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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."
Swell.. now that this the existence of female gamers is common knowledge, the most common messages in Counter-Strike will be "A/S/L?!" and "w4nna g0 c4mp1ng 0n 7h47 r00f709?!!!"
Trolling is a art,
Ctrl-Alt-Del Comic about a girl gamer
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!
and arguments over whether it's a good idea to have separate women's matches."
Why? This isn't real life, where men have more muscle than women do (I'm not being sexist, just take an intro biology course), and are therefore superior to women in terms of pure strength, speed, etc. Online, everybody's equal, the characters can be tuned to roughly equivalent stats, the only thing that matters is reflexes to move the mouse and hit the keyboard.
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.
Does anyone else see this as an attempt to make an issue out of a non-issue? Games are marketed towards guys because guys make up the vast majority of the gaming market. Why don't they target the elderly with hiphop music? Becuase its more cost effective to target the younger crowd. Girls gaming? Great... But no one should complain about the fact that way more guys game then girls. Thats the girl's own preogatives.
The imbalance between men and women was clear to see, with almost 50 male teams taking part, compared with just seven female squads. And as in the world of sport, there were separate competitions for each gender.
Separate competitions? That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.
Boys' and girls' real-world sports are separated early on because of physical attributes. Physically, girls have different abilities from boys. And there are other physical attributes that cause both genders to become... distracted.
But online? Who knows -- who cares -- about your real-world attributes? For crying out loud, that's what makes gaming great for us geeks -- we don't have to be muscular, or fit, or even easily mobile! I'd probably lose 10-to-1 against Stephen Hawking at BZFlag.
So in a world where physical ability and differences are irrelevant, what justification could there possibly be for a gender-segregated gaming tournament?
Perhaps the organizers have a cynical ulterior motive? If I were a top-level girl geek, I'd turn down an invitation to such a demeaning event -- so all they'd get would be the second-rate girl teams. And then they can say "but look, they're clearly not in the same league."
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
My co-worker used to play online using a feminine name. If you'd ever seen my co-worker you'd realize how funny this was. Think Richard Stallman meets John Goodman... Anyway, he swore that he did better with a female name because people were less likely to kill him.
I heard that Slashdot moderators also go kindly on female posters.
Sarah_the_geek_grrl
... arguments over whether it's a good idea to have separate women's matches.
Definitely not. Women have the potential to be as good as men at FPS gaming, and that potential won't be developed if they're consigned to the usual sexist ghetto.
Our 4-year-old daughter can already frag me occasionally in Quake, and I've been playing since '96....
I've spent the last year trying to get my fiancee interested in games... this last week, she started showing signs of being hooked on Roller Coaster Tycoon. I guess it goes: Mid-range PC: $800 RollerCoaster Tycoon Deluxe: $20 Watching my SO build a coaster that makes all the riders sick: Priceless!
Windows isn't the answer... it's the question. NO is the answer!
Oh come on! I think it is silly to have separate leagues for men and women in real-world sports, where it could be argued (not by me) that the physical differences between the genders would give one or the other an unfair advantage. In a virtual environment, even that would be voided. Why separate them?
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
:wq!
I've always thought typical female disdain for pixel-blasting violence to be a most endearing quality. I, for one, am against this slippery slope towards androgyny.
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
Where have I heard that one before?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
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'....
Obviously the girls are only guys pretending to be girls. Not that I would know...
What is so terrible about pointing out the apparent, natural and omnipresent differences about males and females?
(ok, here I go throwing my karma into the fire)
Men excel at physical pursuits. It is not only because our hormones allow greater muscle mass -- there are other forces at work here and science has not yet pinned them down. But a quick look at fighter pilots today, for example, shows that even in a field where physical strength is not essential, men are far more suited to the task than women.
Sure, there are lady fighter pilots, women who can exert the concentration and coordination necessary for Uncle Sam to trust them with $100M toys. Just as there are women who can beat men at Quake III. All I'm saying is that statistics confirm that there are not many of them.
Is that so bad?
