When Did "Girls In Games" Become Such an Issue?

[briankoontz]

No gender are the `real gamers`. People who play games are.

On no issue are the genders exactly equal. On feminism for example women dominate, not because men are stupid or insensitive, but because feminism is more central to women's lives. So by this analogy women are the "real feminists". This is a widely held belief, and results in male feminists not being treated as seriously as female feminists.

Of course anyone can be a gamer. An alien, coming down to earth in 2014, who plays video games could be defined as a "gamer". That's an empirical reality, but there's a big difference in cultural history between an alien who plays earth video games and an earthling who is much more deeply invested in it.

What games *mean* to someone matters a lot. This differs by individual, but it also differs by gender, and by species in the case of the alien. Someone whose first game is Farmville and plays it to have some virtual interactions with friends is an extremely *different* gamer from one who has played thousands of video games from dozens of different sub-genres.

There are very serious very committed female gamers, just like there are very serious very committed male feminists. But the reason the stereotype of the "male gamer" and the "female feminist" exists is because those genders dominate those experiences.

An alien could also be a feminist, but you would most likely agree that it would be difficult for the alien to be taken seriously AS a feminist, due to a lack of cultural experience with humanity if nothing else.

Being inclusive is good. But being so committed to inclusivity that we ignore distinctions and differences between people is blindness masquerading as morality.

Female gamers have nothing to prove, just like male feminists have nothing to prove. But human logic dictates that in the absence of total knowledge stereotypes will be used to guide our ways of seeing the world. Therefore there is a bias toward respecting male gamers and female feminists. This is nothing either gender needs to apologize for, but the situation should be recognized both for what it is and for the reality that produced it.

 

[Vault101]

There are a lot of possible reasons for this. Gaming is largely about control - control of the mechanics, control of the content, control, domination, and exploitation of the system - one can argue that games (at least as they are traditionally designed) are masculine at their core. There's also the issue of personal hygiene - both hacker culture and gamer culture in the early days were known for a lack of it - I don't know a single socially-accepted woman who manages to consistently avoid personal hygiene, while society is more lenient with men. This lack of personal hygiene was viewed within the hacker and early gamer culture as an outcome of discipline and dedication, but it had the side effect of repelling women.
.

I don't actually belive gaming was "that" male dominated back in the day

in the days of N64 and rhe SNES before that there were plenty of "general" focus games, not just Mario but other games like Banjo kazooie and a baziollion others, and the Atari before that? was an elaborate toy

it felt like around the time of Halo/Xbox and GTA did games become a "bro" thing

You're very, very, sorry, but you were just compelled to create a thread that was certain to bring out anti-feminist rants.

Oh, look there they are.

Yeah, feminists need to shut up so anti-feminists can voice the proper and righteous opinions.

yeah I mean we really didn't need this...I could already tell you why, the demographic of internet/videogames hasa lot of overlap with sexism

 

[clinicalPsychologist]

and I haven't yet had a situation in a game store where the clerk patronizes me or assumes I'm shopping for someone else.

This actually happened to me once and I got really, really mad about it. I was buying Bayonetta for PS3 and the clerk ask me if I was sure I wanted to buy it. Well, doh, would I stand at the register, cash ready, if I didn't? You can't tell me that was not because of my gender. I was like 23 back then so it couldn't have been because of my age.
Still makes me mad when I think about it, probably because I never encountered something like this in real life before, just on the internet. :/

 

[visiblenoise]

I think it's the result of gamers/game culture trying to integrate with society in a meaningful way. Or to put it less sardonically, it's the result of people desperately clinging on to the assertion that games have value to society and can compete with books and other more traditionally respected forms. Which isn't to say that the assertion is false, just that people are trying too hard to convince people who are likely either stubborn or indifferent.

 

[Trunkage]

and I haven't yet had a situation in a game store where the clerk patronizes me or assumes I'm shopping for someone else.

