Quanitify as to what you suggest would satisify your need for proof?
Yes i am insecure, thats why i replied.. like i said if it wasn't for insecurity people wouldn't feel the need to speak out.
I'm at peace with my insecurity... i accept, no.. i want more female demographics in gaming... i just don't want to hear you brag about having a vagina while doing it.
Proof would be a scientific study, actual data. I think you might need to reread the article as well and most the points. No one is bragging about their sexual parts here.
Whilst i'm not saying it is, i'm simply saying what was said wasn't needed to be said, don't complain, just game.
I respect your personal experiences. They are just as valid as everyone else's. However, it is easy speaking froma majority position to dimiss the viewpoints of a minority position which is what you are doing. You still can't speak for most, all or many of as your viewpoitn is just that, your viewpoint backed up not by scientific data or even reported numbers from the gaming companies themselves. It is interesting that you bring into question the securities of others but then try to cement your own. It's not about security, it's about represenation and just a general respect girls, women, anyone other than the white male that so many games cater to are due.
It's past time this industry grew the hell up, and the same goes for many of the gamers.
I'm starting to doubt your reading level...
1. I clearily stated i have my insecurities, thus represented by my posts here.
2. "However, it is easy speaking froma majority position to dimiss the viewpoints of a minority position which is what you are doing. You still can't speak for most, all or many of as your viewpoitn is just that" -- you clearily just contradicted yourself, you claim i can not speak for everyone unless i have objective proof, then neither can you -- thus voiding out your point here.
3. "it's about represenation and just a general respect girls, women, anyone other than the white male that so many games cater to are due."
-- That is Sexist, Racist, and a pontificating generaliztion,
A. To take from YOUR rule book, you have 0 proof that the "Industry" is catered to one demographic or another, see below
I. Korea Grinders are Targetted at Korean Zombie Farmers - Not White Males.
II. Anime/Lolly MMO's are targetted at Young girls, and Asians (FlyFF, Maplestory, other Anime F2P) -- Not white males.
III. Casual Craft MMO's are targetted at Western markets (All races, and genders have money, why single 1 out?) - Not White males.
IV. There are childern MMOs targetted at young generations of players, (Lego Universe, Clone Wars Online, Free Realms).
V. Extreme adult MMOs - Targetted at adults w/ graphics or extreme content (Age of Conan, Requiem : Bloody Mary).
VI. There are various types, classifications, and sub-genres in this market as far as MMOs they target only ONE RACE, the race with money, that happens to be anyone, and everyone.
B. No-one "Gets" respect as it's due, you give what you get, if you wanna think you are owed something, then you deserve nothing, if you give respect, you get respect, thats how i live, thats how it should be, noone will respect arrogance.
It's a 2-way street, its funny how the self-proclaimed victims quickily turn into the victimizers.
Women make up approximately 38% of the gaming population, and put in an average of 7.5 hours a week according to the more "generous" studies (which include social gaming). Other studies, like from the book "Internet Addiciton" by Kimberly S. Young report women on make up 10% of the gaming population excluding social media games like FarmVille or Scrabulous. Various studies find that men are anywhere from 62% to 90% of all gamers, putting in an average of 21.6 hours a week, over double the time of women.
When you really research this subject, which the writer of this article obviously has not done, you find that gaming is broken into subsets. From casual, to hardcore, to social. While women make up the majority on the "social" subset, (Facebook-type games are in this category) and actually put in more gaming hours in the "hardcore" subset, the total of all combined still leaves women in a vast minority.
Reseach has also indicated the the "reward" centers in the male brian are siginificatly more stimulated by video games, which is often the cause of "Internet" or "Gaming" addiction, which is much, much more prevalent in men.
You can investigate this all you want. The studies vary, and the best way is to look at all subsets individually and form an average. Social games (FarmVille, Scabulous) yes, women overpopulate men. Casual games (Wii, the Sims and other "time killer" systems) are dominated by men in a smaller number. The HardCore subset (MMOs, FPS, fighting games) men overwhelmingly outnumber women, but the women who do play seem to put in more hours (57 hours average for women, 51 for men). Overall, the figure comes out to roughly 35-65 women to men when you factor in social gaming. If you take social gaming out of the figure, women only make up about 15% of gamers.
Do yourself a favor. Read BOOKS. Read PUBLISHED ARTICLES. Don't scour the net with Google expecting to find real, usable data in ANY statistical report. The truth of the matter? Women play the Sims, Facebook games, and Wii. That's how the statistics get scewed. Very few are hardcore gamers who play FPS and MMO games - unless they are someones girlfriend. If you want me to cite some of the books/article I used to gather this data let me know, I have the entire bibiography I used in college.
1. I clearily stated i have my insecurities, thus represented by my posts here.
2. "However, it is easy speaking froma majority position to dimiss the viewpoints of a minority position which is what you are doing. You still can't speak for most, all or many of as your viewpoitn is just that" -- you clearily just contradicted yourself, you claim i can not speak for everyone unless i have objective proof, then neither can you -- thus voiding out your point here.
3. "it's about represenation and just a general respect girls, women, anyone other than the white male that so many games cater to are due."
