I really don't mean to sound sexist here, but in my history of gaming women aren't interested in the lore and information of the game. A lot of my girl gamer friends played halo, call of duty and battlefield but in halo for example they'd always say "I want to get in the blue thingy" rather than the wraith. That's just my history though.
The Dark Apostle wrote: I really don't mean to sound sexist here, but in my history of gaming women aren't interested in the lore and information of the game. A lot of my girl gamer friends played halo, call of duty and battlefield but in halo for example they'd always say "I want to get in the blue thingy" rather than the wraith. That's just my history though.
Not entirely true. For core games, women prefer RPG / Adventure games as they are mainly interested in interesting stories and characters. The majority of female gamers, however, plays social / casual games.
Sigvatr wrote: I'd appreciate having a look at the source, OP.
It seems to have started on a Facebook page called Fierce Gaming Females, and where they got it from (outside the myLifetime tag at the bottom) I have no idea. I just thought it would prompt discussion.
Sigvatr wrote: For core games, women prefer RPG / Adventure games as they are mainly interested in interesting stories and characters. The majority of female gamers, however, plays social / casual games.
I'd appreciate having a look at the source, OP.
I'd be interested in seeing some research and sources on this. That is, how many female gamers play "core" games (like RPGs or action games) as opposed to social or casual games (like Farmville). It seems like it would be the case that more female gamers play social and casual games, but I would also wonder if that is actually just true of the population as a whole.
Overall, female video games are a very important group to cater to and video game companies have long started reacting to them. The thing is that you gotta be very precise. The thing you posted, e.g., is worthless for any profound discussion as it is (seemingly) not based on any actual research and it is poorly designed - just referring to video games as one is proof for an extemely poor research design. You'd neglect any genre differences and thus have gaping flaws in your data, e.g. by not acknowledging that there is a huge gender difference when it comes to video game's specific genres.
Apparently, 47% of gamers are women, 48% of game buyers are women, and most surprisingly, there is a significantly larger consumer base of women over the age of 18 (30%) than there are boys under the age of 17 (18%).
ETA is a very rough place to start if you want to get reliable info, but it's good for beginners as they have a pleasing visual representation of their data.
It is disappointing that they don't break it up into more specific information, such as genre and the like, but at least they do reinforce the point that there is considerable buying power in the female market.
Fafnir wrote: It is disappointing that they don't break it up into more specific information, such as genre and the like, but at least they do reinforce the point that there is considerable buying power in the female market.
Yep
Add in the amount of money spent on social games per month and you start to get the bigger picture. But as I said: video game companies reacted to the huge female consumer power already by heavily investing in these games.
Apparently, 47% of gamers are women, 48% of game buyers are women, and most surprisingly, there is a significantly larger consumer base of women over the age of 18 (30%) than there are boys under the age of 17 (18%).
Interesting. It makes sense though that boys under 17 would make up a smaller portion of the consumer base, since they are less likely to have jobs or much income.
Unlikely, given the overall amount of gamers is lower among women compared to men. Furthermore, sex ratio is pretty even in the most important western countries gaming-wise:
Germany: 0.97 USA: 0.97 France: 0.96 UK: 0.98
Countries with a very high amount of women to men are countries like Estonia, Latvia, Russia, Ukraine or Belarus, all of which are low priority countres in regards to video games.
Plus: men usually have a higher income than women in a lot of countries (not because of the so-called Gender Gap, but because of men usually choosing more profitable careers).
The Dark Apostle wrote: I really don't mean to sound sexist here, but in my history of gaming women aren't interested in the lore and information of the game.
I could easily say that In my experience, the average "man" in gaming is a mentally defective weasel who can only talk if at least seventy five percent of their sentence is profanity, insults, or screaming.
Does that mean that all men are dumb squeaky morons with no ability to communicate outside of rage and hate?
i dont get the OP's stats.. that 47% percent of women play to compete...
yet 83% like to play on their own?
anyways, girls have been gaming since games were made, even at the worst of times the disparity was mostly evident in the older age groups 20yrs + and so...
pretty much all kids boy or girl played mario, duck hunt, ect ect
Maybe it is just me, but I have never heard most of those, specifically the competitive part. or play less part.
My mom, who is 60 now even had an original nintendo her and my dad played against one another.
My sister even used to play tons of competitive games until she decided to liked clothes and shoes more(Not being sexist, That is just her)
easysauce wrote: women are just as bored as men... hence gaming...
i dont get the OP's stats.. that 47% percent of women play to compete...
yet 83% like to play on their own?
anyways, girls have been gaming since games were made, even at the worst of times the disparity was mostly evident in the older age groups 20yrs + and so...
pretty much all kids boy or girl played mario, duck hunt, ect ect
Ignore the picture in the OP please. It's worth as much as a roadkilled weasel
Sigvatr wrote: Plus: men usually have a higher income than women in a lot of countries (not because of the so-called Gender Gap, but because of men usually choosing more profitable careers).
It's not just about more profitable careers, it's also about number of hours, women are usually are responsible for more household work than men, are more likely to spend time with their kids (if they have any), etc there's probably lots of other reasons too.
Sigvatr wrote: Plus: men usually have a higher income than women in a lot of countries (not because of the so-called Gender Gap, but because of men usually choosing more profitable careers).
It's not just about more profitable careers, it's also about number of hours, women are usually are responsible for more household work than men, are more likely to spend time with their kids (if they have any), etc there's probably lots of other reasons too.
Sigvatr wrote: Plus: men usually have a higher income than women in a lot of countries (not because of the so-called Gender Gap, but because of men usually choosing more profitable careers).
It's not just about more profitable careers, it's also about number of hours, women are usually are responsible for more household work than men, are more likely to spend time with their kids (if they have any), etc there's probably lots of other reasons too.
Macok wrote: Myth vs Reality.
Disclaimer: Reality not based on reality.
Excellent!
I think when these polls define games they're taking in anything that can be considered a game nowadays. Hardcore gaming is probably still dominated by Males, with a few vocal Females.
Sigvatr wrote: Plus: men usually have a higher income than women in a lot of countries (not because of the so-called Gender Gap, but because of men usually choosing more profitable careers).
It's not just about more profitable careers, it's also about number of hours, women are usually are responsible for more household work than men, are more likely to spend time with their kids (if they have any), etc there's probably lots of other reasons too.
Remember, Men have a wife, Women dont.
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this?
My womens studies teacher said it.
It means the men can count on the women to the house work in a working household, but women cannot.
Macok wrote: Myth vs Reality. Disclaimer: Reality not based on reality.
Excellent!
I think when these polls define games they're taking in anything that can be considered a game nowadays. Hardcore gaming is probably still dominated by Males, with a few vocal Females.
[Citation Needed]
Constantly and repeatedly spreading 100% baseless claims to attempt to act like a minority group doesn't exist or is irrelevant is rather discriminatory.
Macok wrote: Myth vs Reality.
Disclaimer: Reality not based on reality.
Excellent!
I think when these polls define games they're taking in anything that can be considered a game nowadays. Hardcore gaming is probably still dominated by Males, with a few vocal Females.
[Citation Needed]
Constantly and repeatedly spreading 100% baseless claims to attempt to act like a minority group doesn't exist or is irrelevant is rather discriminatory.
It depends on what you class as "hardcore gaming". There is definitely a trend towards men playing some of the more 'AAA' titles in recent years like Call of Duty, Assassins Creed and the like... but then that's easily explained because those games are designed for and aimed at a primarily male audience. That's not to say women don't enjoy them - but it's not a stretch to say more men are playing them than women.
When you get into genres like MMO or RTS, the lines become much more blurred... and to me, these games can count as "hardcore".
I wouldn't say it's a baseless claim - but it bears some detailed analysis as to exactly what kind of gaming you consider to be "hardcore". Does it include anything on a fully-fledged gaming platform, thereby excluding mobile gaming and social network gaming? Then that's not male dominated any more. But on the other hand... if you're talking about UberShooter 3000 - the latest game to garner enough interest to have a competitive scene with tournaments and cash prizes - then absolutely. The men are still dominating that particular scene.
For what it's worth, there may be more male 'core' gamers than female right now, but then you have to consider that core game developers almost always have and continue to almost exclusively develop for and market towards a male audience. The female market may very well be there, but we'll never know if publishers continue to blatantly ignore it.
One of the problems is that when they do decide to market to women, it seems like they think it has to be 'Barbie's Horse Ranch and Shopping Extravaganza'.
Anecdotally - when playing the following games online, counting only those players I knew to be male/female through voice, I found the ratio to be around 80% men to 20% women:
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 1/2
Team Fortress 2
Borderlands 2 co-op Portal 2 co-op City of Heroes (this was closer to 60% male 40% female)
Going further back, to the days of Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament, that gap gets even bigger. But, that's just me and hardly a worthy sample size.
Instead I'll point you to years of tournament results from what I would consider to be the major competitive games - Starcraft, DOTA, various flavours of Unreal Tournament and just to steer away from solely PC games, Halo. If we're talking hardcore games, you don't get much more hardcore than tournaments where the competitors spend the time most of us would spend on a job or career training in their chosen game.
I'd be happy to consider adding other games to that list, but I'm not going to grab all the results for you - suffice to say they're overwhelmingly male. There are female winners, and on occasion teams of female winners - DOTA in particular has some very high-quality female players - but the number of male winners outnumbers them.
I can counter your anecdotes with more anecdotes, a lot of women I know who play competitive online FPS games skip voice chat because of the sheer amount of crap they tend to receive for being female.
In regard to the 2nd or third post when the poster said " women say i want to get the blue thingy rather than the wraith" , I also say i want the blue thingy, I'm there to play a game not do research. I am also someone who prefers to ask questions to learn and not look up a wiki. Some male gamers responses to questions about the game leave a lot to be desired, and no, having encyclopedic knowlege of a game does not make you a superior.
Most "real" female games i've met online don't make an issue out of being female, and it takes time to learn their gender. Conversely, I really hate female gamers who throw round their gender like it somehow makes them special ( like someone new joins the guild female guildy goes "hi I'm a girl" fffffffffffu) . Sure, alot of male gamers will either fawn all over them or seek to attack them, I really don't give a gak, just don't constantly reference it like you constantly expect people to be excited over it.
This all being said I enjoy playing with female gamers , but treat them "like one of the boys" , this is my relaxation time and if they expect me to change my behaviour to game with them it's goodbye from me. I deal with that in real life not online.
As opposed to the male gamers who constantly attempt to reinforce their masculinity and maleness (especially when female gamers are around), IE, almost all of them?
Masculinity/femininity can be a very important aspect of a person's personality. It's a universal problem, not gender-specific.
Melissia wrote: As opposed to the male gamers who constantly attempt to reinforce their masculinity and maleness (especially when female gamers are around), IE, almost all of them?
Citation please.
I very rarely hear that, my female gamer friends have also very rarely encounted gak like that, when they do they shrug it off knowing it is just some backwards stuff.
Most "real" female games i've met online don't make an issue out of being female, and it takes time to learn their gender. Conversely, I really hate female gamers who throw round their gender like it somehow makes them special ( like someone new joins the guild female guildy goes "hi I'm a girl" fffffffffffu) . Sure, alot of male gamers will either fawn all over them or seek to attack them, I really don't give a gak, just don't constantly reference it like you constantly expect people to be excited over it.
.
