OMG Girlz Don't Exist on teh Intarweb!!!!1

[Jenny Decimal]

Given the number of female service personel serving in the Middle East today in the US Military, I'd consider a female avatar to be allowable in a game set in the present. There are ostensibly frontline restrictions on female troops, but the front line is hard to pin down, and plenty of female troops see combat. That said: fair enough, for WWII shooters, it would be historically inaccurate - but at the same time it remains a factor in the gender balance of the audience, and one that cannot be discounted. Medal of Honour lost some of it's appeal to me when it lost Manon.

I do play Halo, and I play it against guys, although only face to face, not online. They're usually guys I've played against before, so we're all already over the usual crap. I can both dish and receive the requisite trash talk, and my gender is fair game then just like that guy's glasses are, or that dude's tattoos. While I don't want them to go easy on me, and I don't need them too, I do seem to present something of a common enemy. Doesn't matter how well those guys know me or how much they've seen me play, none of them wants to be the guy who loses to a girl, so they have a tendency to try and take me out first and then worry about each other. I can live with it, I could take your eye out from a mile off with that damn pistol, tank bedamned.

But Halo is one thing, you can pretty much pick up all the skills to play a human player by playing the single player campaign. Something like Dawn of War, there's no substitute for a human opponent, and getting a handle on each race's multiplayer strengths and weaknesses takes time. It's immensely discouraging when the time it takes to rack up the experience hours needed to start playing seriously is time spent being the punchline to a Girls-Can't-Play-Games joke. When and if I play online, and like I say I don't really do so anymore, I find it easier to basically let everybody assume I'm a guy. It's a practical solution, I just wish it wasn't necessary.

 

[John Funk]

I know good female gamers. I get my ass kicked by good female gamers.

But then when I try to get my friend Anne to play Halo with me (even on the easiest difficulty) she has her gun aimed at the floor and is running around in circles. It's not that she doesn't like games; she loved to play ICO, Shadow of the Colossus, and Prince of Persia... she just sort of sucked at them. >_>

 

[Jarfis]

This is my first post on these forums (was attracted here by the zero punctuation bioshock from digg and the psychonauts gaming circle) and I figured i'd add my two cents.
I'm a male gamer and i dont understand the attitude some of these people take on female gamers; asking for proof, assuming she is a worse player etc.
I feel the sex of a player is completely irrelevant, 75% of the time i dont even know the gender of the person im playing with and even if i do it doesnt change a thing.

 

[mormreed [deprecated]]

damn I feel sorry for her she ran into some of the most immature people on "teh intraweb" if I find out someone is a girl I just play doesn't make any difference to me and hopefully some day it'll be more like that

 

[Break]

And here I thought that "girls don't exist on the internet" was just a joke. And until now it was funny. I honestly did not think that people were still like this. That's no fun at all.

 

[Geoffrey42]

There are ostensibly frontline restrictions on female troops, but the front line is hard to pin down, and plenty of female troops see combat. That said: fair enough, for WWII shooters, it would be historically inaccurate - but at the same time it remains a factor in the gender balance of the audience, and one that cannot be discounted. Medal of Honour lost some of it's appeal to me when it lost Manon.

True, but I still doubt I'm going to see America's Army use female avatars anytime soon, since female troops are not sent on combat missions. Possibly more at home in a Battlefield scenario, where a currently held base is being assaulted, and thus large numbers of support troops could get pulled into the firefights. Either way, 2142 doesn't really have any excuses, nor does GRAW (except perpetuation of current stereotypes). I look forward to the point when none of this matters.

I wasn't familiar with Manon Batiste, but it is interesting to see a female character in that context. When did the series "lose" her?

 

[Jenny Decimal]

To be fair, Manon was only playable in one game, Medal of Honour: Underground back on the PS1, and I have fond memories of Underground largely because it was a genuinely unusual take on the standard WWII shooter idea. It looked at the war - with some artistic license, it must be said - from the perspective of the French Resistance, which just isn't done enough, in my opinion. Anyway, it's been surpassed since, but at the time, the touch of stealthy cunning and unusual ideas rocked my tiny mind. I wish EA would've had a look at some of the thinking in it, rather than finding ways to recycle the beach assault over and over...

 

[Xpheyel]

The real question is, why pictures? Thats silly. You can get pictures of girls from anywhere. They could be using stock photos for all you know. What kind of confirmation are pictures? It seems like people are willing to believe you're wasting processing power on changing the characteristics of your voice but a picture is somehow absolute proof.

It just doesn't make sense!

 

[WilyWombat]

Gamers are a reflection of all facets of popular culture. And when a lot of that culture classifies women as 'be-yoches' or "mysterious cootie factories", you are going to have a fair portion of ignorant asses mouthing off. But...how many gamers ARE idiots like that? It doesnt take many to really ruin your day. The other 90% of gamers are not cretins like that. I have given up hope that society will ever get beyond a minimum number of morons, and the anonymity of the internet allows them to speak out without the normal real world social responses that might otherwise make them think twice. Any real man should speak up when this happens, if only to validate that not all of us are like that.
And its a two sided battle here, I think its up to women gamers to point out they are there and they want to play, not hide or run away. Don't let the knuckle draggers win! The only way to be equal is to BE EQUAL. STand your ground, you have a right to be there.

 

[Stinky-Dinkins [deprecated]]

I play her on Halo 2 all the time. Her tag is CockTease158 (CockTease 1 - 157 were already taken.)

 

[jt2002tj]

(CockTease 1 - 157 were already taken.)

that's sort of disconcerting, yet mildly amusing.

 

[alexrpgguy]

It's a weird concept, to think people can't accept the fact women play games. I know I already hold a kind of bias when confronted with it, as when I'm being ganked by a level 70 female Elf Ranger on WoW I usually assume it's a 30 year old fat guy who lives with his mother, mostly based on demographics and the mindset necessary to do something like camp newb bodies for ten minutes. But that's the thing, it's possible I'm totally wrong and assuming that that could very well be some bloodthirsty Alliance femme fatale.

But I admit... most every time I'm playing someone online, unless their name suggests otherwise, I'll assume it's a male. And even then, I'll be skeptic, particularly if they're behaving rather falsely.
I won't call them out on it, though. I can at least say that.

In a related note, I know people constantly yell things like "that was so homosexual" or "you're gay" or even "fag" in games like Counter-Strike. It's bizarre, since the atmosphere rubs off on you when you're playing, and you find yourself roaring about how "gay" that kill was, not just in one game but in more and more. Smash Brothers, UT05, Need for Speed...

The really weird bit about it is that, myself being gay, I start to wonder if maybe I'm being some sort of sacrilegious prick. Is it disrespectful to myself to use a term like that?

So you come to things like women in sports saying "You shoot like a girl" or "You run like a girl." They do, sometimes--not all of them, but it happens. And that gender bias that has been there so long is frustrating, and often we overlook it and forget to think about what we're saying.
How do you get rid of it, when women have to buy special merchandise every time of the month just because they're women, or pay for Pregnancy Insurance, just because they're women...? The world is already geared for that discrimination to exist, just as America is geared to discriminate against the poor and the "not-white".
In the end, you can't ignore gender--but you can't let it get in the way.

If there were a way to gear the virtual worlds in which we reside to be openminded, perhaps this would be a less recurring issue... but how to manage that?

 

[Firia]

I'm a girl gamer, and I play Counter Strike Source often enough. Not only am I a girl, I play a violent first person shooter. To top that off, I own. I may not be #1 on the server, but I will often be a high scorer, or a cluth player for a team.

My woes often mirror your own with small differences. I'm often mistaken for a pre-teen boy. "Whoa, Mew Mew [my cs name], are you a girl?" "Uh, yeah." "No you're not." "I'm not?" "No, you're a little boy." "I am? Are you sure? I'm old enough to be your mother, by the sounds of how this conversation is going." "Omg, are you hot?" "*sigh*"

Yes, the guy desperation complex is taxing. I frequent 1 server often, but sometimes I branch out, but when I do, I keep hush-hush. I don't want to be pestered when I'm destorying the server.

 

[Roisack]

I talked about this topic last Saturday on my internet radio. I have seen girls mostly on gaming business, but never on demoscene. Girls seem to be more interested in graphics than in programming and they are more like "users" than "creators" on computer related topics. This is my opinion. But so true, girls do not exist on demoscene.

 

[Geoffrey42]

Just read this today, and it was WAY too appropriate to this conversation.

http://xkcd.com/322/

 

[Roast Beef]

Just read this today, and it was WAY too appropriate to this conversation.

http://xkcd.com/322/

Many lols, very good. I am the man in the hat.

 

[theSquid [deprecated]]

Not to excuse this sort of behaviour, but it should be taken into account WHY this behaviour formed, which for most of these guys is because of a pop culture mindset that gaming and computing is a dorky guy thing - and most women they would have met would have had a *strong* aversion to such hobbies. Hence, bitter bastardry ensues, and these people make a poor assumption about all women - that they suck at technology, and hence when a girl gamer shows up, they're resentful of their little internet treehouse being invaded.

 

[twotrees517]

I think I'm in love with the author of this article.

 

[kirite]

Lol exagerated, but I can't say these things aren't true. Happened to me more times then one, and sometimes it's even more ridiculous then the quotes listed in your article.

"Omg it's a girl kick her" happened just a few hours ago. I'm not even joking.

Well now that I calmed down a bit, I guess those people have met some pretty bad girl gamers or something.

I won't say I'm a "1337 gurl gamer", I'm not pro at FTS, I barely touch the consoles, and I don't build my own custom computers (I'm starting to learn though). However I doubt the fact that all guys are born with "l337 sk1llz" and are all programmers who build their own computers or whatever.

meh, just rambling, nice article. I would go tone down on the exaggeration though, it will make your article stronger.

 

[alirias [deprecated]]

What I also find interesting is how few single female gamers there are. Most of the women I can think of on my World of Warcraft guild are paired up, with only maybe one or two exceptions. Then again, that's out of a total pool of maybe 8(of 100ish players). However, we don't get any crap - we talk on vent when we need to, and we've derailed gchat at least twice to talk about matters that are more girly (hair length, and monthly female issues) I've only had a few occasions where I speak on vent and then get tells - "how old r u?" "ur voice is hawt", etc. However, there's four creepy asshats who won't leave me alone, despite being discouraged.

As for the "you're a girl, you suck" thing, I get that more IRL when I say I play video games for fun, particularly WoW. The usual response is a long silence, a blink, and a really, really confused look as I ask them if they play, what server, what class, where they're raiding, etc. If they manage to answer that, and I explain that I'm a lvl 70 feral druid in t4 gear killing Mag, Gruul, VR, and Hydross, the confusion only grows. They're not sure how to treat me, as I clearly know what I'm talking about, but I'm a GIRL!

In my old guild, I was an assistant GL to the GL who was a woman. So, girl power