-- That is Sexist, Racist, and a pontificating generaliztion,
A. To take from YOUR rule book, you have 0 proof that the "Industry" is catered to one demographic or another, see below
I. Korea Grinders are Targetted at Korean Zombie Farmers - Not White Males.
II. Anime/Lolly MMO's are targetted at Young girls, and Asians (FlyFF, Maplestory, other Anime F2P) -- Not white males.
III. Casual Craft MMO's are targetted at Western markets (All races, and genders have money, why single 1 out?) - Not White males.
IV. There are childern MMOs targetted at young generations of players, (Lego Universe, Clone Wars Online, Free Realms).
V. There are various types, classifications, and sub-genres in this market as far as MMOs they target only ONE RACE, the race with money, that happens to be anyone, and everyone.
B. No-one "Gets" respect as it's due, you give what you get, if you wanna think you are owed something, then you deserve nothing, if you give respect, you get respect, thats how i live, thats how it should be, noone will respect arrogance.
It's a 2-way street, its funny how the self-proclaimed victims quickily turn into the victimizers.
- Lawyered.
It's simply self-deluded to think most games aren't targeted at young men. You've tried to "lawyer" someone, how about "market researching" someone. MMOs I believe would be a general acception to the rule, since they are created on a PG level and generally intended for a much larger, sustainable audience. But even then, the male-centirc elements are very apparent, especially in terms of wardrobe.
1. I clearily stated i have my insecurities, thus represented by my posts here.
2. "However, it is easy speaking froma majority position to dimiss the viewpoints of a minority position which is what you are doing. You still can't speak for most, all or many of as your viewpoitn is just that" -- you clearily just contradicted yourself, you claim i can not speak for everyone unless i have objective proof, then neither can you -- thus voiding out your point here.
3. "it's about represenation and just a general respect girls, women, anyone other than the white male that so many games cater to are due."
-- That is Sexist, Racist, and a pontificating generaliztion,
A. To take from YOUR rule book, you have 0 proof that the "Industry" is catered to one demographic or another, see below
I. Korea Grinders are Targetted at Korean Zombie Farmers - Not White Males.
II. Anime/Lolly MMO's are targetted at Young girls, and Asians (FlyFF, Maplestory, other Anime F2P) -- Not white males.
III. Casual Craft MMO's are targetted at Western markets (All races, and genders have money, why single 1 out?) - Not White males.
IV. There are childern MMOs targetted at young generations of players, (Lego Universe, Clone Wars Online, Free Realms).
V. There are various types, classifications, and sub-genres in this market as far as MMOs they target only ONE RACE, the race with money, that happens to be anyone, and everyone.
B. No-one "Gets" respect as it's due, you give what you get, if you wanna think you are owed something, then you deserve nothing, if you give respect, you get respect, thats how i live, thats how it should be, noone will respect arrogance.
It's a 2-way street, its funny how the self-proclaimed victims quickily turn into the victimizers.
- Lawyered.
It's simply self-deluded to think most games aren't targeted at young men. You've tried to "lawyer" someone, how about "market researching" someone. MMOs I believe would be a general acception to the rule, since they are created on a PG level and generally intended for a much larger, sustainable audience. But even then, the male-centirc elements are very apparent, especially in terms of wardrobe.
Again, i don't care enough to drive into the research..
I do think it's silly that you are telling me there are games out there like "Hello Kitty Online" that are not targetting females...
She claimed the industry is catering to "White males" i'm attacking that assertion... games are targetted at whoever will pay, it's called capitalism, use that degree of yours.
Of course i'm talking directily as to MMORPGs, as this seems to be the assumed genre that the OP, and follow replies are targeting.
I've seen lists longer then a congressional build on economic stimulus detailing the different MMORPG titles out there, and most of those F2P are NOT targetting "White Males", they are targeting childern, or Stay at home mothers, are the successful, and have large playerbases? irrelevant, we are talking about the industry's target, not wether or not they hit the mark.
1. I clearily stated i have my insecurities, thus represented by my posts here.
2. "However, it is easy speaking froma majority position to dimiss the viewpoints of a minority position which is what you are doing. You still can't speak for most, all or many of as your viewpoitn is just that" -- you clearily just contradicted yourself, you claim i can not speak for everyone unless i have objective proof, then neither can you -- thus voiding out your point here.
3. "it's about represenation and just a general respect girls, women, anyone other than the white male that so many games cater to are due."
-- That is Sexist, Racist, and a pontificating generaliztion,
A. To take from YOUR rule book, you have 0 proof that the "Industry" is catered to one demographic or another, see below
I. Korea Grinders are Targetted at Korean Zombie Farmers - Not White Males.
II. Anime/Lolly MMO's are targetted at Young girls, and Asians (FlyFF, Maplestory, other Anime F2P) -- Not white males.
III. Casual Craft MMO's are targetted at Western markets (All races, and genders have money, why single 1 out?) - Not White males.
IV. There are childern MMOs targetted at young generations of players, (Lego Universe, Clone Wars Online, Free Realms).
V. There are various types, classifications, and sub-genres in this market as far as MMOs they target only ONE RACE, the race with money, that happens to be anyone, and everyone.
B. No-one "Gets" respect as it's due, you give what you get, if you wanna think you are owed something, then you deserve nothing, if you give respect, you get respect, thats how i live, thats how it should be, noone will respect arrogance.
It's a 2-way street, its funny how the self-proclaimed victims quickily turn into the victimizers.
- Lawyered.
