I remember my sister got really good at Parasol Stars. Waaay better than I ever was.
I mostly agree with what you say (I donât think the main consumers are necessarily juvenile in personality as much as they get what theyâre given because thereâs no diversity), but I find it terribly sad that society is currently set up in such a limited and defining way and if anyone suggested that maybe we move to an outlook that doesnât strip us down to the idea of whether we have an âinnieâ or an âoutieâ there are so many people that say âwhy bother, itâs always been this way!â As if living with something thatâs okay but not great for some of us is preferable to discovering a way to live that is great for all of us simply because it doesnât take any energy.
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Youâre not wrong, but the fact that the problem exists in many other spaces apart from gaming is not per se an excuse to wait for it to resolve in other spaces, and just sit on our hands in gaming. I think work needs to be done on many fronts, and I think work can be done in gaming, too. Now Iâm not sure exactly how you intended the above to come across, nor can I know your true intention, but what I can do is tell you what it sounds like to me, and it sounds a wee bit like an excuse to not do all this difficult work in the space of gaming.
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So girls canât be nerdy, and geeky, and not into sports, and ridiculed for liking things like games, comics, sci-fi, fantasy? You think being picked on as a nerd is solely a white, male, thing? Because itâs really not. If they are still angry at being bullied, being angry with women who game who are bringing in a cultural criticism of games is entirely misplaced.
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Your suspicion is not misplaced, but let me be totally clear: I think gaming can be a vanguard for this change. Young women still play games, so the economic argument is already there, it just needs some momentum to reach a breaking point. The only reason itâs not done yet is inertia - and thatâs hard to change, but not impossible, and the more ladies we have playing games and loving games, the more momentum there is to changing that inertia!
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You know, itâs funny; I was just listening to a podcast aimed at Star Trek fans, and had to shut the damn thing off because the host had, on a previous episode, bashed Big Bang Theory for being ânerd blackfaceâ, and he doubled down on that in a later episode (the one I shut off.) And that was his argument: here you have actors portraying stereotypical nerdy behavior, for entertainment, and theyâre not nerds, they didnât get beat up for being nerds! Nevermind that Marina Sirtis wasnât a sci-fi fan, or that the best Trek was directed by people who arenât fansâŚbut I digress. The thing was, it was pretty clear that after being outcasts themselves, they want to now police who gets and who doesnât get to be in the club.
It probably doesnât help that in some of the criticism of Gamergate Iâve seen, people use âgamerâ as a pejorative, shorthand for âmisogynist assholeâ. If you do that, youâre not helping. And if you were the type of person who made fun of the ânerdsâ in high schoolâcâmon, ladies, I remember high school, surely you do, tooâyou were part of the problem before you were part of the solution. And donât get me started on the people who get pissed at âBroniesâ because theyâre, to quote one critic, âshitting on things made for girls.â Look, if you want to smash gender norms, donât get pissed when boys like MLP, OK? (As an aside, one of my kids is addicted to the MLP mobile game, even if itâs literally impossible to win without spending money. Sometimes the journey is more important than the destination.)
The indie titles, thoughâŚtheyâd better be interesting. I was exploring Dear Esther when one of my daughters came up, watched for a minute or so, declared, âBoring,â and walked off. Now she plays those micromanagement games. I donât get it.
UhâŚyeahâŚthe game that singlehandedly saved Nintendo when the Wii-U failed?
Though to be fair, I hadnât taken Zelda seriously, even though Iâm an adventure game fan, because it was a console game. My loss.
Iâm scratching my head at this. Is the sister buying in to the notion that a âgamerâ is someone who plays high-end console games, or what? About half the gaming population is women, but thatâs only if you count everything that âhardcoreâ gamers count as ânot gamesâ, like mobile.
By the âhardcore gamerâ metric, Iâm not a gamer. But that doesnât matter imho, because some of the most popular games of the past 10 years involve flinging birds at pigs, crushing candy, matching jewels, waiting tables, and so on.
One of the most popular games of the past 15 was about farming, for Godâs sake.
Not only that, and maybe it was because I never had money for buying games when I was a kid, but: some of those super-fun games can be implemented easily now. You can implement Tetris in Python in less than 100 lines.
I guess what Iâm driving at is this:
And thatâs certainly what we need: more games featuring women, made by women, willing to tell stories about pop stars, witches, and queens, willing to work in palettes beyond army drab.
Full stop, right there. Because once you go to here,
But that will be meaningless if our understanding of what a game is and who a gamer can be does not expand wide enough or visibly enough to reach and include my little sister.
Is your little sister on social media? Does she have an iPhone? Does she have an iPad? Iâm sorry, but Iâve had to block all the popular social media games on Facebook because Iâm inundated with requests on games. Theyâre almost exclusively from women, to the point that I get weirded out when I get a request from a guy. Your sister seems to live in a bubble, and I almost envy her for it. It seems like the only way to reach your sister is to put a cardboard cutout in a mall. Donât know about the malls near you, but the one nearest to me looks like this:
(No, not reallyâŚbut not far off. Give it about 5 years.)
