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General: XXX: Girl Gamers Go Wild
MikeB
Community ManagerAdministrator RarePosts: 6,555
Isabelle Parsley tackles the misconceptions of girl gamers in this week's Player Perspectives.
First off, I’m very tired of hearing that girls don’t play games – because guess what, we do and we have for some time, in increasing numbers. I’ll admit that 20+ years ago we were a rare sight even in the pen’n’paper world, but we were there. And even back then, at the preset tournament games (yes, I was that much of a geek), there was a tendency to give us the characters wearing the sissy robes – you know, priests and mages, because girls just don’t know how to hit things but they’re really good at taking care of the menfolk.
Read more of Player Perspectives: XXX: Girl Gamers Go Wild.
Comments
My girlfriend loves playing with her nintendo ds, she plays games totally diferent than the ones i like.
On mmo's a usually play female characters and most of the time people dont ask what gender I am and Im sure they dont mind if im a girl or boy on real life.
The day I got viciously outskilled, ouclassed, ganked, camped and ganked again by a girl in WOW I lost all my prejudices regarding girls in mmorpgs. Except one: girls in guilds = more social interaction but also more drama. (At least that has been my personal experience). No reason for me to look down on them though, as drama can be quite entertaining. ^_^
My brand new bloggity blog.
My GF played GW and WOW long before I even met her, she loves PS3 and is looking forward to TOR far more than I am, My x of 10 years was just as much into games she was a pretty hardcore PVPer in SWG and MXO as a matter of fact, even used my uber macros in SWG. When I hear girls don't game I just turn my head and snicker at the ridiculousness of such a comment.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
It's sad that in the 21st century, we still have these mindless preconceptions. Sitting in a room with my wife while she's playing would cure anybody's notions that women are any less aggressive or competitive as men.
As an aside, I was a sailor and she can still make me blush with the torrent of curses she spews when pvp'ing. Never tell her it's just a game unless you want to get hit. Really cracks me up, but, I have an odd sense of humor.
I have seen this type of attitude about women more on forum threads than I ever have in game. Most of the people I have met in game have cared more about my parse than about my gender. I think the demographic that has this attitude is very young and is more likely to be posting about it instead of being in the game playing.
I joke around and say there is no such thing as female gamers. Truth is I know plenty of female gamers that I have played with on MMO's and console I don't always play with them though. Why do people continue to think they don't exsist or are lower then the males in games is beyond me I will treat everyone the same unless you get on my bad side.
Oh and to clarify I even joke about no females play games to female friends.
...when's the last time you used a joystick for anything? How old is that pic?
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
S!
I dealt with this in a couple of MMOs I played with my wife. She's not a competitive gamer at all. She just plays the stuff that entertains her, and she's not concerned with "roles" that each character archetype is supposed to play. One day I logged in, and apparently a guildy either didn't have guild-member logon notifications turned on, or he just didn't see I had logged on. He went on about how great a player I was, but how "useless" my wife was, and how chicks "just dion't get it".
I listened in for a minute, amidst amused tells from my other guildies. When I finally chimed in, I simply asked (para-phrasing), "So tell me, when was the last time my wife asked to run an instance with you?" A chorus of LOLs followed, and my guildy went on the defensive. I explained that I know for a fact she never asked to run instances, because while she played a tank class, she didn't enjoy nor want the responsibility of tanking. She played ONLY solo or duo with me. She played how she wanted, didn't consult online sites for "uber builds", and was an excellent member of the guild who happened to not group / raid. Calling her useless really pissed me off, and just showed how ignorant this guy was.
He ended up logging off, writing a formal apology on our guild forums, and tasting a big dose of "foot in mouth" syndrome. I lost a lot of respect for that guy. Had his comment been based solely on the fact that she didn't contribute to raids, that would be one thing. But instead they centered on the fact that she didn't "play the right way" because she was a girl.
No godless person can comprehend those minute distinctions
in doctrine that provide true believers excuse for mayhem.
-Glen Cook
Excellent article. The only thing I lament about it was that it needed to be said. I can think of no reason why rl gender matters when you're controlling an avatar in a game. About the only true fact I can say about gender in an MMO is that in my experience, guessing from people's voices over vent or w/e, is that there seems to still be a much higher percentage of males than females. I honest cannot say I've ever seen a correlation between gender and game skill. Some people are gamers and grasp concepts easily, others are not. Gender does not factor into this.