It's simply self-deluded to think most games aren't targeted at young men. You've tried to "lawyer" someone, how about "market researching" someone. MMOs I believe would be a general acception to the rule, since they are created on a PG level and generally intended for a much larger, sustainable audience. But even then, the male-centirc elements are very apparent, especially in terms of wardrobe.
Again, i don't care enough to drive into the research..
I do think it's silly that you are telling me there are games out there like "Hello Kitty Online" that are not targetting females...
She claimed the industry is catering to "White males" i'm attacking that assertion... games are targetted at whoever will pay, it's called capitalism, use that degree of yours.
Of course i'm talking directily as to MMORPGs, as this seems to be the assumed genre that the OP, and follow replies are targeting.
I've seen lists longer then a congressional build on economic stimulus detailing the different MMORPG titles out there, and most of those F2P are NOT targetting "White Males", they are targeting childern, or Stay at home mothers, are the successful, and have large playerbases? irrelevant, we are talking about the industry's target, not wether or not they hit the mark.
See highlight. Yes you stil make baseless assertions. By the way, what drives capitalism is a companies ability to target their material to a specific, marketable audience. In most cases, that target is males. Not "white" males... males. Even in the case of games like Warcraft, the men are the driving storyline in the lore, and the most empowered characters in the game. On top of the women being scantily clad and quest achievements like "Shake your Bunny Maker" or "Just the Tip." It's not the case in 100% of games. It IS the cast in the vast majority, because the majority of gamers are male. No matter what the OP says about it.
And Hello Kitty is targeted to children, not women.
Have a nice day. Use my degree? I do every day. Have fun.
females, girls, women what ever they dont game as they simply dont have time with all the washing, cleaning and nagging they do
ok now thats out of the way, yeah i agree with your article, its a thing of the past that gaming is a male only thing
im sure many female characters who say they are females for real arent (their reasons for this are probably a bit weird)
Also, the same can be said vice-versa im sure that some females also play as males just to keep away from the whole gender situation too
Personally I dont care what gender someone is especially in a game, if they can undestand my sometimes weird humour and dont ninja loot - im happy enough
1. I clearily stated i have my insecurities, thus represented by my posts here.
2. "However, it is easy speaking froma majority position to dimiss the viewpoints of a minority position which is what you are doing. You still can't speak for most, all or many of as your viewpoitn is just that" -- you clearily just contradicted yourself, you claim i can not speak for everyone unless i have objective proof, then neither can you -- thus voiding out your point here.
3. "it's about represenation and just a general respect girls, women, anyone other than the white male that so many games cater to are due."
-- That is Sexist, Racist, and a pontificating generaliztion,
A. To take from YOUR rule book, you have 0 proof that the "Industry" is catered to one demographic or another, see below
I. Korea Grinders are Targetted at Korean Zombie Farmers - Not White Males.
II. Anime/Lolly MMO's are targetted at Young girls, and Asians (FlyFF, Maplestory, other Anime F2P) -- Not white males.
III. Casual Craft MMO's are targetted at Western markets (All races, and genders have money, why single 1 out?) - Not White males.
IV. There are childern MMOs targetted at young generations of players, (Lego Universe, Clone Wars Online, Free Realms).
V. There are various types, classifications, and sub-genres in this market as far as MMOs they target only ONE RACE, the race with money, that happens to be anyone, and everyone.
B. No-one "Gets" respect as it's due, you give what you get, if you wanna think you are owed something, then you deserve nothing, if you give respect, you get respect, thats how i live, thats how it should be, noone will respect arrogance.
It's a 2-way street, its funny how the self-proclaimed victims quickily turn into the victimizers.
- Lawyered.
It's simply self-deluded to think most games aren't targeted at young men. You've tried to "lawyer" someone, how about "market researching" someone. MMOs I believe would be a general acception to the rule, since they are created on a PG level and generally intended for a much larger, sustainable audience. But even then, the male-centirc elements are very apparent, especially in terms of wardrobe.
Again, i don't care enough to drive into the research..
I do think it's silly that you are telling me there are games out there like "Hello Kitty Online" that are not targetting females...
She claimed the industry is catering to "White males" i'm attacking that assertion... games are targetted at whoever will pay, it's called capitalism, use that degree of yours.
Of course i'm talking directily as to MMORPGs, as this seems to be the assumed genre that the OP, and follow replies are targeting.
I've seen lists longer then a congressional build on economic stimulus detailing the different MMORPG titles out there, and most of those F2P are NOT targetting "White Males", they are targeting childern, or Stay at home mothers, are the successful, and have large playerbases? irrelevant, we are talking about the industry's target, not wether or not they hit the mark.
See highlight. Yes you stil make baseless assertions. By the way, what drives capitalism is a companies ability to target their material to a specific, marketable audience. In most cases, that target is males. Not "white" males... males. Even in the case of games like Warcraft, the men are the driving storyline in the lore, and the most empowered characters in the game. On top of the women being scantily clad and quest achievements like "Shake your Bunny Maker" or "Just the Tip." It's not the case in 100% of games. It IS the cast in the vast majority, because the majority of gamers are male. No matter what the OP says about it.
And Hello Kitty is targeted to children, not women.
Have a nice day. Use my degree? I do every day. Have fun.
