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Girls in the Gaming World
dkleinsc writes "The BBC is running an article about life as a female gaming squad. There's some discussion about the welcome or lack thereof women get in the gaming community, and arguments over whether it's a good idea to have separate women's matches."
Are "gamers" that insecure about their masculinity/sexuality/gaming prowess/dick size/pick something else that they're afraid of playing against girls?
My girlfriend loves Mario Kart: Double Dash and it makes me happy it's one of the hobbies we can share.
If playing against girls makes you uncomfortable, don't play games at all!
Sithu Thein's comment is the most interesting: "Why do they bother having women only events for internet gaming? Within sport, I can see the reasoning for sexual segregation - women simply are not as big, fast or strong as men. Thus there needs to be a separate contest for men and women in order to keep a level playing field. Last time I checked the x and y chromosomes were not linked to reflexes, hand - eye coordination, and visual acuity. Men are not going to be able to use any of these physical attributes to gain an advantage. As their advantages are thrown out of the window, so too goes the reasoning for segregated gaming. As for women feeling that men make them feel unwelcome in the world of CounterStrike - history is just full of instances where the dominant group in a field has made it perfectly clear what they think of any 'New Kids on the Block'. You just have to try that little bit harder. Sithu Thein, UK" I totally agree with him. I thought on-line gaming should finally make the genders compete at the same level, but I'm really sad to see that women still are set to "female compos". I understand that women actually may want this, since they still might meet some harassment and such (i can only guess what a 15year old guy say when he hear the enemy is a woman), but I still hoped compos with big prizes should have teams from both genders.
I am a girl in the gamming world and I think having seperate matches for woman is rather stupid. It is a game, it is ment to be fun, and if some girls suck gamming then they can suck it up, practice, and get better.
"Most interesting how often you humans seem to obtain that which you do not want" -Spock
My wife got started on computers games playing the original tribes. It started out with me showing her the basics and helping her get started. I'd have her switch to my team so I could show her tactics, etc. Soon, she started playing a lot on her own.
Fast-forward to a few weeks later, and I would lose to her in duels 90 percent of the time. She would hit top scores on servers routinely, and I started switching to her team any time we played together so I wouldn't always be on the losing team.
The funny thing was, no one believed it was really a woman playing when she'd kick their ass.
-i
Lets see... BMX XXX, DOA:Beach Volleyball, 'natural physics' on the latest tomb raider.
It comes down to developers either making a cool game, or a buncha horny techies that use sex to sell to adolescent teenage boys (or both). Those 'horny techies' are juvenilizing the gaming world so that women don't want to be a part of it.
Oh, and to tack on my opinion. I think 'gaming for money' as an occupation is rediculous, and I don't see why companies sponser it (no need to argue this point, its my opinion and I've heard most of the arguements).
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
I atteneded an event called LanSlide, 60 person lan run by girls. I have to say it was a much better lan then some of the similar sized ones I've been too. And the organizers are more then just your avarage girls so theres no "A/S/L" shit and on top of that, Hell, there fun to play with.
actually, it is a well-documented fact that while on average men are superior in the areas of simple strength, and aggressive competitive behavior comes more easily to men than women, women have significantly faster reaction time, better accuracy, and the ability to track more targets at one time. this was discovered specifically relating to women being fighter pilots, but i'd bet it's valid for twitch games too. what holds most women back is that they lack confidence and are not aggressive enough. that and they are scared that people will think they are a "bitch" if they act aggressive. it's sad that society beats that sort of thing into them... i'll tell ya this, my fiance hands me my ass at tekken...
sometimes, i wonder if i'm the only conservative on teh intarweb. ah well, back to mah hogs and warmongerin'....
