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A Perspective From a Pro Female Gamer 101

Posted by Zonk from the they-do-exist dept.
Via Kotaku, an article at the SF Gate website about the game industry's interest in female gamers, and said gamers' proficiency with aforementioned games. The Swedish 'Girlz of Destruction' pro gaming group is mentioned (much more legit than, say, calender models with console controllers), as is the 'Couples, Computers and Gaming' event at Ruby Skye in San Francisco. From the article: "Lee compares the rush she gets playing video games to her high school soccer matches, and said some women who don't play unfairly equate games with crime and violence. Lee added she's never fired a real gun in her life. She will return this winter to her student life at UC Berkeley, where she is studying environmental policy. Enderle said game developers are still male-dominated, and if game companies want to get serious about recruiting women to play games, they need to recruit women to help make the games as well."
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A Perspective From a Pro Female Gamer More

A Perspective From a Pro Female Gamer

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  • I can see it now... (Score:5, Funny)

    by WildBlue ( 787351 ) on Monday November 13, 2006 @11:53AM (#16824866)
    138,385,532 replies with: "Got Pics?"

  • Interested Parties? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13, 2006 @11:55AM (#16824904)
    Enderle said game developers are still male-dominated, and if game companies want to get serious about recruiting women to play games, they need to recruit women to help make the games as well.

    That's all well and good in theory and probably should be followed. But I'm willing to make a little wager that there are FAR more guys interested in game development than women. It's just how it is.

    Kind of reminds me of the whole "women and engineering" thing. They want more there too, but many women just don't want to be engineers.

    • Re:Interested Parties? (Score:5, Funny)

      by mdarksbane ( 587589 ) on Monday November 13, 2006 @11:58AM (#16824956)
      Agreed.

      The problem isn't that engineers don't like women, it's that women don't like engineers.

      Or as the few girls in my freshman engineering classes used to put it, "The odds are good... but the goods are odd."

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by misleb ( 129952 )
        Or as the few girls in my freshman engineering classes used to put it, "The odds are good... but the goods are odd."


        I know plenty of girls who go for "odd." (probably the same girls making that above statement.)

        -matthew
        • I know a few as well - I'm marrying one :)

          But that doesn't change the fact that there are many more men interested in these fields than women.

    • Re:Interested Parties? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by HappySqurriel ( 1010623 ) on Monday November 13, 2006 @12:09PM (#16825076)
      Personally, I think that the goal should not to be to try to recruit more women into making videogames but to encourage more non-gamers into making videogames; I know that for some people this may seem to be equilivant but it is not.

      The fact is that the Gaming industry is not dominated by men but is dominated by hard-core gamers who happen to be men. As long as the main focus of development (and press) are games that appeal only to hard-core gamers the market will not expand into demographics that currently do not play videogames. A women who doesn't play videogames because they're overly violent and believes that they're childish will likely not pick up Gears of War II: Geardom even if it is designed by a woman; that same woman might pick up The Sims 3: More Expansions even though it is produced by a man.

      • Re:Interested Parties? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by RsG ( 809189 ) on Monday November 13, 2006 @12:27PM (#16825360)
        Two things. First, the one example you listed of a widely appealing game (the Sims) was developed by, you guessed it, serious gamers. Will Wright isn't enough of a gaming geek for ya?

        Second, expecting people to design games when they don't have a clue what makes a game good is a recipe for disaster. One of the most common ideas espoused by writers, moviemakers and artists is that in order to create something you must also enjoy it. Every good writer is also an avid reader, every good director also watches movies, and every halfway competent game designer is also a gamer. This doesn't just apply to the pretentious artistic fringe either; mainstream authors have said the exact same thing (Stephen King comes to mind).

        Maybe more casual gamers getting into game design would be an improvement. Perhaps a gamer whose ideal was a game like the Sims would make a game that would appeal to non-gamers. But non-gamers as game designers? That's a horrible idea.
        • I probably should have been more clear as to what I meant by "making videogames" because, obviously, you can't take someone who has never developed a game and put them in a lead design position; what I meant to say was that you need non-gamers more involved in the design process of videogames.

