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Games & Girls
26/SEP/08 | Back to Pocketwolf's Profile
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Pocketwolf said...
I was debating on whether or not to bother continuing writing these experiences, but then tommarrow mentioned that s/he'd been reading them and enjoying them, so *waves* - just for you! :)
I guess it was bound to crop up eventually (I'm actually not sure what to write about after this - any suggestions?), but - GIRLS IN GAMING! Ha. Statistically there are more females in MMOs, so (apart from some of the quotes) this will mostly be about how girls are often treated in online shooters. I have been running an Australian clan for TF2 for the past five months, and from the first day I began to play this comic shooter, have experienced a variety of reactions to my gender.
Reactions to girls in the games I've played come in a wide rainbow of colours, much like Post-It Notes, cake frosting, and sexual preferences. My man, Digit, had a conversation with some random TF2-ers a while back that I found highly amusing (this is the conversation from which my profile quote was drawn).
Person #1: girls dont play games
Digital Decadence: My wife does! :)
Person #2: dude... your wife is a guy?
+ + + + +
No idea who came up with this picture. Image courtesy of a very good article from The Brainy Gamer; click for larger image.
+ + + + +
My attitude as a female gamer has changed a lot over the past two years, but it doesn't seem to be heading in any one particular direction. Trends and distinct conclusions in my musings have, however, emerged.
OBSERVATIONS ABOUT GAMING AS A GIRL
I like to win. I am very competitive. This always applies, whether I'm playing a game or taking an exam. I like to beat people - whether they're male or female - because I was brought up to achieve highly. I like to progress, to feel that I'm gaining new skills and learning how best to use them. I feel rewarded when all of that results in me landing at the top of the scoreboard in a game of TF2, even if it then earns me the inevitable accusations of hacking and aimbotting.
Not ALL male gamers are dicks. I resent the assertion that the 'typical FPS crowd' is composed only of pre-teen boys who jerk off to pictures of women on the internet and break into a cold sweat when a girl joins an online game. Many of my gaming mates are men who are much more mature than that. They treat me with respect, but they don't do it just because I'm a girl. They respect me as a person, as a friend, and as a gamer. Any people on my Steam friends list whom I even suspect of just hanging on to my coattails because I'm a female gets kicked off in record time.
SOME male gamers are dicks. There will always be the inevitable 13-yo boy who tries to get into my virtual pants by talking dirty to me, or who makes a point of attempting to beat my score just because he believes that "girls can't play games". Such gamers can't be avoided, but they can certainly be totally ignored. It's never worth arguing or talking back to them. It is, however, usually quite satisfiying to beat their score by 80 points or so.
+ + + + +
I can't apologise; this caption is quite true. Image courtesy of beconfused.com; click for larger image.
+ + + + +
RANTS ABOUT GAMING GIRLS
I dislike girls who use their gender as a weapon. In normal life, girls have been known to 'sleep their way to the top'. This phenomenon occurs, to a limited and somewhat different extent, in games as well. Those who play on their gender to get advantages or concessions from their male counterparts in games disgust me. If you aren't worth it without breasts, you aren't worth it at all.
I dislike girls who try to make themselves desirable through their gaming connections. Girls who make a huge issue of their femininity - who garner attention by announcing their gender at every opportunity - irritate me. "I'm so cool and rare, because I'm a girl and I'm geeky, look at this pic of me naked and draped in consoles - aren't I hot? Or hey, did you know I WORK at a game studio? Daaaang! REITERATION, EVERYONE! I'm a GIRL GAMER! You know you want me." No. No, I don't. Get a life and stop being an attention seeker.
I dislike girl gamer groups. Not all of them are bad, but the vast majority of them behave like support groups - as though being a girl and being a gamer automatically makes you part of an elite and persecuted minority that NEEDS support and mutual pep talks. Basically, wtf? Being a gamer should have nothing to do with your gender. Gaming has never been a purely male-only pursuit - there've always been girls interested in gaming, just as there've always been guys interested in ballet. It's not something for which someone should ever feel ashamed or vilified. You game, you're a girl. Get over it, and everyone else will too.