Your comparison of men and women's physical abilities leaves out two key advantages that women have, so I thought I'd point them out for the sake of fairness: endurance and longevity. Women tend to live longer than men, and they can physically exert themselves for longer periods. All else being equal, in a long-distance race between a man and a woman, the woman will win.
irb(main):001:0>
And the lead tester there was female, heavily into games and extremely competent. With the exception of one dickhead, I don't anyone was surprised by the idea that women would enjoy games as much as a man. IMO the idea that women shouldn't play games is partly a result of typical geek stereotypes-we don't mind seeing fat men with poor dress sense, pocket protectors and bad hygeine, but God forbid a woman should look like that
* It's not Ion Storm, mm'kay
They're playing Sims, Dance Dance REvolution, and other social, simulation and interactivity-based games. That's where the real interest lies and the market is huge. Sims 2 will BLOW AWAY Far Cry and Pain Killer and maybe even DOOM 3 because 51% of the population that own a computer and play games are going to buy it.
Well , this is not a one off. They have seperate chess matches for women though women do participate (and win) is general open to all matches. There are even "Women Grand Masters" , why they just dont just use Grand-mistress is a mystery though.
Its probably like having amateur and pro events. If there are a lesser number of women participating, probably makes sense to let them win some matches and encourage them to play more, maybe? Or maybe just targeted advertising?
.ACMD setaloiv siht gnidaeR
Part of the joy of online gaming is that your opponents can be guys or girls and you can still have a fun game. If you know the girls you're playing against, so much the better.
I mean, usually the need to separate two groups engaging in a common activity arises due to some kind of friction between the two for whatever reason.
Here, I don't see what the reason could be.
Insecurity among the guys? maybe, but why spoil the fun of the game because of a personality trait?
Embarassment? for what? getting beat by a female player? Catch up with the times already!
Sorry for putting it like this, but it has to be said - an online game is meant to be fun. So if the number of female players is increasing, I say that's a really good thing and probably the only place I'd say where it would make sense to make it girls only would be a game that's like an MMORPG version of Barbie's Dreamhouse.
Find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.
I think most girls are turned off by FPS, though I'm not quite sure why. The most common reaction I see is trying to move their head rather than looking with the mouse.
My girlfriend however, really likes Warcraft 3, so much so, that when she came back from South America having studied abroad for a month, it was the second thing she wanted to do.
She really enjoys the social aspect of the game, and although she's never the best player there, she's also never the worst (she only plays at LAN parties since her laptop has an 8 meg video card).
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Guys don't make up as large a percentage of the market as they think. Games are marketed towards guys because guys are marketing them. I'm not sure what the numbers are right now, but in 1999, 43% of PC gamers were women. 53% of those gamers play online. Only 43% of male gamers play online, which should make the ratio of males to females online almost 1:1. Source
I'm a girl who quit playing Q3 and UT2k3 because it was my perogative to not be called any number of creative and derogatory terms for woman whenever I won with a remotely female name. At some point you have to admitt that the swarm of insecure guys playing these games makes the environment incredibly hostile for anyone else. Most girls aren't masocists and aren't going to subject themselves to that kind of crap, nor should they be expected to, leaving us in a situation where many online games are targeted to young males not because they're the only people with an interest in them, but because they're the only people obnoxious enough to drive away the other demographic groups.
My fiancee and I have played just about ever genre out there togther. She hands me my butt in FPSs (I used to be better, but she's more accurate now), I whip her in RTS and we have a blast in MMOGs togther.
I once asked her why she choses gender neutral names when the game offers only male character models, or choses male models 90% of the time when offered a choice.
It's all about attitude. Most young male gamers are sexist rude pigs towards women. Most of the remaining are more interested in harassing her than playing once they find out she's a 'chick'. They don't care about her aptitude (she's one of the highest characters in our current MMOG ; in FPSs she's always in the top 5% of the game at the moment, etc) they want to know about 'her boobz' and such.
Sha said it best once before "If I could strip their anonymonity away when acting like that I'd always play a female. Most guys act like assholes because they're anonymous on the internet so they feel they can get away with it."