          A good example of this was Brain Age which was inspired by a conversation with Nintendo's CFO who had very little interest in videogames but (at the time) was working on puzzles in a brain traing book; I don't remember

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by RsG ( 809189 )
            Ah, OK, that sounds a bit more reasonable.

            OTOH, I'm not sure you'd get those sort of results most of the time. Usually when an inexperienced third party is suggesting design decisions to the pros, the result isn't so successful. The classic example would be letting marketing or management design a product over the objections of the experienced developers (who are then often blamed or fired for the product's failure).

            Getting feedback from an semi-objective outsider isn't a bad idea, but letting them direct

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by bla ( 96124 )

              Usually when an inexperienced third party is suggesting design decisions to the pros, the result isn't so successful. The classic example would be letting marketing or management design a product over the objections of the experienced developers (who are then often blamed or fired for the product's failure).

              i think the key here is that what you're describing is marketing attempting to design a product for gamers, whereas the suggestion is (if i'm reading this right) "let's have marketing design a product

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Aladrin ( 926209 )
          My objection to this is that 'widely appealing games' are created by 'gaming geeks' because nobody else has the access to it. If (for example) my sister suddenly had a HUGE gaming idea, and it'd change the world of games forever, she'd have an almost impossible time getting it anywhere NEAR a gaming company, let alone getting it developed and marketted. And if she did manage such a feat, she'd now have to deal with programmers, artists and marketing types all at once, all trying to mainstream her idea. I

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by RsG ( 809189 )
            True, but you could say the same thing about movies. Or book publishing for that matter (son of an author here, so I know this one second hand). This is called "barrier to entry" and it's a huge, inevitable hurdle to new talent. By no means is the barrier to entry for gaming any harder, or any easier, to surmount than it is in other creative industries.

            The flip side of the barrier is that it also screens out some of the crap ideas that shouldn't be made. I'm sure if you asked people, you'd get a large n
      • I think the exact opposite actually. I think there should be more people in charge of game companies that actually play games. Sure some of the programmers, artists, and designers will play games when they have the time but the people who pick what games are made the executives, marketing, and investors by and large aren't interested in games.

        I am actually very surprised at how many people I meet in the industry that don't play games at all. Programmers that are only there because they like "pushing graphic
    • This whole thing is laughable. Female gamers are nothing but a new market segment or marketing gimmick for companies. Apparently you can't even get a female clan together if it isn't sponsored and assembled by a corporation, and now it seems they even need a training facility. If you can't find any female gamers, then at least you can manufacture some (but make sure they're attactive)! I suppose it all makes sense from a corporation's point of view, but from my point of view it's just pathetic. If females d
      • I agree with you on allowing females to not play if they don't want too. We hold four large and profitable lans a year (and have done for the last six years now) and in that time we have held strong a fundamental rule of no girlfriends. The girls that come to our lans are serious gamers like us not trophies and they are given no special treatment - if they can't frag with the best they get ridiculed just like every one else. Strangely enough, at least from our point of view, this has had an interesting e
      • I also like how video gaming is intentionally gender segregated in the interests of equality.

        Ya mean like these titles that are going to bring the women gamers running?

        FTFA:
        "Desperate Housewives will be joined on video game retailer shelves by Charlotte's Web, Bratz Forever Diamonds, Barbie in the 12 Dancing Princesses and Lucinda Green's Equestrian Challenge."

        omfg...if that doesn't make women give up on gaming permanently as being run by a bunch of clueless condescending idiots, I don't know what wil

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by kria ( 126207 )
      I know one of the things that convinced me not to try applying to a game company (I'm a female programmer) has to do with the rumored insane hours. I didn't know if it was true (and I still don't, really), but the idea of working long and erratic hours didn't appeal to me, no matter how much I would have loved to work on AI.