My wife plays games, but as with most things we have completely different tastes in gaming.
"I am not in a server with Gankers...THEY ARE IN A SERVER WITH ME!!!"
Oh my...
Just after a few lines of reading the article I had to groan. Why? The author gives the reader the feeling, that she thinks that all readers are some boys in their puberty. Seriously: I think articles about gender stuff interesting, but the author is basically condemning all male readers at once. And that is no basis for a useful discussion.
"So the next time you’re tempted to say “Well, she’s only a girl, what do you expect?” ....."
Whom do you mean with "you"? Me, the reader? How often I'm a tempted to say that? What do you know about me and the way I think? Why do you write an article and then use such sentences to make it sound like you were standing on a street corner screaming into the crowd?
Let's play Fallen Earth (blind, 300 episodes)
Let's play Guild Wars 2 (blind, 45 episodes)
Writing an article about being 1337... doesn't make it true
Just sayin'
my web design: www.advancedws.com.au
I enjoyed the article.. the topic is one I normally ignore.
Waaay back when I was on 300 baud dial up on QLink and the hobby of the day was trading games *cough* Quite a few of the people I traded with were female. Voice verified for the curious.. when I gamed in beta's there like Habitat which was probably the first graphical MMO (my opinion) there were plenty of females.
When I played Ultima Online there were plenty of women. Some like my co guild leader just wanted to tame rabbits in a virtual world.. others wanted to kill people and take their stuff.
I honestly don't care if someone I play with is female or male. I'm not going to want to know them that well... just there to play a game.
I do know women who play male characters. Unlike males that play female characters they usually have different reasons. Commons ones I've come across are not wanting to deal with guys hitting on them because they see a "female" character. I've also seen some behaviour in MMO's towards random female characters... that leads me to believe retroactive abortions should be legal. Another reason I've been told by "guys" I played with who turned out to be woman was.. not wanting to have their skills judged ahead of time. One woman I knew really loved playing a main tank. She said very often she would hear some commont about how woman can't do *insert whatever here*. So her solution was to start playing male tanks and just play the game.. let people judge the tanking skills on what was done.
Its kind of sad really that people think so many things because of how a virtual collection of pixels look.
My girl friend loves to PvP.. she enjoys being competitive and "winning". She always looks for ways to be better at the role she plays. She also enjoys playing a healer which was a role I normally played. So I ended up switching my play style to either tank (which I personally don't like but its much easier to get groups) or dps. So competitive females obviously exist..
Which honestly after spending over a decade in USKF... I can certainly tell you there are girls that really enjoy hitting things.
For me in a game all I care about is having fun and sometimes its nice to complete content. (I've stayed in guilds that always wiped on "end game" because they were fun as hell to play with). I do not care who is male and who is female.
I will also admit that I quite often will create a female "assassin" in games. That started on Nimue server in DAoC for me with an Infiltrator. No real reason beyond the fact that it amuses me for whatever reason.
There is a very distinct difference between "Girl Gamers" and "People of the female gender that play video games". The former is annoying.
1995 called, it wanted to inform you no-one that is a functioning member of society cares anymore.
That stock photo is awesome. Joysick? CRT monitor? Stack of jewel cases for "CD Roms". playing games hasn't looked like that since the '90s.
The "Female Gamer" shares a limbo kind of existance similar to Big Foot and the Loch Ness monster to many male players. Was that really a guy in a suit....a piece of driftwood? Was that really a female ,Elf,Priest? Or a 50 year old,300 pound ,bald, male convict playing mmorpg's in the prison rec-room?
Man Of Constant Sorrow
I'm in a big guild with members ranging from 12-60+, both male and female, and every kind of social background or job, and you *do* notice differences. It's not that girls or women play bad, but they tend to play different. Obviously it's not true for every single person, but just like there are differences in real life, there are differences ingame.
There is a higher preference for matching equipment, instead of only functional, some even admitted to wanting a armoire to stow away all their armor, one of them got herself every single armor for heir main, and put it away on another character or even on a secondary account. Did not hear that from a guy yet.