And she's right. I'm ashamed at my fellow man (pun intended) when I see how they react. The first time in history gender is transparent we still act like male dogs in heat around a member of the opposite sex.
Female players who go out of their way to 'stand out' in my opinion are only one step above the male sexist pigs. I've seen the chatbars when she joined an all-girl clan once. I think both of us were equally disgusted at the attention whoring that went on.
Personally I'm looking forward to the point where this all blows over. It seems once every few months we hear about these 'rare' female gamers out there. There's more than you think folks, they're just playing under male names so they get treated like everybody else.
They're playing Sims, Dance Dance REvolution, and other social, simulation and interactivity-based games
I would have to agree with this, I know a lot of females that play games and it seems that they all prefer to play ones like Sims, DAOC, or Everquest. My wife for example is totally addicted to DAOC, and prefers to play this rather than play half-life/unreal/quake with me. Which is fine with me since every time we have played this I get my ass kicked.
Americans could not be more self absorbed if they were made of equal parts water and paper towel. -Dennis Miller
Honestly, I think it will become an issue, because I think there's a generational change en route. At present, marketing studies do show that men are the dominant force in the violent games market. On the other paw, I'm seeing a generation of young girls growing up around me that are more interested in games like Counter-Strike, etc. But starting male chouvenistic crap like segregating male and female teams...? Oh, my definetely female teammate is going to have a field day with that one at our next clan practice.
I was playing an online game ( I think it was Battlezone by Activision) a few years ago and my handle was gender neutral. Someone asked if I was male / female. I was taken back by that question as why would it matter? I said female to see if it mattered. Boy did it. I had players taking damage by jumping between me and an opponent, players nearly killing off someone and then leaving the prey for me to finish off to up my score, and even offering tips! Normal protocol is to be mean, rude, and blast everything that moves and even some that don't.
Its one world but not everyone experiences it the same way.
Men don't have more muscle then women do. The average man has more muscle then the average woman. Those are two very different ideas. For the first to be true, the strongest woman in the world would still have less muscle than the weakest man in the world.
Restrictions based on averages are an easy way to discriminate while pretending to have scientific backup. Fire departments didn't allow women because (average) women didn't have enough upper body strength. --Well you know what? If upper body strength is such a requirement, why not just have an upper body strength test? You'll find that some men will fail it and some women will pass it.
Global statements about "averages", even if true, are simply a cheap way to avoid considering the qualifications of the actual candidate. Imagine if whites were excluded from Miss America because "the average white person is too ugly". Even if factually true, it's an affront to reason to apply judgements on individuals based on averages, especially in cases where it is so easy to avoid.
"On the internet, knowbody knows you're a dog." If I can't tell the gender of the people I'm playing against, what difference does it make? Sure, people that self-identify as female get treated different in role playing games, but half the people are misidentifying themselves anyway. In FPS games, gender doesn't seem to make any difference -- you frag your enemies and cover your friends. If they really obeyed the laws of physic, smaller players would be harder to shoot, but I don't know of any games that actually do this. Maybe it's different face to face, but I've played at gaming centers against people in the same room and still didn't know which of them was in the game with me. (By the way, it was the first time I'd ever played against humans and I got my ass handed to me on a platter.)
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
I've actually been very suprised recently by finding out how outright hostile women can be towards games / gamers. A friend of mine was staying over with his girlfriend and she stopped him from playing on the console with us. She even threatened to go and stay in a hotel if he started playing. I was gobsmacked. She softened up a bit in the end when I taught her the buttons on one game and she managed to beat my mate on quite a few occasions.
I suppose I'm quite lucky on that front. My missus plays games more than I do (More spare time) and recently I've noticed that she's managing to kick my ass on certain games. I dont know if it's a gender thing but she seems much more able (Patience might come into it) to learn and pull off the combos in fighting games. I don't even attempt to play Soul Calibur 2 or DOA against her anymore!