      Is that common to women programmers in general? Does it keep many men out of that industry? Again, I have no way of knowing, but there's one data point.
  • It's been awhile since I was in a comp. sci class (8 years?) but I don't remember seeing any women in my classes.
    Given how very few choice jobs there are in the game market, how often does skill, interest, and gender line up?
    -GiH

    • Re:Might as well ask (Score:5, Insightful)

      by twistedsymphony ( 956982 ) on Monday November 13, 2006 @12:14PM (#16825154) Homepage
      Well it is a bit of a catch 22. The industry is male dominated because the games aren't designed with female interests and sensibilities in mind, games aren't designed with female interests and sensibilities because it's male dominated.

      The only way to break the cycle is for someone to go out of their way to break it. Meaning some company somewhere and some females are going to have to place gender above skill and interest to work as a catalyst for change.

      It's not that these female gamers aren't out there and it's not that there aren't female programmers out there. But if they want to start making these changes they're going to have to pick female developers even if they don't fit exact into the position you're trying to fill, they'll have to make the deal sweet enough that female developers who would normally go into a non-gaming industry would be enticed into joining the gaming industry. And most importantly (and this might be hard for some to grasp) they have to actually listen to their ideas once they've become part of the team.

      My girlfriend is an avid gamer, I've heard her criticisms of modern games and to be quite honest it doesn't seem like it would be all that difficult for game developers to make today's games more attractive to female gamers. In fact most of it is quite simple and painfully obvious once you realize it. I have to believe these companies either aren't listening, or aren't really trying.

    • Re:Might as well ask (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Rachel Lucid ( 964267 ) on Monday November 13, 2006 @12:16PM (#16825182) Homepage Journal
      As a current CS major... the crop is there, but the skills may be lacking for the next few years while public schooling catches women up with their male peers.

      Going through public school, I was one of the few women who kept pushing the highest-level math classes at school (even if I didn't always have the best grades in Calculus), and I think that a lot of interested female gamers might be thinking that math and other science-y type courses correlates directly to computer science, whereas most of the early CS work deals more in patterns and syntax than anything worth the stress of the other courses.

      Making computer science more appealing in general would do oodles more for getting more women in the system than anything else.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by drsmithy ( 35869 )

        Making computer science more appealing in general would do oodles more for getting more women in the system than anything else.

        Have you considered that computer science isn't more appealing to women in general because it's computer science ?

        • No, Computer Science just ain't appealing. There are very few things that appeal to only women in the way there are lots of things assumed to appeal to only men.

          Comic Books and Video Games had the same issues, and now there are lots of women involved in both... the solution? Make it more public-friendly. Games like Mario were clean, colorful, and easy to pick up, and we now have legions of players, lots of which also happen to be female.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Nutria ( 679911 )
            No, Computer Science just ain't appealing. There are very few things that appeal to only women in the way there are lots of things assumed to appeal to only men.

            How exactly do you make CompSci appealing to women? Make it less hard? Talk about purses instead of widget? Ask students how they feel about their assignments? Don't think I'm being flippant or sexist, since I really don't know how else to feminize CompSci.

            (My experience: Back in the mid-1980s at my small state Uni, CompSci classes were about 15
    • Actually, for the most part there had been a decent amount of female students in Comp.Sci. classes. However, it's seemed to decline a bit more recently. Whereas a couple years ago (I believe it was about five or six) the local college had an almost 50/50 ratio of men to women in the Computer Programming Technology/Analyst course. This past year there where no females whatsoever.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by drsmithy ( 35869 )

        Actually, for the most part there had been a decent amount of female students in Comp.Sci. classes. However, it's seemed to decline a bit more recently. Whereas a couple years ago (I believe it was about five or six) the local college had an almost 50/50 ratio of men to women in the Computer Programming Technology/Analyst course. This past year there where no females whatsoever.

        That's because those women were in it for the money, whereas the blokes are in it because they're interested.