+ + + + +
I don't even know how to respond to this. Screenshot taken by myself of Girls Go Games; click to go to the site.
+ + + + +
ARGUMENTS AGAINST GENDER-BASED GAMES
Gender doesn't matter. "If one attempts to dig deep within the reserves of videogame history, it's unlikely that they'll uncover the instance of the very first woman who graced her femininity upon a console (well, aside from the Computer Space ad, that is). There are several reasons why this moment was never documented -- mostly because videogame history is predominantly about videogames (imagine that!), but partly because members of the opposite sex playing games isn't very noteworthy in the most fundamental scope of things. I play. You play. We all play, with or without va-jay-jays." (emphasis mine, quoted from this article - a very good read about the sort of girl gamers I mentioned in the previous section).
I am not a rabid feminist, but gender stereotypes are insulting. "I would love to know what else Ubisoft is doing for girls, other than shopping, fashion and pets. Anything? It's a bit ironic that the series is called Imagine, and yet Ubisoft is demonstrating a distinct lack of the stuff here." (quoted from this article). Women are not an entirely new species to whom one must pander in predefined ways. We're humans just like men, and we respond to a variety of stimuli just like them, too. Using lots of pink is not a guaranteed way to get girls involved.
If studios develop good games, girls will be interested. I don't subscribe to the model of "making games for girls" or "making games for boys". One of my favourite games of all time is Baldur's Gate (and its attendant sequels and add-ons) - that wasn't a game 'made for girls', it was just a fucking awesome game in general. Thousands of guys like it. Probably thousands of girls like it too. Make a game of any quality and the audience - irrespective of gender - will respond accordingly. Good games will be loved. Bad games will be hated. Stop thinking about it in terms of gender.
+ + + + +
I can see why she needs to keep her arm tucked under there. Image courtesy of Games Radar; click to go to the article.
+ + + + +
FINALLY, A DISCUSSION OF GIRLS -IN- GAMES
Somewhere in the uncharted plains of videogame potential, in the wild primal cloud of yet-nascent human ideas, is my perfect heroine. I don't know what she looks like or where she's from, but I know she's a manifestation of despair and triumph, of trial and overcoming, of badass throw-down and ephemeral grace. She's a creature of fire and passion tempered by intellect, of depth and history and complexity. She will surprise me and challenge me, and when we bring down her arch-nemesis - perhaps a phantom from her past, perhaps a threat to all she stands for - our unified victory will be unmatched; the world will echo with the lamentation of our fallen foes.
And I know she has never seen life on the screen.
- Erin Hoffman
As a wrap-up, please enjoy these quotes from a very interesting, and amusing, article (from The Escapist, of Zero Punctuation fame) talking about what women in the gaming industry want from female characters in games.
"I wince every time I see someone in plate mail heels."
- Jennifer Bullard, Senior Producer at Aspyr Media
"Whilst it's true that many male videogame characters are young and muscular, most of them have the benefit of being fully clothed. ... There's also your scarred chappies - can you imagine any publisher greenlighting a project where the female lead was as battered as Raziel?"
- Lynsey Rigby, Designer at Blitz Games
"Make her a woman, not a man with boobs. That's what I want in a heroine."
- Judy Tyrer, Network Programmer, Red Storm Entertainment
"Pants. I just like my heroines to be wearing pants."
- Kimberly Unger, CEO of Bushi-go
I guess it was bound to crop up eventually (I'm actually not sure what to write about after this - any suggestions?), but - GIRLS IN GAMING! Ha. Statistically there are more females in MMOs, so (apart from some of the quotes) this will mostly be about how girls are often treated in online shooters. I have been running an Australian clan for TF2 for the past five months, and from the first day I began to play this comic shooter, have experienced a variety of reactions to my gender.
Reactions to girls in the games I've played come in a wide rainbow of colours, much like Post-It Notes, cake frosting, and sexual preferences. My man, Digit, had a conversation with some random TF2-ers a while back that I found highly amusing (this is the conversation from which my profile quote was drawn).
