothesize atleast 80-90%), and therefore they are in their full right to develop games from their perceptions and concepts.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

By the same logic, Men have started watching My Little Pony to impress women. I think a web comic made that comparison recently somewhere around here...hm.

That webcomic was pure sarcasm, men watch MLP because it's a great show with adorable characters and for no other reason (watching it with their partners doesn't count as trying to impress them). It's completely unrelated to this

Anyway back on topic, here is my one and only request for you: Please find some statistics regarding how many women help DEVELOP games. Not just play, I mean help in actual game development teams and studios.

Because even though I can't find any actual statistics, everytime I see a "staff photo" of game development companies I see roughly 1 female per 10 males, usually even fewer.

My theory is that a large percentge of women may PLAY games, but they're not as interested in MAKING them - yet they demand equal and fair representation. They demand that male developers cater to their tastes, their wants and needs. This is of course, purely a theory and I'm yet to find actual statistics to back it up (I'm still looking!).

Ideally if 40-50% of game developers were female, we would see 40-50% of games which cater to females, correct? They would feature over-sexualized males with their shirts (and maybe pants) off, female characters taking the lead, men being the victims of "female gaze" etc (the polar opposite of what you see in games today).

But this is FAR from the case, so something is definitely not right.

So far I remain convinced that the overwhelming majority of game developers are male (I hypothesize atleast 80-90%), and therefore they are in their full right to develop games from their perceptions and concepts.

SO you think it would be right for games to be racist if the majority of games developers where white?

Because you seem to be using that argument to say sexism is okay.

Do you see how ridiculous it is that men might watch my little pony to impress women? That's how ridiculous is it when someone says 'Women play games to impress men'

Also don't you see how it's a self perpetuating problem. How are women going to be interested in making games if the tone of the entire gaming community is one of a boys club.

I even saw an article which said the majority of one gaming studio was female as he had employed people from his former employer who hadn't managed to get work and most of them had applied for the same jobs as the guys and been turned down. So that's systematic sexism from within the industry.

 

[crystalsnow]

I read the title.

My response: No shit Sherlock.

 

[Composer]

I don't know what to say... except....I don't care.
I've never cared. I know girls play videogames, it doesn't effect me at all.
Guess what kiddo, this is a pretty liberal gaming website. And as such, this is old information.
And your immediate assumption that we'd all " cry out "casuals don't count" shows that your not very familiar with this site.

 

[theblindedhunter]

Also, they probably aren't as competitive or into multiplayer as the guys, which may result in the skewed impression that girls don't like games.

HA! Hahaha! Ha.
Sorry, not to single you out or anything, but I always find stuff like this funny: ideas about how girls are less competitive or (like from that other thread) prefer more simple games and things like that.
I can say without a doubt that the most competitive, most ruthless, and most ridiculously skilled players I've ever encountered in a FPS are female. (I say FPS because that is what I play online, so the one place I could see them.) I had one friend where not a day would go by without a hot-blooded rivalry would play out between us on the sever we frequented (provided we were both on, naturally). Usually after she stabbed me in the back of the head several times over. Really, I never knew anyone else to be so brutal on that server!
Point being, girls are very capable of aggression and a competitive attitude, and while one could perhaps argue that on the whole they are less so, I think you could just as reasonably suggest in response that they only aren't because of a certain expectation for them to not be so, and that they are still taking time to enter some parts of gaming (particularly the ones that are more vitriolic toward them).

 

[Tippy]

SO you think it would be right for games to be racist if the majority of games developers where white?

Because you seem to be using that argument to say sexism is okay.

What I was referring to was the overreaction from female gamers when Lara Croft shows up doing exactly the same thing she's been doing for the last 10 years screaming "hey don't assault her, that's rape omg!" or "hey you killed a whole bunch of female assassins and you're a MAN, that's sexist!"

It's nothing but overreaction, to seek attention by getting offended over every little thing and scaring actual game developers into thinking "great, now what can we make that these women WON'T find discriminatory? Populate every game with non-human robots?"