    • This is interesting. Years ago I'd agree that there were fewer women than expected. However, I'd say that the trend is changing. I'm a female developer and IS senior manager. I am also an avid gamer. I was an on-again, off-again gamer of adventure games (Zork etc.), and then got into XBOX (D&D Heroes/Baldur's Gate). I also play table Dungeons and Dragons as well as Star Wars. With this resume I was really fighting trying out any of the MMOGs. Star Wars was one that I avoided like the plague (did
  • My freinds girlfriend and the girl i'm currently talking to both like playing games. The games they choose are either RPGs or games with a higher aesthetic appeal (Okami, Shadow of the Colossus). While i do know that some female gamers like running and gunning, most of the female (non tomboyish) gamers would rather play the Sims. So if you know a girly girl interested in gaming give her smash bros. not Halo2. just my 2 cents

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by operato ( 782224 )
      most girlie girls i know prefer to blow people's heads off more than anything else.
      • Also enjoyed are dream crushing, soul destroying, havok creation, bizarre rationalization and back stabbing.

        Can you taste the bitterness?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by shashi ( 56458 )
          Also enjoyed are dream crushing, soul destroying, havok creation, bizarre rationalization and back stabbing.

          Ah! This sounds exactly like the title I've been looking for. Can you tell me the name of this game?

          ;)

    • I saw two college girls at Best Buy that were into Guitar Hero, and said that they played it at home. (I was only there because they were the last place in town to stock Red Octane dance pads.) When I told them about DDR, they seemed interested in that, too. Yes, I've already contemplated suicide for missing the opportunity.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gfxguy ( 98788 )
        I find it highly dubious they knew about GH and not DDR.
        • They knew about DDR; they just didn't know all the specifics. ("Is it expensive", "is it good exercise", "is it hard to learn", etc.)

  • gimmicks? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Turn-X Alphonse ( 789240 ) on Monday November 13, 2006 @12:13PM (#16825142) Journal
    I wish we could see some real hardcore female gamers, I've spoke to several frag dolls on Livejournal and most of them come across as your average girl with very little intrest in anything non-mainstream. It's Final fantasy this and Halo that, which basicly makes them seem all the more gimmicky.

    On the other hand I used to know the most awesome sniper on Team fortress classic and we had some fantastic duels on (what was) my home server.

    But seriously, who cares if someone has a penis or a vagina? You shut up and you play, that way everyones happy and men and women are on equal footing.
    • frag dolls

      Your words, or theirs?

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Saige ( 53303 )
        http://www.fragdolls.com/us/ [fragdolls.com]

        And they are paid by Ubisoft, but don't let that make you think they're not really gamers. I've spent time with a few of them, and about half are members of the PMS Clan [pmsclan.com] - they're serious gamers who happened to get a job where they get paid to do gaming stuff. A friend of mine tried out for them, and would have made it were she not already busy with her helicopter lessons - and she kicks serious gaming ass.

        They also won the Ghost Recon tournament at PAX in 2005.

  • Pro Female Gamers (Score:3, Funny)

    by Pfhorrest ( 545131 ) on Monday November 13, 2006 @12:19PM (#16825240) Homepage Journal
    I think most gamers are pro-female. The more the merrier :-)

    Though I'm sure there's a few woman-haters out there...

  • Pro Gamers? (Score:2, Funny)

    by eno2001 ( 527078 )
    What the hell is this world coming to? Professional gaming? You've GOT to be kidding me. It used to be that at one point in time, the things that were professional implied some kind of useful skill. Things like, oh... being a doctor, a scientist, an engineer. Those sorts of things. Then the term got extended a bit to recreational activities, but they still needed useful skills. Things like, oh... chess and various REAL sports (I exclude golf) which required mental and physical accumen. But now we ha

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You forgot...

      RTS: Real Time Strategy.

      You know, like Chess (your example) only it's not restricted to turn-based play and offers more flexibility.

      But I can see why you didn't include RTS - doing so would undermine your argument.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by _Sprocket_ ( 42527 )
      Cute. Just for giggles - do one now about "real" sports.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gfxguy ( 98788 )
      All "professional" means is that you're getting paid, otherwise you're a hobbiest. That's all. You're reading too much into it.