I wonder how many other people have experienced such extreme hostility towards playing games from their significant others? I know that my brother gets grief every time he puts a game on and as such very rarely gets a chance to play games anymore.
People that believe in their opinions don't post AC.
...was regularly ranked in the top ten Tribes players in the world, according to the realtime stats at some site that tracks such things. She used to play 10+ hours/day 5+ days/week.
It was interesting to see the varied reactions of the guys. She didn't advertise that she was female, but if it came up the first reaction was usually disbelief and dismissal -- they assumed she was a guy lying about his gender. Then after adequate proof (using voice comm in game, for example) they'd be surprised, but accept the truth. Then they wanted to see pictures.
There were basically two reactions: anger and attraction. It was usually the younger guys who got angry -- for some reason they were pissed off that a girl could beat them. They'd get all bitchy at her and call her names, claim she was cheating and disappear. Maybe they'd be like that with anyone. Who knows?
Most of the older guys (heh -- meaning past puberty) ended up getting attracted to her. In fact a whole bunch of guys would flock around her online wherever she went... be it gaming, or IRC.
She went to TribesCon IV in Reno a couple years ago, and she was one of maybe three girls who came to play... out of 200+ total gamers. There were lots of girlfriends there, but they stayed off to the side.
Some of the guys became quite taken with her (it doesn't hurt that she's a hottie). Which got a little weird. Eventually she retired and got back into real life.
Cheers.
Interesting similarity: fencing. As a sport, it's almost entirely non-gender biased. Contrary to what most movies show, fencing (the sport) is entirely centered around two things: strategy and fine-motor skills. There's no need to make an enormous, rapid swipe when a 1/4 turn of the wrist puts you blade on the good side of your opponents'. When your blade has more flexibility than a car antenna, the few brief times when you lock foils against eachother come down to manipulating mechanical advantage, not strength.
I mostly fence foil, and at my university, that puts me fencing against a lot of women in practices (most of the guys favor epee). About the only substantial advantage I have over them is the fact that I'm 6', and thus have a slightly better reach. But, honestly, I'd have the same advantage against a 5'7" guy. The only other physical factor to the sport is enough endurance to stay quick after a few matches, but that's not something that belongs to either gender, really.
Yet fencing, in competition, is separated by gender. We go to a competition where there might be 100 guys fencing Sabre, and one of our women wins because she has a field of 8 to fence against.
It sounds a bit too much like some triumphing, girl-power movement, but I honestly think it falls into the same category that this gaming competition does: on some deep-seated level, far too many guys fear losing to a woman.
How the hell should the relative numbers of boys and girls in the tournament have any bearing on the skill levels of the individual teams? Would one team of girls who trained nonstop for a year lose to 100 teams of boys who'd just learned how to play the game the previous day, because of the sheer number of boys?
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
I help setup and run a local LAN event in Cape Town, South Africa, and we are starting to see a definite increase in female gamers in both FPS and strategy. By an increase, I mean from none in late 2001 to over a dozen now. They are quite able to hold their own in games such as CS and Warcraft 3, and are well respected for their skill. Negative commentary is near non-existant (restricted mainly to "Damn, Vixen 0wnz0red in that last MOHAA stage"!) All I can say to Girl Gamers is You Go Girl!! Still working on getting my girlfriend to play Warcraft, though...
Its not so much that women can or can't participate in the same brackets as men.
The point is that the winnings of any competition are distributed by the mandates of the competitions holders, not those participating in it. We live in a capitalist society (well most of the world anyways) and that means that the man with the money makes all the rules. If the competitions holders want to discriminate then that is their prerogative. Its not like you are forced to participate in that competition if you feel the policies to be discriminatory. There are plenty of other competitions that aren't discriminatory.
Likewise, those admins on public servers that wish to be can be as discriminatory as they want. Discrimination is not illegal, only more expensive. A company that wants to maintain its right to be selective about its employees without regard to equal opportunity simply have to pay fines and be marked as such. The government isn't going to put them out of business because of this.