This actually happened to me once and I got really, really mad about it. I was buying Bayonetta for PS3 and the clerk ask me if I was sure I wanted to buy it. Well, doh, would I stand at the register, cash ready, if I didn't? You can't tell me that was not because of my gender. I was like 23 back then so it couldn't have been because of my age.
Still makes me mad when I think about it, probably because I never encountered something like this in real life before, just on the internet. :/

The last few times I went into an EB (our Gamestop) there were far more females than males. My wife has this funny opinion about superhero movies that only men would like them, but I distinctly remember seeing far more females at the viewing I went to. We tend to hold on to pretend perspectives of reality, particularly when evidence proves otherwise.

It let's us understand how many misconceptions and dogmatic traditions from religions are still around today. I mean, if we as a gaming community can't let go of the fact that games aren't and have never been just for males, how can we expect religions to take things like homosexual marriage seriously. Or why it took so long to reduce racism (which is still prevalent mind you)

 

[clinicalPsychologist]

and I haven't yet had a situation in a game store where the clerk patronizes me or assumes I'm shopping for someone else.

This actually happened to me once and I got really, really mad about it. I was buying Bayonetta for PS3 and the clerk ask me if I was sure I wanted to buy it. Well, doh, would I stand at the register, cash ready, if I didn't? You can't tell me that was not because of my gender. I was like 23 back then so it couldn't have been because of my age.
Still makes me mad when I think about it, probably because I never encountered something like this in real life before, just on the internet. :/

The last few times I went into an EB (our Gamestop) there were far more females than males. My wife has this funny opinion about superhero movies that only men would like them, but I distinctly remember seeing far more females at the viewing I went to. We tend to hold on to pretend perspectives of reality, particularly when evidence proves otherwise.

It let's us understand how many misconceptions and dogmatic traditions from religions are still around today. I mean, if we as a gaming community can't let go of the fact that games aren't and have never been just for males, how can we expect religions to take things like homosexual marriage seriously. Or why it took so long to reduce racism (which is still prevalent mind you)

Yes, prejudice and mental drawers are how the brain works. Still, even though these are implicit, often not concious and often not noticed processes, reflecting them actually helps (great things about humans that we are able to do that!). Also, these schemas can actually change through experience, too. Maybe the clerk won't ask the next woman who buys Bayonetta 2 that same question again. If your wife would see the viewings and their audience she might change her prejudice, too. One or two cases can be dismissed as outliers, but enough experience can change views. This is why prejudice against groups lowers when people actually spend time to get to know individuals of the other groups. Maybe that would be a good advice for both sides of the outrage on the internet right now

I don't know if this applies to religion and dogmatic views, though, since we can't really check if e.g. homosexuals actually go to hell or not, so experience cannot change these opinions obviously... But yeah we're probably getting a bit off topic with that anyway...

 

[Spearmaster]

I've been speaking with a few people, a couple from here, all roughly my age. They all sort of remember the same thing to one extent or another, and some of them are girls who don't remember it being an issue that they were playing video games. It seems like something change, so I'm going to presume that's true and ask: what changed?

Honestly I think looking into the the console vs PC gaming angle. The types of games and the people who played them were quite different between PC and console through the 90s until you get to the ps2 era and beyond where piracy/drm/money grabs drove many pc games onto consoles and the types of gamers followed. I'm not saying PC gaming was gender exclusive at all but the AAA PC gaming market in the 90s was mainly violent games, shooters and some western RPGs. Then you had the... Derp Derp... death of PC gaming phase in the early/mid 2000s and all the lines blurred and all the violent and online competitive type games that were primarily PC titles became console games, then we have what we have now.

I kind of think of it along the same lines of how well everyone in the south reacted to desegregation/integration in the south in the 60s. That's when I feel the change started.

The PC gaming elite and the dirty console casuals now having to share a platform and the same games, both sides vying for privilege in games, the competitive online and ultra realistic/violent games won the attention of publishers and the AAA scene was flooded with these male-esque types of games and so girls, through no fault of their own, were categorized as part of the the assumed minority of the casual gamer crowd. Now the old lines are washing away even more and its awkward to gamers that have it their way for a decade. Hence the reaction.

All just my opinion of course.