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      And what, exactly, skills are needed by a profesional gamer in a "real" game like say... football need. (American)

      Well, running real fast could be useful next time you're chased by lions I guess, but we don't see that many where I'm from. Throwing and catching a ball? Useful training for sports I guess (but that isn't real world!), but the last time someone tossed me something from further away then across a room outside a playing field was... never? What - you make plays? Last I checked the coaches make

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by 4D6963 ( 933028 )

      What the hell is this world coming to? Professional gaming?

      lol, professional = making a living out of an activity, no matter whether the activity is engineering, proxenetism or playing Pac Mac.

    • There is more to pro gaming then just "professional mouse clickers," they are also accomplished linguists. For example, "Joo g0t pwnd, lolz" roughly translates to "I just beat you in a duel."
    • Oh please. Of all the stupid shit people pay for, you're bitching about this? I can't even tell if you're joking or not, because this sort of opinion is sincerely espoused by many.

      On the assumption that you're serious, how is "Oh, I can hit a ball with a stick" any more valuable a skill? You claim it requires "physical accumen", but there's no real argument for that -- it's eye-hand coordination, same as gaming. The running around in baseball is often incidental and there are plenty of fatass baseball

  • Gals and games? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Endo13 ( 1000782 ) on Monday November 13, 2006 @12:26PM (#16825356)
    Okay, so we've got the perspective of a couple female gamers that like... eh... the same games guys play? So if they like the same games as everyone else, how does their perspective actually tell us much of anything about targeting the females that don't like these kinds of games? Personally, I don't think the problem really is coming up with games that target females. From what I've seen, the situation is that most females simply don't care to play video games in general, and the games available won't really change that a whole lot. However, if there IS a key to getting females more involved with video games, it has to be interaction with other real people in-game. I seriously doubt you'll ever get most them to play single-player games, no matter how 'girly' they are. Machines just don't hold nearly as much interest for females as they do for males. As far as I know, there's only one 'real' (as opposed to simple online games on websites, or similar fare) video game that's ever had mass-appeal for both sexes, and that's World of Warcraft. And look at the huge amount of interaction in that game.

    Personally, I'll be extremely amazed if the Desperate Housewives game ever shows itself to be more than yet another Desperate Attempt At Making Money Off A Popular TV Show.
    • I think you're forgetting the Sims. I knew tons of women who played it but very few guys.

      I can imagine a desperate housewives game being like the Sims, and if so, I can imagine it doing very well...

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Endo13 ( 1000782 )
        Fair enough. But (to borrow just a bit from "ofcourseyouare"), I would say TheSims is one of those exceptions that proves the rule. In this case my point being that females as a general rule put a lot more priority on socialization than males do. Which TheSims still manages to provide plenty of, despite being primarily a single-player game. Also from what I have seen, most of the time when gals do play single-player games, they do it with one or more friends present. I still disagree with you though on Des
        • Almost every single girl I know plays some combination of Square-esque RPGs. Extrapolating out, I'd hazard that the following elements are required to make games 'appealing' to women:
          • Hot guys with fashionable outfits. Bye bye Generic Marine Shooter Man, hello Vincent Valentine/Arthas.
          • Character development, including but not limited to wangst, fluff, conflict, betrayal and romance. Does not include "revenge against demons who killed my wife/girlfriend/sister/dog".
          • Romantic plotlines that go beyond, "B
          • That's an insightful bit that deserves more than a 1 score.
          • Well, I'm a Comp. Sci. graduate and I love strategy games, speed and practice sport shooting in my free time, but thank you for re-enforcing the stereotypes! Not all women are the same, just like not all men are good looking gigolos or hardcore gamers ;)
            • Meh, I'm also a female CompSci graduate. So, for that matter, are a lot of my friends. And I'm not ashamed to say it; I play a lot of the same games as my finance (and a lot of different ones), but often for different reasons.