God i saw that stuff alot.
Although it seems interesting, MMO's tend to be more friendly to females then other type of games.
Anecdotally - when playing the following games online, counting only those players I knew to be male/female through voice, I found the ratio to be around 80% men to 20% women:
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 1/2
Team Fortress 2
Borderlands 2 co-op Portal 2 co-op City of Heroes (this was closer to 60% male 40% female)
Going further back, to the days of Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament, that gap gets even bigger. But, that's just me and hardly a worthy sample size.
Instead I'll point you to years of tournament results from what I would consider to be the major competitive games - Starcraft, DOTA, various flavours of Unreal Tournament and just to steer away from solely PC games, Halo. If we're talking hardcore games, you don't get much more hardcore than tournaments where the competitors spend the time most of us would spend on a job or career training in their chosen game.
I'd be happy to consider adding other games to that list, but I'm not going to grab all the results for you - suffice to say they're overwhelmingly male. There are female winners, and on occasion teams of female winners - DOTA in particular has some very high-quality female players - but the number of male winners outnumbers them.
But here's something to think about your competitive gaming is overwhelming male angle.
There is a still a huge social stigma associated with just playing video games as a passtime, even moreso choosing to play videogames at a professional level and make a living from it. Greg "Idra" Fields Former Professional SC2 player said that his father essentially disowned him and they haven't spoken to eachother in years because of this.
Now women have an even greater difficulty breaking into the professional scene as not only do they have to defeat the stigma associated with gaming the men have to deal with but they also have to deal with the social stigma that playing video games just isn't seen as a thing girls do. Add into that there is still huge misogny in some areas of professional gaming the biggest coming to mind was last year at a tournament a female competitor forfeited a match because of the amount of sexual harrasmant she got from competitors, coaches and audience.
Here's a golden quote from that.
When asked on a later episode by Justin Rae, Twitch.tv’s community manager, "Can I get my Street Fighter without the sexual harassment?" Aris replied:
You can't. You can't because they're one and the same thing. This is a community that's, you know, 15 or 20 years old, and the sexual harassment is part of the culture. If you remove that from the fighting-game community, it’s not the fighting-game community…it doesn’t make sense to have that attitude. These things have been established for years.
So yeah maybe the reason we don't see more women at a competitive level or playing "core" games is because of the culture that surrounds it rather than women just not being interested in it.
Melissia wrote: As opposed to the male gamers who constantly attempt to reinforce their masculinity and maleness (especially when female gamers are around), IE, almost all of them?
Masculinity/femininity can be a very important aspect of a person's personality. It's a universal problem, not gender-specific.
THe posturing always makes me laugh, I'm more of a "be an idiot ,have fun" gamer than a "i'm the best and I'm going to harrass someone who i consider worse" gamer. I love those guys, let them run for a while in a guild, then when they've harassed enough people , savage them , make them sook, and get em booted. Everyone is there to have fun not build up some fethknuckles ego.
Madcat87 wrote: Now women have an even greater difficulty breaking into the professional scene as not only do they have to defeat the stigma associated with gaming the men have to deal with but they also have to deal with the social stigma that playing video games just isn't seen as a thing girls do. Add into that there is still huge misogny in some areas of professional gaming the biggest coming to mind was last year at a tournament a female competitor forfeited a match because of the amount of sexual harrasmant she got from competitors, coaches and audience.
Here's a golden quote from that.
When asked on a later episode by Justin Rae, Twitch.tv’s community manager, "Can I get my Street Fighter without the sexual harassment?" Aris replied:
You can't. You can't because they're one and the same thing. This is a community that's, you know, 15 or 20 years old, and the sexual harassment is part of the culture. If you remove that from the fighting-game community, it’s not the fighting-game community…it doesn’t make sense to have that attitude. These things have been established for years.
So yeah maybe the reason we don't see more women at a competitive level or playing "core" games is because of the culture that surrounds it rather than women just not being interested in it.
Oh, absolutely. It is a pity and, not to be misunderstood from my previous posts, I would like to see more women in competitive play. ...then again, that's something of a curse since I also know how much hard work it is to play at that level with no guarantee of seeing *any* financial return...
Melissia wrote:So you have nothing.
Not that you ever will have anything.
Do I really have to do this? You're that adamant about tournament play that is, frankly, quite well known as a male-dominated arena?
Very well. Picking on Starcraft 2 as the easiest one to actually find recent postable results from - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOMTV_Global_StarCraft_II_League The Code S tournaments are the ones still taking place, though seeing as Code A is recent enough the results are still worth looking at... and being Korea these are the very best of the best in Starcraft players.
...every single one of those winners and runners-up are male.
And to prove that female competitors are allowed - http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Eve
As I say, I'm not keen on this trend - but it is there - it's an undeniable fact. That is, unless you can show me tournament results with a much more even gender distribution. That took me about 10 minutes to compile, I'm now heading to work, and to be honest I don't fancy spending any more time looking up something I already know...
I wasn't making a serious claim, but providing a counter-point to previously mentioned "anecdotal evidence", which was little more than an excuse to spout misogynistic nonsense.
Are you trying to claim that no one can be a "hardcore" gamer without participating in some gakky tournament somewhere? Or that only people who play Starcraft 2 "competitively" are "hardcore"?
If a gamer only ever plays starcraft, can they be called a hardcore gamer any more than the hypothetical woman who only plays Farmville? Either way it's just one highly mediocre game, so I'm not really seeing a difference myself. What about someone who plays dozens of games regularly, but despises tournaments? Or someone who plays less often, but is in to the modding scene-- aren't they pretty hardcore, literally altering the game for their likings like that? Or what about someone who plays games often, but only to troll-- even joining tournaments just to feth with people? I've known plenty of those myself, are they "hardcore gamers" to you?
Or more accurately, I believe you're desperately searching for a method to make an exclusive group so that you can feel better about yourself, specifically defining terms to achieve this objective. Including defining terms specifically to try to exclude women based off of your baseless and unproven perception of what games women play.
To bring it back to the point you were trying to raise: you listed a single game and used very, very limited data sets to claim that most women are only interested in what you call "casual games" I could do the same thing to prove that cats like to chew on chain link fences or that men like to dip their head in lime jello. Compared to the years of industry research that has been put out by organizations like the ESA, that's statistical noise.
Macok wrote: Myth vs Reality. Disclaimer: Reality not based on reality.
Excellent!
I think when these polls define games they're taking in anything that can be considered a game nowadays. Hardcore gaming is probably still dominated by Males, with a few vocal Females.
Overall, female video games are a very important group to cater to and video game companies have long started reacting to them. The thing is that you gotta be very precise. The thing you posted, e.g., is worthless for any profound discussion as it is (seemingly) not based on any actual research and it is poorly designed - just referring to video games as one is proof for an extemely poor research design. You'd neglect any genre differences and thus have gaping flaws in your data, e.g. by not acknowledging that there is a huge gender difference when it comes to video game's specific genres.
Melissia wrote: Are you trying to claim that no one can be a "hardcore" gamer without participating in some gakky tournament somewhere? Or that only people who play Starcraft 2 "competitively" are "hardcore"?
I was just using Starcraft as an example.
If a gamer only ever plays starcraft, can they be called a hardcore gamer any more than the hypothetical woman who only plays Farmville? Either way it's just one highly mediocre game, so I'm not really seeing a difference myself. What about someone who plays dozens of games regularly, but despises tournaments? Or someone who plays less often, but is in to the modding scene-- aren't they pretty hardcore, literally altering the game for their likings like that? Or what about someone who plays games often, but only to troll-- even joining tournaments just to feth with people? I've known plenty of those myself, are they "hardcore gamers" to you?
Again, I highlighted tournaments as the top of the "hardcore" tree - but the definition comes down to how each person perceives it. I consider most of the examples you list as true gaming... except Farmville. Yes, it's a game... but someone who plays Farmville (or some other equivalent social networking game) exclusively and knows bugger all about the wider world of gaming isn't a true gamer in my eyes.
Or more accurately, I believe you're desperately searching for a method to make an exclusive group so that you can feel better about yourself, specifically defining terms to achieve this objective. Including defining terms specifically to try to exclude women based off of your baseless and unproven perception of what games women play.
Oooh, this is getting closer... but you've pushed the sexism agenda on me unfairly. I do like to believe I'm part of an exclusive group - and will happily admit that I'm probably wrong and getting long in the tooth and will eventually be left behind by progress. BUT it's nothing to do with gender. I personally can't stand people that only play social or casual games as a time-killer then try to pass themselves off a gamer. In my eyes, these are people who play games but they're not gamers. The view is similar to me enjoying a game of ten-pin bowling now and again, but I would hardly call myself a bowler.
To bring it back to the point you were trying to raise: you listed a single game and used very, very limited data sets to claim that most women are only interested in what you call "casual games" I could do the same thing to prove that cats like to chew on chain link fences or that men like to dip their head in lime jello. Compared to the years of industry research that has been put out by organizations like the ESA, that's statistical noise.
Actually, the point I was trying to make is that Medium of Death's claim wasn't baseless. I only used tournaments and Starcraft as examples - and only then, because you asked me to prove it. But again, I'll point out (as I did from the beginning) that it depends on your definition of "hardcore". As per this:
Super Ready wrote:When you get into genres like MMO or RTS, the lines become much more blurred... and to me, these games can count as "hardcore".
Lastly... I make *NO* claim that most women are only interested in casual games. That's you twisting my words. My own girlfriend would probably chop my head off if I made that accusation... instead, I'm saying that when looking at particular genres of game some have many more male players than female. As an example, let's say the following numbers are accurate:
Call of Duty players - 10m female, 1000m male
Guild Wars - 10m female, 10m male
Same number of female players, indicating no preference either way in what kind of games women prefer. But the ratio is wildly skewed all the same.
In my experience the Bioware games community especially Dragon Age Origins is dominated by women. this is purely anecdotal, just a trend I noticed.
While it is true that game developers have absolutely no iea how to market to women, and in many cases are discouraged form doing so, most of the female gamers I know are into games for the same reason men are, good story, fun game play, cool visuals, great setting and the ability to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women.
So when it comes right down to it men and women want the same things out of a game and buy a game on a personal choice that rarely reflects what equipment they have between their legs. Who know right?
I wasn't making a serious claim, but providing a counter-point to previously mentioned "anecdotal evidence", which was little more than an excuse to spout misogynistic nonsense.
So what is it when you point it out? You are doing the same thing, It seems that you think because males act that way, women can too, denying the fact that everyone who isnt acting that way probably hates it.
It's really the worst example that you could have used.
Super Ready wrote: Again, I highlighted tournaments as the top of the "hardcore" tree
Sounds incredibly arbitrary to me.
Super Ready wrote: but someone who plays Farmville (or some other equivalent social networking game) exclusively and knows bugger all about the wider world of gaming isn't a true gamer in my eyes.
And if someone who only plays Starcraft is not a real gamer to me?
And i know more men into gaming then women. IT is the company you keep. You are a women, so you are more likely to keep company of women, ones that probably share your interests.
Same with men
Manchu wrote: I see these stats all the time on the internet but I don't see them play out in life.