Lack of diversity is a real issue with the gaming industry. I never said it was racism; I also won't do his homework for him or try to appease whatever rage is coming up. He can start with the Escapist or Extra Credit if he wants to look into the topic... which he doesn't. It is white males that mainstream games tend to target. It just is.
But I suppose it's just easier to get offended and then tell other people to shut-up than to attempt to look into an issue and see for yourself what the data shows.
parrotpholk-Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better.
I know gamer girls exsist, I just wish I could meet one IRL. All the girls I know wish games would burn in hell. I'd love to have a gamer girl friend though.
I LOVE that you wrote this article. I have been told in games before that female gamers don't exist its like duh hello wtf am I. One thing I totally agree with you on is that, almost all of the female avatars begging for money/eq ect flirting are men. I have never done that I don't need too and have never known any of my female friends who play to do so either. I don't play to meet men or to date I play to kick some a$$. Its the one world where I am equal in strength power whatever its a fun fantasy for me and kicking a$$ is fun! But I have lately stopped joining guilds or even grouping with people, because of the way women are talked about or how I get treated once people realize my gender.
The password to all boy's tree houses is .."naked women mags". Just incase you wanted to know. Now girl gamers, Sure they may play but the rule is when you are female or black hide who you really are.
Most MMO's are comprised of bi-curios young guys with high pitched voices or guys in their 30's looking for young women. and of course living spell checkers, who like to spend hours correcting peoples grammar in trade chat. Women would be wise to never reveal themselves or you will get the "old pictures or it's not true line". Or be stalked to no end by hormone raging zit poppers who want to cyber with you.
I hate the girls that need to always let you know that they're a girl playing video games, as if they were gods greatest gift to video games.
P.S. Sexual innuendo quest names can go both ways.
Nothing like attacking people for being ignorant, while maintaining the same level of thought process as the person you're attacking.
I kind of agree, but then at the same time everyone thinks a female toon is a guy behind the keyboard, so maybe they feel like they should let you know so you don't think they are a wierdo palying a chick toon.
Personally , I think there isn't anything wrong with the guys playing chick toons. I have played them in certain games. Games where the female toons look rather attractive like AIon. I made a chick toon , that way I had something nice to look at while I played, but the voice sound effects became annoying.
For the most part I play male toons in my games tho...
I agree with the idea that there is prejudice still both that gamer girls are very rare and that they are not as skilled as guys, but I have two bones with this article.
Firstly, the beef you seem to have with the very world "girl." I'm not young enough to be literally a girl anymore, myself, but people say "girls" and "guys" all the time, and they don't mean to be condescending when they say it. It is a very petty semantic thing to get worked up over. Most people tend to say girls instead of women for the same reason people tend not to say "men." They say guys, because it feels more casual and less forced. Regardless, you shouldn't read too much into the words people use. It matters much more how they behave towards gamer girls, and each other in general.
Secondly, the more we post things like this, the more it sounds like the ladies doth protest too much. This is the same problem we continue to have with racism. The more you talk about, the more it persists, and the more you give it power. Of course women play games, and of course they do it for the same reasons as men and have differing backgrounds and skill sets and whathaveyou. The people who don't know and understand this are not going to be convinced by posts like this, and are actually more likely to continue to believe stereotypes about gamer girls because of them. I think heated feminism like this has done more to hurt the cause of equality of women than anything in the past three decades or so. But that is a totally different post.
The only real way to combat this perception is to play games, and not take nonsense from those who hold those stereotypes.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
There are a lot more female gamers then people would think, most women I knew that gamed did not tell people that they were female just because of this type af attitude.
I drove truck for several years and it was the same there, the guys would talk about the women drivers like they were a lower life form when there did not seem to be any listening but, let one lady break in a channel to get local information or just to add to a conversation and the men lose there damn minds, you would think they have never seen a girl, women or anything female before.
The same thing happens in games from what I have seen let someone find out your a woman and now every guy that knows is stuting and acting like an idiot trying to help, impress the woman or the idiots that want to come with the insults although I agree that the insults generally come from little boys and I mean little like 13-16 range this I attribute to bad parenting.
When I played SWG we had about 100 active members and half of them were women playing male charactors or telling people they were guys. We were a guild of couples that liked to game but, had grown tired of the entire child like mentality towards women in games.
In this day and age if you think you have never faced off with a girl or woman in combat then your just stupid, chances are high that you have and more often then you think. There is no gender check when you role a charactor so anyone can role either with just a click of the button and if you don't know them you have no idea in reality what gender they are.
Look at it this way, there was a guy in galaxys that went on and on about people being down on the "black man" because he was getting beat up in pvp, I told him one time, you do realize that no one had any way of knowing you are black until you told them. Same for girls/women unless they tell you you have no way of knowing.
I agree with the idea that there is prejudice still both that gamer girls are very rare and that they are not as skilled as guys, but I have two bones with this article.
Firstly, the beef you seem to have with the very world "girl." I'm not young enough to be literally a girl anymore, myself, but people say "girls" and "guys" all the time, and they don't mean to be condescending when they say it. It is a very petty semantic thing to get worked up over. Most people tend to say girls instead of women for the same reason people tend not to say "men." They say guys, because it feels more casual and less forced. Regardless, you shouldn't read too much into the words people use. It matters much more how they behave towards gamer girls, and each other in general.