 

[briankoontz]

it felt like around the time of Halo/Xbox and GTA did games become a "bro" thing

You're talking about marketing. I agree that the marketing for games has taken a turn for the testosterone (or as Garfunkel and Oates might say, a turn for the douche) since 9/11 and the "War on Terror", or as Sacha Baron Cohen puts it - the "War of Terror". Marketing greatly impacts the content of AAA games, but it affects to much less extent who plays them, especially since women who don't want to play testosterone-fueled nonsense can just play something else instead.

There has been a constant increase in females in games since the very beginning of gaming. I remember studies which used to find around 20% of gamers being female back in the '90s - that still might be close to the rate for mainstream games, but the expansion of the casual and mobile markets have introduced gaming to lots of females, to such an extent that more women than men now play games, if we include all video games on all devices.

http://www15.uta.fi/FAST/FIN/A14PAPS/ha-video.pdf This site talks about the early history of games in Finland - again male dominated since programming ability and gaming went hand-in-hand, similar to the situation with early hacker culture forming the basis for gamer culture in the United States.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_and_video_games -

"A 1993 self-reported survey by Computer Gaming World found that 7% of its readers were female." "Today, in 2013, that number has gone up to 12%"

"According to a U.S. national survey done in 2004 by the Entertainment Software Association, 25 percent of console players and 39 percent of PC game players were women. According to a survey conducted by EEDAR, 60 percent of female gamers played on mobile devices. The survey also found that 63 percent of these female mobile gamers played online multiplayer mobile games."

"In fact, 38% of Xbox users are female and 51% of them have children. Nintendo claims that 50% of its users are female as of 2013"

So regardless of the marketing nonsense, close to half of Xbox users are women. Obviously you wouldn't know that from the Bro-friendly advertising campaigns and certainly not from the content of the typical Xbox game.

"Thirty percent of women are playing more violent games. Of this 30%, 20% play Call of Duty and 15% play Grand Theft Auto."

"In 1989, females constituted only 3% of the gaming industry".

I'm not willing to put even more time into finding 1980s and 1990s data, but the data already shows a large upward trend over time in the percentage of gamers who are female, and it shows a large tendency for women to play mobile and online multiplayer games.

I don't actually belive gaming was "that" male dominated back in the day in the days of N64 and rhe SNES before that there were plenty of "general" focus games, not just Mario but other games like Banjo kazooie and a baziollion others, and the Atari before that? was an elaborate toy

I don't think any humans on the planet have done a comprehensive analysis of the content of video games. All I've been tracking since 2004 is the frequency of killing as a primary form of gameplay, and that has stayed steady for mainstream games (PC and consoles only) at 80% until last year when it decreased to 61%.

But when a system (the Xbox) which produces games which seem to believe only men exist in the world has 38% of it's user base as women that indicates to me that the marketing and content of mainstream games is out of whack with reality.

I think it's fairly obvious that women were (and still are) being poorly served by the mainstream industry, and the casual and mobile games markets stepped in to cater much more effectively to women. So the next time you hear some shitty publisher like EA complain about their lack of sales (by their standards), point out the garbage Bro-douche testosterone sauce masquerading as games they keep putting out and how that might have something to do with women turning away from PCs and consoles.

 

[Quadocky]

It became an issue because of the toxic reaction to women who are either involved with the making of video games or who employ a critical voice.

But it always was an issue, simmering beneath the surface. Thanks to social media it becomes much easier to make issue of it.

I think the more prescient issue overall is just how women are treated on and via the internet in a general sense. Not just video games. It just within' the sphere of video games the concentration of awfulness tends to be a lot higher for obvious reasons.

Since video game culture stuff and the talking about video games is mostly done Online can be the main reason.

It becomes an issue because it is related to a series of issues with people on the internet and either their sheer lapse of empathy or their desire to be grandstanding creepy-ass bullies.

EDIT: just last opinion, I believe older games were more naturally inclusive to all genders anyway given their abstract artstyle and how the activity of playing video games was not seen as anything but another way to watch TV.

