“The difference between a guy gamer and a girl gamer isn’t what games they prefer…”
After at least thousands of year of existence, we are still discussing the morality between which gender is more dominate over the other when we shouldn’t even be discussing this arbitrary social class. Unfortunately, equal pay between women and men still isn’t fair and men still objectify the image of women that is scores and scores old.
Recently with the Ocean Marketing debacle, the idea of revealing sexist gaming companies or PR to the public popped into my head. I think this might happen within the next year especially during the summer during conventions when game companies are trying to get as much attention to their ‘believed demographic’.
Unfortunately, the word demographic has turned into another way of saying ‘social profiling’. Redhead Reviews posted an original piece on N4G this week which blew up. The piece was entitled ‘Should Women Play Video Games?’ Of course, the title was deceptive but if you get down to the psychology, it clearly is trying to state facts and give reasons why men are different from women when it comes to video games.
To be honest, no one cares if a girl should have less health in a game because she wears a bra. This article like many before it are moot. I’m sure others will classify this one the same though. The fact of the matter is a simple fact: we are gamers and we want to play games.
Some of us like to play shooters pushing our way through Berlin during World War II as others like to play strategy games attempting to take down the Horde in the world of Azeroth. Becky Amen’s piece continues to state men’s competitive nature make shooters more their style as girls would prefer to play offline titles. To generalize this maybe statistically true but to think this for all girls or guys is a generic misconception.
The thing that ticked me off is that Becky makes us try to believe that Skyrim is perfect for girl’s because it’s not competitive and that girls do multitask better than dudes. The fact of the matter is that the difference between a guy gamer and a girl gamer is pretty much just what is between their legs and other body parts.
Summer 2010, I met a great girl and we played all different kinds of games: single-player, cooperative & competitive multiplayer. According to the evidence given by the studies Becky explains, the girl I met would usually not play anything outside of a single-player experiences. The fact of the matter is that this ‘girl gamer’ issue that men among the industry and consumers have built up is just an idea in their minds.
Unfortunately, the ladies feel alienated especially after some 14 year old horny teenage boy hears a girl get on the mic. There’s always a bad egg, but don’t be so rash with what you’ll play because of a few assholes on the Internet. If this were true, I probably would have never gotten a chance to fall in Halo. (Another chance to shout out Halo!)
To wrap up this piece and start the discussion below, remember that ‘The Girl Gamer Issue’ is just a stigma in our heads. Treat others as you want to be treated and you’ll have a fun experience either playing online or offline. This crap about girls only playing certain games is total bullsh*t.
Author’s Notes:
This has been an issue for me because I’ve spoken with many bloggers or ‘journalists’ in the gaming industry that have dealt with this issue of people judging them wrongly from the first second because they aren’t male. Be open minded people; it’s the 21st Century.