              A stereotype is a place to start, more than anything else, and yeah; they're generalized and won't apply to everyone. What I was trying to point out, I suppose, is that when most men discuss women gamers they discuss them from the point of "women like to play X types of games". What
              • Mostly because it seems the last person anyone actually asks are women themselves.
                You're right! :)

                Regarding stereotypes: I admit I am rather borderline to the mainstream image of what women are and should be (i.e., I'm not dying if I am not wearing make up, or if I don't have that Chanel perfume).
                But I think part of the problem is also that many women don't make time for playing because they consider it to be a childish or typically "manly" use of time. (There are also many men who consider it a poin
  • Few of them come "out of the closet", so to speak. Simple reason: They want to play a game, not find a date. As one of them put it (concerning MMORPGS): "I switched to playing male characters. It's just more playing and less inane come-ons".

    When it comes to shooters, there's also a bit of a macho thing going on that quite a few guys simply refuse to play with a girl. Consider: Being beaten in a "manly" games by a girl! The only thing that could be "worse" than that would be to lose against a clan that only

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by josteos ( 455905 )
      Asia Carrera (sp?) used to play A LOT of Unreal Tournament. She hosted her own server, with her own custom models & maps. So yeah, it might have been a big draw to show up & see her run around in her self-made topless outfit. Lots of folks didn't last long cuz she WTFPWN3D most everybody. She was damn good. I seem to recall she was actually ranked in the top 10 (maybe 3?) players worldwide at one point. She bbq'd my ass more times than I can count.

      Her ISP was @Home, and when it died the server
    • Does this honestly happen in MMOs? I've played quite a few MMOs with female friends playing female characters, and I've also rolled a couple female toons myself, and I've never ever seen or heard of anyone getting hit on in tells. Of course you'll run into idiots and thirteen-year-olds that harrass people for shits and giggles, but that happens with everyone. The only game I've never gotten around to is WoW, so maybe if it's there...

      FPS there is somewhat of a bigger problem, just because there is a metric

  • Next (Score:4, Insightful)

    by crossmr ( 957846 ) on Monday November 13, 2006 @01:21PM (#16826178) Journal
    Stories like this I think are what perpetuates the divide between genders, race, religion, etc
    Continually reminding people of their differences, whether in a negative or supposedly positive manner, is what keeps people focused on being different. Just let people be. This isn't rocket science.

    If companies are worried the game they're making isn't appealing to females, take a look at it. You don't need to make a public spectacle out of it. Take a look at what kind of games DO appeal to the masses. The Sims and World of Warcraft seem to be the two games with the biggest draw. We don't need another mmorpg and the Sims pretty much has its legions of loyal fans that don't play anything else outside of arcade/parlour type games.

    Whats this mean? You're out of luck. Just make the game you want to make and move on. Try to keep the thong platemail to a minimum.

  • Women don't need games as compensation (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ofcourseyouare ( 965770 ) * on Monday November 13, 2006 @01:25PM (#16826254)
    Why don't most women want to play games involving shooting/ hunting/ fighting? Simple: they don't need them to express their inner feelings, desires and predilections. But a lot of men do.

    In a bit more detail, and please forgive the generalisations for the sake of argument...

    * Our brains are the same as they were 10,000 years ago, when most humans lived in hunter-gatherer societies, where (as is the case with such societies today, on the whole) men tended to do hunting, jobs requiring bursts of strength and a bit of fighting, and women tended to do gathering and child raising. The brains of males and females were to some extent hard-coded to allow individuals to do their respective jobs more effectively.

    * Cut, like the 2001 bone/spaceship shot, to the present day. We still have the same brains with the same hard coding.
    - In modern Western culture, women can still do the things for which nature predisposes them: gathering, child raising, working co-operatively in groups.
    - But men, by contrast, find many of their innate predispositions largely useless. You can hunt for fun, (provided you avoid the Vice President); you can go to the gym and do your feats of strength; you can get into fights in the street and end up in jail; and you can join the army and fight -- but these are choices with many obvious drawbacks.
    - Normal life for most of us is the life of Dilbert. Many of those instinctive aptitudes of men which relate to hunting and fighting are pretty much useless; but the traditional skills of women are as relevant as they ever were, and now carry much greater rewards in the co-operation based modern office.

