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Games Entertainment

Girls In The Game Chair 57

Posted by Zonk from the sit-your-butt-down dept.
The site The Game Chair, which does interesting experiential reviews of game titles, has up an editorial from new reviewer Maggie. She once again brings up the oft-discussed topic of women in gaming, and tries to throw some new light on the subject. From the article: "I always bristle a bit at the idea of creating a game that 'appeals to women.' After all, no one game appeals to all people - so why in the world would one game appeal to all women gamers? Each of us is looking for different things in a game, regardless of sex. I don't play first person shooters because the movement of the camera makes me feel nauseous - not because I'm a girl."
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Girls In The Game Chair More

Girls In The Game Chair

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  • Hrmm (Score:4, Funny)

    by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Wednesday June 08, 2005 @09:39PM (#12764742) Homepage Journal
    " Each of us is looking for different things in a game, regardless of sex."

    Duh. I have empirical data that says gaming and sex are mutually exclusive.

  • The problem (Score:3, Insightful)

    by superpulpsicle ( 533373 ) on Wednesday June 08, 2005 @09:51PM (#12764817)
    The big problem with discussing women in video game is the word "Sex". Why can't this topic be discussed using the word "Gender". That's where the big problem start or that's where the problem is.

    • are you 5 years old? The word sex and the word gender are interchangable and are context specific. I would imagine most /.'ers are a bit past giggling at the gender context of the word sex.

      • Re:The problem (Score:4, Informative)

        by Jacius ( 701825 ) on Thursday June 09, 2005 @02:26AM (#12766120)
        In some circles there is considered to be a significant distinction between gender and sex. While sex is always based on biology/anatomy (chromosomes, genitalia, etc.), gender is increasingly being considered more related to mentality/society (although historically, it has been just a synonym for sex). While a person may be anatomically a man (for example), they may have mental tendencies which are more commonly associated with women. (Some have hypothesized that this dichotomy between a person's sex and gender at least partially explains homosexuality, trans-sexualism, etc.)

        In the case of games, the most likely choice of 'sex' or 'gender' to describe what game developers are targetting is indeed gender. GTA is targetting a 'masculine' gender (aggression, destroying your foes, etc. are considered masculine), but there are men who don't enjoy that type of game, as well as women who do enjoy it. As long as someone enjoys the game, it doesn't matter what sex they are.

        On the other hand, a game which (somehow...) required the use or presence of only one sex of genitalia would be clearly targetted at a sex (not a gender), since members of the other sex would be unable to play, regardless of whether they think the game is interesting. (I'll leave the details of this amazing game to your imagination. But they probably already have it in Japan.)

        By the way, I 'learned' all this gender crap in "English 106: Advanced Composition". I probably would have avoided it, but I was tricked by the course title: I thought it was going to be about writing, but it was actually just a secret code-word for Social Advocacy (i.e. being sensitive to those different from you, and pondering women's rights, gay rights, minority rights, etc.).

    • Re:The problem (Score:2, Informative)

      by Meh ( 50164 )
      Because nouns have gender, people have sex
  • I know A LOT of gamers. I mean, I probably know more hardcore gamers than 'normal folk'. But I also know a lot of 'normal folk' who play computer games. The hardcore gamers (of both genders), play a lot of different games and aren't seperated by gender. For example, some of the girls play FPS, but some of the guys play The Sims too. On the other hand, the 'normal folk' gamers are more clearly split and defined. The regular gaming guys play mostly FPS or RTS and most of the regular girls play mostly 'the s
    • I agree. There should be no gaming lines as far as gender goes. We (female gamers) are not as rare as society seems to think we are and by creating a game or games aimed at a female audience would just be supporting an annoying stereotype.
      • Amen! I'm in clan SPANDEX [ sDX| ] (here in Australia on the GameArena ladder for RTCW: Enemy Territory) and we have a great (older) female captain. She's great at being 'mother goose' and keeping us all in line as far as behaviour and being on time for matches. The best thing is that everybody treats her as an equal, which is a nice change in gaming circles.
        • A couple of nights ago I joined an MC raid in WoW (very difficult dungeon, takes 40 people to beat) that was using teamspeak. Only group leaders got to talk in TS (otherwise it would've been total caos) and suprisingly two of those were female. Nobody had issues with it, no statement even refering to the fact. That got me wondering, how many girls actually do play the game (and hardcore at that) and secondly, are gamers as a whole actually growing up in respect to accepting that. I still have dreadful memor
  • if a guy said these same things, about women gamers, it would probably be discredited, despite the fact that most of what she said is common sense (eg one whole gender doesn't all like one specific thing). The only reason why it was posted here on /. is the simple fact that a woman posted it (again, not bashing, just saying)

  • Modded Sexist but... (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    1.) Targetting Women is nothing big, they target blacks whites, christians, homosexuals etc.

    It's a nod to your purchasing power and catering to you, if it feels like what they make is degrading perhaps you should be re-evaluating your presence in the group.

    2.) Nausea - Several girls I know had this, there is talk of spacial awaareness. Claiming a weak stomach doesn't get your gender off the hook. WE WANT TO FRAG YOU COME ONLINE!.