 

[Ten Foot Bunny]

I don't actually belive gaming was "that" male dominated back in the day

in the days of N64 and rhe SNES before that there were plenty of "general" focus games, not just Mario but other games like Banjo kazooie and a baziollion others, and the Atari before that? was an elaborate toy

In my experience, gaming WASN'T male-dominated "back in the day," at least not in arcades. In the early '80s, youths in my area hung out in arcades in relatively equal amounts of male/female. Both men and women talked about Atari games equally too. Then the crash happened, home gaming fell into relative obscurity, and arcades became male-dominated from the mid-'80s onward.

Home gaming seemed to pick up where it left off when Nintendo came on the scene: everybody wanted one, male and female alike. PC gaming was a different story though. I had girlfriends who owned consoles but didn't touch computers, even if there was one in the house. I got into PC gaming in '88 along with getting into everything else related to PCs, but then again, my stepdad worked in tech and so he taught me everything I ever wanted to know. When I wanted to talk about PC games, I had to talk to the guys. And back then ('88 to '93) not a single guy I talked to seemed the least bit surprised that a girl in her early teens could talk tech, both software and hardware.

Though even THAT seemed different online! I got a subscription to The Sierra Network in '91 and I remember LOTS of other girls playing Shadow of Yserbius or simply hanging out in The Tavern. (True story: one night, I noticed a girl who was my age and lived only a few miles from me, so we started talking. She wound up becoming my first girlfriend, and that was at the beginning of '93. I've always been a trendsetter... lol)

And it was like that through the '90s. My other two girlfriends throughout that decade had consoles, and the one I dated the longest was a huge fan of computer games. It didn't seem like anybody thought twice about it, male or female. We could shop for games and the guys who worked in the stores never acted like we'd stumbled in there by mistake.

it felt like around the time of Halo/Xbox and GTA did games become a "bro" thing

That's when I felt a shift in the air as well, and I'd already been gaming for nearly 20 years at that point. After the dot-com bubble burst in December 2000, the U.S. went into recession, and then 9/11 a few months later, video games became far less diverse. I haven't done much research into why that was the case though... I was too busy getting another degree to think about matters unrelated to modern psychology.

The last few times I went into an EB (our Gamestop) there were far more females than males.

The Gamestop I go to has four female employees and one male. It's good times going in there! I never get "talked down to," but I HAVE had to bear an unfortunate amount of condescension at other stores.

 

[white_wolf]

You'd think it was only in the last 4-5 years but really there have been articles from 1996 on the matter. The only difference between now and then is more people are talking about it.

 

[DementedSheep]

It wasn't a weird thing till around intermediate for me. Most of the hardcore RPG players I knew were female even though I hung out with more guys though yes women were less common in shooters.

No gender are the `real gamers`. People who play games are.

On no issue are the genders exactly equal. On feminism for example women dominate, not because men are stupid or insensitive, but because feminism is more central to women's lives. So by this analogy women are the "real feminists". This is a widely held belief, and results in male feminists not being treated as seriously as female feminists.

Of course anyone can be a gamer. An alien, coming down to earth in 2014, who plays video games could be defined as a "gamer". That's an empirical reality, but there's a big difference in cultural history between an alien who plays earth video games and an earthling who is much more deeply invested in it.

What games *mean* to someone matters a lot. This differs by individual, but it also differs by gender, and by species in the case of the alien. Someone whose first game is Farmville and plays it to have some virtual interactions with friends is an extremely *different* gamer from one who has played thousands of video games from dozens of different sub-genres.

There are very serious very committed female gamers, just like there are very serious very committed male feminists. But the reason the stereotype of the "male gamer" and the "female feminist" exists is because those genders dominate those experiences.

An alien could also be a feminist, but you would most likely agree that it would be difficult for the alien to be taken seriously AS a feminist, due to a lack of cultural experience with humanity if nothing else.

Being inclusive is good. But being so committed to inclusivity that we ignore distinctions and differences between people is blindness masquerading as morality.

Female gamers have nothing to prove, just like male feminists have nothing to prove. But human logic dictates that in the absence of total knowledge stereotypes will be used to guide our ways of seeing the world. Therefore there is a bias toward respecting male gamers and female feminists. This is nothing either gender needs to apologize for, but the situation should be recognized both for what it is and for the reality that produced it.