Assuming you refer to the numbers given in the OP, that's the entire reason why there is a need for empirical studies. They are the most objective thing we can get and easily put rest to mindless rambling about personal opininos / observations noone with a clear, unbiased mind cares about.
hotsauceman1 wrote: And i know more men into gaming then women. IT is the company you keep. You are a women, so you are more likely to keep company of women, ones that probably share your interests. Same with men
Pretty much - and that's why individual observation has no bearing to a discussion on gender distribution among gaming.
So sigvatr would you mind summarizing these unbiased, empirical processes for me? I imagine these stark figures with all their promise of objectivity result from questionnaires subject to the idiosyncratic perceptions and goals of each person filling them out but pray do correct my biased lack of clarity.
If ye would have carefully used thy visual information processing organs, thee would have come to the conclusion that yours truly has already provided both the primary source of information from a small selection of empirical studies on the matter at hand and a summary of these results of easily comprehensible length previously in this thread. If my memory does not betray me, yours truly has even posted one of these posts twice to further strengthen the previously mentioned content.
I have indeed already espied your mercifully redundant posting and even myself had a glimpse at the materials you so heroically recommend at such obviously great cost to your own honorable person. But alas, despite your mighty efforts to educate me and raise me up from my base subjectivity, these layman eyes of mine can but perceive questionnaires full of seemingly uncritical cultural assumptions applied to populations primed to respond according to a cultural context I am not convinced the researchers understand. Therefore I again humble myself to beseech you, oh herald of android-like objectivity, to elucidate how these Applied Scientific Principles confront and overcome such obstacles.
If thou have indeed had a proper look at the given documented evidence, yours truly would kindly ask thee to bravely point at the oh-so-gaping flaws thee might have observed assuming your welcomed honesty as doubtfully presentated in thy enlightening post of yours.
Yours truly is highly interested in how thy assume your person being more knowledgeable than both fellow scientists and peer-reviewers (partially) publishing for a considerable amount of time.
May I assume that thy are well-versed in judging proper empirical studies? Yours truly certainly expects such a specific knowledge if one is to give a profound criticism and would very much appreciate a honest reply on said matter, asssuming that, at the very least in the issue at hand, ye might succeed in gaining a profitable, expectable, proper distance to the information and the information's presenter at hand, who nothing but a mere messenger of rationalism, falling on sophisticated and preferringly deaf ears alike.
Appeal to authority, as a man of such erudition no doubt understands, is a fallacy. Let us pass over your lapse in that regard and return to the question of which I have already begged your consideration: namely, how do the researchers account for the cultural assumptions inherent to their own experimental design and in their respondents?
Er... what's with all the random wordiness all of a sudden...?
At any rate. Sigvatr and I have provided statistical evidence of there being an imbalance. Does anyone have any evidence of this NOT being the case? Non-anecdotal, mind.
And remember - denying that there is an imbalance only serves to prolong it. If we can admit the divide is there we can work towards fixing it.
I hadn't looked at the ESA data in particular in-depth... I have now. I'll accept that, the data seems valid from where I'm sitting.
It's obvious we have different definitions on what classes as gaming, and hardcore gaming... but as the latter term is so objective we'll just have to agree to disagree there. I'll bow out by saying that it would be really nice to see women becoming more prevalent in tournaments - assuming the ESA data is accurate, that would make it just about the last gaming demographic to crack.
I'd imagine that's largely down to the fact a lot of the competitive stuff seems to be team based from what I have seen Mel. I suspect girl gamers trying to break into male focused teams is about as easy as throwing a blade of grass through the eye of a needle at ten paces.
I have noted some very good all female teams, the trend should be broken eventually. Well we can hope.
Melissia wrote: Frankly, the competitive gaming culture has done everything it can to keep women out without actually banning us.
Could you elaborate some more on that? I know the environment isn't exactly friendly, but what factors do you think contribute most to this hostility? I've become more interested in this topic since tuning in to the SC2 WCS this week-- there wasn't a single female player from any of the teams.
I guess I'm just not understanding the extent to which these myths are believed, which doesn't seem to be terribly large, and I'm also questioning where the stats in the picture came from.
Macok wrote: Myth vs Reality.
Disclaimer: Reality not based on reality.
Excellent!
I think when these polls define games they're taking in anything that can be considered a game nowadays. Hardcore gaming is probably still dominated by Males, with a few vocal Females.
[Citation Needed]
Constantly and repeatedly spreading 100% baseless claims to attempt to act like a minority group doesn't exist or is irrelevant is rather discriminatory.
He said that males are in the majority, with relatively few females.
You then go on to say yourself that females are a minority in that group.
Melissia wrote: Frankly, the competitive gaming culture has done everything it can to keep women out without actually banning us.
Could you elaborate some more on that? I know the environment isn't exactly friendly, but what factors do you think contribute most to this hostility? I've become more interested in this topic since tuning in to the SC2 WCS this week-- there wasn't a single female player from any of the teams.
I really don't know what contributes to the hostility, but certainly I've never gotten a vibe that the competitive crowd is a group of people who honestly respect anyone who's different from them. Racial slurs, misogyny, religious slurs, and general profanity often flows from their keyboards faster than actual gameplay decisions. Or even each other, half the time. If I had to guess, I'd use a guess based on something I mentioned earlier in this thread-- it's treated as an "exclusive" group, and like most groups of humans that are exclusive, it tends towards conformity rather than diversity. People who are different have a hard time being "one of us" in the minds of those who conform better.
I think the studies Sigvatr posted are on the right track, inasmuch as like he said they qualify the questions at stake so that they start to be more meaningful. I mean, the idea that men like video games isn't particularly interesting. The idea that women like them, too, is only interesting so far as it doesn't tally with what a lot of folks (and not just this monolithic category "men") observe in the course of their lives. So the question is, if this exists then why is it invisible? And that's where I'm a bit critical of the studies Sigvatr is reporting to us. They seem very thin on theory and very thick on design. But if the design is not informed by compelling theory then isn't the study, apart from the manipulation of numbers, also anecdotal? I mean, the study basically says that women like games like Dragon Age. Any of us could have told you that without asking X number of German college girls.
I think-- and this is just a hypothesis-- that a lot of the "invisibility" has to do with the negative, and incredibly hostile aspects of geek culture, where being a woman opens you up for constant, unending misogynistic abuse.
Some of it also has to do with the assumption that anyone who plays is male unless they specifically identify as female (and in many cases, unless they somehow PROVE they're female). I've gone under the name "Kuromoi" before, never spoke in to the mic, and etc, and everyone treated me like a guy. Also received far less verbal abuse as well.
Manchu wrote: So sigvatr would you mind summarizing these unbiased, empirical processes for me?
I'm not Sigvatr, but I can do as asked:
Men game, women game. Different genres appeal differently. Arma 3 and Rome 2: Total War probably don't need to spend a lot of time thinking about catering to a female demo.
Manchu wrote: I think the studies Sigvatr posted are on the right track, inasmuch as like he said they qualify the questions at stake so that they start to be more meaningful. I mean, the idea that men like video games isn't particularly interesting. The idea that women like them, too, is only interesting so far as it doesn't tally with what a lot of folks (and not just this monolithic category "men") observe in the course of their lives. So the question is, if this exists then why is it invisible? And that's where I'm a bit critical of the studies Sigvatr is reporting to us. They seem very thin on theory and very thick on design. But if the design is not informed by compelling theory then isn't the study, apart from the manipulation of numbers, also anecdotal? I mean, the study basically says that women like games like Dragon Age. Any of us could have told you that without asking X number of German college girls.
So we're back to normal speech? I'm open for both.
Long story short: most of the articles I posted are peer-reviewed. You claim it's believing in authority, which simply is a wrong statement in regards to how empirical studies work. Peer review basically means that a study is carefully seen through by experts on the matter. The ESA report, e.g. has a larger sample but has huge flaws design-wise, especially in regards to reliability. Not splliting the findings by genres, e.g., is a huge flaw that would never make it through any peer review. Peer review is absolutely necessary for viable data, else everyone could just publish anything he wants. Take the data in the OP as an example - no source, poor design, completely worthless data.
We need to come to an agreement on the use of the word "anecdotal". Any empirical study can only represent a limited part of a population - you can't question all women in the entire world. The main difference to anything anyone in here reports from personal experience is randomisation and lack of personal bias, thus elimination of subjective pickings e.g. friends along with a reliable sample size. With n = +700, and given the example study's items, that's a very reliable result. Personal experience is purely anecdotal because it's highly subjective and therefore has no value at all. I don't really want to write an essay on basic empirical evaluation, but google / Wikipedia will yield easily understandable explanations that help getting a rough idea of it.
What the studies do is emphazizing the need for showing that women play differently than men. Less interest for competitive games and core genres with RPGs as the only exception. This means a very simple thing: women play video games. A LOT of women do so, it's almost the same amount as men. They play differently. There are significantly less core female players as women prefer social and casual games compared to men who prefer action and competitive games.
One thing to note here is that those studies do not tell us WHY that's the case. It could be that women prefer games where they communicate more, it could be that men prefer are more prone to competition that women overall and thus prefer competitive games (iirc there's solid data on that, don't nail me on this one...yet), it could be that the social stigma makes women be more likely to play casual games etc. The difference is that unlike some people, who have demonstrated to lack the ability / will for rational reasoning / thinking (not referring to you Manchu), studies mention that they lack the reasoning and that it requires qualitative studies, a quantitative study just can't do that (again: Wikipedia / Google).
tl;dr: Men and women are both gamers, men play differently than women.
I believe the point in making the distinction between social games and more "traditional" genres like RTS, FPS and RPGs is that they do tend to skew the numbers a bit when they are all lumped in together under the perhaps too-wide umbrella that is the term "video games."
Women tend to play social games much more than men.
Monster Rain wrote: I don't think any type of game is more "real" than the other, but I think that making the distinction allows for more accurate discussion.
Except when the question is 'how many women play video games into comparison to men". Now if the question is "how many women play FPS compared to the number of men who play FPS" then it makes sense to exclude other types of games. It is still a problem, and probably part of the overall issue at hand, that people still treat games like that as not really video games, when in fact they are video games.
Satan's Little Helper wrote: If you need statistics to win an argument, you've already lost.
Interpret that as you choose.
That seems a bit to broad to be of any use. We aren't using statistics to win an argument so much as discussing them; statistics aren't the answer, they are the question.
Ahtman wrote: Except when the question is 'how many women play video games into comparison to men". Now if the question is "how many women play FPS compared to the number of men who play FPS" then it makes sense to exclude other types of games. It is still a problem, and probably part of the overall issue at hand, that people still treat games like that as not really video games, when in fact they are video games.
I think it's worth asking how worthwhile that "How many women play video games in comparison to men?" question actually is, though. We can't really draw any useful conclusions from it. Women absolutely game, and probably in very high numbers - I suspect it's actually under-reported due to lingering social stigma. Does that necessarily mean that certain genres or sub-genres (or even certain platforms) need to redesign the way they attempt to engage with that demographic, if they bother at all? Only if the population is evenly spread across all the available genres/platforms, which we can probably safely assume isn't the case.
Distinctions between "real" or "hardcore" video games definitely do need to go, though, I agree. Escaping into Tier 1 Tacticool Badass Fantasyland isn't any more ballsy a pursuit than playing Temple Runner on your phone.
Satan's Little Helper wrote: If you need statistics to win an argument, you've already lost. Interpret that as you choose.