Do you see how ridiculous it is that men might watch my little pony to impress women? That's how ridiculous is it when someone says 'Women play games to impress men'

You've got it completely backwards. Women watch My Little Pony to impress men (or atleast, that is far more likely) because the MLP fanbase is already overwhelmingly male. Most women just don't find the show as amazing as men make it out to be, MLP:FiM has become a "man" thing (along with being a little-girls show).

 

[Elate]

My only problem is booth babes and their ilk, girl gamers are fine, aside from sometimes being the worst fucking fan boys (Oh irony) why would I ever even think they were new? But booth babes? Please, they probably don't even know the genre of a game they're promoting, just eye candy, I find it offensive.

That and girls that are all "OH I'M A GAMER" and then I'm like "Oh cool.. what do you play?" and they respond with something like "I PLAY ZELDA ON MY WII."... THAT DOES NOT MAKE YOU A GAMER, THAT MEANS YOU'VE PLAYED A FRACTION OF GAMES.

-Long exhale.- But that includes male "gamers" who only play CoD on their 360 with brofriends, they aren't gamers in my eyes either.

Out of curiosity to you consider people to have played Zelda on the Wii to be less of a gamer by default? Or is it if they have ONLY played Zelda on their Wii.

Oh no I mean ONLY. Gamers for me are people who have played a lot of games, different games, or one game to the extreme, and by extreme I mean playing pokémon games in tournaments.

 

[neonsword13-ops]

AUUUUUGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

OT:

That and girls that are all "OH I'M A GAMER" and then I'm like "Oh cool.. what do you play?" and they respond with something like "I PLAY ZELDA ON MY WII."... THAT DOES NOT MAKE YOU A GAMER, THAT MEANS YOU'VE PLAYED A FRACTION OF GAMES.

-Long exhale.- But that includes male "gamers" who only play CoD on their 360 with brofriends, they aren't gamers in my eyes either.

Yeah, that bothers me, too.

If you only play CoD on your 360 or Zelda on your Wii, I just can't take you seriously toting the 'gamer' title around.

 

[Tippy]

Also, they probably aren't as competitive or into multiplayer as the guys, which may result in the skewed impression that girls don't like games.

HA! Hahaha! Ha.
Sorry, not to single you out or anything, but I always find stuff like this funny: ideas about how girls are less competitive or (like from that other thread) prefer more simple games and things like that.
I can say without a doubt that the most competitive, most ruthless, and most ridiculously skilled players I've ever encountered in a FPS are female. (I say FPS because that is what I play online, so the one place I could see them.) I had one friend where not a day would go by without a hot-blooded rivalry would play out between us on the sever we frequented (provided we were both on, naturally). Usually after she stabbed me in the back of the head several times over. Really, I never knew anyone else to be so brutal on that server!
Point being, girls are very capable of aggression and a competitive attitude, and while one could perhaps argue that on the whole they are less so, I think you could just as reasonably suggest in response that they only aren't because of a certain expectation for them to not be so, and that they are still taking time to enter some parts of gaming (particularly the ones that are more vitriolic toward them).

I once knew a woman who became a great warrior and fought bravely on the battlefield, eventually leading her people to victory.

Therefore ALL women must be equally great warriors as men, the Romans should've had 50% of their legionnaires as women and 50% of the soldiers who died in WW1 and WW2 were women.

Oh wait.

What I'm saying is that there's really no point in rambling about "that 1 girl" you knew. This thread isn't whether women CAN be ferocious competetive gamers, obviously they can. They can also be murderous criminals.
This thread is discussing WHAT PERCENTAGE of murdering criminals are women. WHAT PERCENTAGE of women are ferocious competetive gamers. Understand? Something like this relies on statistics, not personal stories. And the answer is, the percentage of female gamers (especially competetive ones) is small. Please go into your local Starcraft LAN tournament, or even your local gaming cafe, let me know how many girls you find ("oh but they don't like showing themselves!" is not an excuse). The concept "alpha-male" has a solid reason behind it, because men are basically vulgar and angry and rude in the name of competition, we thrive on it. Women in general don't.