But then again I don't really see the point of playing to the point that you are so good to warrant going to any of these competitions. That's just too much time invested in a practice that can't pay the bills for the majority of those who participate. Its not like professional sports where all the athletes still make a living whether they lose or not.
The bottom line is, if its not yours then you have to live by the edicts of its owner when using it. Pretty simple concept really. Its surprising to see as many people as I do feeling entitled to equal access to someone else's holdings.
I'll admit to it being a bit of an experiment, because Society Frowns on This Sort of Action. There's a reason I'm posting AC, after all. :)
In this case, my rationale is twofold: (a) she's already a well-socialized, well-adjusted kid, so exposure to the horrors of Quake probably won't instantly warp her fragile little mind; and (b) because we're the rare sort of parents who actually pay attention to our child and demand high standards of behavior from her, we should be able to catch any moral/behavioral issues early enough to turn them into positive learning experiences.
So far (six months or so into her gaming career) it hasn't been a problem. Personally, I have a hard time believing that ten minutes of Quake a day is somehow more developmentally perilous than an hour a day of Wile E. Coyote blowing shit up, but I'm well aware that Authorities Differ on the subject. I believe that apparent liabilities such as violent video games can, with the proper supervision, be used to reinforce exactly the social lessons you're talking about. ("It's only OK to shoot people in Quake. It's never OK to whine when you lose, or to be a poor sport when you win. And when you lose your temper, it's time to shut off the game and go play outside.") I was taught similar lessons with real-life firearms as soon as I was old enough to look through their sights, and I've somehow managed to avoid the temptation to camp any clock towers in real life.
Right now, she wants the UT2004 demo installed on her system so badly she can taste it, so we're sublimating her bloodlust into a growing acquaintance with Dr. Seuss. She's already able to read the first twenty pages of one particular book, and she understands that when she can make it through forty more, she'll get the keys to some hot nuclear death. Stay tuned to CNN to see how our little experiment turns out!
Recently, I completed reading Blondie24 -- Playing at the Edge of AI, an interesting book by David Fogel on his attempt to use evolutionary computation to evolve a high quality checker playing program. He tested his program by playing online against other checker players on The Zone, an online gaming network.
Early on, he discovered that his rather pedestrian nickname attracted few opponents, so he changed his online nick to be Obi_WanTheJedi, which seemed to attract a great deal more competition. As his program was revised and became stronger, he noticed that opponents would often become rude and angry as they fell behind, and would stall hoping he would drop out, or just disconnect, often after swearing like a sailor. Such drop outs made evaluating the games more difficult, so they tried a different strategy. This seemed worst among intermediate players: the better players were often much better sports.
They developed a cover story for Blondie24, a 24 year old female mathematics major. She was also single, attractive, and looking for a boyfriend.
They reported that they were on the receiving end of crude remarks and suggestions in about 1 in 3 games. Interestingly enough, the better players were reported to be uniformly polite, complimenting "her" on her excellent play at so young an age.
It seems rather obvious to me that women and men should be competing in the same competitions in this arena. The mere fact that fewer women play should not be a deterrent, nor do I think the prospect of easier money for women competitors merely by virtue of their being fewer female competitors is a good precedent to set. But perhaps all players should review their own behavior, and try to maintain a degree of fun and sportsmanship.
There is much pleasure to be gained in useless knowledge.
What are all these women gamers playing? Are we talking about online chess? Yahoo games? Solitaire Chat^H^H^H^H Simms Online?
The difference is one of identity and level of interest. What percentage of people who consider themselves "gamers" are women, as opposed to just the percentage of people that play computer games?
If you're marketing a new online game, do you *care* who thinks they're a gamer?
Of course you do. Because if a lot of your potential market *doesn't* think of themselves that way, you'd be a fool to market to that demographic.