While I disagree with Sigvatr in regards to the lack of value of anecdotal evidence (we wouldn't have a basis for saying that women seems to hide their gender in certain crowds if it wasn't for such anecdotal evidence, for exemple), refusing the use of statistics in such an argument as this one is simply dumb. You have access to empirical data around which you can build a judgement on the issue, or alter those of others. Use it.
Seaward wrote:Distinctions between "real" or "hardcore" video games definitely do need to go, though, I agree. Escaping into Tier 1 Tacticool Badass Fantasyland isn't any more ballsy a pursuit than playing Temple Runner on your phone.
Depends. If its Deux Ex HR, then yes, its way more ballsy.
Distinctions between "real" or "hardcore" video games definitely do need to go, though, I agree. Escaping into Tier 1 Tacticool Badass Fantasyland isn't any more ballsy a pursuit than playing Temple Runner on your phone.
It doesn't really have anything to do with being "ballsy", though. Not for me, at least. It's more to do with how seriously the pastime/hobby is taken. There is a definite difference between people who play games casually and as a distraction, and what I would call a "true gamer", that is, someone who spends more time gaming, takes part in the scene and community and takes more than a passing interest in gaming-related current affairs.
To give the example I gave earlier - I play ten-pin bowling now and again, but I would hardly call myself a bowler. The trouble is that surveys and statistics often don't distinguish between what I see as two very different groups of gamer.
Seaward wrote: I think it's worth asking how worthwhile that "How many women play video games in comparison to men?" question actually is, though.
I agree that it in and of itself won't be hugely illuminating, but it seems like a piece cornerstone information. It is the questions and data that it opens up that are more interesting, but we need a starting point.
Monster Rain wrote: I don't think any type of game is more "real" than the other, but I think that making the distinction allows for more accurate discussion.
Except when the question is 'how many women play video games into comparison to men". Now if the question is "how many women play FPS compared to the number of men who play FPS" then it makes sense to exclude other types of games. It is still a problem, and probably part of the overall issue at hand, that people still treat games like that as not really video games, when in fact they are video games.
My point is that "video games" is a very broad topic. It would be similar to having the same conversation about movies, books or music.
It's so vague that I don't know what the point of bringing it up is, I guess.
Monster Rain wrote: I don't think any type of game is more "real" than the other, but I think that making the distinction allows for more accurate discussion.
Except when the question is 'how many women play video games into comparison to men". Now if the question is "how many women play FPS compared to the number of men who play FPS" then it makes sense to exclude other types of games. It is still a problem, and probably part of the overall issue at hand, that people still treat games like that as not really video games, when in fact they are video games.
My point is that "video games" is a very broad topic. It would be similar to having the same conversation about movies, books or music.
It's so vague that I don't know what the point of bringing it up is, I guess.
I don't disagree, I was more referring to the attitude that is often displayed at people who enjoy games like Farmville as not really being gamers.
hotsauceman1 wrote: My womens studies teacher said it.
It means the men can count on the women to the house work in a working household, but women cannot.
Is it really that widespread of an issue, Ahtman? Aside from the spittle-flecked monitors and keyboards of the people that go berserk about this sort of thing on the Internet, I don't see many "social" gamers having an existential crisis as to their classification.
Different genres of entertainment will always appeal to different demographics, but it doesn't make one genre more or less valid.
Monster Rain wrote: Is it really that widespread of an issue, Ahtman? Aside from the spittle-flecked monitors and keyboards of the people that go berserk about this sort of thing on the Internet, I don't see many "social" gamers having an existential crisis as to their classification.
I see it fairly frequently, or at least enough to not think it is just one guy that feels that way. What is interesting about it is that you are right in that it isn't the poeple who play those games that seem to want to make the distinction, but the others, the 'hardcore'. It does seem to be declining as time goes on, so I wonder if much of it wasn't the initial introduction of flash and phone games that generated the ill-will.
Monster Rain wrote: Different genres of entertainment will always appeal to different demographics, but it doesn't make one genre more or less valid.
You and I know that, but we are enlightened, benign beings.
Anyways, I'm a girl gamer, and generally in my personal experience, there are 3 reactions to other (male) players finding out I'm a girl:
1. anger/disbelief/extremely sexist comment (i.e. "prove it," "tits or GTFO," "get out you'll make us lose," "you're only playing to get attention")
2. unwanted attention, unwanted help, getting hit on
3. being asked a zillion billion questions (which I generally wouldn't mind but NOT WHILE WE'RE HALFWAY THROUGH THE WAVE MORON)
Because of this, I generally don't say anything about being a girl. Unfortunately, this means I can't use voice chat without being "found out."
I play all kinds of games, from tabletop to card games to console to PC, and yes even casual games on my phone when I'm bored. I like RPGs the most, I'm not very good at FPS but I love games like Killing Floor and TF2, and I really like indie puzzle games (my steam library is full of them). My first game console was a gameboy color when I was 9 years old, and I learned to play N64 when I was 7. I grew up gaming, and being told I'm not a "real gamer" because I don't have an xbox 360 and I've never played Halo pisses me off.
I don't really see why it matters to the other gamers, though--the only people who should really care about female gamers are the game companies, and yet they continue to ignore the female gaming population and cater strongly to men. the barbie adventure games are all nice and good for little girls who love barbie, but what about women? There are hundreds of games that cater to men, and plenty that are more neutral, and tons that cater to kids, but very few (if any) specifically cater to women. Now I'm not saying there need to be women-specific games, but I am saying that gaming companies stand to make one hell of a lot more money if they tried to appeal to women instead of ignoring us.
I usually say something and end up being an ass, however, here goes.
I personally am thinking that, generally speaking, the 'girls in gaming' thing has only come about in the past few years.
I've been a member (and volunteer staff) of some online games since oh, about 2001.
One of them, I played in was the Star Wars Combine. I'm pretty sure back in the day they had over 8000 active members (please don't quote me on that...) I've just logged on it there and there's apparently 2881 active members. Considering when I last played, mmo's barely even existed. That's not an unexpected drop.
In any case, I really would not be surprised if there was less than 50 female players in the game back then. And a couple of the most noted staff were female. - Dredging my memory, one of the main admins (Syn I think her name was!), plus the leader of the Jedi. So it didn't seem like the games culture was against women being there. It just simply wasn't the done thing.
2004 to 2008 and I moved on to another game, where I eventually became an actual staffmember.
This really seemed to be the time of, "The internet: When the men are men, the women are also men and the children are FBI agents."
The amount of horror stories I could tell from this time period as a game staff member. Every cliche happened. The current 40k news about the Deep Strike 40k Radio thing? Was pretty much a broken record.
The game entered a very dark period a few years back (2006-07), when the guy running the game fell in love with a girl, started a long distance relationship but it turned out that she was a banned players cousin and he was slipping her a few bucks to do some skype calls so he could get free stuff in the game. And so on and so forth....
And now, I'm going to drop in the beartrap of my own devising by adding my own little addendum to that rule. - "The internet: When the men are men, the women are also men and the children are FBI agents. And the tiny amount of actual women will stab you in the leg if they ever met you."
Yes... That did (allegedly) happen, fortunately not to me...
The past 4 years or so, however... Things are improving a bit. The game is probably running at about 5%-10% "actual females" now, with about the same percentage on staff. Not awesome, but it's a fairly niche game.
But it's a whole lot better than (my complete guess) of a 10th of that number, in that other game in the early 2000's.
Of course, the question is, what can we do to increase those %'s? The game is what it is - a (free) RPG with an emphasis on the RP. We try to clamp down on the jerky behaviour when we see it. However, to be honest, we're not going to get a 50% ratio for 'girls who like pretending to be people in Star Wars.'
I think a big part of it is that the girls who DO like gaming get endless harassment for it both online and IRL. It doesn't really make for new female players feeling welcome, and so they're a lot less likely to join in the first place. Like I said before, though-- that harassment can come in all different forms, and even in some cases from female friends who think that girls gaming is "weird" or "uncool" or whatever.
Without intending to deny that there's a great deal of sexism prevalent in online gaming, I'd like to relate a little story. I hopped into a game of Battlefield 3 over the weekend after a recent reinstall, and neglected to alter the default control settings for helicopter flying. Predictably, my first attempt at flying a helicopter since the reinstall ended up with an abrupt crash into a building, killing four other dudes on my team. Not exactly a big deal; you wait five seconds, and respawn. Nevertheless, a gentleman on my team suggested that my flying skills were impeded because I was busy performing sexual favors for a close male relative, to clean his language up a tad, a suggestion that I, a heterosexual male uninterested in incest, found offensive.
The point of that story is simply that everyone in online gaming is going to get vile, pointless insults hurled at them as long as they choose to pursue the pastime, especially in certain genres. I started gaming online with, I think, Duke Nukem 3D, so it's nothing new, and it hasn't changed. Talking endless amounts of gak for no reason at all is part and parcel of online gaming. Should it be? No. Will it always be? Probably. I've been called a derogatory term for homosexuals so many times online that I'm a little surprised I've never caught myself signing checks with it instead of my name.
I doubt that the endless, bs sexism is an expression of real, deep-seated misogyny for most, though. For the majority, it's simply an easy target, one they know works.
Seaward wrote: Without intending to deny that there's a great deal of sexism prevalent in online gaming, I'd like to relate a little story. I hopped into a game of Battlefield 3 over the weekend after a recent reinstall, and neglected to alter the default control settings for helicopter flying. Predictably, my first attempt at flying a helicopter since the reinstall ended up with an abrupt crash into a building, killing four other dudes on my team. Not exactly a big deal; you wait five seconds, and respawn. Nevertheless, a gentleman on my team suggested that my flying skills were impeded because I was busy performing sexual favors for a close male relative, to clean his language up a tad, a suggestion that I, a heterosexual male uninterested in incest, found offensive.
The point of that story is simply that everyone in online gaming is going to get vile, pointless insults hurled at them as long as they choose to pursue the pastime, especially in certain genres. I started gaming online with, I think, Duke Nukem 3D, so it's nothing new, and it hasn't changed. Talking endless amounts of gak for no reason at all is part and parcel of online gaming. Should it be? No. Will it always be? Probably. I've been called a derogatory term for homosexuals so many times online that I'm a little surprised I've never caught myself signing checks with it instead of my name.
I doubt that the endless, bs sexism is an expression of real, deep-seated misogyny for most, though. For the majority, it's simply an easy target, one they know works.
I think that i agree, just assume that everyone on the line is a jackass and don't take anything to heart. Make yourself an easy target and you will get attacked. This isn't a mysogynistic thing, it's a guy thing. If you react badly (by getting offended or angry) to this targeting it kinda ends up as open season.
I'm not sure why guys do this but almost every male peer group I have ever met does this to some extent.
I think this whole mysogynistic gamer thing might come from women being fully exposed to this kind of behaviour whereas for the most part IRL they are somewhat protected from being savaged as much .
I doubt that the endless, bs sexism is an expression of real, deep-seated misogyny for most, though. For the majority, it's simply an easy target, one they know works.
It's an interesting observation, though, and one I'd like to be further researched. The study Melissia posted was...well, a good hint in a possible direction. The execution was "meh", but hey it's something. I, personally, consider it to be a similar thing to people calling others "jews" in online games (especially in Europe of course). Kids nowadays use the word as an insult simply because they are aware of a "somehow" negative connotation of the term itself. Not everyone calling another player a "jew" is a racist, obviously, just as not everyone calling a female player a "slut" or sth. is sexist, it's tendencies that can be observed...and thus, I'd like to get additional actual input on that.