If we're really playing the personal stories game, in my 6 years of playing World of Warcraft I have come across ~2 girls who could hold their own under the pressure of Arena PvP. The overwhelming majority have been purely PvE or "achievement whores" and are quick to back out of any PvP situation because they just don't like the pressure. There's a story for you.

 

[Ryotknife]

By the same logic, Men have started watching My Little Pony to impress women. I think a web comic made that comparison recently somewhere around here...hm.

That webcomic was pure sarcasm, men watch MLP because it's a great show with adorable characters and for no other reason (watching it with their partners doesn't count as trying to impress them). It's completely unrelated to this

Anyway back on topic, here is my one and only request for you: Please find some statistics regarding how many women help DEVELOP games. Not just play, I mean help in actual game development teams and studios.

Because even though I can't find any actual statistics, everytime I see a "staff photo" of game development companies I see roughly 1 female per 10 males, usually even fewer.

My theory is that a large percentge of women may PLAY games, but they're not as interested in MAKING them - yet they demand equal and fair representation. They demand that male developers cater to their tastes, their wants and needs. This is of course, purely a theory and I'm yet to find actual statistics to back it up (I'm still looking!).

Ideally if 40-50% of game developers were female, we would see 40-50% of games which cater to females, correct? They would feature over-sexualized males with their shirts (and maybe pants) off, female characters taking the lead, men being the victims of "female gaze" etc (the polar opposite of what you see in games today).

But this is FAR from the case, so something is definitely not right.

So far I remain convinced that the overwhelming majority of game developers are male (I hypothesize atleast 80-90%), and therefore they are in their full right to develop games from their perceptions and concepts.

SO you think it would be right for games to be racist if the majority of games developers where white?

Because you seem to be using that argument to say sexism is okay.

Do you see how ridiculous it is that men might watch my little pony to impress women? That's how ridiculous is it when someone says 'Women play games to impress men'

That is not what i got out of that post...

People are usually more familiar with the group that they belong to than to a group that they do not belong to, that familiarity in turns creates a product which identifies with other members of that group. It is not some sort of evil conspiracty, just a lack of perspective of other groups.

Clearly this is not always a problem as a male is capable of creating a relatable female character and vice versa, but for the average person it is not unreasonable for our individual perspectives to highly influence how relatable a character of a certain group is.

I for one would probably not be able to create a relatable female character. Whenever i create stories in my head when im bored, typically it is only my male characters that are original, the female characters are either genderless (like the Shepards from mass effect, a character that works equally as well for the most part regardless of gender) or are a frankenstein of other female characters that i like. Now, yes, my failure in this department does not mean that all humans suffer from the same affect, it is just an example. But I look at my library of books, and this idea holds true more often than not.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Um... okay. so we are supposed to discuss... I have no idea.

There isn't really a discussion here as far as I see it. You might be upset and posting this here to try and educate some people, but this isn't really a topic of discussion. Some people don't know this stuff, but just posting this all here, as if to educate us is not why this forum is here. Not to mention that it kind of assumes we are all ignorant, when that's not necessarily the case. Um... I don't know what else to say... ugh... Don't do drugs!

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

SO you think it would be right for games to be racist if the majority of games developers where white?

Because you seem to be using that argument to say sexism is okay.

What I was referring to was the overreaction from female gamers when Lara Croft shows up doing exactly the same thing she's been doing for the last 10 years screaming "hey don't assault her, that's rape omg!" or "hey you killed a whole bunch of female assassins and you're a MAN, that's sexist!"

It's nothing but overreaction, to seek attention by getting offended over every little thing and scaring actual game developers into thinking "great, now what can we make that these women WON'T find discriminatory? Populate every game with non-human robots?"

Do you see how ridiculous it is that men might watch my little pony to impress women? That's how ridiculous is it when someone says 'Women play games to impress men'

You've got it completely backwards. Women watch My Little Pony to impress men (or atleast, that is far more likely) because the MLP fanbase is already overwhelmingly male. Most women just don't find the show as amazing as men make it out to be, MLP:FiM has become a "man" thing (along with being a little-girls show).