Some sports separate out men and women because physical differences make it hard for them to compete. Obvious examples that come to mind are contact sports like football and basketball, or even non-contacts like tennis (mentioned in one of the article comments) where physicality still plays a strong role. It's the same reasoning that makes sports like boxing have weight classes (a gender-neutral issue): to produce interesting matchups that let the competitors focus on how well they compare with others with a similar physical starting point.
Having said that, it doesn't strike me that there are significant differences in physiology that would prevent co-ed competitions from being fair, any more than you would expect one gender or another to have an advantage in competitions of bridge or snooker. The fact that they still compete in separate brackets more likely has more to do with advertising dollars (sponsors probably figure that the female market for Counterstrike is pretty small) or inertia (hey, let's do our tournaments like every other sports competition!) than any argument based on merit.
1. Serious Gamers
Guys don't like playing them because they're smarter, better, faster, and sometimes you fall in love...
2. "WHEEE CUTE!"
Usually they watch anime and/or create bad erotic fanart about doe-eyed male anime characters. They don't play any game that doesn't involve a cute catgirl or bunnygirl. See Final Fantasy XI or Ragnarok Online.
3. Your Mom Playing Solitaire
You know she's playing it right now. Remember that 1.5ghz Athlon system you built for her so she can send digital photos to grandma and make her own mix CD's? Yea, it's a $900 solitaire deck shuffler.
That this would even be an issue is testament to how little we've really achieved in gender equality.
... er, whatever)
:)
Why do we have to relegate everything to the sexes ?
I'm a liberal !
Let women go head to head with men ! (hmmm, there's something about that statement that
So long as I don't have a female boss, I'm happy !
I'm mean really guys, lets get realistic here
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
Why is it that when the few girls get into the gaming spotlight they focus on a groups with names like "DoMe"?
Maybe these girls can't 'hack' it because they don't spend as much time as you do playing the game? I'm sure if a girl was interested enough to play the game for that many hours that she'd be pretty good. I've played against some ladies that were pretty decent. Just because it's popular among the boys doesn't mean a girl can't 'hack' it.
I think the idea of segregating girls in online game matches is a retarded idea.
suteki!
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
i love the way, when the media reports on males in gaming, they find the geekiest ones they can. but when they report on females, they have close ups of the two best looking ones.
...and they want to bring it back in? I play some of these games and not once in my mind has the gender of my teammate or opponents has ever entered my mind. In fact it would be a distraction. Thinking that someone has an advantage in a game because they are male or female is like trying to figure out if someone has an advantage if they are right or left handed. If someone wins or loses they do so because they are an accomplished or failed player. Gender has very little to do with it.
The one place where competition can be leveled down to fundemental non-physical attributes, a place where women can actually compete on equal footing as guys, they want to bring back gender divisions? I just don't get it.
If she's so bad, get another girlfriend.
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.
I'll probably get modded down, because no one of either gender every listens to me, but.....
Since many major online games (UT, Quake, etc) offer granularity of servers, I imagine there's probably alredy "girls only" servers and other private interest group servers just the same (password protected, et al).
It seems natural. We already have television networks (several) specifically for genders. Chat rooms for certain interests.
Now, with all that said, I can't say I mind competing with/losing to a girl. I don't understand the need for specific major competitions specifically for females. In fact, I'd imagine that 'being a male' as a requirement for a competition would probably result in legal action.
-m.
I often get the feeling that people doing the boys vs girls thing when it comes to competitive events lose sight of why its that way in the first place.
The reason a lot of physical sports are segregated is not even so much a difference of strength issue, but a more psychological one, in that girls are less likely to join a traditionally all-boys (now unisex) sport such as lets say football because of the fact that their peers are all competitive males, which can make one feel insecure, or the 'weakest link'. So, they create all-girls football teams so girls will be encouraged to join the team since they are playing with their female peers and so are on 'equal' ground. No need to worry about being mocked by a buncha assholic boys, just from bitchy women (its always easier to take critism from the same sex).