Person #1: girls dont play games
Digital Decadence: My wife does! :)
Person #2: dude... your wife is a guy?
+ + + + +
No idea who came up with this picture. Image courtesy of a very good article from The Brainy Gamer; click for larger image.
+ + + + +
My attitude as a female gamer has changed a lot over the past two years, but it doesn't seem to be heading in any one particular direction. Trends and distinct conclusions in my musings have, however, emerged.
OBSERVATIONS ABOUT GAMING AS A GIRL
I like to win. I am very competitive. This always applies, whether I'm playing a game or taking an exam. I like to beat people - whether they're male or female - because I was brought up to achieve highly. I like to progress, to feel that I'm gaining new skills and learning how best to use them. I feel rewarded when all of that results in me landing at the top of the scoreboard in a game of TF2, even if it then earns me the inevitable accusations of hacking and aimbotting.
Not ALL male gamers are dicks. I resent the assertion that the 'typical FPS crowd' is composed only of pre-teen boys who jerk off to pictures of women on the internet and break into a cold sweat when a girl joins an online game. Many of my gaming mates are men who are much more mature than that. They treat me with respect, but they don't do it just because I'm a girl. They respect me as a person, as a friend, and as a gamer. Any people on my Steam friends list whom I even suspect of just hanging on to my coattails because I'm a female gets kicked off in record time.
SOME male gamers are dicks. There will always be the inevitable 13-yo boy who tries to get into my virtual pants by talking dirty to me, or who makes a point of attempting to beat my score just because he believes that "girls can't play games". Such gamers can't be avoided, but they can certainly be totally ignored. It's never worth arguing or talking back to them. It is, however, usually quite satisfiying to beat their score by 80 points or so.
+ + + + +
I can't apologise; this caption is quite true. Image courtesy of beconfused.com; click for larger image.
+ + + + +
RANTS ABOUT GAMING GIRLS
I dislike girls who use their gender as a weapon. In normal life, girls have been known to 'sleep their way to the top'. This phenomenon occurs, to a limited and somewhat different extent, in games as well. Those who play on their gender to get advantages or concessions from their male counterparts in games disgust me. If you aren't worth it without breasts, you aren't worth it at all.
I dislike girls who try to make themselves desirable through their gaming connections. Girls who make a huge issue of their femininity - who garner attention by announcing their gender at every opportunity - irritate me. "I'm so cool and rare, because I'm a girl and I'm geeky, look at this pic of me naked and draped in consoles - aren't I hot? Or hey, did you know I WORK at a game studio? Daaaang! REITERATION, EVERYONE! I'm a GIRL GAMER! You know you want me." No. No, I don't. Get a life and stop being an attention seeker.
I dislike girl gamer groups. Not all of them are bad, but the vast majority of them behave like support groups - as though being a girl and being a gamer automatically makes you part of an elite and persecuted minority that NEEDS support and mutual pep talks. Basically, wtf? Being a gamer should have nothing to do with your gender. Gaming has never been a purely male-only pursuit - there've always been girls interested in gaming, just as there've always been guys interested in ballet. It's not something for which someone should ever feel ashamed or vilified. You game, you're a girl. Get over it, and everyone else will too.
+ + + + +
I don't even know how to respond to this. Screenshot taken by myself of Girls Go Games; click to go to the site.
+ + + + +
ARGUMENTS AGAINST GENDER-BASED GAMES
Gender doesn't matter. "If one attempts to dig deep within the reserves of videogame history, it's unlikely that they'll uncover the instance of the very first woman who graced her femininity upon a console (well, aside from the Computer Space ad, that is). There are several reasons why this moment was never documented -- mostly because videogame history is predominantly about videogames (imagine that!), but partly because members of the opposite sex playing games isn't very noteworthy in the most fundamental scope of things. I play. You play. We all play, with or without va-jay-jays." (emphasis mine, quoted from this article - a very good read about the sort of girl gamers I mentioned in the previous section).