Secondly, the more we post things like this, the more it sounds like the ladies doth protest too much. This is the same problem we continue to have with racism. The more you talk about, the more it persists, and the more you give it power. Of course women play games, and of course they do it for the same reasons as men and have differing backgrounds and skill sets and whathaveyou. The people who don't know and understand this are not going to be convinced by posts like this, and are actually more likely to continue to believe stereotypes about gamer girls because of them. I think heated feminism like this has done more to hurt the cause of equality of women than anything in the past three decades or so. But that is a totally different post.
The only real way to combat this perception is to play games, and not take nonsense from those who hold those stereotypes.
Yes, it's much better to just keep quiet and hope people change. What's done the most damage to equality of women is other women who prefer that we be quiet and not fight so hard, dont rock the boat. You don't give attention to a naughty child, this is something completely different. I am not offended by being called girl, but the general language I have found in games is offensive and the derogatory way women are talked about is. But this is why I no longer play with people, I find it extremely difficult anymore to find mature people in games to play with. But maybe I am just starting to get too old for all of this. I am sorry to be argumentative but something about this pricked a nerve.
I think my MMO 'career' start was very lucky. I got into a very nice guild in EQII. Quite many of the guild members were women so I didn't get any of this *peep*.
Oh actually, I did get one invitation to fly over to US and have a weekend of sex. yeah right (I didn't play that character for a long time - just to avoid this pervert).
Next game that I played was Vanguard which also had a great community. No funny business there either.
AoC had a good community as well... or maybe it was because I chose RP servers for all these games.
Then came a time when I quick-visited quite a few games and I started to notice this behaviour. I guess it was 'visible' from my behaviour and chat (helpful ie not asking to do my quests, and not using short language.. don't know *shrugs*.) as I started to get questions if I was a girl... and then it was downhill from there as the missconception was that it meant I wanted relationship or something. Eh...
I used to be quite a flirt with my characters (as my forum name even says) in those 'safer' games as it was fun and didn't mean anything and it went well with my rogue characters roleplay. But now I just play alone, don't talk to folks - and certainly don't flirt... Bit sad as I miss people to play with ... these are mmo's after all. Currently I play Rift and the feature where you can just pop into a group and leave to do a mission/invation is great for me as there is no need to talk and thus I don't get any of these stupid questions.
Oh and that question: Are you a girl? hmm first: what does it matter? second: why do you want to know? third: I wouldn't call myself a girl as I'm 41yo.
I have great hopes for TOR. Not only is it a Bioware game (which I love) but it has lots of story etc. So I hope it attracts certain kind of players at least on the long run. And I hope there I find myself a guild and a bunch of friends to play with. Where it wouldn't matter that i'm a g... woman.
What a misleading title...snorefest. I can care less what gender a gamer is, I'm not playing an MMO to find a soulmate. I learned that girls don't have cooties many years ago. Not my fault if most fat, sweaty truckers named Tom who live in their parent's basement haven't gotten the memo yet.
Originally posted by Gayia Yes, it's much better to just keep quiet and hope people change. What's done the most damage to equality of women is other women who prefer that we be quiet and not fight so hard, dont rock the boat. You don't give attention to a naughty child, this is something completely different. I am not offended by being called girl, but the general language I have found in games is offensive and the derogatory way women are talked about is. But this is why I no longer play with people, I find it extremely difficult anymore to find mature people in games to play with. But maybe I am just starting to get too old for all of this. I am sorry to be argumentative but something about this pricked a nerve.
The vast (and I mean *vast*) majority of people understand there is no substantial difference between genders for the most part, at least in my experience. The negative experiences tend to stand out by virtue of the emotional impact they have on us, but they are not the majority of cases. Actually playing games, and like I said, dealing with individual cases, is the only way to combat this prejudice. And the only real way to do that is to show people the stereotypes do not exist.
Equality for women has long since been reached. There are places in the world where sexism and gender bias is still rampant, and they, like was done in the west decades ago, need to be vocal and demand rights, but to deal with lingering bias on the part of a few, this chest-thumping rhetoric is actually detrimental to the cause. Guys who actually are biased read things like this article and they see it as an affirmation of their bias, not contradicting evidence. Things like this actually do a disservice to the cause of total equality, and I believe they move us backward, not forward.
The only game I had trouble in was AoC, and that made me sick to my stomach and I had to quit (not that the game was that good to begin with). There are groups, mostly younger children or teens, who behave as you describe, but that is largely trying to act cool and tough, which happens in any number of situations.
Things like this article have the same effect for women that things like The Voice and BET have for blacks: It "proves" to those people who still hold on to prejudice that there is a difference and they are deserving of prejudice because they need such things to have equal footing.
You have to educate and deal with individuals (in games that mostly can only consist of telling the jerks off), not cry into the void like this. I am sorry, I feel as if I went a bit overboard with this post, but I feel very strongly on this point. The longer women whine about the few people/groups who persist in prejudice, the longer those prejudices will continue.
Edit: Ysharros, this is only still an issue when women make it an issue.
I think I shouldn't say much else; the more attention we give something like this, the worse it is.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Bah! Here I come expecting some Gamer Girls XXX action and instead read a rant about yet another area where we should feel sorry about females.
Get over yourselves, in the West, discrimination against women is not what it used to be and for sure I dont see any of that in any games I played. Possibly the scantly clothed women in some games but that is just as offensive to me as any other women.