In regards to women in gaming and men's reactions to it, we gotta keep in mind that most of these issues happen in a competitive environment that is especially stressful for men, moresore than it is for women, plus a lot of gamers are very young and might simply flame another player for its gender because of their very own insecurity. But alas, those are mere speculations, I got no profound data on this.
I saw a roughly 2:1 male:female ratio in an MMO I used to play (Kingdom of Loathing).. mostly younger guys, older women (not much of a diffrence, mind). If you went in chat you'd think there were more women though since they tended to be more chatty (depending on the channel.. the casual "hearty" channel was mostly female whereas the hardcore gamer talk channel was mostly male... and PvP was pretty much an even split with the ladies being much better at smack talk.
Saw quite a high number of people meeting IRL through the game and getting married.
It was quite a friendly environment though, you had to pass a spelling and grammar test before being allowed to enter chat, and anyone throwing out the typical sexist spew wouldn't just get banned by the mods.. they'd get torn to shreds by the entire chatroom first.
More mild cases of "idiot guy who just has no clue how to socialise with women", would get mocked mercilessly until they figured out what they were doing wrong. And then they'd keep getting mocked, for good measure for a good while. :p
Surprisingly, graphic sex talk and jokes were extremely common and no-one really cared, because it was never directed or hateful. I think MMOs create the right kind of environment, definitely not male-dominated, and being a jerk doesn't get you anywhere due to the co-operative clan-based nature of the game.
Also, I call BS on the image at the top of this page, my housemate managed to complete the Lion King on her Sega as a kid (1996 or so?)... I sucked at it and never got past the third level.
If it's any consolation, it's just as rough for a guy to enjoy female stuff.. the "sissy, pervert, pedophile" assumptions get rolled out like a freight train as soon as you do anything in life that isn't a traditional male hobby.
The ESRB sticker saying that "online interactions are not rated by the ESRB" should really be replaced with, "Admit One: Summit of Patriarchy, where nothing is wrong and everything is permitted.*
*Fine print: Women, those of color, LBGT, handicapped, Muslim, Jewish, German, Mexican, Canadian, Asian, gingers, and those of moral virtue need not apply.
DemetriDominov wrote: The ESRB sticker saying that "online interactions are not rated by the ESRB" should really be replaced with, "Admit One: Summit of Patriarchy, where nothing is wrong and everything is permitted.*
*Fine print: Women, those of color, LBGT, handicapped, Muslim, Jewish, German, Mexican, Canadian, Asian, gingers, and those of moral virtue need not apply.
Stop being a victim and mute the donkey-caves.
The hyperbole here is getting a bit over the top. I'd say that being straight, male, and white is no guarantee that you won't get online abuse but I don't feel like reading the rebuttal based in special pleading.
DemetriDominov wrote: Or the fact that being straight, male, and white isn't even grounds for abuse, but being anything other than that is..
On the contrary, as the perceived majority they would be the target of all "general" abuse, such as gamertags with non-specific insults targeted at the reader. At any rate, you missed the point.
DemetriDominov wrote: It's much harder to see over a wall of gak when you're brick molded inside of it.
DemetriDominov wrote: Or the fact that being straight, male, and white isn't even grounds for abuse, but being anything other than that is.
It's much harder to see over a wall of gak when you're brick molded inside of it.
I'm amused you still seem to be of the opinion that the abuse needs to have at least some linchpin in reality before it gets hurled.
Knock that off. Everyone's going to get called a lot of stuff they're not and possibly some stuff they are while online gaming. The people doing it aren't using the Sniper Rifle of Precision Socio-Economic Hate, they're using the Shotgun of Coating Everything In Gak And Seeing What Sticks.
Monster Rain wrote: I don't think any type of game is more "real" than the other, but I think that making the distinction allows for more accurate discussion.
Except when the question is 'how many women play video games into comparison to men". Now if the question is "how many women play FPS compared to the number of men who play FPS" then it makes sense to exclude other types of games. It is still a problem, and probably part of the overall issue at hand, that people still treat games like that as not really video games, when in fact they are video games.
My point is that "video games" is a very broad topic. It would be similar to having the same conversation about movies, books or music.
It's so vague that I don't know what the point of bringing it up is, I guess.
I don't disagree, I was more referring to the attitude that is often displayed at people who enjoy games like Farmville as not really being gamers.
I had a guy in my group that would get rankled over the use of the term gamer. "Back in my day, gamer meant you played D&D. Blah, blah, blah..." It really set him off to hear FPS shooters and such calling themselves gamers instead of video gamers.
Like there's a difference. Anyway, I found the stats in the first post very eye-opening. I'd love to see a breakdown of male/female by genre.
I don't give two craps if you're a female gamer. I don't. I think if you advertise the fact you are a girl gamer (a term which I think is stupid. Can I call myself a Mexican Gamer for playing 40k since I barely see any other Mexicans around?) you aren't helping with stopping online sexism. If you want to be treated like everyone else act like everyone else.
Now! Stopping online sexism isn't going to stop with the death of the term "girl gamer". It's not even really the root of it. The true root of the issue is probably too complex to really address in this post but I think it's a combination of an innate hate of outsiders humans have, deep rooted sexism in males and the power anonymity can give. Women dropping the term "Girl Gamer" might help the first issue but it would take some serious social and technological change to help the last two issues. I'm not even sure it's even possible.
Before someone screams "VICTIM BLAMING!" my point about "girl gamers" isn't victim blaming. It's just that in my experience people who go out of their way to point out that they are different are treated differently. It's just how things work. Especially in the world of the internet where people no liek different.
I don't think the term 'girl gamer' has any real effect on anything. I'd assume what people would like most is, for example when playing battlefield and has the temerity to say something like, "need backup at flag A" on voice not to get drowned out with 'while you respawn, go get me a sammich' in response.
The main problem is that although such situations occur, there's nothing you can do about it. And really, I don't see the much of a difference between someone making a sammices joke and calling someone else's mother's names. If people think that everytime online players say sth. that can be interpretated as sexist, it automatically means there's sexism at work...well, you have my pity.
DemetriDominov wrote: The ESRB sticker saying that "online interactions are not rated by the ESRB" should really be replaced with, "Admit One: Summit of Patriarchy, where nothing is wrong and everything is permitted.*
*Fine print: Women, those of color, LBGT, handicapped, Muslim, Jewish, German, Mexican, Canadian, Asian, gingers, and those of moral virtue need not apply.
Stop being a victim and mute the donkey-caves.
The hyperbole here is getting a bit over the top. I'd say that being straight, male, and white is no guarantee that you won't get online abuse but I don't feel like reading the rebuttal based in special pleading.
Well, no it's certainly not guarantee you won't get abuse. However it is an almost certain guarantee that you won't be facing the sort of abuse that that hits home with negative experiences and abuse you face more broadly in society as a whole by being a straight white male.
For example, you may face string of expletives and homophobic slurs at roughly the same rate as anyone else. However being straight this likely amounts to little more than a passing annoyance. If you're actually gay there is a good chance this has either been a regular part of your life, or at minimum something you've feared. You're certainly aware it's the kind of language actively used bt people that genuinely hate you, would hurt you given the chance, or want to deprive you of your rights. The little squit on the other end may or may not actually be one of these people, but that doesn't change you're getting hit by the same language those people use. The same words are far more likely to have deep impact on someone who is actually part of a group who suffers widespread harm from the ideas those words go along with.
It's really not possible for the experience that a straight white male has, to be comparable to someone who actually belong to groups that have been deeply affected by racism, homophobia and misogyny even if the actual behavior they run into is the same.
Even for example some person was going around speaking in slurs against straight white males specifically it still wouldn't be comparable. This is because those ideas have never held enough institutional power to broadly affect straight white males as a group. I mean they're still donkey-caves, but they're hardly using language that's been a very real part of very real widespread oppression and violence.
None of that has anything to do with the main gist of my posts on the topic:
There are donkey-caves on online games. Mute them. Whatever your perceived social niche is, they get their jollies by upsetting you. There's nothing more to it than that.
Furthermore, you're still using a fallacious argument because there's more than one way to upset someone aside from slurs and expletives that even, and this may come as a surprise, your typical straight, white man could be bothered by. I guess it depends how you want to approach the issue. I personally find it more empowering to tell people to not let themselves be victimized by jerk-offs. Ignore them and know that they're troglodytes. Continually espousing a culture of victimhood, particularly in a setting where it is completely avoidable, only serves to perpetuate the problem.
Especially since we blame the victim around these parts.
Monster Rain wrote: None of that has anything to do with the main gist of my posts on the topic:
There are donkey-caves on online games. Mute them. Whatever your perceived social niche is, they get their jollies by upsetting you. There's nothing more to it than that.
Furthermore, you're still using a fallacious argument because there's more than one way to upset someone aside from slurs and expletives that even, and this may come as a surprise, your typical straight, white man could be bothered by.
Slurs, Expletives and sexually violent language are certainly the most common as I've been able to observe, so I think they deserve special attention.
That aside, I by no means mean that people couldn't say something that would deeply affect someone who is straight, white and male. For example perhaps something along the lines of "I hope your mom dies of cancer" - or something equally distasteful, when in fact that guy's mom in fact died of cancer. That could be downright awful for someone.
However, the experience I describe doesn't come from the fact he's a straight white male, it stems from specific personal experience. That's what different. "Straight, White, Male" is fairly unique in that there is little true nastiness that can be tapped into purely attributed to being "Straight, White, Male". If you're a woman, if you're gay, if you're black, etc... there is very real harm that can be tapped into by the words people use. That's why being white being straight/white & male is unique, for whatever words people may use little to none of it can strike home with widespread oppression suffered for being straight/white/male, because that just hasn't affected that particular group.
This is extremely relevant to your point because the solution is "Just mute them". However at that point, you've already had to be slapped in the face by whatever they did. Manageable I'm sure for some people even if the words really do hit home for them, but that initial exposure (repeated over many individuals) still has a greater impact due to being a part of the group actually being talked about.
Chongara wrote: That's why being white being straight/white & male is unique, for whatever words people may use little to none of it can strike home with widespread oppression suffered for being straight/white/male, because that just hasn't affected that particular group.
Here's the part that I don't understand, and it may simply be an inescapable facet of my personality: Why be offended by someone who is only actively trying to piss you off? Why give them that power? If you know that they are only saying whatever it is they are saying to get a rise out of you how can one not recognize it for what it is? There are a wealth of things that can be said that can affect any person of any race/gender/sex just as badly as a racial slur based on their life experience.
I'm not saying people aren't entitled to be bothered by language that they hear. You'd have to be a complete dildo to use those terms, but then, that's exactly what we're talking about here. The edge of the bell curve of antisocial online behavior. My point isn't that what they are saying isn't bad, or that something shouldn't be done to prevent from happening as much as it does, but I'm just pointing out that recognizing the behavior for what it is makes it seem less offensive and more pathetic.
Chongara wrote: This is extremely relevant o your point because the solution is "Just mute them". However at that point, you've already had to be slapped in the face by whatever they did. Manageable I'm sure for some people even if the words really do hit home for them, but that initial exposure (repeated over many individuals) still has a greater impact due to being a part of the group actually being talked about.