Are you comparing feminism which is largely about womens rights and issues and therefore gender is a big part of how much it actually affects your life and whether your experiences with those issues are first hand to a hobby? I've been gaming since I was 6 or so. Please tell me what "cultural experience" related to gaming my vagina has apparently robed me of and why it would mean less to me than to a man?

 

[Elfgore]

I don't know, but I can tell you an it's an issue that needs to stop. Or better yet, had never been a thing. I honestly didn't realize how bad it could be, until tonight.

I recently learned a girl I work with plays League of Legends. We got to talking about it and decided to play a few rounds tonight. As the first match starts, she says "I really need to do well this match." "Why?" I asked. It wasn't a ranked game or anything, just a normal. "I need to prove to you I'm a real gamer." And I just sighed so loudly it hurt my throat. The very idea that she had to "prove" to me she was a real gamer, bummed me out. I told her not to worry about it, since I already considered her one. The very idea that since she is a girl, meant she had to "prove" to others she was a gamer. Disgusted me. Didn't help that later when her and I joined some other friends and the first thing one guy asked if I was "bangin'" her. Really made me disappointed in him.

 

[gargantual]

So in short I guess....blame Microsoft for kicking off the cultural divide? Certain types of games media and themes will draw certain types of biological interests.

While games that appear thematically neutral and not as exploitative of all demographics. (If we're really under the sudden belief that all this exploitative npc death is supposedly a straw attack, or insult of socially stigmatized ppl)

All I think gaming needs is not just a wider berth of diverse opinions in production, but wider target marketing such as the film industry. So more voices are heard. if a company feel they might make a game that's not as comfortable to a demographic, they're not the only premiere title for everyone to focus on, but can focus on a niche audience, while more people can feel comfortable spending their money on another popular title.

That'll be better for bigger studioes. If they expect no more than a few million at most in profits, then they'll budget better for development and stop wasting so much money on marketing schemes.

 

[Vault101]

So in short I guess....blame Microsoft for kicking off the cultural divide? Certain types of games media and themes will draw certain types of biological interests.

biological interests?...uh huh....


[quote/]All I think gaming needs is not just a wider berth of diverse opinions in production, but wider target marketing such as the film industry. So more voices are heard. if a company feel they might make a game that's not as comfortable to a demographic, they're not the only premiere title for everyone to focus on, but can focus on a niche audience, while more people can feel comfortable spending their money on another popular title.
.[/quote]
I do think more type's of games would be great....

however I don't think things need to be ghettoized (not that they would, can't imagine a game version of sex and the city), I mean people know most women watch more than one time of movie (what we call chick flicks) that in-between which sometimes is and isn't male centric is meant for everyone, and we accept that

 

[Plasticaprinae]

I dont really remember it being that much of an issue when i was very young. I would play playstation with my brothers or alone, they never seemed to mind except for me being a little dipshit because I was 5. No real issues with gender. Most kids in my school had gameboys and stuff like that. I think it began to change around middle school, where girls were expected to be more girly and "mature". So I guess games have been seen as too immature for girls. But I always thought pressure to be a girl was silly and I surrounded myself with people who enjoyed the same games, most of which were girls. Now im the biggest gamer in my family. Fyi, Im almost 20.

Edit: To answer your topic, i dont really know when it started. I just know that there was pressure during my puberty from schoolmates to be girly, rather than to play games.

 

[gargantual]

So in short I guess....blame Microsoft for kicking off the cultural divide? Certain types of games media and themes will draw certain types of biological interests.

biological interests?...uh huh....


[quote/]All I think gaming needs is not just a wider berth of diverse opinions in production, but wider target marketing such as the film industry. So more voices are heard. if a company feel they might make a game that's not as comfortable to a demographic, they're not the only premiere title for everyone to focus on, but can focus on a niche audience, while more people can feel comfortable spending their money on another popular title.
.

I do think more type's of games would be great....

however I don't think things need to be ghettoized (not that they would, can't imagine a game version of sex and the city), I mean people know most women watch more than one time of movie (what we call chick flicks) that in-between which sometimes is and isn't male centric is meant for everyone, and we accept that[/quote]


Hmmm. Already imagining the worse case scenario eh? I mean Youd only have to worry about the mobile market making bland 'sex and the city' type games. I.E. Kim Kardashian. Dedicated game devs IMO would put more thought into making games that appeal to niche audiences, because gameplay is the ultimate way we connect. A film will sink or swim on not being able to connect to the narrative, wheras if the gameplay is good, in a game. It can still slide with an 8/10.

There would still be some audience overlap anyways, but itd be easier for artists to do more of what they want then fear they're suddenly stepping on millions of toes if they decide for their first game in a franchise 'We're Going Ham! If they don't like the window dressing then they can kiss our collective asses'.

Besides gamers don't complain as much about a new title skewing towards a certain demographic. We're more likely to raise pitchforks when established series's or characters are ruined. I.E. the ME3 and the DmC reboot. But when you decide to be offensive in debut. Most audience give you a pass because you technically haven't promised anything and are not betraying any wishes. If everyone gets to celebrate their extremes its a real party rather than people going.

"Oh we cant talk about that anymore, or depict that...or show that....or do that....or that..... we'll get too many angry letters from (fill in xx group)."


I miss the days when developers were (though not entirely like Hideki Kamiya) but creatively used to say 'fuck off' we're doing this.

Yes we need more (and this time better) Perfect Darks, we need more animal lead platformers, fresh perspectives. But give me an affable or intriguing character who doesn't move like a turtle or truck in a fight and I'm happy.

 

[Signa]

I think it happened when games became fully mainstream this last generation. Games started getting built for the lowest common denominator, and with it, brought an audience that was too casual or stupid to care about greater social issues. They wanted games (or so we are told by the publishers) where they could dominate the competition, and win the prize at the end. Speaking of girls that play games, I know some girls that do, but the stigma has always been that the loser nerds play the games, and the girls would prefer to not blow things up. That's changing now with mainstream gaming, and so the male centric design decisions are coming into question.

Anita, as much as I hate her and everything she stands for, might actually have something to point to based on today's games. At the very least, game tech has gotten to the point where we aren't playing mascot games or vehicle simulators anymore, and games can be made around humans. By including so many humans in our games now, it's easier to pick out examples of poorly constructed characters, because now games are trying to be movies instead of just games.

None of this was a problem 10-15 years ago, because A) Developers were making games they thought were cool, or B) limitations of the hardware naturally pushed games away from crossing any lines. I'm thinking back to games like Chrono Trigger and No One Lives Forever, where we saw good female protagonists, yet today it's brown hair white guy every time. Then you get assholes like me that didn't notice the thematic changes over the years and still are defending games based on what they once were, because we're focused more on gameplay than subtle themes.

 

[Fappy]

Just about every girl close to me has played video games their entire lives: my sister, girlfriend, my girlfriend's sister, their friends, etc. etc. There out there and there are a lot of them, but I think they've kind of gone under the radar until reletively recently. Thing is, many of them (including my girlfriend) feel unwelcome in gaming communities. Not only are many of them boy's clubs (which some women can cope with no problem), but more than that, they are boy's clubs. You know the ones; the immature, bile-spewing communities of XBL, WoW, LoL... the list goes on. These are classic examples of toxic communities that make EVERYONE feel unwelcome, but it's especially worse for women who are singled out due to their minority status.

Site's like these are A LOT better in that regard, but they are also far more obscure. I'd wager a vast majority of gamers don't even know what the Escapist is nor do they know of any other moderately 'safe' gaming communities. It's a combination of perceived and actual sexism from the industry and the community that has kept them from speaking their minds until now, I imagine. There are some crazies out there, sure, but the fact that the industry is listening and changing because of this means nothing but good things.

Diversity is the spice of life.

On that note, I don't think it's valid to attack individual developers or publishers for perpetuating the status quo. It's their prerogative what games they choose to make. That does not, however, that they are above criticism. It's an accepted fact than many big publishers have become far too complacent and averse to risk, stagnating the industry creatively and leaving many of us wanting. This is one of many ways in which it can branch out and try something new!