I know an equal number of female gamers as there are male gamers. my best friend is a female gamer mmorpg gamer and one fo the best out there. when she get into a game she is usually on rankings 3-5 months into playing the game in the top twenty to the top ten.
Games I will be playing are: TES V, SWTOR, ME 3, TSW
Comments
Ranghar LoD
Lords of Death
I'm starting to doubt your reading level...
1. I clearily stated i have my insecurities, thus represented by my posts here.
2. "However, it is easy speaking froma majority position to dimiss the viewpoints of a minority position which is what you are doing. You still can't speak for most, all or many of as your viewpoitn is just that" -- you clearily just contradicted yourself, you claim i can not speak for everyone unless i have objective proof, then neither can you -- thus voiding out your point here.
3. "it's about represenation and just a general respect girls, women, anyone other than the white male that so many games cater to are due."
-- That is Sexist, Racist, and a pontificating generaliztion,
A. To take from YOUR rule book, you have 0 proof that the "Industry" is catered to one demographic or another, see below
I. Korea Grinders are Targetted at Korean Zombie Farmers - Not White Males.
II. Anime/Lolly MMO's are targetted at Young girls, and Asians (FlyFF, Maplestory, other Anime F2P) -- Not white males.
III. Casual Craft MMO's are targetted at Western markets (All races, and genders have money, why single 1 out?) - Not White males.
IV. There are childern MMOs targetted at young generations of players, (Lego Universe, Clone Wars Online, Free Realms).
V. Extreme adult MMOs - Targetted at adults w/ graphics or extreme content (Age of Conan, Requiem : Bloody Mary).
VI. There are various types, classifications, and sub-genres in this market as far as MMOs they target only ONE RACE, the race with money, that happens to be anyone, and everyone.
B. No-one "Gets" respect as it's due, you give what you get, if you wanna think you are owed something, then you deserve nothing, if you give respect, you get respect, thats how i live, thats how it should be, noone will respect arrogance.
It's a 2-way street, its funny how the self-proclaimed victims quickily turn into the victimizers.
- Lawyered.
I did several papers on this in college.
Women make up approximately 38% of the gaming population, and put in an average of 7.5 hours a week according to the more "generous" studies (which include social gaming). Other studies, like from the book "Internet Addiciton" by Kimberly S. Young report women on make up 10% of the gaming population excluding social media games like FarmVille or Scrabulous. Various studies find that men are anywhere from 62% to 90% of all gamers, putting in an average of 21.6 hours a week, over double the time of women.
When you really research this subject, which the writer of this article obviously has not done, you find that gaming is broken into subsets. From casual, to hardcore, to social. While women make up the majority on the "social" subset, (Facebook-type games are in this category) and actually put in more gaming hours in the "hardcore" subset, the total of all combined still leaves women in a vast minority.
Reseach has also indicated the the "reward" centers in the male brian are siginificatly more stimulated by video games, which is often the cause of "Internet" or "Gaming" addiction, which is much, much more prevalent in men.
You can investigate this all you want. The studies vary, and the best way is to look at all subsets individually and form an average. Social games (FarmVille, Scabulous) yes, women overpopulate men. Casual games (Wii, the Sims and other "time killer" systems) are dominated by men in a smaller number. The HardCore subset (MMOs, FPS, fighting games) men overwhelmingly outnumber women, but the women who do play seem to put in more hours (57 hours average for women, 51 for men). Overall, the figure comes out to roughly 35-65 women to men when you factor in social gaming. If you take social gaming out of the figure, women only make up about 15% of gamers.
Do yourself a favor. Read BOOKS. Read PUBLISHED ARTICLES. Don't scour the net with Google expecting to find real, usable data in ANY statistical report. The truth of the matter? Women play the Sims, Facebook games, and Wii. That's how the statistics get scewed. Very few are hardcore gamers who play FPS and MMO games - unless they are someones girlfriend. If you want me to cite some of the books/article I used to gather this data let me know, I have the entire bibiography I used in college.
It's simply self-deluded to think most games aren't targeted at young men. You've tried to "lawyer" someone, how about "market researching" someone. MMOs I believe would be a general acception to the rule, since they are created on a PG level and generally intended for a much larger, sustainable audience. But even then, the male-centirc elements are very apparent, especially in terms of wardrobe.
Again, i don't care enough to drive into the research..
I do think it's silly that you are telling me there are games out there like "Hello Kitty Online" that are not targetting females...
She claimed the industry is catering to "White males" i'm attacking that assertion... games are targetted at whoever will pay, it's called capitalism, use that degree of yours.
Of course i'm talking directily as to MMORPGs, as this seems to be the assumed genre that the OP, and follow replies are targeting.
I've seen lists longer then a congressional build on economic stimulus detailing the different MMORPG titles out there, and most of those F2P are NOT targetting "White Males", they are targeting childern, or Stay at home mothers, are the successful, and have large playerbases? irrelevant, we are talking about the industry's target, not wether or not they hit the mark.
Women suck at MMOs. They're as bad as me, and that's saying something.
See highlight. Yes you stil make baseless assertions. By the way, what drives capitalism is a companies ability to target their material to a specific, marketable audience. In most cases, that target is males. Not "white" males... males. Even in the case of games like Warcraft, the men are the driving storyline in the lore, and the most empowered characters in the game. On top of the women being scantily clad and quest achievements like "Shake your Bunny Maker" or "Just the Tip." It's not the case in 100% of games. It IS the cast in the vast majority, because the majority of gamers are male. No matter what the OP says about it.
