As with all games, you need to consider the type of games it is and the kinda players involved. Definitely, not all guys are like that and there are some awesome players out there. Certainly the FPS is still a genre catered towards males simply because of its nature. But I’ve noticed in games like World of Warcraft, where the content caters towards both sexes, the presence of those kinda guys and their kinda talk has been practically nonexistent in my experience. Maybe one of the reasons for that is because the nature of WoW gets you into the mindset of Alliace or Horde, or Paladin/Warrior/Priest, etc. But that’s another topic for another day. Excuse my ranting @_@”

BS Angel brings up a point when she says:
“An opponent is an opponent, plain and simple. I hope that attitude is a universal one instead of a rarity. I have faith that other people shoot virtual bullets indiscriminately as I do.”

As a female gamer, I want my opponents and teammates to judge me not by my gender, but by my ability to play the game, my ability to play on the team, and my ability to strategize, know when to follow the leader, and know when to lead. I personally want to earn the respect when it comes to serious gaming with teammates.

Sure, there are things you need to overcome first if you are a female gamer at times, like initial impressions, or the cat calls, or the sexist jokes–whatever. Because of the bias that exists, you may have to double the effort to “earn the respect” of your teammates as they say. This is not only limited to gaming, but to our society at large. I think women in general feel that they need to prove themselves more because of the social constructions we put on ideas of maleness or femaleness that already exist in the country. So it is no surprise to me that female gamers can feel so similarly.

Then again, now that things like XBL chat exists, or Skype, Vent, basically any kind of program that allows for in-game chat, we have to consider our perceptions of people from different ethnicity and age. You bring up the point about noticing people with accent, people who may be young or old. I think we have to check ourselves from perpetuating stereotypes based on these things. We also need to remind ourselves that these things don’t define a group of people as a whole. Whether it is a female, a Mexican, a child, an Asian, a man, whoever it is, we need to remind ourselves that however they play and however they may act in-game is not representative of their gender, ethnicity, age group as a whole. We can’t fall back into stereotypes.

In the idealistic gaming world, I think people should be judged on their gaming, thinking, and communication skills.

In the era of the Wii, DS, casual games, and even comics becoming more accepted in Hollywood, I think the public in general is becoming more receptive of video games. So I think this certainly helps to start diluting these stereotypes in the gaming community.

As a person who wants to see the gaming community grow and be accepted by the public at large, not just as a hobby that little kids play, but as a viable form of entertainment, I can get pretty passionate about issues like these. I want to see gaming move forward positively in every aspect if possible

Thanks again and good luck with your gaming career. Since that is the field I am looking to get into as well, who knows, maybe we will be working on a project some day. If not, I hope your game will be as good as mine.

‘You have your group of people who do nothing but insult women or the group of people who do nothing but hit on women.’ -

This is the kind of thing that i tell a lot of people when they ask me wat its like to be a girl gamer. I happen to hav 2 accounts, one name I play under makes it obvious that i’m a female gamer, the other doesn’t. Its interesting to see the difference in the way people treat me depending on wat account i decide to play on. When I play under the name that could be either male or female, i find people don’t talk to me as much, when i play under my female name i recieve tonnes of attention. I’m glad to say much of it is positive, although it doesn’t mean i’m always happy to recieve it. I get a lot of compliments on my gaming skills telling me that ‘i’m not bad for a girl’ or that ‘i’m the best girl gamer they’ve ever seen.’ I don’t understand y they hav to use the word girl in the compliment, because as stated in the article, the idea that girls can’t play as well as guys is complete and utter rubbish. (At the end of the day we still hav fingers and thumbs, and if we spend just as many hours playing as the guys do, there’s absolutely no reason y we can’t be just as good or even better.) I told my m8 that i kept getting flrty msg in my inbox, and he thought it was ammusing and asked me y i didn’t enjoy it, while my other m8 tells me that i only recieve the numer of compliments that i do because i’m a girl. There’s nothing wrong with recieveing positive attention, its better than the opposite, but at the end of the day, i don’t want to be hounded by it, i just want to be treated like an equal.

‘At the same time there is nothing wrong with giving a girl a little extra attention. Most of the ones in my life have appreciated it and seem to flourish from it. Correct me if I’m grossly wrong here ladies.’ - Ye, i like a little bit of attention, its quite fun and exciting, but when it passes a certain level it can get annoying, and i also wish that i could say that i recieve lots of compliments based on my good gaming skill, but i can’t say that for certain, despite the fact that i’m fully capable of coming first place in the FPS that i play, i get the feeling that the compliments arn’t all based on my skill level. At the end of the day, i just want people to be truthfull.