And yet, they do. I remember the ridiculous TV commercials they first came up with for EQ (even before the Everquest Online Adventures for PS2 came out and was marketed on television). Pretty much every female EQ player found them repulsive. And they were actually *trying* to appeal to women.
The number of people who consider themselves "gamers" is really pretty small. It's time that computer game companies started realizing they're part of the *entertainment* industry, not the technology industry, and started acting accordingly.
Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?
Simple google search on "women" and "ultramaraton" returns this as the FIRST hit. Next time google before you flame.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
1) Player moderation (ie. voting people out of the game)
2) Voice chat
I was worried about #2 when it started out, but it actually does a lot to reduce the trash in online gaming. A lot of people won't say out loud the kind of words they'll type, at least not the extremes. There's still plenty of salty language out there, but there is a distinct difference between what people will say, and what they'll type.
Also, for the kiddies, the fact that they have to say the things out loud, inside their house, can make all the difference. I've kept a great post from a gaming message board about this: "I was watchin my cousin play [Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Tides of War] and then this lil kid comes on over the mic and says mother****er then the next u hear is a giant smack n then the kid starts crying roflmao....". Plus, anyone that tries to talk someone down in a squeaky kiddie voice usually gets laughed and humiliated out of the room.
As for women, I'll often let my girlfriend wear the headset for playing SOCOM II online, and let her do all the talking for me. She often gets attention, but she never gets harassed, and the majority of the undersexed kiddies are too shy to try and hit on her verbally. That, and everyone else audibly laughs at them and makes fun of them when they try.
Some malcontents are undeterred by voice chat, but it does help weed out a lot of it. For the rest, players being able to vote losers out of the game is a great feature. My main complaint is that too few games explore such a feature fully.
I certainly agree with this, but honestly I found that the abuse dished out to women was more creative and focused. You get the more vulgar forms of "dumb bitch who should go back to doing dishes" on top of the cheting haker. You get more of the cheating hacker because its a proven fact girls can't make a headshot unless they have an aimbot or their boyfriend is ringing for them(the excuse a Q3 clan provided for kicking me out when they found I was female). The community is undeniably hostile for all, but it a has a number of members that go out of their way to make sure girls/homosexuals/ect don't participate.
I am curious to hear your views concerning the dynamics of men entering female dominated competition. Unfortunately, that doesn't even merit consideration in the popular consciousness. Speaking as male in a female dominated profession, I can assure you no special allowances are given to me, and I had to endure the slings and arrows before I was respected for my abilities.
If anything, I resent any insinuations of what my capabilities should be. I shouldn't be expected to do all the heavy lifting (as my female compatriots were prone to do), nor should I be seen as incapable of delicacy. But that is a common experience. That changes with demonstration. We are paid the same, do your job to the best of your abilities.
I am of an ethnic minority, and I resent any implication that I can't compete. I also resent you tarnishing any of the achievements women have made. Diane Nyad, Curie, Lynn St. James, Michelle Wie, etc.; they did better than compete, they set new standards. No "demographic" can take that away from them.
When my black friends call me an honorary nigga for all the struggles overcome, I'm guessing I might know something about disadvantage. It's meaningless; you will either respect me or not. That changes nothing that I do.
My mother has accomplished much with limited prospects, especially in a time when it was unfashionable for women to do so. When I make mention that she might be an unsung revolutionary, she laughs. The first person to underestimate her is making a fatal mistake. She resents any implication that she needs accomodation. As she is fond of saying: "You were born here, you speak the language, you know the culture. What is your problem?"
"The "advantage" of being seen as nothing more than a dickcozy..." Thank you for reducing my sexuality to exploitation. Makes me feel warm and fuzzy to know my romantic pursuits are simply degrading to the other party.
Maybe it would be better to know less about disadvantage and more about valor.
In you are going to compete, compete. Arbitrary rules only foster the idea of inability. Girls still seem to accomplish beyond what you might say.