However, by segregating gamers into sexes in a faceless game, they are only actually promoting the idea of female inferiority in competive events. Treating girl gamers as a special commodity cheapens them, and makes me lose respect for them as gamers. If anything else is considered except the skill of the player, you've already lost the point of the game, and need to try again; whether its a he or a she is irrelevant. The sooner female gamers are not treated as special people who need to be segregated, the sooner everyone can get on playing w/o regard for sex like we're supposed to, and really get down to what matters: having fun with fellow gamers.
"What can a thoughtful man hope for mankind on Earth, given the experience of the past million years? Nothing." -Bokonon
Notice what the BBC have done with their photos. They've clearly picked the two most photogenic members for quotes, because if you look at the others way down at the bottom picture, those other girls are what you'd expect the stereotypical girl gamer to look like, rather than two pseudo-hotties.
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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.
My clan has two female players out of roughly 40 total players. We play combat-oriented games. They play in the leagues alongside the rest of us. Their skill is in step with the amount of time they spend playing, just like every other player in our clan. We don't treat them any differently, and they don't demand to be treated differently. If someone sees a "problem" with the fact that females do not like to play these types of games, why alienate the brave few by segregating them in a separate (and likely very small) league.
Fred
"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
Since there is no way to mod this "Duh", I had to respond.
OF COURSE! Have you ever played an online game? There are always those who are (or pretend to be) loud-mouthed, homophobic, racist, misogynist, immature dick-heads. They usually are the ones who cheat and play like tools. They either really are that ignorant, or they do it just to cause a stir and piss people off. Being female would only garner a different type of insult from these morons. They are what make online gaming so annoying. But it is so much fun and gratifying to own them. :-)
Now I know that not everyone is like this, but the ones who aren't don't care who they are playing against. Most of the time you don't know anyway, you just know people by their screen names and your past experiences with them. For all I know, some of them are women.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I hate to bring this up, but there is some reason that it is advantageous for the "girl gamers" to have their own, seperate competitions.
I remember attending the "all female tournament" for quake 1, and other than the top two or three players, I wouldn't say any of the other girls had any business being in any tournaments. In theory, there is nothing seperating men from women in skill in these games. In practice, it doesn't work that way. The girls, at least so far, are never the top players. Having seperate events for the women gives them a huge advantage in terms of exposure and, well, being in news articles or potentially winning money.
The reasons for the disparity in skill seem pretty simple. While there is nothing specific keeping any individual girl from being at the top of the heap (that I can think of), the fact that there are umpteen (we'll say 99) times more men playing than women means statistically likely one per 100 of the top players will be a girl, and one per 100 of the top teams will be all girls. Here, we have 7 out of 57 teams. Even if the ratio is not 99:1, I doubt it is anywhere near 7:1. The women are just pulling talent from a smaller pool.
So, GGW now stands for Girls in Gaming World and not Girls Gone Wild anymore?
Free XBox, PS2
My wife is an avid gamer, and has handed my butt to me on the proverbial platter several times in UT and UT2003 and now she's mastered (God help us all) the Raptor in the UT2004 demo. I've always been the proud monkey at LAN parties when she starts screaming "How'd you like that one, MotherF***er?" at all my guy friends. The family that plays together, stays together.
End of Line.
or else they will be constantly kicking the asses of us guys
Technoli
...to put the females in a seperate competition? What a dumbass, sexist thing to do.
Even appart from the fact that in video games, chess, bridge or any other sport/game which doesn't rely on physical prowess the difference between male and female doesn't come into play; it's just a dumb thing to do.
I for one would love to compete (or rather: be in the same room...I don't think I'm at their level of play) with Louise and the other girls.
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
What exacally is wrong with girls gaming? I'm a female. I love video games... and I play well. Why should I have to play against all girls because some little 15 y/o boy is afraid I will beat him? Any male who thinks we should be seperated needs to grow up. It won't hurt your ego that bad to loose to a girl.
-ABG
Do you know Teens?
men-teens try to show thei are the "stronger" and "better". Girls not. And men-teens do the same with videogames, and this why Girls dont want to play most videogames, except..
tetris (and that similar crap)
sims (i guess..)
buble booble
-Woof woof woof!