I am not a rabid feminist, but gender stereotypes are insulting. "I would love to know what else Ubisoft is doing for girls, other than shopping, fashion and pets. Anything? It's a bit ironic that the series is called Imagine, and yet Ubisoft is demonstrating a distinct lack of the stuff here." (quoted from this article). Women are not an entirely new species to whom one must pander in predefined ways. We're humans just like men, and we respond to a variety of stimuli just like them, too. Using lots of pink is not a guaranteed way to get girls involved.
If studios develop good games, girls will be interested. I don't subscribe to the model of "making games for girls" or "making games for boys". One of my favourite games of all time is Baldur's Gate (and its attendant sequels and add-ons) - that wasn't a game 'made for girls', it was just a fucking awesome game in general. Thousands of guys like it. Probably thousands of girls like it too. Make a game of any quality and the audience - irrespective of gender - will respond accordingly. Good games will be loved. Bad games will be hated. Stop thinking about it in terms of gender.
+ + + + +
I can see why she needs to keep her arm tucked under there. Image courtesy of Games Radar; click to go to the article.
+ + + + +
FINALLY, A DISCUSSION OF GIRLS -IN- GAMES
Somewhere in the uncharted plains of videogame potential, in the wild primal cloud of yet-nascent human ideas, is my perfect heroine. I don't know what she looks like or where she's from, but I know she's a manifestation of despair and triumph, of trial and overcoming, of badass throw-down and ephemeral grace. She's a creature of fire and passion tempered by intellect, of depth and history and complexity. She will surprise me and challenge me, and when we bring down her arch-nemesis - perhaps a phantom from her past, perhaps a threat to all she stands for - our unified victory will be unmatched; the world will echo with the lamentation of our fallen foes.
And I know she has never seen life on the screen.
- Erin Hoffman
As a wrap-up, please enjoy these quotes from a very interesting, and amusing, article (from The Escapist, of Zero Punctuation fame) talking about what women in the gaming industry want from female characters in games.
"I wince every time I see someone in plate mail heels."
- Jennifer Bullard, Senior Producer at Aspyr Media
"Whilst it's true that many male videogame characters are young and muscular, most of them have the benefit of being fully clothed. ... There's also your scarred chappies - can you imagine any publisher greenlighting a project where the female lead was as battered as Raziel?"
- Lynsey Rigby, Designer at Blitz Games
"Make her a woman, not a man with boobs. That's what I want in a heroine."
- Judy Tyrer, Network Programmer, Red Storm Entertainment
"Pants. I just like my heroines to be wearing pants."
- Kimberly Unger, CEO of Bushi-go
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I do agree with you tough, I have a few girls I play Xbox live with, and I constantly defend them from those teen boy comments and so forth. I think the big problem with a lot of people thinking "Girls don't play games" is due to the low amount that actually say they do because they are afraid of being made fun of or bitched at for any number of reasons.
I think the thing I hate the most is when they try to lure young girls into the gamer market. That is, they try to market these horrible games and think that by making everything overwhelmingly pink (pink DS, pink display, pink game case, pink bag, etc.) they'll be able to win even more consumers. Personally, I hate pink and I hate that it's so closely associated with being female. Most people will become gamers for the right reason - love of games.
I think one thing that would have been nice to touch on is the existence of groups like Frag Dolls and other "professional" gamer groups. Do you think they are legitimate or just another marketing tool? They can be both, obviously, but they're predominantly one or the other.
Either way, a very interesting read.
kanashi - I know I often do not speak on xbox live because I have been viciously attacked and insulted before. Verbal sexual harassment no one should have to go through.
Thanks you for the wave *waves back*. I will have to come back here every so often to keep up with the commentary. Rock on!
I'm on a Warcraft kick atm so I've left XLive behind me for the time being, but I too despise those macho-wannabes who think they are so much better than a chick due to their having a penis, and in my experience there is no age requirement on idiot guys who do this.
I like to see my toons wearing pants too.