    3.) You aren't novel for being a girl who plays RPGs no one cares! Your b
    • Ah yes, the cutting wit and incisive observation of the anonymous coward. Perhaps you should come back when you have a substantive contribution to make? Or perhaps I forget myself and where I am, this is, after all, SlashDot, I should've known better than to expect anything else beyond a knee jerk response.
    • 2.) Nausea - Several girls I know had this, there is talk of spacial awaareness. Claiming a weak stomach doesn't get your gender off the hook. WE WANT TO FRAG YOU COME ONLINE!.

      I know a guy who has this problem too and dislikes FPS for that reason. As far as I understand him, the problem comes from his eyes and his inner ear giving him conflictig data about his movement.

      Eyes: We're reunning and twisting through this maze
      Inner ear: I'm sitting in a chair and going nowhere

      For some people, this causes mot
      • When I first started playing Wolfenstein 3D when I was about 12, I experienced this problem as well. However, the game was so cool at that time that I just didn't care. I eventually grew out of it. Now, Wolfenstein 3D is a lot less detailed than some of the current 3D games. I imagine that just learning to play first person shooters with the latest and greatest would probably cause more serious nausea than Wolf 3D did. Maybe they should start from some older games and work their way up to the current stock?
      • ...For some people, this causes motion sickness, and it is not limited to girls.

        Yeah, I (male) have always had a touch of this, always in games with a first-person perspective. Years back I was addicted to the original Descent, but I had to take regular breaks as I started to feel funny. Some games are worse for this than others, and I've usually managed to play through it.
      • first game I played with lots of motion was descent 3. I played it on a 21 inch crt with quad sound in the room and for the first couple months after I started playing it I got nauseous and dizzy after a while. Eventually I got used to it (I played the game a lot - it was quite addictive) and the feeling went away and hasnt come back since. And yes, I am a guy, so I guess my point is it happens to anyone gender regardless, but I think its something that most ppl can get used to if they get exposed to it en
    • perhaps you should be re-evaluating your presence in the group.

      So I should get a sex change because I don't have the exact same opinions as all other women???

    • 1.) Targetting Women is nothing big, they target blacks whites, christians, homosexuals etc.

      Really? Where is the video game targeted at African Americans? Whites? Christians? Did I miss, super crusader 2k5?

      It's refreshing to read there is a women out there who ISN'T expecting the game industry to specifically cater to her.

      2.) Nausea - Several girls I know had this, there is talk of spacial awaareness. Claiming a weak stomach doesn't get your gender off the hook. WE WANT TO FRAG YOU COME ONLINE!

  • I couldn't pass it up... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by paploo ( 238300 ) on Wednesday June 08, 2005 @10:45PM (#12765144)
    "I don't play first person shooters because the movement of the camera makes me feel nauseous - not because I'm a girl."

    Okay, the inner sarcastic bastard (picture Dave Foley on News Radio) just has to say this: Maybe you just feel nauseous playing FPS games *because* you're a girl?

    Okay, I'm done--mod me down please. I'm gonna go back to being a responsible adult now. I just couldn't pass a set-up like that. :)
    • I have to confess I thought the very same thing. And to all the blokes who say "ahhh but I feel nauseous when I play FPS games to!" well I hate to break it to you but your big girls too. Mwuahahahahaa
    • You were joking, but that seems to be my experience. Both my current GF and the two of my past who would actually play video games had the same "seasickness" issue with any 3d-style game. Never had any of my gamer buddies hork on my couch tho.

      One of the exes now loves CRPGs, and the other puzzlers like Myst.
    • Women's visual systems are wired differently enough from men's that I wouldn't doubt it. We're able to detect much more subtle differences in color than men are, for example. ("What do you mean, they both look white to you? This is clearly eggshell and this one is clearly snowflake." - Has a biological explanation!)

      I have the same problem. Not just with FPS, but most 3D games make me dizzy. I tried to play some GameCube Sonic game (I forget the exact title), where you go really really fast around loops an

  • Games for Girls (Score:5, Insightful)

    by teratogenicbenzene ( 887723 ) on Wednesday June 08, 2005 @11:42PM (#12765492) Homepage
    Actively targeting Girls/Women as a demographic for computer games is sort of barking up the wrong tree.

    It reminds me of a move made by the Lionel toy train company back in the sixties. They made a train set where the locomotive and cars were molded in pastel colored plastics. They overlooked the possibility that the type of girl who would play with model trains probably didn't want them in exceptionally unrealistic pastel shades.

    As a husband to a wife addicted to both Halos and PoP, I can say that there are plenty of women attracted to video games for the same reason your average slashdotter is.
    (Or maybe I just got really really lucky...yeah, that's it).

  • Each of us is looking for different things in a game, regardless of sex.

    Yeah, all of us are looking for sex....
    right? Wow, that makes me feel...warm and...fuzzy.

  • In Summary (Score:4, Informative)

    by Flyboy Connor ( 741764 ) on Thursday June 09, 2005 @02:48AM (#12766170)
    Summary of the article:

    To sell games, make good games, do not try to invent a game that appeals to an arbitrarily construed focus group.

    But I assume, to be a columnist, you have to write at least 500 words per article.

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