    * This is why men play games: to enter in the imagination a world where their natural hunting and fighting skills are vital.

    * This is why most women don't play typical console games: they don't need a game to experience childbirth, or child raising, or socialising, or co-operative working. They get that from real life.

    * Lastly: some exceptions that prove the rule...
    - The Sims works as a game for women because, as dolls have done since the year dot, it's a game which dramatises socialising.
    - There are of course huge differences between different individuals of all genders; but I think the generalisations above are valid for most males and most females.
    - Of course men have aptitudes other than hunting and fighting, such as problem solving -- a skill still very useful today in the real world, and of course there are many puzzles that involve solving puzzles. But there are few games where you can play at being, say, a software developer or a chip designer -- because if that's what turns you on, and you're good enough at it, you can just go and do it for real...
    • Indeed. The sorts of stories and activities that men like tend to translate very easily into video games. The sorts of stories and activities that women like usually don't work as video games. In other words, there's a fundamental difference in the interests of men and women, and adding cute baby animals to Grand Theft Auto or toning down the violence in Halo isn't going to change that one bit.

      If anything, feminizing video games is just going to make them less fun for men. Let's not screw up our hobby b

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by drsmithy ( 35869 )

      But men, by contrast, find many of their innate predispositions largely useless. You can hunt for fun, (provided you avoid the Vice President); you can go to the gym and do your feats of strength; you can get into fights in the street and end up in jail; and you can join the army and fight -- but these are choices with many obvious drawbacks.

      This is why we have sport. Sport is, essentially, an outlet for all the "manly stuff" that "men" don't get to do anymore. Team sport is basically warfare without al

  • Is it really a lack of women? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by badboy_tw2002 ( 524611 ) on Monday November 13, 2006 @01:41PM (#16826464)
    Or a lack of themes other than sex or violence? There are a lot of males in fashion design and film, and they make a lot of products that appeal to women. They manage to come up with shows, products, plot lines, and characters that appeal to women, and yet somehow its impossible to do for games because there aren't enough women engineers? I think the main problem is that a lot of game designers grew up on a particular diet of certain themes in games, and that's what they know and like. It takes a lot of creativity and ingenuity to break the mold, and maybe that's what's really missing.
  • Wouldn't a "Pro Female Gamer" be someone who professionally plays female characters? Or did they mean "a female pro gamer"? Admitted, that combination of words is so unusual as to give people pause when typing it, but I think the rules of English grammar back me up on this one...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by slcdb ( 317433 )
      Wouldn't a "Pro Female Gamer" be someone who professionally plays female characters?
      No, I think a pro-female gamer is any gamer, either male or female, playing male, female, or even non-gendered characters, who happens to be in support of the existence of females. As in the opposite of an anti-female gamer. :P
  • OK, normally I'm only a low-ranking brownshirt in the Grammar Nazi heierarchy, but I had to re-read this passage two or three times before I figured out what was meant. For the sake of saving others from the same headache, I give to you the Amazing Comma:

    and said some women, who don't play, unfairly equate games with crime and violence.

    I mean, really; I was trying to figure out why women who cheat at games don't make the same associations...

  • The article suggests that one of the reasons women tend not to play video games is because the games boxes feature scantily clad women. (The quote was something like erect nipples and engorged red lips).

    Let's compare Games to Magazines.

    Men's Magazines....women on the cover with erect nipples and engorged red lips.
    Women's Magazines....women on the cover with erect nipples and engorged red lips.

    Ok, so ... maybe the women on the cover of women's magazines aren't portrayed in quite as sexual a light as on men'
  • Someone needs to invent a controller that you have to stick your fingers in to make it work. Maybe add a lick activated fire button, and cover the whole thing with fur. Rumble, gotta have rumble.

    You could call it the Microsoft XY-Box, the Nintendo Vaag, or the Sony OPP.

    The Circuit City parking lot would be full of Subarus for a week.

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