And Hello Kitty is targeted to children, not women.
Have a nice day. Use my degree? I do every day. Have fun.
females, girls, women what ever they dont game as they simply dont have time with all the washing, cleaning and nagging they do
ok now thats out of the way, yeah i agree with your article, its a thing of the past that gaming is a male only thing
im sure many female characters who say they are females for real arent (their reasons for this are probably a bit weird)
Also, the same can be said vice-versa im sure that some females also play as males just to keep away from the whole gender situation too
Personally I dont care what gender someone is especially in a game, if they can undestand my sometimes weird humour and dont ninja loot - im happy enough
Lack of diversity is a real issue with the gaming industry. I never said it was racism; I also won't do his homework for him or try to appease whatever rage is coming up. He can start with the Escapist or Extra Credit if he wants to look into the topic... which he doesn't. It is white males that mainstream games tend to target. It just is.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/2175-Diversity
http://www.next-gen.biz/features/why-are-black-game-characters-failing-audience
http://www.livescience.com/9696-video-games-lack-female-minority-characters.html
But I suppose it's just easier to get offended and then tell other people to shut-up than to attempt to look into an issue and see for yourself what the data shows.
parrotpholk-Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better.
I hate the girls that need to always let you know that they're a girl playing video games, as if they were gods greatest gift to video games.
P.S. Sexual innuendo quest names can go both ways.
Nothing like attacking people for being ignorant, while maintaining the same level of thought process as the person you're attacking.
I know gamer girls exsist, I just wish I could meet one IRL. All the girls I know wish games would burn in hell. I'd love to have a gamer girl friend though.
I LOVE that you wrote this article. I have been told in games before that female gamers don't exist its like duh hello wtf am I. One thing I totally agree with you on is that, almost all of the female avatars begging for money/eq ect flirting are men. I have never done that I don't need too and have never known any of my female friends who play to do so either. I don't play to meet men or to date I play to kick some a$$. Its the one world where I am equal in strength power whatever its a fun fantasy for me and kicking a$$ is fun! But I have lately stopped joining guilds or even grouping with people, because of the way women are talked about or how I get treated once people realize my gender.
The password to all boy's tree houses is .."naked women mags". Just incase you wanted to know. Now girl gamers, Sure they may play but the rule is when you are female or black hide who you really are.
Most MMO's are comprised of bi-curios young guys with high pitched voices or guys in their 30's looking for young women. and of course living spell checkers, who like to spend hours correcting peoples grammar in trade chat. Women would be wise to never reveal themselves or you will get the "old pictures or it's not true line". Or be stalked to no end by hormone raging zit poppers who want to cyber with you.
Hide ladys and never talk in vent.
I came to this thread expecting pr0n. I am disappoint.
I kind of agree, but then at the same time everyone thinks a female toon is a guy behind the keyboard, so maybe they feel like they should let you know so you don't think they are a wierdo palying a chick toon.
Personally , I think there isn't anything wrong with the guys playing chick toons. I have played them in certain games. Games where the female toons look rather attractive like AIon. I made a chick toon , that way I had something nice to look at while I played, but the voice sound effects became annoying.
For the most part I play male toons in my games tho...
"When it comes to GW2 any game is fair game"
I agree with the idea that there is prejudice still both that gamer girls are very rare and that they are not as skilled as guys, but I have two bones with this article.
Firstly, the beef you seem to have with the very world "girl." I'm not young enough to be literally a girl anymore, myself, but people say "girls" and "guys" all the time, and they don't mean to be condescending when they say it. It is a very petty semantic thing to get worked up over. Most people tend to say girls instead of women for the same reason people tend not to say "men." They say guys, because it feels more casual and less forced. Regardless, you shouldn't read too much into the words people use. It matters much more how they behave towards gamer girls, and each other in general.
Secondly, the more we post things like this, the more it sounds like the ladies doth protest too much. This is the same problem we continue to have with racism. The more you talk about, the more it persists, and the more you give it power. Of course women play games, and of course they do it for the same reasons as men and have differing backgrounds and skill sets and whathaveyou. The people who don't know and understand this are not going to be convinced by posts like this, and are actually more likely to continue to believe stereotypes about gamer girls because of them. I think heated feminism like this has done more to hurt the cause of equality of women than anything in the past three decades or so. But that is a totally different post.
The only real way to combat this perception is to play games, and not take nonsense from those who hold those stereotypes.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
WTF? No subscription fee?
There are a lot more female gamers then people would think, most women I knew that gamed did not tell people that they were female just because of this type af attitude.
I drove truck for several years and it was the same there, the guys would talk about the women drivers like they were a lower life form when there did not seem to be any listening but, let one lady break in a channel to get local information or just to add to a conversation and the men lose there damn minds, you would think they have never seen a girl, women or anything female before.
The same thing happens in games from what I have seen let someone find out your a woman and now every guy that knows is stuting and acting like an idiot trying to help, impress the woman or the idiots that want to come with the insults although I agree that the insults generally come from little boys and I mean little like 13-16 range this I attribute to bad parenting.