As I reiterated above, the solution is simply not to just mute them. You remove them from your presence while enjoying the smug superiority that comes from not being offended by some 14-year-old nobody who's shouting words that he doesn't really understand into a microphone.
Chongara wrote: That's why being white being straight/white & male is unique, for whatever words people may use little to none of it can strike home with widespread oppression suffered for being straight/white/male, because that just hasn't affected that particular group.
Here's the part that I don't understand, and it may simply be an inescapable facet of my personality: Why be offended by someone who is only actively trying to piss you off? Why give them that power? If you know that they are only saying whatever it is they are saying to get a rise out of you how can one not recognize it for what it is? There are a wealth of things that can be said that can affect any person of any race/gender/sex just as badly as a racial slur based on their life experience.
That part you don't understand, that's exactly what I'm talking about. You ask "Why give them that power", they don't have a choice. They're bombarded regularly with this stuff. If not on a direct personal level, than certainly at minimum in news stories and larger cultural experiences. When you're surrounded by something like, when it's something that targets a part of your identity - it's hard, really hard for it not to get to you.
Imagine everywhere you look you see people drowning or almost drowning. Half the time when you walk past a body water, some poor dude is failing his arms about gasping for air. Maybe he makes it to shore, maybe he doesn't. You've probably almost drowned in the water yourself on at least one occasion. Even if you haven't you at minimum still constantly see people just like you gasping for air, almost every day. Then a whole bunch of people you know just aren't in danger of drowning start telling you "Go take a swim" in a really hostile tone of voice and then other people just like them say "Those guys are jerks, but why do you let it bother you - just mute them". It'd suck.
Now imagine instead of trying to swim, the thing that gets you in trouble is just you being you.
Now imagine instead of the water being the thing that hurts you, it's damn close to half of America.
I can't really claim to know what it's like to be a woman or be gay and be on the receiving end of this. However, when I sit down and try to empathize with their position, I can at least say what they're saying makes sense just by knowing what it's like to be human. I'm sure my little thought experiment above really doesn't do the experience justice, but it's enough I think to see where these people are coming from.
I can't imagine having the will to prevent something from having power over me when it just so very pervasive, and I don't think it's fair to assume the problem is with them not doing so rather than with the community that creates the environment.
Chongara wrote: I can't imagine having the will to prevent something from having power over me when it just so very pervasive, and I don't think it's fair to assume the problem is with them not doing so rather than with the community that creates the environment.
It isn't a matter of will, but simply knowing that while you can't control the behavior of others, you can control how their behavior affects you.
Clearly this is anecdotal, but my experience with about 90% of online game chat, even when there's female players is "building 2", "spawn flip", etc. with the occasional banter in between games.
The other 10% is your trolls and mic spammers, who are muted as soon as they show that they are stupid. My point is I'm not sure that the "community" is creating that environment that you describe. I would say that it's just the 10% of any group of people that are dicks.
My experience with online games was similar to MR's. It was easy enough to hit the mute button on certain people. Also, DDO had a mechanic where you can flag people's characters, and choose to allow them in a group you created or not.
It isn't a matter of will, but simply knowing that while you can't control the behavior of others, you can control how their behavior affects you.
This isn't true, at least it isn't normally. Human beings aren't that detached from the experiences they have with their culture and the people around them. Maybe you have some ability to say "I'm just going to pick and choose which of my deep personal experiences causes me to have strong reactions to things", and hey more power to you if that's the case. However it's just not how most people deal with gak. Again, consider: It is also possible you feel this way because your status as a [White, Straight, Male] has shielded you from some of the broader experiences that create these kind of powerful aversions, and you've just been fortunate enough to shield you from the more specific ones. I couldn't say, I haven't lived your life, it does seem possible though.
It remains that people just can't "Turn off" deeply personal experiences.
EDIT:
There's also the fact that there's an option to report people who are being abusive and starting the process of having their account banned.
It's not like the companies providing the service don't have a system in place to try to keep this sort of thing under control.
Come on man, this is silly.
"A lot of people get mugged. I think we should talk about why so many muggings are happening, and what steps we could take to discourage so many muggings."
"Mugging is already illegal, they'd get arrested if the cops caught them. It's not like we don't already have a system in place"
How in the world is that constructive stance to take?
What would you suggest be done? I wouldn't say my statement is any less constructive than your idea that, if I may use your analogy, that all of the other people on the street are creating an environment conducive to mugging.
I think your idea that I can't be potentially offended due to your perception of my race and whatnot speaks volumes.
I certainly don't have all the answers. However, calling out the behavior and not critizing people who speak out against it would be a good start. Encouraging others to do the same too. Those, at minimum are steps twoards a better community.
For a far reaching solution, you'd need someone doing more work on the problem than I have time, resources, talent or energy for. I can safely point some some things that certainly aren't constructive "You should just mute them" and the like. If these were valid solutions for the people having the problem, it wouldn't be an issue.
I think your idea that I can't be potentially offended due to your perception of my race and whatnot speaks volumes.
I never asserted this. In fact I pulled out a specific example of just how someone who was white/male/straight could be deeply offended by an example of the sort of trash talk we run into online. The assertion I've made is that there is little to make that offense rise strictly from a result of the experiences that a [straight white male] has due to being a [straight white male] and that you would not be affected by the particular kinds of speech that pervasive in the community (Racism, Homophobia, Misogyny), in the same way that the people in those groups are.
Being a straight white guy isn't a magic shield from being offended or hurt by anything ever, but it does mean that you aren't being inherently attacked for who you are by this stuff.
Chongara wrote: I certainly don't have all the answers. However, calling out the behavior and not critizing people who speak out against it would be a good start. Encouraging others to do the same too. Those, at minimum are steps twoards a better community.
I think this is a fundamentally flawed tactic, given that the main purpose of the behavior being discussed is to upset, offend and draw attention to oneself.
Chongara wrote: For a far reaching solution, you'd need someone doing more work on the problem than I have time, resources, talent or energy for. I can safely point some some things that certainly aren't constructive "You should just mute them" and the like. If these were valid solutions for the people having the problem, it wouldn't be an issue.
It's the only solution, really. Without a far-reaching solution it would seem the simplest thing would be to remove the offending item from one's ability to perceive it.
Chongara wrote: I never asserted this. In fact I pulled out a specific example of just how someone who was white/male/straight could be deeply offended by an example of the sort of trash talk we run into online. The assertion I've made is that there is little to make that offense rise strictly from a result of the experiences that a [straight white male] has due to being a [straight white male] and that you would not be affected by the particular kinds of speech that pervasive in the community (Racism, Homophobia, Misogyny), in the same way that the people in those groups are.
I think that if you thought really, really hard about it you could come up with ways that someone outside of those groups could be affected by that behavior.
Chongara wrote: Being a straight white guy isn't a magic shield from being offended or hurt by anything ever, but it does mean that you aren't being inherently attacked for who you are by this stuff.
There are other ways of being attacked that are just as hurtful, though. I know that you try to dismiss this but it's still true.
Which isn't to say that the people intentionally trying to offend others for whatever reason aren't reprobate scumbags, but since there doesn't seem to be a way to stop it completely outside of going to their house and breaking their jaw I maintain that the best solution is to limit contact with that sort of person.
1. Thank you Chongara for standing up for this issue.
2. Monster Rain, you asked what can be done when it's perfectly justifiable to be "empowered to mute them" and a story someone (a Scholar) told me came back to me as she was describing the feminist movement of the 60's and today.
She described that the difference between the feminist movement of the 60's (arguably the strongest period of feminism in history), and the movement of today circles around the idea of empowerment. Today, we believe that women can be empowered by embracing their sexuality, political values, and individualism - they can engage in modeling, pornography, or politics in whatever way they choose. This is all true, just as true muting the little tike that spews random hate for no reason other than he feels like he can. The movement of the 60's however argued, why do we have to put up with his gak in the first place? Why do people feel so entitled that they can hurt anyone they want to at will because it's how they empower themselves? They asked not of empowerment of themselves, nor of empowerment over these types of political hate spewers but of liberation from them. They wanted to be rid of the problem in the first place by convincing people who are already weighed down with entitlements to relinquish their position of privilege. There are those that said they failed, but Civil Rights, and even the notion of empowerment would not have occurred had it not have been for the idea of liberation of oppression.
I certainly don't have all the answers. However, calling out the behavior and not critizing people who speak out against it would be a good start. Encouraging others to do the same too. Those, at minimum are steps twoards a better community.
This is correct. It is the only thing you can do about such things, but you have to keep in mind that it's a process that needs to be actively worked on by both sides. On the one hand, people should tell others they might have acted wrong, but on the other hand, people who do speak up against such behavior need to adress the issue in an appropriate manner. More often than not, also demonstrated on these very forums, people just swing over completely and start being sexist themselves, just headed towards the other gender, which, ultimately, hurts the case more than it helps.
The biggest problem, however, is that asking for a change in this specific area is asking for humanity to change as a whole. Stopping discrimination of others for any aspect is less likely than world peace. It's mankind's nature to look for weak spots in their fellow men and use them to project fear / anxiety etc. and thus feel better about themselves. Everyone of us does it, be it vocal or non-vocal, and for many different reasons.
It's highly important to use the correct scale. There is a huge difference between the internet and actual life. Anything that resorts to the internet as a source is doomed to fail to begin with. The internet is the most hateful room one can imagine and you cannot do anything to improve the situation. Nothing. In the contrary: if you react to someone spewing hate, you did exactly what he intended to. By reacting to it, you reinforce the demonstrated behavior. The only valid reaction to such people is ignoring them and, if possible, reporting to an authority, be it a (forum) moderator or sth. else.
In reality, however, the entire issue is a lot different. The Gender Gap is down to a very small difference, women looking for a job / being in a job have a huge amount of bonusses men do not get and they even get superior treatment by the law in a lot of cases, mostly in social areas. Talking of modern countries of course. Does sexism still exist? Yep. Same as racism. Or basically anything related to people treating other people in a degrading way and it happens on all social levels and all fields.
What happens when a guy logs in under his wife’s gamertag? A whole new understanding of gamer girl problems. A huge thank you to my buddy Slaus for writing this post!
I consider myself a normal guy really. Nothing special, run of the mill, pays his taxes and tries not to scratch himself in public kinda dude. Puts pants on two legs at a time and just tries to enjoy life every now and then with a little bit of escapism via video games when time permits.
But I want to tell you about a time where I logged in to game, and ended up beginning down a road of pro-feminism, or being a little BLEEP as many my male friends have decided to call it. But I digress… let’s get to the story.
For quite awhile I was in absolute love with Mass Effect 3 multi-player. Not just because it took place in the world of Commander Shepherd and I got to play as some of my favourite species and classes, but more so because it was cooperative.
…and I was good at it.
Really good at it.
Guaranteed first or second ranking per match good. Another reason I was in love with the game was because I got to play it alongside my wife, my long-time childhood friend; Mark as well as other really cool friends and strangers who happened to fill out the remaining spots. But one day I decided to login to try and unlock a few perks and packs for my wife since she was having a terrible time getting valuable items which you could randomly get in the perk packs. Therefore I decided to log in as her one time, play as a character which was one of my favourites, and rack up enough points to afford her a few packs in hopes at least of them would be an unlock for something worthwhile. Little did I know I’d be unlocking much more.
