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Role Playing (Games) Entertainment Games

Gaming Girls Of GenCon Interviewed 27

Posted by simoniker from the more-alliteration-please dept.
Thanks to RPGnet for posting an article interviewing a cross-section of the women at the GenCon gaming convention, and discussing how they fit into a "cohesive, well-established, largely male-oriented culture." The author of the piece interviews individuals that she classifies as the 'young gamer', the 'entrepreneur', the 'organizer', and the 'booth babe', among others, and tries to illuminate "how women fit themselves into the loose conglomeration that is gamer culture, and how they formed their own unique subset of gaming."
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Gaming Girls Of GenCon Interviewed More

Gaming Girls Of GenCon Interviewed

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  • I think... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Shadows-and-Ice ( 669658 ) on Sunday August 17, 2003 @03:43AM (#6715866)
    ... she caught it with the Booth Babe and the Adult Gamer; we are a bit weird, and we know it, and accept it, and it becomes our normal. It's just us being us. (So normal, in fact, that I'm decidedly more uncomfortable around girls than I am around guys. Which is just wrong, really. I've lost my girly bits!)

  • I know... (Score:2, Funny)

    by the darn ( 624240 )
    ...that there's a joke here, and it probably involves breasts, but I'm too tired to think of it just now.
  • Hah. I have two friends, both gay, one working for Raven and one working for Treyarch, and they both think the whole 'booth babe' thing is way over the top, even beyond kitch. Not that they're against the bb's, nor do they think it's demeaning or anything, and they're not even looking for 'booth guys', but... I dunno, it's complicated, and I probably can't explain it properly either.

  • You might be reading Slashdot if . . . (Score:5, Funny)

    by Momomoto ( 118483 ) on Sunday August 17, 2003 @07:05AM (#6716224) Homepage
    . . . you clicked on the link just to see if there were any hot women who game living in your area.

    So lonely.

  • Gerhahh (Score:4, Insightful)

    by The-Bus ( 138060 ) on Sunday August 17, 2003 @07:09AM (#6716232)
    The article seemed a bit disappointing. First, it concentrated mostly on Gamers as in "Role Playing" Gamers. And yes, she does interview a cross-section of females, but they are mostly all at the Gen-Con.

    What's disappointing is that it seems instead of analyzing what it means to be a female gamer or explaining "how women fit themselves into the loose conglomeration that is gamer culture" she just categorizes these individuals into a group, which is unfortunate.

    Either interview hundreds of people, then create categories from that, or interview individuals and explain their stories (as opposed to using acronyms to sound good and describing that they wear chain-mail bikini).

    An OK article, but I expected more.
    • Hi,

      Observation and Analysis are completely different steps. And you have to do this sort of observation first.

      Actually, it's a morphology piece, sort of like anthropology. First you organize categories and see how they fit. Then you hand off the work to fine theorists for analysis.

      Not to mention, it was a piece about GenCon, so it's not terribly surprising the women gamers were "mostly all at the Gen-Con". It's an inherent limit, yes, but not an unreasonable one.

      I thought it was a good observational
  • Wow, so females play games too, huh? And this is new and exciting, because... they're female? As I recall, there was a similar article here a while back; it too took great pains to point out the chromosome difference, and also presented a poorly written analysis of "females in gaming", full of opinions and generalizations masquerading as a culture study. Both of the articles have such a phoney ring to them that I can't help but wonder what motivates them. Ideas, anyone?
    • C'mon, girls in gaming is different than girls eating lunch.

      To use your analogy: If you went to lunch every day and saw maybe one or two other women there, if any, wouldn't you raise your eyebrows a bit to learn that there's a cafe in town with close to a 50/50 ratio of men to women?

      To put it another way, if your girlfriend/wife/sigother looked upon your eating habits in a condescending or jealous manner, constantly trying to brow beat you into 'growing up' and forgetting about 'lunch' alltogether, woul

  • OH boy (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Sevn ( 12012 ) on Sunday August 17, 2003 @12:40PM (#6717543) Homepage Journal
    With most things typically dominated by men you can group the women that participate into two categories:

    #1 Diehard fans. They love whatever game, field of study, etc. with an abundance of passion. They are no different and should be treated no differently than anybody else in the field, game, etc. They are easy to spot because they are the polar opposite of....

    #2 Attention seekers. They enjoy the fact that they get extra attention and feed off it. They get to pretend they are prom queen. They get an ego boost and rush from being the most beautiful girl in the room because they are the only girl in the room. If you were to bring in 50 women off the street to stand around her you'd realize she's really plain after all.

    We had a TON of #2 in the military. The fear of sexual harassment was so ingrained in the men that they pretty much got away with murder.

    In the tech sector, It's mostly been #1's. You can't play with your hair and flirt when shit needs fixed. THE best sysadmin I've ever had the pleasure of learning things from was a woman. Strangly enough, the best officer I ever met in the military was a woman also.
    • I have never really found it hard being a female gamer in a world of male gamers. I have always gotten along much better with males than females. When Mortal Kombat was at its peak in the arcades, I enjoyed going out and beating all the gamer boys who thought that they would never be beaten by anyone, much less a teenage girl. The looks you get from that are priceless, let me tell you. I find it very interesting that you can limit classification of women into just two categories. I always thought the world

  • E3 Girls (Score:4, Funny)

    by M3wThr33 ( 310489 ) on Sunday August 17, 2003 @02:39PM (#6718117) Homepage
    Of the 4 times I've been to E3, I've taken my girlfriend 3 times(Didn't know her on my first time).

    There's always some good stories of people's shock when they realize she's not a babe or some booth worker(She's not bimbo-like, but I guess anything with boobs can be considered one).

    Like this year, she was playing Vice City PC, and some moderately-old mother(Why was SHE here?) was watching her play it with an open jaw. I guess seeing a woman mow down pedestrains wasn't her thing.

    Or two years ago she was testing out some flight chair that moves based on your analog stick, and they used Rogue Squadron to demo it. She got in the chair, started playing(She already got the game at launch) and the guy started telling her how to play, but stopped mid-sentence as she was taking out the towers on the Death Star.

  • I don't know why but... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by GeekGirlie ( 698666 ) on Sunday August 17, 2003 @06:02PM (#6719178)
    I was mildy insulted by this article. I can't quite place my finger on why...but, I think it has something to do with the fact that it made me feel weird to be a female gamer. And, yes, my husband has already pointed out to me that gamers are weird regardless of their gender. I guess that it just gave me this vibe that it was ok for guys to be weird gamers but not for girls. And what was with her being able to spot the "young gamer" by the way she looked?!?!!? I know that she was trying to find out what makes girls tick in the gaming world but right now I want to hide my PS2 and go find a Barbie. :/
    • I want to hide my PS2 and go find a Barbie. :/

      Nah, just ignore them and load up your favorite game instead.

      You are allowed to enjoy your own interrests, and if anyone thinks otherwise it's their friggin' problem.

      Go be as weird as you like!
  • But how can someone actually attend meetings on the rules of a game. Nevermind, I guess I'm just as sad as that is. I'll stop my insult befoer it is fully formed and feel sad.
  • The last time I talked to someone, a woman at that, who regularly attened IT conventions for Palm in places like Las Vegas they were called Both Bunnies.

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