I don't think I've ever seen Lara Croft nearly being raped and I've played all of the Tomb Raider series. The problem women gamers had with that is that they seemed to be reducing her down to a character men wanted to 'protect' while she has always been a gun toting badass.

The problem with Hitman wasn't that a man was beating on women but that those women were unnecessarily sexualised, It was pandering and rather creepy pandering at that. If those women were dressed as ninjas or in combat gear I'm pretty certain no one would have had a problem with it.

I was trying to use My Little Pony it to say that women don't like things guys like just to get attention. Just as you don't like My Little Pony to get female attention, you just like the show right?

That whole sentiment is stupid and frankly insulting.

My Little Pony isn't just for guys just as gaming isn't just for guys. I don't know why you have to make that distinction and 'claim it' for yourself.

 

[theblindedhunter]

What I was referring to was the overreaction from female gamers when Lara Croft shows up doing exactly the same thing she's been doing for the last 10 years screaming "hey don't assault her, that's rape omg!" or "hey you killed a whole bunch of female assassins and you're a MAN, that's sexist!"

It's nothing but overreaction, to seek attention by getting offended over every little thing and scaring actual game developers into thinking "great, now what can we make that these women WON'T find discriminatory? Populate every game with non-human robots?"

Or, alternatively, it was people (not just females, not just males) responding to a perceived problem. It seemed to some that developers might be abusing the sensitive topic of rape heedlessly to create sympathy or potentially something more seedy, or to others that a game might be over-fetishizing graphic violence against sexualized targets.
Perhaps they were wrong, perhaps they misunderstood the intentions and messages of these trailers, but to say that they did it to get attention is simply intellectually dishonest. It is the equivalent of an ad hominem attack, followed up by ignoring the point of the reaction entirely.

Women watch My Little Pony to impress men (or atleast, that is far more likely) because the MLP fanbase is already overwhelmingly male..

I don't think it is very likely for anyone to watch MLP to impress anyone else (at least not in great numbers) - which I think is the whole point: this isn't something people are doing for attention, this is something people are doing because they enjoy the show. Just like gaming isn't for attention, it is something people do because they enjoy the games.

 

[Exius Xavarus]

I wish I had more female gaming friends. A welcome change from the normal surroundings of dudes, dudes and more dudes.

 

[Euryalus]

On an unrelated note I got my little sister into gaming recently and am trying to find easy, but great games for her to play. I've been playing so long that I routinely underestimate her difficulty with some games. Any suggestions?

EDIT: She's already beaten OoT and Luigi's mansion with help from me, but she's really struggling with Super Mario Sunshine (the platform levels). I hesitate to give too much help lest she never gets any better.

You've exposed your kin to the evils of the Fluddless segments?

By the gods.


But yes, Katamari sounds like she'd love it. I also Recommend Majora's mask, since she beat Ocarina. Majora has one hell of a world and an immersive story.

Majora's Mask is my Favorite game of all time, but I worry about the great bay temple. She gets frustrated easily so I thought maybe if I let her play portal and a few other puzzlers first it would go over better. I essentially told her what to do in OoT's water temple and I don't like doing that. (I also beat Ganon for her)

Mario Sunshine was so she'd get better at controls. I didn't think that one through as well as I should've. Super Mario 64 would have been better lol.

 

[theblindedhunter]

I once knew a woman who became a great warrior and fought bravely on the battlefield, eventually leading her people to victory.

Therefore ALL women must be equally great warriors as men, the Romans should've had 50% of their legionnaires as women and 50% of the soldiers who died in WW1 and WW2 were women.

Oh wait.

What I'm saying is that there's really no point in rambling about "that 1 girl" you knew. This thread isn't whether women CAN be ferocious competetive gamers, obviously they can. They can also be murderous criminals.
This thread is discussing WHAT PERCENTAGE of murdering criminals are women. WHAT PERCENTAGE of women are ferocious competetive gamers. Understand? Something like this relies on statistics, not personal stories. And the answer is, the percentage of female gamers (especially competetive ones) is small. Please go into your local Starcraft LAN tournament, or even your local gaming cafe, let me know how many girls you find ("oh but they don't like showing themselves!" is not an excuse). The concept "alpha-male" has a solid reason behind it, because men are basically vulgar and angry and rude in the name of competition, we thrive on it. Women in general don't.

If we're really playing the personal stories game, in my 6 years of playing World of Warcraft I have come across ~2 girls who could hold their own under the pressure of Arena PvP. The overwhelming majority have been purely PvE or "achievement whores" and are quick to back out of any PvP situation because they just don't like the pressure. There's a story for you.

Point being, girls are very capable of aggression and a competitive attitude, and while one could perhaps argue that on the whole they are less so, I think you could just as reasonably suggest in response that they only aren't because of a certain expectation for them to not be so, and that they are still taking time to enter some parts of gaming (particularly the ones that are more vitriolic toward them).

Underlined to emphasize that you said very little that I didn't just mention.
To make my point clearer, because I don't always do that right, I'll freely admit: 1) generalities and statistics have a all-too-great tendency to be used very poorly at times, and nearly every mention deserves a reminder that statistics are meaningless to individual cases, among other things; and 2) judging by the trends we are seeing in situations like the military and a growing acceptance of females displaying traditionally masculine traits, and going by the part where there isn't a great deal of evidence to suggest that females are somehow locked into thinking this or that way because of their tits, women are not just capable of aggression and competition but are capable in equal numbers and at equal levels.

 

[Euryalus]

Um... okay. so we are supposed to discuss... I have no idea.

-SNIPPITY SNIP-

There isn't really a discussion here as far as I see it. You might be upset and posting this here to try and educate some people, but this isn't really a topic of discussion. Some people don't know this stuff, but just posting this all here, as if to educate us is not why this forum is here. Not to mention that it kind of assumes we are all ignorant, when that's not necessarily the case. Um... I don't know what else to say... ugh... Don't do drugs!

We should probably redirect this thread into something like how gender affects gaming experiences or memories or something. Do we have your permission OP? Unless you can frame the discussion in a way that makes it easier to talk about 'cause like this wise dog says "I have no idea what I'm doing."

Controlled derail FTW?

 

[Overusedname]

Um... okay. so we are supposed to discuss... I have no idea.

There isn't really a discussion here as far as I see it. You might be upset and posting this here to try and educate some people, but this isn't really a topic of discussion. Some people don't know this stuff, but just posting this all here, as if to educate us is not why this forum is here. Not to mention that it kind of assumes we are all ignorant, when that's not necessarily the case. Um... I don't know what else to say... ugh... Don't do drugs!

I acknowledge we all know women aren't new to this hobby. Or most of us know that. I also acknowledge you're all obscenely talented, beautiful and/or handsome people. Because you are. But I think our ratios of the gaming population are a bit...obscured. This is also in response to recent sexist video posted on these nifty little forums.

I don't think I can just quote myself and make a post, so here's some more text.

There's already a discussion going on and lots of female gamers noting how pissed they are at the situation.

I dunno lol. I'm a guy with some cool women in his life who likes equality and was upset by an icky sexist thing on my favorite internet place. So I responded in a way that would be seen. I tried to make it clear that I acknowledge most of us know this. Sorry if it wasn't clear enough and came across wrong. I didn't mean to offend.

I guess we could just drop the gender discussion period, but this is the only place I've ever seen with some people who talk about it rationally.

Actually, most people here handle it well. In my experience.

We should probably redirect this thread into something like how gender affects gaming experiences or memories or something. Do we have your permission OP? Unless you can frame the discussion in a way that makes it easier to talk about 'cause like this wise dog says "I have no idea what I'm doing."

Controlled derail FTW?

Fuggin' do it, bro. I'll also edit the post and title.

 

[krazykidd]

Who cares . If women want to play videogames or not it's up to them.

In other news , there is a shortage in male cheerleaders . THE RAGE!