As soon as I logged onto the “lobby” which is an area where the 4 players wait before going into the match, the first thing I hear over the headphones was: “Oh great.. a girl player? F*ck. Are you serious? Let’s kick her and hope we get someone else.” Of course for those of you unfamiliar with how this works, they knew the character was a female due to my wife’s moniker or gamer tag as it’s called. Then another player chimed in : “We can’t do a gold match with a girl player. There are even girls who play this game? Shouldn’t she be playing my little pony or something.”
Hey.. F those guys alright?? My little Pony is the illest and I’ll hear no one besmirching my pony friends, son! But anyway…. Two of the players were just being pure ridiculous about the fact that a “girl” just HAD to be a liability and that there was no way some “girl” would be able to provide anything of value on such a difficult level as “gold”.
I stayed quiet as to not even bother giving these guys any relief that I was in fact male and instead decided I was going to play this match better than I had ever played before JUST to let these guys think that a lowly chick bested them and dominated. So I used the tactics that my WIFE in fact taught ME in playing that character and I completely ran up the score. Pulling out into a clear lead from the get, yet at the same time playing decent support to the team.
By the end of the 1st round, my score was quite a bit ahead of everyone else’s to which one of the guys remarked: “ wait a minute, the chick is in the lead? Oh hell no guys, we can’t have this.” Guy two then joins in to quip: “No way can we let some bytch clear us like this.”
Oh it was on from that point on. Only person I assisted the rest of the game was the third person who remained silent for most of the match. I let the other guys fend for themselves even when on a few occasions they begged for help and revives. I denied them and by the end of the game, their scores weren’t even close to mine.
That’s when the third person spoke up…. A female player.
“ Damn, she and I had the top two ranks and you guys spent most of the match dead on your backs… You let two girls dominate you. Daaaang.” She said.
Guy one: “F*ck you, b*tch. Suck on a d*ck and get back in the kitchen.”
Guy two: “Stupid whores, f*ck you. Get raped.”
That’s when I logged off.
I wasn’t going to say anything to them about what they said because then they would have felt “better” at the fact a female gamer DIDN’T beat their scores. I thought it best to let it burn that they were several thousand points behind my scores. Scores of a character with a female gamer tag.
What’s the point of this story?
The point is that there shouldn’t BE a time when a female gamer has to be subjected to that kind of vitrol and smack talking for no other reason than she logged on…and she has a vagina. It should never be that the answer to getting bested by a female gamer is to tell her to get back into the kitchen or worst yet: get raped. Female gamers just like any other gamer should be able to enjoy the experience of gaming without feeling uncomfortable. Without being subjected to misogynistic taunts for no other reason than she logs on! Now I know what many of you apologists are going to say to that:” man that’s just how gaming is, we trash talk, it’s not personal.”
Yes… yes it is. Yes this was. “I” was attacked PURELY for the fact I was on my wife’s gamertag and the gamer tag showed that it obviously belonged to a female. MY skills came into question for NO other reason than it being perceived that female gamers can’t be any good. That they can’t be REAL gamers. And the rebuttal to the other female’s smack talking that was in answer to THEIR smack talking, was the tried and true good ol: get back into the kitchen… mixed with some complete depravity of “get raped.”
That’s wrong.
Period.
There is no excuse.
Period.
That is why whenever male gamers act as if they are so offended by the points which female and feminist gamers bring up (valid points), and their answer to such is to use pure ignorance and misogyny…… I shake my head.
Because fools like that are exactly why feminist gamers need to exist.
Game on ladies. Game on.
Keep up the good fight. You’ve got a few of us fellas behind you.
To me that article just sounds like a xbox live/psn issue rather than women being harassed online. For example my time (900+ hours) with l4d2 community has nothing even remotely close to that article (unless you're russian).
illuknisaa wrote: To me that article just sounds like a xbox live/psn issue rather than women being harassed online. For example my time (900+ hours) with l4d2 community has nothing even remotely close to that article (unless you're russian).
No, no. One person's experience of interacting with two people for a very limited period of time clearly proves that all women online are being singled out for abuse based on gender alone.
Well, the source makes the entire thing worthless anyway - would you trust an article about abortion on a fundamentally Christian website? There.
On the other hand, I believe it is a common issue. Men get called sons of female dogs in heat, women get called wh***. So what? It's an online game and people behave like total rear ends anyway, regardless of gender. Plus with female players, there's more stuff to it like social insecurity towards the opposing gender, especially among youngsters.
Sigvatr wrote: Men get called sons of female dogs in heat, women get called wh***. So what? It's an online game and people behave like total rear ends anyway, regardless of gender.
Melissia wrote: Frankly, the competitive gaming culture has done everything it can to keep women out without actually banning us.
Could you elaborate some more on that? I know the environment isn't exactly friendly, but what factors do you think contribute most to this hostility? I've become more interested in this topic since tuning in to the SC2 WCS this week-- there wasn't a single female player from any of the teams.
I really don't know what contributes to the hostility, but certainly I've never gotten a vibe that the competitive crowd is a group of people who honestly respect anyone who's different from them. Racial slurs, misogyny, religious slurs, and general profanity often flows from their keyboards faster than actual gameplay decisions. Or even each other, half the time. If I had to guess, I'd use a guess based on something I mentioned earlier in this thread-- it's treated as an "exclusive" group, and like most groups of humans that are exclusive, it tends towards conformity rather than diversity. People who are different have a hard time being "one of us" in the minds of those who conform better.
Super-competitive players tend to have no social skills as they spend so much of their time hooked into a machine and not interacting with flesh-and-blood people. That's just my anecdotal experience, though, so YMMV.
Some_Call_Me_Tim? wrote: Super-competitive players tend to have no social skills as they spend so much of their time hooked into a machine and not interacting with flesh-and-blood people.
~Tim?
I'm sure that screaming abuse at people is still interaction, it's just not meaningful or constructive interaction
I'd disagree. Super-competitive players are players who consider playing their actual job and the ones I know are pretty normal people.
I do remember a female CS clan back in the days and they got utterly destroyed when facing their male counterparts. An actual reason for the considerable majority of male players on a high level in competitive games is their nature, as men are much more intrinsically interested in direct competition than women are.
Melissia wrote: I really don't know what contributes to the hostility, but certainly I've never gotten a vibe that the competitive crowd is a group of people who honestly respect anyone who's different from them. Racial slurs, misogyny, religious slurs, and general profanity often flows from their keyboards faster than actual gameplay decisions. Or even each other, half the time. If I had to guess, I'd use a guess based on something I mentioned earlier in this thread-- it's treated as an "exclusive" group, and like most groups of humans that are exclusive, it tends towards conformity rather than diversity. People who are different have a hard time being "one of us" in the minds of those who conform better.
I can't say much about the super-competitive players as a whole but when it comes to SC2 "professional players" (yes, professional) and all the people around it (casters, presenters and others in the spotlight) they generally do not fit any of those descriptions.
As for the random people on the net my experience is: I've always got the worst from the middle-upper crowd and a bit beyond that. You know, the ones who are a little better than average but think they are the the top of the top dogs already. If you loose they will gloat like donkey-caves, if you win then they cannot get over the loss. I know they are everywhere, but there is a certain boiling point and I feel like it's always at the same 'level'.
Sigvatr wrote: An actual reason for the considerable majority of male players on a high level in competitive games is their nature, as men are much more intrinsically interested in direct competition than women are.
Sigvatr wrote: An actual reason for the considerable majority of male players on a high level in competitive games is their nature, as men are much more intrinsically interested in direct competition than women are.
DemetriDominov wrote: *Fine print: Women, those of color, LBGT, handicapped, Muslim, Jewish, German, Mexican, Canadian, Asian, gingers, and those of moral virtue need not apply.
Sigvatr wrote: An actual reason for the considerable majority of male players on a high level in competitive games is their nature, as men are much more intrinsically interested in direct competition than women are.
I cannot roll my eyes hard enough at this.
It's common knowledge for a LONG time now. I can't remember neuroscience's take on it or rather how much genetics play into it, but socialisation, obviously, plays a large part in it.
I've generally held the opinion that, traditionally, even in ye olde semi-historical type points, I'd say that generally women are far more competitive than men. It's just a whole lot more subtle.
It's not something as obvious as "Haha, you suck my team is beating yours at sports." For my family at least it's more like:
My house is cleaner than yours.
My son did X, yours didn't.
I gathered up Y more amount for the church fundraiser, you all didn't.
I spent Z hours more doing some flower display, none of you didn't.
Ever heard the phrase, "how does she do it?" - Competition.
And that's without what happens if you pen my mother and her sisters in the same room for an extended period of time...
So, I don't see any reason why women in gaming would ever be seen as 'less competitive' there's certainly the potential for it even historically. With modern gamer girls, I can see no reason why one wouldn't be able to kick someones rear at COD if they so choose.
A sense of competition is part of human nature now, evolution has ensured this is the case. The difference in how that's expressed - as Compel was alluding to - will partly be down to testosterone and oestrogen, but of course other factors like the old "nature vs nurture" debate also get a look-in. Even then, you can't always assume that these are "male" and "female" in their application - everyone has both, and at differing levels.
Compel wrote: I've generally held the opinion that, traditionally, even in ye olde semi-historical type points, I'd say that generally women are far more competitive than men. It's just a whole lot more subtle.
I wouldn't use "subtle", it's "different". Women are less competitive in classical competitive environments such as sports whereas they are more competitive in e.g. looking better than other representatives of their gender. So yes, lack of differentiation there on my part.
So, I don't see any reason why women in gaming would ever be seen as 'less competitive' there's certainly the potential for it even historically. With modern gamer girls, I can see no reason why one wouldn't be able to kick someones rear at COD if they so choose.
Oh, I am pretty sure that there are dedicated, ass-kicking women gamers out there. Just referring to (wo)men as whole here.
Reading the ME3 post above and wondering how he managed to luck into two fine examples of the male gender
I have to admit there is a lot of stupidity that goes with playing online and it does get very tedious, especially when you get into a group that is entirely made up of what seems like 13 year olds. But that is what perma-mute is for I suppose.
I have no issue who is on my team (or the other team) so long as the skill levels balance out and people don't behave or speak like donkey-caves.
Men are made fun of online for being someone's opponent. Women are made fun of online for being women. There's a huge difference that your privilege is blinding you to.
The "privilege" is being the majority. Women, blacks, jews etc. are frequently the target of certain negative behavior due to being the minority. Being a conservative on politic discussion in open forums? You're in for a ride.
I guess I'll just point out your privilege again, and you will continue to pretend you don't have it and lurkers who actually aren't horrible will understand and learn something.
Rented Tritium wrote: I guess I'll just point out your privilege again, and you will continue to pretend you don't have it and lurkers who actually aren't horrible will understand and learn something.
Point me to the exact post where I denied having such a "privilege".
Rented Tritium wrote: Men are made fun of online for being someone's opponent. Women are made fun of online for being women. There's a huge difference that your privilege is blinding you to.
Rented Tritium wrote: I guess I'll just point out your privilege again, and you will continue to pretend you don't have it and lurkers who actually aren't horrible will understand and learn something.
So anyone who is male, and has a different perspective to you is wrong and should probably step away from the thread because of that horrible privilege that they suffer from?
Rented Tritium wrote: Men are made fun of online for being someone's opponent. Women are made fun of online for being women. There's a huge difference that your privilege is blinding you to.
