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The Misconception of Girl Gamers
Coldguy - guest contributor - posted on Wednesday, 05/21/08 1:27:36 EDT
Hello one and all it is Coldguy again with another rant and ramble. This time it is on the gamers of the fairer sex. People tend to lump girls outside of the gaming crowd when really they are a big part of it. Well I am fed up of all this gender bashing when it comes to games and I think I figured out how to put an end to it.
Well first let’s address the problem, why are girls portrayed as non gamers. This is the simplest answer from personal experience; boys would not let them in the club. It is really simple; guys would gravitate to anything that was new and it was just awesome for us to see a Nintendo. As with any boy in his young age, once something is given to them they hog the damn thing like Linus’ security blanket. Whenever anyone wanted to play, unless they pass the friend test, there was no chance that you were going to share that unless forced to by a parent.
So when it comes you say a sister to come and play Mario with you what would happen? She gets up, dies in a short amount of time from not knowing what to do. Your turn, you do pretty well but eventually die much further than your sister. Her turn, she gets up, does a little bit better, but dies soon, only to see you step up again and play for a long time not dying until much further. All the while you are talking smack to your sis for not being as good as you in the game. Well no duh, you had amble practice time on it, she didn’t, she doesn’t have fun, and she never plays with you again.
You can replace Mario with a variety of other games (Contra being a great one) and you can see that the whole gender thing is more along the lines of greedy kids not helping others playing the game. So now we know what caused the rift, how do we fix it? Simple, let them play with you.
Seriously.
If you have a girlfriend or sibling who isn’t gaming, just ask if they want to play with you, before you do have some “practice” round so that they can understand the controls and the concept of the game then go at it. Once the fun factor kicks in she will enjoy the game and realize there is a way to beat you in a competition, she will get hooked onto the game and this new hobby can grow mutually. Now granted you do not want to throw a difficult game like Halo or COD4 right out of the gate, try a game that is simple to get into like rock band, puzzle fighter, or a co-op game of some sort.
Now I am not saying that every girl is going to gravitate towards games, can’t convert them all guys. However I can say you having a good attitude towards this will invite others to come in and enjoy the fun. However in all honesty this is a moot point, because according to various gaming surveys 43% of gamers are women. So they have a large market share there and are with you. So why do people treat girls like shit when they DO play with guys?
Stereotypes are a bitch, and in a community that wants to show that the average gamer is not a 12 year old boy cursing into the microphone shouting hate speech on XBL, we need to check ourselves. When a girl comes into the room why do we assume they are bad at the game? Because we know nothing about the person holding the controller doesn’t give us the right to call her an n00b or make her target number one to hunt down. Play with her as you would a guy, if she is on your team include her in the briefing like a guy, and if she is not on your team, hunt her down like any other guy. What I am saying it should not matter if the gamer is a girl, gay, black, Asian, or any other nationality. We should all be happy that the servers are working and that we got some people to pwn at 3AM. As a gaming community would it kill us to at least get to know the player first before passing judgment?
Also for those people who think I am being too harsh, I give you this: A blog called Girls don’t game. It has seven female game writers all of which are in the hardcore variety talking about gamming. Some of it is commentary, some of it news, and some of it just silly stuff. It is one of the blog I look forward to read (I like it so much in fact that I applied to write for the blog, I had no issue of being the “resident dick” of the writing team). If reading these articles does not convince you they know what they are talking about I have no clue what will.
In the age of gamers trying to change its exterior image to the media and parents across the land, we need to change from within first before expecting any results to happen. This is a call to everyone to simply be nice to others. It is not that hard, simply be kind to others as you want to be treated, if someone is abusive call the admin and remove them from the server. If you cannot do that than simply mute him/her so that you do not add fuel to the fire and make a chain reaction happen. All these people want is attention, when you stop giving that to them, then why would they continue in their action?
We cannot change the mind of everyone that gaming is really is for everyone, but that doesn’t give us the right to deny the chance for those who are somewhat interested to try without abuse. We need to be welcome of those who do not know about the game and help them understand what makes these games so much fun to play over and over again. This should supersede any rank or award given out, and be rewarded when this does happen. Not only would gaming be a better place, but the world would too.