Sure, there are lady fighter pilots, women who can exert the concentration and coordination necessary for Uncle Sam to trust them with $100M toys...All I'm saying is that statistics confirm that there are not many of them.
Actually, women (on average; we all know women AND men who are exceptions) tend to excel at just the kind of skills fighter pilots (and kick-ass gamers) need. Good reflexes, eye/hand coordination, etc. But fighter plane cockpits are crammed with equipment and most of it is designed with a MALE pilot in mind, i.e. 5'9" or taller. The best reflexes in the world aren't going to help you if you can't reach the controls.
Or even this one
I'm sorry, the number you have dialed is an imaginary number. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and dial again.
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.
"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
Just google the usenet groups for "female fine motor skills" and you will see lots of discussion on the topic, including relevant places such as rec.guns and rec.games...
I think coed games are just fine. I like to play fps against real people and I don't care who they are.
As far as fairness, I'd tend to think skill, connection speed and location relative to the server are more important that physical differences between M/F.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Let them compete on an equal footing initially. If it really turns out that there is such a clear deliniation in ability, then you have a great case for a separate league. If not, then we've just eliminated a lot of unnecessary organizational overhead.
.
Seems fairly straigtforward.
A goal is a dream with a deadline
Hear hear. I could be beaten by blind,pre-pubescent paraplegics with bad hearing all the live-long day and I'd still enjoy the experience. But it's ruined when some whiny brat from Jerkwater, USA calls me a "cheting haker" because I got a head-shot.Once.
To think that only women are subject to abuse is either naievity or ego.
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.
I am a female gamer - I have been since I was 5 years old. I've always had a computer in my house since my Atari 2600 and Commodore Vic-20. I am heterosexual, attractive, working on my bachelors in mathematics and computer science, and play video games of all genre's - FPS, strategy, roleplaying, action, etc, etc. When I was growing up, I never saw a difference between 'boy toys' and 'girl toys' - I played with hot wheels cars with the neighbor boys and I had barbies as well, who always had a career of their own in my imaginary world. When playing with legos, I could reverse engineer every model listed on the box, but lacked the artistic flare to create my own images from scratch.
When I play games, I prefer to play a female avatar. There are a few male jerks who are just trying to cyb0r, but most are very cool. Nearly all of my online friends are guys who treat me exactly as I expect to be treated among my peers. They aren't looking for a girlfriend, they're just looking for a friend to play games with.
However, when I am in an IRC tech channel, I go by a male alias. While I am all for proving existing stereotypes wrong, I'm tired of arguing the same points over and over again. Unfortunately, I have found having a male alias gives me instant credibility that I don't get with a female alias. The bias is that I am an oddity, and therefore have to not only fight my point, but also the preconceived notion that I'm not supposed to know what I know.
I've always had a very, very strong interest in the sciences, and they were my favorite classes in school. I don't believe my aptitude and interest in science and gaming has anything at all with me being an oddity among my gender, but more with my upbringing that I never saw the difference between 'boy' interests and 'girl' interests.
Does the U.S. armed forces even allow women as fighter pilots yet? i
For about a decade now.
I just want to say that the comments from the male crowd here alone is a very good indication of why there aren't as many girl gamers.
We simply do not get any respect.
A common misconception about girls that play games is that they play "boring online games", such as Yahoo games, solitare, chess or whatever. Yes, many girls play those kinds of games. However, so do many guys. The thing is, most of those guys would never post here, and most of those girls are the only ones the average slashdotter would see (Yeah, I'm using a stereotype here, so sue me).
Another common misconception is that games are marketed towards guys because there aren't as many girls that do play "the cool" games. This is a matter of market forces. While I agree that there are fewer girls that play games than guys, the number of girls that play games isn't really that low. In fact, most of my female friends play games. Females make up 51% of the world population, after all, so there's a HUGE market out there.
A third misconception is that girls aren't interested in games. Totally wrong, see above. Girls ARE interested in games. Obviously.