Rented Tritium wrote: I guess I'll just point out your privilege again, and you will continue to pretend you don't have it and lurkers who actually aren't horrible will understand and learn something.
So anyone who is male, and has a different perspective to you is wrong and should probably step away from the thread because of that horrible privilege that they suffer from?
No.
I mean thanks for trying, but no, your post was dumb and that's not what I said.
Privilege is like living in the matrix. If you don't get that you have it, it's almost impossible for someone to explain it to you without you thinking they're crazy. I'm pointing it out for other people to look in and see.
I have to say sigvatr that i consider this forum to be right wing in scope, particularly OT. It just happens that a lot of left leaning people happen to use buzzwords and nonsensical arguments so you probably notice them more - or alternatively you don't like being disagreed with
I agree on the women being more competitive thing it's just about different things and half off the male perception radar. Men are more likely to be in your face and confrontational about it so i feel that women find this harder to deal with in the current gaming online enviroment. Hanging gak on opponents is considered a key part of sports (at least when i played) and gaming is very similar to sports (physical) so I think it goes with the territory.
On the other hand I don't see the benefit on hanging crap on your own team (but I'm sure teenagers find it fun)
I'm really not seeing this privilege stuff, my life has not been magical because I am white and male .I still have to find this male privilege "magic keycard to employment and promotion" that seems to be around - maybe i need to pay my dues to the patriarchy. I have to try as much as anyone else to suceeed, if it was the 70's then I could understand, in this day and age? I think people like being a victim/blaming others for own failure.
*note however this is in regard to my own country I do not know how things are in other countries and i must admit atm people seem to be weird over muslims atm, they'll get over it like they did with the vietnamese in the 70s.
It's a nice way of saying "you don't understand because your not me".
It's also a nice way of saying "you can't have a discussion because your not me so you don't understand".
Anything that makes it impossible to discuss something with someone because they have this self righteous knowledge is rubbish.
Ok then if there is going to be privilege i reserve the right to declare under privilege on people.
it's a nice way of saying " because of my privilege I have received a more complete education so you wouldn't understand the high concepts I am trying to explain"
Bullockist wrote: It's a nice way of saying "you don't understand because your not me".
It's also a nice way of saying "you can't have a discussion because your not me so you don't understand".
I can understand the concept fine. I think it is harder to show the concept in practicality.
What I don't like is how people use it as a weapon to kill discussion. when someone says "that's privilege" then gets a retort and says "that's because of privilege" it really annoys me. Instead of discussing something the person is basically saying "I am right and you cannot contribute to the discussion, only those with colour, a vagina or a disability can contribute" . I'm quite sure if i wanted to i could join the under privilege club, I don't want to , it is an anathema to me. I don't want to have excuses for my life, my life is up to me.
After reading Ilyka Damens : occasional conversations with my man are constructive, I'd like to ask if the feminist movement could do the same thing when hearing things in society and say "it's not about me. It's not about me" and we might get more constructive dialogue instead of near hysteria on gender issues.
I'm not sure i want to keep clicking links after reading the posting guidelines on I blame the patriarchy were to say the least bizarre. The feminist world on the interwebs seems a little closed and filled with the whole privilege issue i talked about previously. I think I'll just stick to feminist books (occasionally) and more humourous "womens" sites.
Bullockist wrote: I can understand the concept fine. I think it is harder to show the concept in practicality.
What I don't like is how people use it as a weapon to kill discussion. when someone says "that's privilege" then gets a retort and says "that's because of privilege" it really annoys me. Instead of discussing something the person is basically saying "I am right and you cannot contribute to the discussion, only those with colour, a vagina or a disability can contribute"
Intersectionality describes the interaction of different kinds of privilege. For example, as a woman I don't benefit from male privilege, but I'm white so I am privileged in that area. You can benefit from male privilege while not being privileged in a host of different areas.
Bullockist wrote: I'm quite sure if i wanted to i could join the under privilege club, I don't want to , it is an anathema to me. I don't want to have excuses for my life, my life is up to me.
You don't get a choice. It's not about "making excuses for [your] life." Social justice isn't about complaining so you feel good - and the whole idea that the point of it would be to complain so you feel good, not because of any genuine injustice, props up the whole system. Social justice is about identifying these things so that you can work against them and hopefully avoid perpetuating them as much as you otherwise would.
I'd appreciate an example of "using it as a weapon to kill discussion" because it's really hard for me to address it as a general case.
Bullockist wrote: After reading Ilyka Damens : occasional conversations with my man are constructive, I'd like to ask if the feminist movement could do the same thing when hearing things in society and say "it's not about me. It's not about me" and we might get more constructive dialogue instead of near hysteria on gender issues.
"Hysteria" is a pretty appropriate term for you to use. The usual problem in these discussions is that people with privilege will freak out and do anything they can to deny they have privilege or otherwise derail the discussion instead of just talking about it. There's also a long-standing history of portraying women as overemotional and irrational in this sort of thing.
I run a clan in APB:R with 130-140 members across 5 continents. It's pointless to make assumptions about any one of those members based on their sex alone, I've booted male players for being total neckbeards towards female members, I've seen female members carry the team. Similarly I've had to boot females for bad behaviour, and obviously there are some male prodigies around. Age seems like a far more reliable determinant as to how a gamer acts/performs than gender, but even then you get a wide variance. As a game, APB:R is noted for it's extremely detailed level of customisation, clothing, characters, cars can all be personalised to an extent I've yet to see in any other game. The assumption among many in the community is that female gamers spend more time using this feature, when in reality males are just as inclined to spend hours getting the colour 'just right' so it matches their ensemble.
Intersectionality describes the interaction of different kinds of privilege. For example, as a woman I don't benefit from male privilege, but I'm white so I am privileged in that area. You can benefit from male privilege while not being privileged in a host of different areas.
You don't get a choice. It's not about "making excuses for [your] life." Social justice isn't about complaining so you feel good - and the whole idea that the point of it would be to complain so you feel good, not because of any genuine injustice, props up the whole system. Social justice is about identifying these things so that you can work against them and hopefully avoid perpetuating them as much as you otherwise would.
I'd appreciate an example of "using it as a weapon to kill discussion" because it's really hard for me to address it as a general case.
"Hysteria" is a pretty appropriate term for you to use. The usual problem in these discussions is that people with privilege will freak out and do anything they can to deny they have privilege or otherwise derail the discussion instead of just talking about it. There's also a long-standing history of portraying women as overemotional and irrational in this sort of thing.
Multiquote why can i not understand how to use you On social justice i agree with you in theory, how many people do you think don't use them to make themselves feel good The weapon to kill discussion can be seen on the end of page 5 and start of page 6 of this thread i believe.
Hysteria can apparently be treated by cocaine and steam powered ...erm...fun things as well. I was trying to say the media seeing these issues as easy news like to pump them up and get the most divisive opinions to generate a few days of news for no effort. I'd just like people discussing these thing so not be so polar in their views and therefore be discussing and not just making statements at each other , but again I'm talking about people aren't I
MarsNZ comes in with the best opinion I have heard in the whole thread. It's about people not gender...thankyou What is this game you play? I don't recognise the acronym.
MarsNZ comes in with the best opinion I have heard in the whole thread. It's about people not gender...thankyou What is this game you play? I don't recognise the acronym.
Hey thanks, it felt like I was rambling a little but I seem to have got my point across none the less.
APB:R = All Points Bulletin: Reloaded
It's sort of like GTA but an MMO, that's a rather simplistic way of describing it but yeah. Be warned, the community is extremely toxic but the game is incredibly addictive even with its brutal learning curve.
The reviewer says that some of the attitudes toward women are outdated and here are just some of the responses, and mind you, nowhere in the review does the word feminist or feminism show up:
I'm not hating on you Carolyn, but why the fvck do feminists have to make a big deal about the smallest of things?
Stopped reading at the feminist remark.
You are just a Japanese game Hater dammit, Dont let this guy review japanese games
I hate Carolyn Petit this person make me sick.
seriously, is it so important to the reception of THE GAME ? Does it in any way determine THE GAME ?
That's the problem with feminism; you just don't know where to stop. Why are you so oppressive ? There are bigger problems in the world than some supposed-to-be-funny-but-abusive comments in a video game.
Only petty people worry about petty things...
Keep your political/social view bias out of the video game review. Seriously I don't come here to read that garbage.
I stopped reading about here and left out all the comments about her looks.
Bullockist wrote: "I am right and you cannot contribute to the discussion, only those with colour, a vagina or a disability can contribute"
Is this what you think I did? Because I have none of those things.
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MarsNZ wrote: I run a clan in APB:R with 130-140 members across 5 continents. It's pointless to make assumptions about any one of those members based on their sex alone, I've booted male players for being total neckbeards towards female members, I've seen female members carry the team. Similarly I've had to boot females for bad behaviour, and obviously there are some male prodigies around. Age seems like a far more reliable determinant as to how a gamer acts/performs than gender, but even then you get a wide variance.
You sound like a pretty great clan leader. Keep that up and spread your attitude as much as possible.
Ahtman wrote: Here is a recent fun one. Project X Zone reviewI stopped reading about here and left out all the comments about her looks.
In fairness, and this is 100% real, I thought that was a picture of a man. I'm not saying that it's cool to call a woman "him" to be a dick, but there is room for a small benefit of the doubt here.
I think she was reaching a bit with her portrayal of the game as "sexist" but I can see where she is coming from. As to the comments I think we're just back to fact that the comment section of anything on the internet is going to be filled with savages.
The reviewer says that some of the attitudes toward women are outdated and here are just some of the responses, and mind you, nowhere in the review does the word feminist or feminism show up:
Just to get that right: there is a tiny paragraph about outdated views of women and people are all over it? That's ridiculous.
...and really, people go to Gamespot for reviews? GAMESPOT? Come on now.
/e: Just googled Caroyln Petit...and am confused. Man or woman?
/ee: Seems to be a man, found an article about him being born a man and now longing to be a woman.
The reviewer says that some of the attitudes toward women are outdated and here are just some of the responses, and mind you, nowhere in the review does the word feminist or feminism show up:
Just to get that right: there is a tiny paragraph about outdated views of women and people are all over it? That's ridiculous.
...and really, people go to Gamespot for reviews? GAMESPOT? Come on now.
I'm a metacritic man, myself.
I never used to read reviews, but damn, games aren't cheap and there's nothing worse than paying 60$ for a clunker.
The reviewer says that some of the attitudes toward women are outdated and here are just some of the responses, and mind you, nowhere in the review does the word feminist or feminism show up:
Just to get that right: there is a tiny paragraph about outdated views of women and people are all over it? That's ridiculous.
...and really, people go to Gamespot for reviews? GAMESPOT? Come on now.
I'm a metacritic man, myself.
I never used to read reviews, but damn, games aren't cheap and there's nothing worse than paying 60$ for a clunker.
High five! I also refer to metacritic for anything about games. Reviews are entirely subjective, but metacritic helps getting a wider look at games. Good site.
The trick is to actually read a lot of reviews, ignoring their stupid meaningless numeric scores, and figure out what the author likes and dislikes relative to your own preferences.
It's the only way to actually understand what you're seeing. 1-100 scores are the worst thing.
instead, I'm saying that when looking at particular genres of game some have many more male players than female. As an example, let's say the following numbers are accurate:
