Poll: Be honest, do you actually treat girl gamers the same online? (Minor update)

[OmniscientOstrich]

I very rarely play online, I haven't in ages and when I did it was usually just random matches in TF2 or COD with strangers, without a mic and usually toggle muting out all the obnoxious and vociferous fuckwits that can appear. Basically I don't play online for the interaction and the people I'm playing with are basically faceless automatons desinged to kill me or others around me, so I don't really give a shit what gender they are.

 

[repeating integers]

No, I don't treat anybody the same. Every person demands different levels of treatment. For example, Irridium demands caution when facing off against him, as he is a skilled player. JourneyThroughHell, on the other hand, I can be much more relaxed with.

OK, real answer: I know one girl gamer. She acts pretty much the same as everyone else, most of the time, so I treat her the same. The high-pitched voice does take some getting used to, though, as a) the Xbox headsets are a bit naff and b) I mute everyone, so I've not been able to practice by listening to prepubescent boys rage.

EDIT: Fuck, I voted for the wrong option. I should not be one of the two people who voted "no" goddammit!

 

[Sherlock/]

I try to treat them like anyone else.
But in an effort to avoid the douchebaggery the op described, AND not fall into the trap of overcompensation (like defending them against others), it may come across as quite unnatural.

In IRL tabletop roleplay I've played with girls for years, with no bias either way. Aaand now I got the complaint from one of them that I "see her as one of the guys". Sometimes you just can't win.

 

[Trippy Turtle]

I don't think anyone should, but insecure (teenagers, mostly) boys tend to do just that.
Their ego is so fragile that it can't stand even the idea for losing to a girl.

As a sidenote; Some guys do kind of opposite treating, giving lots of free items among other things on MMORPG's and such. I don't think even that kind of behavior is necessary (unless it's about your girlfriend ), everyone should treat girls as equals.

My friend used to play as a girl on Runescape purley for the free stuff, also to troll people who tryed to flirt XD

I got so much stuff from doing that. All my woodcutting and mining gear payed for and enough runes to get to 40 magic so I could protect myself. I didn't have the heart to tell him I was a guy.

 

[Jonny49]

To be honest, I fail to understand the fascination with gamer girls. You'd think they're some sort of rare mythical creature by the way people talk about them.

I treat them the same way as I would anyone else online, with heavy amounts of not giving a shit as I own or get owned by them.

 

[Sixcess]

I treat everyone on the internet - be it forums, MMOs or whatever - as a faceless, sexless blob of indeterminate age and gender until proven otherwise. I'm not so desperate I'd attempt to use an MMO as a dating site.

Do I treat girl gamers differently? Yes, because since I don't tend to play voice-enabled games I'll only know they're girls if they make a point of pointing it out in text, which some do, repeatedly. In which case I'll treat them like the attention whores they most likely are.

Sorry if that sounds harsh, but there are some 'girl gamers' out there who really work that angle for their own gain, and the sad thing is it all too often works.

 

[Datsle]

I do not treat them the same way as guys, because they're not.
That doesnt mean i tell them to undress, Get in the kitchen, leave their number or me giving them free shit,
But im not faking a bromance with a girl, that would be lying to myself and them.
Its not a dude without a dick, its a girl. I'll treat them as that.

Herpderp

 

[Raiha]

i treat them the same as guys. with a mixture of apathy and thinly veiled contempt

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

Whenever I see a girl tag or they say they are a girl, I immediately assume guy until PROVEN otherwise.

After that, I get worried if they are on the apposing team. In my experience, the only girls who are willing to play online multiplayer are the ones who are REALLY good at it.

 

[Reverber]

Id have to say i treat every one the same on live, unless they are being a douche, in which case they go on mute / avoided, simple as. Gender, Race, Sexuality don't apply

 

[go-10]

If you are a girl gamer, you can share your experiences with others not treating you the way they should.

As for me, I treat them as fairly as a can, but sometimes I would put a girl on my list of friends online in front of others (I know, that's sad). I don't talk to them as much as I can, it's just actually talking to a girl seems new to me all the time. Definitively not like high school, I never talk to girls =(Forever alone)=.

Others I've met online however, make sexist comments like: "Get back in the kitchen and make me a sandwich!". Sometimes it would be cheesy chat up lines like: "If I could rearrange the alphabet, I'd put U and I together." which I have heard at least 20 times. Comments that are usually from prepubescent kids.

To see how it would be like being commented on by sexist bastards online, on Halo: Reach I made my character female with white and pink armour (make fun of me if you want). I played a couple of matches in multiplayer and then joined some recent players in their open custom games.

I eventually joined a custom game with only 2 players, some guy without a mic and a little kid who probably sleeps in a racecar bed. When they finally saw my character as a woman, the first thing the little kid said to me was "Hay, are you a girl?" I chose to not plug my mic in just encase he asks me to speak, then I sent him a text message saying "Yes, I am a girl -_-". After a couple of minutes me killing them over and over again, the little kid started saying things like "Go to the kitchen where you belong", etc.

Once I left their game the other person without a mic sent me a text message which said: "I'm gonna rape you some day" and another simply only having the word "*****".

I never contacted them after that, until EXACTLY a month later, (with messages only appearing in your inbox a maximum of 30 days) the little kid, I had met 1 month earlier, sent me a friend request.

