"Girl Gamers"
- Thread starter Dahni
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The thing is, guys often find it odd when girls play games, because we think you're too busy socializing or being popular or enjoying your life or whatever.It's just a weird gender norm, an odd bit of prejudice. It doesn't matter if you're a guy or a girl, and at the bottom line we are all just gamers, but when most people think "gamer," they picture a guy in their minds. It's just another inexplicable gender norm, the same way most people think "secretary=woman," or "football nut=guy."
"Why re-design something that works perfectly well to account for a pair of breasts and attract a couple more sales?"
-If girls are getting offended and not buying certain games for lack of a female lead, I somehow doubt they're the gamers who are worth putting in the extra effort for. Do they not understand the paradox they're creating that's not worth solving?
If you take funds from polishing the game's quality to create a female-friendly character, you lose money for loss of functional gameplay mechanics.
But if you use said money to better gameplay and storyline, along with graphics, SOME girls get all thrown up in a tizzy and tantrum their way out of the game store.
Bottom line, if you take the resources required to make these girls happy, the game itself suffers, and they end up not liking the game anyway. They don't get your sales, and on top of that, lose sales from customers who would have bought it if they'd spent the money on the actual GAME aspect.
Stop throwing a tantrum and play the game, if you're such a convincing gamer.
"Lastly, quit complaining about guys being "sexist" or whatever on games. You are a female invading what guys have always thought of as being their space, their time."
Isn't that what sexism is, essentially? One gender treating the other unfairly due to a predisposition to think of the other as unworthy to be/do/think/participate?
It's not THEIR space, or THEIR time. If it is, then where's ours? Where is the female gaming community? Oh, right, we're not worth having our own being as miniscule in numbers as we are and it would be considered sexist TO SEPARATE US. They can think it's theirs all day long, but in the end, that doesn't give them the right to treat us like we're doing something wrong.
If we're good at the game, we're a fat dyke.
If we're bad at the game, it's because we're a girl and can't POSSIBLY comprehend the rules/controls/anything.
If we're mediocre, we should get BACK in the kitchen and bring the oh so obviously deserving boys a sandwich and a beer.
I admit, in my experience it's the minority, but SOME boys try their damndest to get the female player to quit the game or cry or, my personal favorite, give them a MySpace/Facebook/Twitter account link. While they do get harsh with some of the male players, they don't do it to EVERY other boy they encounter, but these are the boys who DO single out EVERY girl they come across in the online gaming experience.
I guess the point here being this: I'll stop complaining about them being sexist when they stop BEING sexist.
"A girl invading that time can only make them resentful so obviously they're
going to be a bit annoyed. They think of their games as a guy thing and the idea of a girl potentially beating them is not favourable. So yes, they will insult you. Yes, they may say some out of order things but a lot of guys are like that to each other all the time and if you can't handle having to put up with the male mentality, then gtfo games."
No, not they will not "obviously" get annoyed, because only a few guys have these extreme problems with female players. And again, it's not their game. If it was, then the online gaming access may as well have a hand-painted wooden "No Girls Allowed" sign pop up when a female tries to register for XBL or the PSN or whatever. War games would require an ID not for the ESRB rating, but to be sure that girls couldn't taint the golden man-time that IS online gaming.
Get off games? Because of a few worthless jerks? So I guess if you get hit on at work, you'll quit your job? And if someone whistles at you on the street you won't walk outside your house anymore? How about we do what we like, because we're not in the wrong for playing these games online. How about if THEY can't handle playing with the girls, then THEY can gtfo games.
"Don't bother getting pissy about this, I am stating my opinion. I'm a girl so don't think the basis of this is "sexist", or whatever."
Sorry, but male or female, sexism is sexism. Just because you're one of the group you're talking about, you're obviously excluding yourself from the pack here, saying the REST of these girls are wrong. Siding with the sexist guys as a girl is the same as being a sexist guy yourself.
"Now ive never known anyone be sexist on XBL, Ive seen people flirting, And its creepy sometimes, And ive also seen the whole "ill protect you" scenario, Which although i can see how it could get annoying the 30th time, But its not like they're diving in front of you to take shots mid-game. I pretty much agree with the OP statements, Your a gamer like everyone else."
XBL is almost the only online play I do. Being a girl, I've seen a TON of XBL sexism. But there are also the guys who, upon hearing the first guy, will defend me. While the second guy could be viewed as displaying mild sexism (assuming I need rescuing), it just goes to show the varied forms of it happening everywhere, obviously and subtly.
"There are some great female games, take Washing Up Hero for example."
I'm not immune to the occasional act of mild sexism. That was hilarious.
"Does anyone past the age of 16 really care about the gender of their fellow gamers? Really? It's such a trivial issue to get caught up on."
Obviously they do, or this post would be non-existent. And it's not JUST about male and female in gaming, this is sexism in general, by way of gaming. Also, if it's so trivial, why are there over 100 posts SO FAR, and why did you bother to read about it?
I'm not saying every guy is like this, and I'm not saying every girl is fair.
I've encountered far more guys who don't mind playing with girls, some of my best online friends started out being extremely sexist towards me, and through what came of that, we became good XBL friends. Some guys just put up a front for the sake of being offensive.
I've also encountered SEVERAL of the "furries" type of girls, and that annoys me, too.
Anyway...it's not stopping me from playing online.
-If girls are getting offended and not buying certain games for lack of a female lead, I somehow doubt they're the gamers who are worth putting in the extra effort for. Do they not understand the paradox they're creating that's not worth solving?
If you take funds from polishing the game's quality to create a female-friendly character, you lose money for loss of functional gameplay mechanics.
But if you use said money to better gameplay and storyline, along with graphics, SOME girls get all thrown up in a tizzy and tantrum their way out of the game store.
Bottom line, if you take the resources required to make these girls happy, the game itself suffers, and they end up not liking the game anyway. They don't get your sales, and on top of that, lose sales from customers who would have bought it if they'd spent the money on the actual GAME aspect.
Stop throwing a tantrum and play the game, if you're such a convincing gamer.
"Lastly, quit complaining about guys being "sexist" or whatever on games. You are a female invading what guys have always thought of as being their space, their time."
Isn't that what sexism is, essentially? One gender treating the other unfairly due to a predisposition to think of the other as unworthy to be/do/think/participate?
It's not THEIR space, or THEIR time. If it is, then where's ours? Where is the female gaming community? Oh, right, we're not worth having our own being as miniscule in numbers as we are and it would be considered sexist TO SEPARATE US. They can think it's theirs all day long, but in the end, that doesn't give them the right to treat us like we're doing something wrong.
If we're good at the game, we're a fat dyke.
If we're bad at the game, it's because we're a girl and can't POSSIBLY comprehend the rules/controls/anything.
If we're mediocre, we should get BACK in the kitchen and bring the oh so obviously deserving boys a sandwich and a beer.
I admit, in my experience it's the minority, but SOME boys try their damndest to get the female player to quit the game or cry or, my personal favorite, give them a MySpace/Facebook/Twitter account link. While they do get harsh with some of the male players, they don't do it to EVERY other boy they encounter, but these are the boys who DO single out EVERY girl they come across in the online gaming experience.
I guess the point here being this: I'll stop complaining about them being sexist when they stop BEING sexist.
"A girl invading that time can only make them resentful so obviously they're
going to be a bit annoyed. They think of their games as a guy thing and the idea of a girl potentially beating them is not favourable. So yes, they will insult you. Yes, they may say some out of order things but a lot of guys are like that to each other all the time and if you can't handle having to put up with the male mentality, then gtfo games."
No, not they will not "obviously" get annoyed, because only a few guys have these extreme problems with female players. And again, it's not their game. If it was, then the online gaming access may as well have a hand-painted wooden "No Girls Allowed" sign pop up when a female tries to register for XBL or the PSN or whatever. War games would require an ID not for the ESRB rating, but to be sure that girls couldn't taint the golden man-time that IS online gaming.
Get off games? Because of a few worthless jerks? So I guess if you get hit on at work, you'll quit your job? And if someone whistles at you on the street you won't walk outside your house anymore? How about we do what we like, because we're not in the wrong for playing these games online. How about if THEY can't handle playing with the girls, then THEY can gtfo games.
"Don't bother getting pissy about this, I am stating my opinion. I'm a girl so don't think the basis of this is "sexist", or whatever."
Sorry, but male or female, sexism is sexism. Just because you're one of the group you're talking about, you're obviously excluding yourself from the pack here, saying the REST of these girls are wrong. Siding with the sexist guys as a girl is the same as being a sexist guy yourself.
"Now ive never known anyone be sexist on XBL, Ive seen people flirting, And its creepy sometimes, And ive also seen the whole "ill protect you" scenario, Which although i can see how it could get annoying the 30th time, But its not like they're diving in front of you to take shots mid-game. I pretty much agree with the OP statements, Your a gamer like everyone else."
XBL is almost the only online play I do. Being a girl, I've seen a TON of XBL sexism. But there are also the guys who, upon hearing the first guy, will defend me. While the second guy could be viewed as displaying mild sexism (assuming I need rescuing), it just goes to show the varied forms of it happening everywhere, obviously and subtly.
"There are some great female games, take Washing Up Hero for example."
I'm not immune to the occasional act of mild sexism. That was hilarious.
"Does anyone past the age of 16 really care about the gender of their fellow gamers? Really? It's such a trivial issue to get caught up on."
Obviously they do, or this post would be non-existent. And it's not JUST about male and female in gaming, this is sexism in general, by way of gaming. Also, if it's so trivial, why are there over 100 posts SO FAR, and why did you bother to read about it?
I'm not saying every guy is like this, and I'm not saying every girl is fair.
I've encountered far more guys who don't mind playing with girls, some of my best online friends started out being extremely sexist towards me, and through what came of that, we became good XBL friends. Some guys just put up a front for the sake of being offensive.
I've also encountered SEVERAL of the "furries" type of girls, and that annoys me, too.
Anyway...it's not stopping me from playing online.
I could care less if the people I play games with have a penis or not. Play the game, if you're good, you're good, and that's it. Games are meant to be played to have fun. If I encounter one of those "I'm special here cuz I'm a girl" then I'll just mute it and be done with it just like the rest of those idiots.
Hmm, judging from your picture, you are rather attractive, and it saddens me that people would do shit like that for biological traits you have little to no control over. I went through four years of secondary school hell because I look Middle-Eastern. And this is in Canada. Completely irrelevant to the topic at hand I know, but this struck me for some reason.Dahni said:
Anyways, OT, the problem is quite simple and can be summarized in one sentence my diversities teacher just loves: The squeaky wheel gets oiled. Regardless of equality and whatnot, gaming companies are still Capitalist enterprises, and therefore are out to make a profit. Because male-oriented games are the best sellers, gaming companies will continue to make male-oriented games because they know it turns a profit. What gaming companies perceive as female-oriented games, which is your usual Barbie nonsense, don't sell nearly as well, and therefore gaming companies perceive that there is little demand for female oriented features. So therefore, female gamers are not so much victims of discrimination as they are market trends. Is some of it discrimination-based? I wouldn't doubt it. Is that the sole reason? Hell. No.
This.Ephemeral-Addictions said:
All of this.
On toast with cheese.
I fall at your eloquent feet!
As a girl who does indeed have a social life and who is a gamer,I've only ever run across guys who were either surprised or exstatic to find a girl who loves gaming as much as they do. Now maybe I'm not considered a "typical" girl gamer seeing how my favorite games are typically first person shooters or survival/psychological horror ones, but I have never really felt the gaming world as overly sexist towards females.
Now perhaps that's because I really don't like playing with female lead characters, hell, the token supporting female characters typically piss me off because I find them a waste and annoying. Then again, all of them have bombshell bodies and nothing else to offer so of course they are catering to the male gamers
I really love all the strong male lead characters, I prefer them, and since I have yet run across a female lead character that I could actually enjoy playing ( I do not play tomb raider so it doesn't count) I really could care less if a game with one is released.
I do find it irritating, as Ephemeral-Addictions above, when girls who game and game well are considered to be "fat dykes" or girls with no life or no friends. And while gaming is still unfortuately considered a "mans world" I know that there is room for all of us to equally enjoy gaming and just get along.
When I play with my guy friends I never expect them to "go easy" on me or "protect" me. I suck at Halo, I probably always will, and when I get my ass kicked I expect it, but I still have fun. And in return when I kick their ass in something else they never feel emasculated, they respect me as a gamer.
So I guess my point is that we all should just get along and be happy that gaming is something girls and guys can enjoy equally, together.
Now perhaps that's because I really don't like playing with female lead characters, hell, the token supporting female characters typically piss me off because I find them a waste and annoying. Then again, all of them have bombshell bodies and nothing else to offer so of course they are catering to the male gamers
I really love all the strong male lead characters, I prefer them, and since I have yet run across a female lead character that I could actually enjoy playing ( I do not play tomb raider so it doesn't count) I really could care less if a game with one is released.
I do find it irritating, as Ephemeral-Addictions above, when girls who game and game well are considered to be "fat dykes" or girls with no life or no friends. And while gaming is still unfortuately considered a "mans world" I know that there is room for all of us to equally enjoy gaming and just get along.
When I play with my guy friends I never expect them to "go easy" on me or "protect" me. I suck at Halo, I probably always will, and when I get my ass kicked I expect it, but I still have fun. And in return when I kick their ass in something else they never feel emasculated, they respect me as a gamer.
So I guess my point is that we all should just get along and be happy that gaming is something girls and guys can enjoy equally, together.
Just some background info on me: I'm 19, Male and English (London).
My point is that the 'girl gamer' community endlessly whines about not having any games 'for girls', but makes no positive action to elucidate what exactly games 'for girls' would be. It clearly isn't the case that the 'girl gamer' community wants a gender reversal for the protagonist because large numbers of games (mainly RPGs) allow for player creation of the protagonist. Of course it's not one size fits all and there's nothing that's going to perfect represent the desires of all female gamers, but I'd imagine that games devs feel quite clueless as to what the market wants at all. The game devs know that if they clumsily slap some killing, heroism and maybe sci-fi themes into a game then common denominator guy will eat it up, but what can be said of the common denominator girl?
I'm a guy, I've been one for almost twenty years, and I have never, in my entire life, met a guy who thought anything similar to the above in regards to gaming. Ever.
Gaming isn't our 'personal space' and it is neither our right nor would I expect it of a guy to verbally attack another gamer for any reason other than negative behaviour. It's just offensive and sexist (to men) to claim that we brutish men are just so simian that we can barely string out anything other than pejorative grunts whenever we find the fairer sex has invaded our big boy time. The insinuation that we don't have the strength of will to tell a girl to fix up if she starts acting in a way that might, hypothetically, drive us away from women as a collective and into the loving arms of other men amongst whom we can share our tales of our lives wrecked by annoying women is so mind bogglingly absurd that I don't know where to start. So here's a bit of clarification:
A) Girls are very, very unlikely to be treated badly. Most guys will treat women significantly better than they will treat other men. I cannot stress that enough. They'll be nicer, they'll be less verbally or physically aggressive, they'll treat you like you're special and they won't contradict you when you're plainly talking shit. Especially if you're pretty. I really don't know who you've been playing with that verbal abuse from men has become so mundane a thing that you've created the above farcical rationalisation to justify it, but whoever it is certainly isn't representative of men as a whole.
B) The above point has its limits. If you act in an unacceptably childish or offensive manner you'll eventually annoy someone enough that they'll stop white-knighting and reciprocate (a lot of girls seem to do this, I don't know, maybe they think they're being edgy and 'one of the guys', but in reality it's just incredibly annoying).
C) You do not understand how most men think. I have never, ever known a guy who spends significant portions of his time having 'guy time' in which he gasses about his girlfriend and the tribulations of women behind her back to other men. 90% of most men's conversations will be jokes if they're with friends. I've only ever known other guys to speak at length about a private issue (especially concerning their girlfriend) if it has a obvious goal i.e. asking for advice. Of course, more intelligent guys will often discuss logic such as science or philosophy when in a serious mood. These differences are the largest I have personally observed between men and women. It seems to me that a lot of inter-female conversation is extraneous or serves no purpose (not being sexist here, I'm not making an objective qualitative judgement, just a subjective) and I don't know a single guy who talks at length about his feelings in the way you've insinuated. Not because we're big macho men and we're above feelings, not because (as quack psychologist like Dr 'Fuckus witus' Phil might say) we've got difficulties communicating emotion but because it isn't interesting.
D) This insulting 'male ego' feminazi nonsense in which we poor men with our barely post-amoeba impulse control can't bear to have women beat us at anything is not only false but incredibly offensive.
E) Finally, despite all my generalisations thus far, one overriding point is that your whole OP stems off a massive generalisation about men. It'd be just as facile for me to state "All girls like ponies and babies and none of them like videogames".
Agreed, anyone who defines themselves by the arbitrary background into which they were born, be it race, gender, socioeconomic group etc, and not by what they do is just foolish.Dahni said:
That said, there would be an opportunity for a 'girl games' market if only game designers knew exactly what that market is looking for. Is it just the exact same games we've got currently, but with the gender of the protagonist flipped? Or would the market prefer hackneyed stereotypical games about puppies and babies?Dahni said:
My point is that the 'girl gamer' community endlessly whines about not having any games 'for girls', but makes no positive action to elucidate what exactly games 'for girls' would be. It clearly isn't the case that the 'girl gamer' community wants a gender reversal for the protagonist because large numbers of games (mainly RPGs) allow for player creation of the protagonist. Of course it's not one size fits all and there's nothing that's going to perfect represent the desires of all female gamers, but I'd imagine that games devs feel quite clueless as to what the market wants at all. The game devs know that if they clumsily slap some killing, heroism and maybe sci-fi themes into a game then common denominator guy will eat it up, but what can be said of the common denominator girl?
Okay, seriously, what ... the ... fuck?Dahni said:
I'm a guy, I've been one for almost twenty years, and I have never, in my entire life, met a guy who thought anything similar to the above in regards to gaming. Ever.
Gaming isn't our 'personal space' and it is neither our right nor would I expect it of a guy to verbally attack another gamer for any reason other than negative behaviour. It's just offensive and sexist (to men) to claim that we brutish men are just so simian that we can barely string out anything other than pejorative grunts whenever we find the fairer sex has invaded our big boy time. The insinuation that we don't have the strength of will to tell a girl to fix up if she starts acting in a way that might, hypothetically, drive us away from women as a collective and into the loving arms of other men amongst whom we can share our tales of our lives wrecked by annoying women is so mind bogglingly absurd that I don't know where to start. So here's a bit of clarification:
A) Girls are very, very unlikely to be treated badly. Most guys will treat women significantly better than they will treat other men. I cannot stress that enough. They'll be nicer, they'll be less verbally or physically aggressive, they'll treat you like you're special and they won't contradict you when you're plainly talking shit. Especially if you're pretty. I really don't know who you've been playing with that verbal abuse from men has become so mundane a thing that you've created the above farcical rationalisation to justify it, but whoever it is certainly isn't representative of men as a whole.
B) The above point has its limits. If you act in an unacceptably childish or offensive manner you'll eventually annoy someone enough that they'll stop white-knighting and reciprocate (a lot of girls seem to do this, I don't know, maybe they think they're being edgy and 'one of the guys', but in reality it's just incredibly annoying).
C) You do not understand how most men think. I have never, ever known a guy who spends significant portions of his time having 'guy time' in which he gasses about his girlfriend and the tribulations of women behind her back to other men. 90% of most men's conversations will be jokes if they're with friends. I've only ever known other guys to speak at length about a private issue (especially concerning their girlfriend) if it has a obvious goal i.e. asking for advice. Of course, more intelligent guys will often discuss logic such as science or philosophy when in a serious mood. These differences are the largest I have personally observed between men and women. It seems to me that a lot of inter-female conversation is extraneous or serves no purpose (not being sexist here, I'm not making an objective qualitative judgement, just a subjective) and I don't know a single guy who talks at length about his feelings in the way you've insinuated. Not because we're big macho men and we're above feelings, not because (as quack psychologist like Dr 'Fuckus witus' Phil might say) we've got difficulties communicating emotion but because it isn't interesting.
D) This insulting 'male ego' feminazi nonsense in which we poor men with our barely post-amoeba impulse control can't bear to have women beat us at anything is not only false but incredibly offensive.
E) Finally, despite all my generalisations thus far, one overriding point is that your whole OP stems off a massive generalisation about men. It'd be just as facile for me to state "All girls like ponies and babies and none of them like videogames".
This is an illusion I just had to address: since when has it been the case that guys who're really good at gaming are considered anything other than fat nerds by girls and guys alike? Since when has it been the case that men have venerated the guy with 5 level 80 WoW characters and a brigadier rank on Halo 3? We don't. We don't think that's 'cool' or something to be proud of, most people (regardless of gender) would just think "Oh god, what a nerd". This is the actual male equivalent of the 'fat dyke', not the heroic champion of men that you and most other female gamers seem to portray.BrightCranberryMoon said:
Buy more games, they'll make more games. I think the biggest obstacle to women gaming is the preconception that it's a male pursuit. It's up to you to change that, we can't do anything about it.
P.S. My sister and I actually share games quite a bit, there are such things as games that appeal to both sexes.
P.S. My sister and I actually share games quite a bit, there are such things as games that appeal to both sexes.
I don't mind locked characters, they're generally the key to good story telling, but if you're going to make customisable characters I don't see why not let them be female.