‘we must learn to welcome them with open arms but not at the expense of neglecting our fellow comrades that we fight along side of in the trenches of the online world. For the women, don’t let the bad apples of the male gender discourage you. Keep doing what you are doing and progress will continue and your presence will flourish.’ -

I’m glad u stated that. Attracting more female gamers seems to be a big thing in the games industry at current, but i already know a few girls who would play but don’t, becuase not all the attention is positive. I hav to put up with a lot of sexist comments and insults, most women just won’t put up with that and will probably be deterred frm playing the game, but i continue to ignore it to prove a point. Games are my passion, i’ve played them all my life starting on the amiga and followed them through to where we are currently, i think i hav as much a right to be playing them as everybody else does. In fact, it was my mums addiction to breakout and tomb raider that got me into games in the first place, i use to play a lot with my sister, my female cousins and in big groups of female firends. I also use to play weekly with my male cousin, who never mentioned the fact that i was a girl and played me like an equal, so i use to think it was common and normal for girls to play games, it was only when i got the internet and started going online more that i realised there was in fact an issue… Some of the comments i hav recieved hav been very hurtful, and i admit to going off the game for a little while after recieveing them, although i never went back to CSS, i usually do build up enough confidence and get back up to enter the game world again. The way in which these people treat u is ranged, they either let u win, or when u kill them they say they let u do it becuase they felt sorry for u, or they all gang up on u and seek u out more over the other gamers in the game. It was only yesturday that i had someone screaming over the mic at me, ‘kill the bitch, everybody kill the bitch.’ I’ll probably play under my more masculin name today and keep quiet over the mic, but why should i feel the need to hide my gender like i’m ashamed of it… I’m glad to say i’m in a clan with 2 other girls and the guys on there appreciate us. Their proud to be playing alongside other girl gamers, not ashamed of it.

I’d like to state that its not just young immature boys on games i’ve had this problem with. I’m generally interested in computing. In my ict group at college there was only one other girl in my class. It doesn’t bother me, cos i get on with guys better than grls anyway, as long as their not sexist with me, which they weren’t. But one of my teachers (who u would expect to be mature enough to accept us) came up to me and sarah and said ‘don’t worry if you find it hard to get at first, girls do tend to be a little slower than guys at picking this up, but i’m here so u can ask me for help whenever u want.’ I found it very insulting that as a girl i had to prove myself at computing more than the guys did, and just for the record i walked away with the highest marks in our class, which my teacher looked very embarrased about. I’m starting a game development course at uni next week, its always been my life long ambition to get a career in the industry. I’ve been warned that it will be probably be mostly guys, but i don’t care as long as their not nasty to me. On the other hand, because female game developers are also rare and due to the aims of the industry to widen the gaming audience, i’ve been told that i’m more likely to get a job because of my female perspective on things.

To be honest i also get a lot of rubbish off non-girl gamers. U know the girly types, making me feel like i’m wrong for not being all lady like and not being into the same stuff as them. I don’t see myself as being a part of the female stereotype, but at school i did get insulted by a lot of girls and laughed at by a lot of guys for saying that i wanted to be a game developer.

I also get sick of the assumptions made in my game development books. Some of them assume that its a guy reading them, and they also make some assumptions on the types of games girls like to play. Its tru, FPS games are not for all girls, but i get sick of the statement that they’re made solely for young teenage boys, cos i hav bumped into quite a few female gamers over the years who like excatly the same stuff as guys.

Sry for writing so much, but its an issue that plagues me day in and day out. Every time some guys comes up to me and makes out that i don’t hav a right to be doing wat i’m doing, it just gives me even more drive and determination to get to where i want to be. I want to prove a point that girls can be just as good at gaming and computers as guys can be. I hope the increase of female interest will help to put out this kind of immature attitude… To be fair though, i’ve also come across some female gamers who do make it worse for themselves. One of my m8’s says he’s suprised by the amount of girl gamers he’s been seeing lately, and he strongly believes in equality, and he’s a little bit sick of getting msg’s off of girls saying he should be ashamed cos he just got beaten by a girl. It makes me mad, cos thats the kind of attitude i want to be stamped out, but i informed him that most girls arn’t like that and just want to be treated equally…

I will say this tho:
I can appreciate what Excardon is saying. I can understand where he is coming from. I agree with treating everyone equally. I do not want special attention in the game or anywhere because I am a girl.
I did not create the group for fame. The most important thing to me is that I have met some awesome women and made some awesome friends.

http://www.nowlive.com/member.asp?id=100229630

At the same time there is nothing wrong with giving a girl a little extra attention. Most of the ones in my life have appreciated it and seem to flourish from it. Correct me if I’m grossly wrong here ladies.

What I’m trying to say is, treat a lady like a lady, whether they game or not. Treat a guy like a guy whether they game or not. Don’t sacrifice one relationship over another because you think it’s more ‘cool’ to hang with a girl (and vice versa). Be well rounded.

Be excellent to each other.

I’ll shutup now.

I am always happy to host your articles. They are very well written and thought out. I enjoyed this piece immensely and hope the same thing as your wife, that perhaps it will strike a different chord since it is coming from a male’s perspective.