These are misconceptions that are repeated constantly. We girls are simply seen as people who aren't techy. If one of us IS, then we're seen as not as competent as a guy. If we prove to be competent, then we suddenly turn into a threat. All of those are reasons to talk down to girls, not just in gaming, but in other areas as well.
I can tell you one thing that girls are though. We're not interested in being called names, just because we try to show an interest in the very same field as guys.
Maybe, just maybe, more girls would confess to being gamers if they weren't insulted whenever they tried it.
(Okay, maybe this post wasn't so thought through, but I'm currently busy starving myself to keep my figure.... or maybe I'm just delirious from coding all day and forgetting to eat. Bah, whatever.)
I dont play regularily online, but when I play some rounds of Deltaforce, Call of duty, or UT I usually end up in places 1-3. ;)
There are so many _bad_ males playing it isnt that hard to have some fun and even win tournaments.
Sure theres also the few insane elite guys who will waste you even barehandedly, but theyre the chosen few - and many of them probaby dont have a real life anyway
The thing that seems off about your post is how you're confusing videogames with sports. The physical differences (such as lower center of gravity, muscle-length / breadth, and etc.) that tend to delineate the female and male classes in sports don't really apply to videogames. PS: Chess grandmaster Anjelina Belakovskaia 1995, in case you were wondering. More recently, Alexandra Kosteniuk was ranked #29 over all in U.S. Chess on December 2003 (http://www.uschess.org/ratings/top/dec03/OverallL ist.php) which is ranked regardless of gender or age. She's only 20.
PPS: I regularly manage to kick people's asses in videogames, regardless of their gender. It's probably my lower center of gravity helping me.
I don't want the world, I just want your half.
The interesting thing about gaming is the fact that the friends you make can be so diverse. To say one (minority) group should be segregated because they don't play as good as majority group Y is just silly. Why would we want to put up more artificial walls?
Quack, quack.
Really, someone who has so far only played with idiotic guys that only keep saying "u fag!" when you frag them, will feel very much relieved when playing against the usually quieter girls. I love playing against other people online, but I hate how the communication is abused with the permanent trash talk. The game is supposedly to be fun and people are there to show their playing skills, not their ignorance and horrible verbal/typing 5k1LL5. Gender mixed teams really help the S/N ratio, even if most of the conversations are "A/S/L?". Hey, both guys and girls go online to increase their chances to get laid, we can't do jack about it.
But I digress, I've had many girls as opponents in several kinds of games. In fact, I would recommend playing the awesome Pac-Man Vs. against women, it's ungodly funny. Women-friendly games are not always stupid things like Barbie. There are great games you can play with your SO, if not together, then taking turns is fun too. Examples? Animal Crossing, Mario Party, Mario Kart (online, yes!), Mario Tennis, Bomberman, Tetris Attack, Parappa and Umjammer Lammy, and Wario Ware, even some FPS I have played against women and had a great time.
I think an all-boy team is just as bad as an all-girl team. But, I also see an advantage with sexual-segregation. There are people very insecure about themselves, those are the ones that will never accept a defeat from the other gender. Let these idiots play with themselves in their closed circles, and let the mixed gender teams get rid of them and enjoy the insane fun.
So please, continue to make your gender-specific teams and keep yourselves out of this horrible, unfair mixed gender world where I play =P
- Otaku no naka no otaku, otaking da!!!
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.
I have to say I can only imagine what it would be for me to live *as* a female gaming squad.
I suppose I would have 10 breasts and 10 arms to fondle myself wi....
OH, WAIT!
I had forgotten that Slashdot editors are incapable of using correct grammar! They must have meant, "Life for a female gaming squad."
The sad thing is that homophobic (gay, fag, queer), racist (jew, nigger, coon), and/or other inoffensive language (rape, cocksucker) seem to be a standard part of the lexicon for a large percentage gamers.
Frankly, I find this unacceptable. I'm not homosexual but I do find homophobic language offensive, and the same goes for the other, less acceptable language that crop up on almost every public gaming service.
I find it both funny and sad that these kids (and most of the people who resort to such language are kids) think nothing of using language that they wouldn't dare use at the dinner table or to a someone they bumped into at the mall to sound "cool" and "macho" online.
And it's amazing how far they'll take it: I've had people threaten to track me down in real life and kill me and my family, rape our corpses and then rip our heads off and shit down our necks. If it wasn't so laughable at the time then I would have been well within my rights to report the matter to the relevant authorities. I'd love to see some 13 year-old sat down on the couch with his parents and a pair of law enforcement officers explaining that he regularly sent death threats to people just because they outclassed him in a game.
The fact is that as long as this sort of behaviour is accepted or even tolerated by the majority of online gaming communities then those communities will remain the domain of teenagers who have bigger mouths and egos than brains.
There's no doubt in my mind that, whilst most men would shrug their shoulders, dismiss the idiots as part of life and just carry on gaming, most women will not tolerate such stuff.
As my girlfriend put it when she saw some of the stuff that gets spewed out by some of these people, "What idiot would say that kind of stuff and why would you want to spend your free time listening to it?"
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Whoa! Those gaming girlz are hot!
"I have played computer games since I was a kid," says Ms Maller, a member of the Danish clan, DoMe.
Did anyone else get aroused by this? =)
"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch." - Jack Nicholson
As a female gamer, I can say the following:
I played The Sims when it first came out, and enjoyed it thoroughly at first. It was fun, and kept me entertained for the better part of a week. After the house- and family-building aspect got old, though, I discovered that there are only a certain number of times you can remove someone's pool ladder or stick a guy in a small, doorless room with a lit fireplace and loads of wicker furniture before it ceases being amusing.
I also enjoy games such as Quake III and Unreal Tournament. I like them because I'm good at them, and can whip just about any of my male friends. They're the perfect games for a LAN party, when you've got ten people in a room, working as teams, shouting orders, laughing, and having a good time. For me, though, first-person shooters sorta lose their appeal without the group dynamic.
Even more entertaining are games like Warcraft and Starcraft, mainly because they involve thought and planning, and aren't just a wild frag-fest (although those are fun as well). Unlike FPSs, I'm equally entertained playing a RTS with someone in the same room as I am with someone online, or even against the computer. When my internet connection is out and I have the urge to play a game, chances are I'll be loading up Brood Wars for a three-hour game against the Protoss and Zerg.
These days, though, my main vise is EverQuest. Yes, I'm an Evercrack junkie. But, unlike what seems to be the majority of the players, I'm not terribly concerned about level advancement. I don't have the uberest gear, I'm not in a raiding guild, and I'm not flagged for the Plane of Time. I do, however, have a wide circle of close friends I enjoy hanging out with, and am part of a close-knit guild that's more like a family. Most of the female players I associate with feel the same way as I do, so I suppose it's the social interaction that we find most important.
Anyways, those are just my thoughts on the subject... *shrug*
This is a special excite
This
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.
For fucks sake! ./ next.
This is the thin end of the wedge!
They'll be on
Goddammit!
sig under development
Everyone knows BOY gamers have a joystick. GIRL gamers have a mouse with a ultra sensitive scroll-wheel. Sheesh.
Holy shit. Jesus I got coffee everywhere you dumbfuck.
haaahaha... multitasking is overrated, don't read at less than threshold: 2 and drink at the same time.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Hm.... I've seen a lot of stereotypes and statistics thrown out there. Two that I want to comment on.
In male-male friendships I often see guys jokingly insulting each other. "Midget", "Idiot" and more. In female friendships, verbal attacks are taken seriously. If I insulted one of my female friends, it would be assumed I meant what I said. Sure we spar verbally, but not aiming for each other. (Politics, other people, random fish (yes, fish), anything can be a argument) So though you have a bunch of guys insulting each other easily and they still have fun, a girl fresh into the world of gaming wouldn't be ready for insults she isn't supposed to be offended by. This isn't my reason though.
The main reason I have not downloaded the UT demo or any such thing is: I don't want to start out bad. I don't want to lose, to a guy or otherwise. Don't act like it's only the guys who don't care if they lose now.