This does not make them bad gamers or anything, most of them are quite succesful on their own and good team mates. There are those that fulfill some clichés, too. Wether it's "girls can't game" or "drama queen" or whatever. People - and genders - *are* different.
Most interesting though: One of the questions ask over and over, here on mmorpg, too, is, why do guys use female characters? Usually it's "don't want to look on a guys butt" or "they want to pretend they are girls to get free stuff. But one of the girls/women actually said something funny: If she were a boy, she wouldn't want to play a male character, too, because they are just ugly.
I don't think shes totally right, some of them look good enough, but it's just, female characters still look better, even if you try to be impartial. Armor adds another layer to this (if it isn't just chainmal bikini, armor tends to look better for girls). And in Guild Wars, female characters can actually get an additional costume (which is an extra slot, only to change your look) compared to male chars.
As i said - there are differences, but clichés are clichés for a reason.
I'll wait to the day's end when the moon is high
And then I'll rise with the tide with a lust for life, I'll
Amass an army, and we'll harness a horde
And then we'll limp across the land until we stand at the shore
I must be an oddball, because I don't run into this kind of pretentious male gamer behavior when it comes to women. When it comes to minorities, sure, but I don't see people talking about female gamers being inferior. It's possible that, as a guy, I'm not as sensitive to it and thus don't really notice it, but I also think that some may be making it more of an issue than it is. Actually more often than not these days, it seems like the larger more community-driven guilds are run by women. 3 out of 5 of my last large guilds were lead by a woman and in two of those cases, they were the one running all the raids and doing a great job of it.
I will admit however, that I never assume someone is female, regardless of their avatar. I always assume the person is male (though if the avatar is female, I say 'she' until corrected, because it feels wierd to do otherwise). I know women play games nearly as often as men do these days, but I don't actually run into them that often.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
Someone above mentioned the joystick. I still have one for Flight simulators, but can't remember the last time I actually used it.
The thing that caught my eye was the old school monitor. The only place you see Tube monitors any more are like old hole in the wall one man mom and pop shops. even they are upgrading....
As for girls on the internet, they are all FBing anyways, they don't play real video games!
I love how this article assume only male users read this (it's clearly directed at the males). As if only male users are part of MMORPG.com :P
... when's the last time you saw a CRT monitor that wasn't in an old office?
edit: hmph, someone beat me to it by 45 sec.
I've had to kick more "opposite gender" (since apparently the word "girl" infuriates you) members from my guilds than boys in the past. Why? GIrls clog up the vent channels, a lot of female MMO players (in my experience) tend to be stay-at-home moms who are always AFKing to take care of their kids (fine if it's casual, crap if it's during a raid), and lastly for every two competent female gamers, there's usually always the third one bringing up the rear with all sorts of "girl talk" and personal drama. It's unbearable.
I'm all for gender equality in games, I'm just looking at the statistics and my personal observations as a guild leader. Yes, horny teenage kids trying to get the girl gamers to say something sexy get the axe just as quickly, but I'll still boot that girl if she caves in to his demands for something like loot or money.
The fact is, women are very quick to defend their gender in gaming environments. I honestly don't care if you're male, female, transgendered, or what have you, as long as you PLAY THE DAMN GAME and stop playing your gender.
"You say we're all the same
You don't even know my name
Sometime somewhere some man hurt you
I'm one of them so I get stuck with the blame
You think you know about me
You don't know a damn thing about me
I'm not all men, just one man, I'm not all men"
Thank you Henry Rollins.
While there may actually be a point somewhere in this long winded rant, it is burried in the white noise of all the condecending and blatant stereotyping.
You are pushed out of shape because some internet dickweed in a video game treated you rudely due to your gender, that truly is a shame. I've constantly had to deal with condecenstion in online games because of my thick as a brick accent. Some people hear that in vent and seem to think that not perfectly speaking the Queens english equates to being mentally challenged. Its annoying but that doesn't give me the right to accuse every english speaking MMOer of acting this way. Coming here and posting this long, antagonistic, agony-on, decrying (seemingly) that all men in video games act this way is the wrong way to promote understanding or even sympathy. Two wrongs do not make a right.
So while I agree the online crowd and society in gerenal could use improvement in gender relations, I'm not sure you are the person who should be leading us to enlightenment.
"Gypsies, tramps, and thieves, we were called by the Admin of the site . . . "