Women in Gaming White Papers

Many thanks to GameJournalism.com for the heads up on two white papers put out last month by the Women in Gaming Special Interest Group. The two papers (both excellent reads) are Chicks with Joysticks: An exploration of women in Gaming, and Why are there so few Women in Games? In a related topic, TerraNova has a piece on the Women 's Game Conference and MMOGs.

One quick nitpick about the first article...

[Morrisguy]

...where the author credits Roberta Williams as creating the first female protagonist in a video game in 1987.

Wasn't the first lead lady in a video game Ms. Pacman? [klov.com] in 1981?

Why are there fewer women?

[valkenar]

Look at the comments to this article. Half are openly misogynistic (although I'm sure someone will try to argue that attempts at humor excuses all) others focus on whethere females gamers are hawt enough.

Maybe this kind of thing wouldn't bother you, but it's the kind of thing you hear complaints about from women in the geek scene. If you care to listen.

Female Gamers Do Get Attention

[EngineeringMarvel]

I'm the main Battlefield editor over at AmpedNews [ampednews.com] so I keep up with gaming trends and personal since I cover the main online gaming leagues. One thing I have noticed about the female gamers is the attention they get from others playing in the online leagues. One in particular, who is on my Amped staff, is constantly getting attention from the male gamers.

It takes a certain type of girl to deal with the type of stuff that she handles all the time. She cannot get onto IRC without some male gamer wanting to bother her. I'm sure there are other gamers that I have played with regularly that are female, but choose not to say it. Mainly to avoid all the harrassement from the other online gamers. My point is, not only are girls different, but they have to be ready to put up with a community that is mostly made up of horny male teenagers.

Re:One quick nitpick about the first article...

[adagioforstrings]

Ah, if you like to describe a yellow circle with a hair(?) bow and lipstick as a "female protagonist." I think Rosella fits the title a bit better.

Re:Female Gamers Do Get Attention

[Elkboy]

I don't agree with "girls are different". Males aren't all about violence and sex, and girls aren't all about pink, fluffly emotional stuff. These differences are partly forced on us by society at large, but also a gaming industry that is only beginning to realize that the differences, to the extent that there really are any, are much more subtle than that. From what I've seen, not even the old truth that males are into goal-oriented gaming and females are into social gaming are more than tendencies.

BTW, all teenagers are horny. It's just more obvious in a male-dominated subculture with ample access to sexualized images of women. These images have begun to diversify lately, but I think it's an intrinsic part of escapism such as gaming. What do you think all the female players of Final Fantasy games think of when they look at those scantily clad pretty boys wielding big swords?