When I played SWG we had about 100 active members and half of them were women playing male charactors or telling people they were guys. We were a guild of couples that liked to game but, had grown tired of the entire child like mentality towards women in games.
In this day and age if you think you have never faced off with a girl or woman in combat then your just stupid, chances are high that you have and more often then you think. There is no gender check when you role a charactor so anyone can role either with just a click of the button and if you don't know them you have no idea in reality what gender they are.
Look at it this way, there was a guy in galaxys that went on and on about people being down on the "black man" because he was getting beat up in pvp, I told him one time, you do realize that no one had any way of knowing you are black until you told them. Same for girls/women unless they tell you you have no way of knowing.
Yes, it's much better to just keep quiet and hope people change. What's done the most damage to equality of women is other women who prefer that we be quiet and not fight so hard, dont rock the boat. You don't give attention to a naughty child, this is something completely different. I am not offended by being called girl, but the general language I have found in games is offensive and the derogatory way women are talked about is. But this is why I no longer play with people, I find it extremely difficult anymore to find mature people in games to play with. But maybe I am just starting to get too old for all of this. I am sorry to be argumentative but something about this pricked a nerve.
I think my MMO 'career' start was very lucky. I got into a very nice guild in EQII. Quite many of the guild members were women so I didn't get any of this *peep*.
Oh actually, I did get one invitation to fly over to US and have a weekend of sex. yeah right (I didn't play that character for a long time - just to avoid this pervert).
Next game that I played was Vanguard which also had a great community. No funny business there either.
AoC had a good community as well... or maybe it was because I chose RP servers for all these games.
Then came a time when I quick-visited quite a few games and I started to notice this behaviour. I guess it was 'visible' from my behaviour and chat (helpful ie not asking to do my quests, and not using short language.. don't know *shrugs*.) as I started to get questions if I was a girl... and then it was downhill from there as the missconception was that it meant I wanted relationship or something. Eh...
I used to be quite a flirt with my characters (as my forum name even says) in those 'safer' games as it was fun and didn't mean anything and it went well with my rogue characters roleplay. But now I just play alone, don't talk to folks - and certainly don't flirt... Bit sad as I miss people to play with ... these are mmo's after all. Currently I play Rift and the feature where you can just pop into a group and leave to do a mission/invation is great for me as there is no need to talk and thus I don't get any of these stupid questions.
Oh and that question: Are you a girl? hmm first: what does it matter? second: why do you want to know? third: I wouldn't call myself a girl as I'm 41yo.
I have great hopes for TOR. Not only is it a Bioware game (which I love) but it has lots of story etc. So I hope it attracts certain kind of players at least on the long run. And I hope there I find myself a guild and a bunch of friends to play with. Where it wouldn't matter that i'm a g... woman.
Not an issue.
What a misleading title...snorefest. I can care less what gender a gamer is, I'm not playing an MMO to find a soulmate. I learned that girls don't have cooties many years ago. Not my fault if most fat, sweaty truckers named Tom who live in their parent's basement haven't gotten the memo yet.
Oh, by the way, show me your tits.
The vast (and I mean *vast*) majority of people understand there is no substantial difference between genders for the most part, at least in my experience. The negative experiences tend to stand out by virtue of the emotional impact they have on us, but they are not the majority of cases. Actually playing games, and like I said, dealing with individual cases, is the only way to combat this prejudice. And the only real way to do that is to show people the stereotypes do not exist.
Equality for women has long since been reached. There are places in the world where sexism and gender bias is still rampant, and they, like was done in the west decades ago, need to be vocal and demand rights, but to deal with lingering bias on the part of a few, this chest-thumping rhetoric is actually detrimental to the cause. Guys who actually are biased read things like this article and they see it as an affirmation of their bias, not contradicting evidence. Things like this actually do a disservice to the cause of total equality, and I believe they move us backward, not forward.
The only game I had trouble in was AoC, and that made me sick to my stomach and I had to quit (not that the game was that good to begin with). There are groups, mostly younger children or teens, who behave as you describe, but that is largely trying to act cool and tough, which happens in any number of situations.
Things like this article have the same effect for women that things like The Voice and BET have for blacks: It "proves" to those people who still hold on to prejudice that there is a difference and they are deserving of prejudice because they need such things to have equal footing.
You have to educate and deal with individuals (in games that mostly can only consist of telling the jerks off), not cry into the void like this. I am sorry, I feel as if I went a bit overboard with this post, but I feel very strongly on this point. The longer women whine about the few people/groups who persist in prejudice, the longer those prejudices will continue.
Edit: Ysharros, this is only still an issue when women make it an issue.
I think I shouldn't say much else; the more attention we give something like this, the worse it is.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
WTF? No subscription fee?
Bah! Here I come expecting some Gamer Girls XXX action and instead read a rant about yet another area where we should feel sorry about females.
Get over yourselves, in the West, discrimination against women is not what it used to be and for sure I dont see any of that in any games I played. Possibly the scantly clothed women in some games but that is just as offensive to me as any other women.
My gaming blog
I know an equal number of female gamers as there are male gamers. my best friend is a female gamer mmorpg gamer and one fo the best out there. when she get into a game she is usually on rankings 3-5 months into playing the game in the top twenty to the top ten.
Games I will be playing are: TES V, SWTOR, ME 3, TSW
games are for people.
not men , women, girls or boys just ...people