I was in a "What the f*ck?" moment, me finding out someone who made offensive comments to a (pretend) girl would keep a message from one for a whole month and wanted to be friends. I didn't know how to react to that, so I ignored the request.

It's really these kinds of people that don't deserve to talk online. Maybe this is like you, maybe not. If you are like this, please don't abuse the fact that you can be offensive online and not have any consequences. Be honest with yourself.

Anyway, back to the question... Do you treat girl gamers the same?

HEY I LIKE GOODGRIEF VIDEOS TOO

anyways as for your question yes I treat them the same. I don't really diss people I'm more of a helper regardless of gender. But when its an 8 year old playing an M-Rated games I'll sometimes poke fun at how bad his/her parents are but nothing more.
I have seen/heard lots of comments when a girls comes online, but I never add them or speak to them most of them are noobs or trolls

 

[orangeban]

Yes, I can say I do. I only treat people differently when they start being twats, shouting in the mic ect. ect.

 

[Commissar Sae]

Used to have a couple of girls in our Left 4 dead clan back when it was released. Some of the other guys would fawn over the hot one but generally I just played for fun. It was generally a good bunch to play with (except when this one guy kept trying to run off solo in vs...) but we acted like a team and had fun.

The only time I've really acted differently when playing with a girl was when it was my girlfriend, and even then she got lanced in the face a few times while I laughed. If you didn't want to get trampled honey you shouldn't have been trying to fire a crossbow out in the open field.

 

[Creator002]

I met a couple while playing Black Ops about a month ago in gun game while in griefing mode. I still knifed them like anyone else (hell, if my friend's there, I knife him too), but also had a good conversation. They didn't rage like most people did.
No friend requests were sent from either party, but it was a fun game for us all, I would assume.

Oh, and also, as you can see, my Xbox avatar is female in order to test this "sexism theory" myself. My Reach character is also female. So far:
3 friend requests.
4 sexist messages for no good reason.
2 offers for a date (1 person in my country, 1 not)
1 sexist message due to slaughtering the other team.

EDIT - Think I should clarify a bit more. Not do I just want to test the sexism theory, I like playing a girl in games. Personally, it's a better sense of immersion. My Xbox profile, while it has my real name, is also just a character I've invented to use online. Maybe subconsciously I want to be a girl (actually that wouldn't be bad for a try, personally. See the world from different eyes and all).

 

[Vault Citizen]

I only go online for gaming very rarely at the moment (I have an Xbox but I think it may have been years since I've had a Gold account) so I don't come across gamers that way. I do treat gamers just the same and I can't think of any gaming interactions in which I act different because the other gamer is a girl.

 

[uzo]

I treat girls differently in most things in life ...

... forgive me for living up to (down to?) everyone's worst expectations, but even as a married man I'm not out of touch with my baser instincts. And those instincts say "be nice to girls because there is a possibility, however insanely remote, that she maybe, perhaps, one day, will want to have SEX with me!!!" Whether I try to see those instincts through to fruition is besides the point.

But as far as online gaming goes ... ? Well, gender is something I barely notice online. Although, I definitely prefer to play coop games (L4D is a prime example) with girls because the likelihood of getting a team-killing fuckwit is comparatively lower amongst women, I find. In fact, it's never happened to me (that I know of, of course!). That gives me an idea for a poll ...

 

[j0frenzy]

I tend to avoid turning on my mike when I play online unless I am playing with a friend, and the only friend I play with online is female, so I guess I actually give her preferential treatment. IDK. I at one point had a vision that having a mike would improve my enjoyment of online shooters since I prefer team objective games. That vision was shattered and I wind up just using it to play with a friend I can't play with split-screen. Since a couple of bad experiences, I tend to remain silent and ignore everyone not me and therefore don't survey who I'm playing with.
I did use to play MMOs as female characters. That was... interesting. I wasn't doing it as a social experiment at the time, mostly just because I thought most MMOs gave females better and more diverse costumes. Most of the convos around me had to do with whether I was a fake girl or not, particularly since one of the MMOs I got most attached to would not let you play outside your gender, so I had to set up a second account with a fake name and email to play as a female character. I had learned to ignore people online by then though.

 

[Legion]

I treat all people the same online. With respect until they give me a reason not to. I don't often go into in-game chat any more (as most people are pricks), but I won't ever use sexist comments, I don't f/r strangers anyway (unless they genuinely seem like the person I'd like to talk to while playing multiplayer games with, which is rare) and I only ever send messages in response to messages sent to me.

I don't act extra nice to girls, flirt with them, or do whatever it is the man-children of the internet tend to do regarding female players, I am simply not that desperate or sad.

I look down on most guys I see online with how they behave towards girls, most of them seem so desperate for girls approval I almost pity them. On my minecraft server girls are always offered help, always given smiley faces after every comment, given good rep, friended or free items, simply because they are girls, and it just strikes me as sad.

 

[Togs]

I play few online games and when I do sex almost never comes up.

When I do learn that someone Ive been playing with is a girl Im a little more careful about what I say and Ill probably be nicer to her, but thats about it.

Whenever I see a girl tag or they say they are a girl, I immediately assume guy until PROVEN otherwise.

After that, I get worried if they are on the apposing team. In my experience, the only girls who are willing to play online multiplayer are the ones who are REALLY good at it.

Oh and both of those.