I honestly think that most people never make a game for the reason Iâve never made a game: just making a game is hard. Once you get beyond that, making a game that people want to play is damned hard. Having said that, there are so many tools for learning and for creating these days. Remember how there were so many games back when computer companies shipped with BASIC interpreters? Itâs easier now. I know what some of you are thinking: a small team of women isnât going to make a nonviolent game as compelling and beautiful as Bioshock Infinite. But hereâs the thing: you donât have to make a beautiful FPS to make a compelling game. Hereâs a screenshot from one of the most compelling games I can think of:
http://venturebeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/kq1.png
I played that thing for hours. I wish I had that kind of time todayâŚ
And if thereâs any good news to be had out of all this, at least the Game of War Kate Upton ad campaign didnât work all that well. The same night they revealed her, Supcercell revealed the Liam Neeson Taken-themed ad, and there was a heck of a lot more chatter about that than about Kate Uptonâs boobs, and how they fit in a toga.
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This is all depressingly true.
âShe doesnât know about Never Alone. She doesnât know about Gone Home.â
The metaphor Iâve used for the game industry is that for the longest time, it was as if the movie industry only made action movies with Arnold Schwarzenegger. People who didnât like that kind of movie understood that âmovies werenât for them.â Sometimes the industry stretched itself, and it was an action-comedy with Arnold Schwarzenegger, or action-romance. So when other types of movies came out that didnât have Arnold Schwarzenegger, people who liked the Arnold Schwarzenegger movies said, "Thatâs not a movie!" and people who might be interested in this new thing responded with, âNo thanks, Iâm not into movies.â
No, thatâs the game industry. It puts all the effort and resources (both development and marketing) into making games for adolescent boys (despite the fact that the demographics donât support this anymore), and while games are sometimes made for âgirls,â itâs usually done so grudgingly by developers and derided by âgamer culture,â ironically a tiny but vocal subset of those who play games.
The issue is not that characters are depicted unrealistically - itâs about the meaning. Disproportioned male characters exist to fulfill a power fantasy of boys, disproportioned female characters exist to fulfill a sexual fantasy of (assumed heterosexual) boys.
This is unfortunately true, but itâs a symptom of the bigger problem of gaming culture - the audience, the developers and marketing. The industry has been very good at self-selecting developers like the ones who already worked in the industry and who wanted to make games like the ones the industry made in the past. The industry trained consumers about what constituted a âgameâ in a very, very narrow sense such that it cultivated a particular audience as well. Anything that falls outside that traditional notion of what a âgameâ is has a limited audience that seems to consist of people who accepted the narrow definition of game but at the same time werenât entirely satisfied with it. People totally alienated by the mainstream definition of âgameâ arenât even part of the conversation. And meanwhile, the form is stuck in a rut because of the limited exploration of what a game could be outside that âacceptedâ definition, without the audience (or the toolset or infrastructure) to make exploring the possibilities really economically feasible.
Itâs not just marketing, though. Itâs what happens when the entire industry is so male-dominated, even as the demographics of game purchasing has become pretty evenly split by gender. I work in the game industry and Iâve worked at companies that had only a couple women in various development positions - and that was a lot, relative to other companies. There were a lot of women who wanted to work in development, but they usually got shunted off into support positions. Thereâs been this feedback loop of man-boys making games for boys who in turn aspire to be game-developing man-boys. So start to finish thereâs been a particular culture thatâs dominated the industry. Luckily itâs not been the entire industry, and that âotherâ portion is getting bigger, albeit slowly.
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Prompts an honourable mention for Psychonauts.
And Fez. OMFG.
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Hell yes. And STILL the reigning Cham-Pi-On of Eskan Village, Saudi Arabia. Sleep was lost, tears were shed, but the crown was retained.
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Itâs not just the marketing, but I can see a case for the current lack of diversity in game dev employment being an outgrowth of the marketing of our own childhood, though. The same thing that happened in the tech industry: women stopped being as interested in this stuff because the marketing from 20-30 years ago said that it wasnât for women.
Part of what created the bottleneck is that women who mightâve been great game devs were steered away from the industry because they were told at age 8 that videogames werenât for them.
The remedy now is to recruit from outside the games industry. HR being fundamentally borked is a whole 'nother convo, but the only way to make the industry more diverse is to be able to roll up to someone who hasnât been in the games industry and make them want to be a part of it, rather than requiring that they already have ample experience. That, and fixing the pipleine problem at the level of marketing materials as well!
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Iâm a 53 year old female gamer and I started gaming before the Internet⌠before the Internet told me that gaming was only for men. Zork (and itâs copious sequels), Myst (and itâs sequels) - many early games had no gendered protagonist. You were simply a ânameless genderless adventurerâ. Later there were the WRPG games where I could choose a female - Baldurâs Gate, Icewind Dale and the Neverwinter Nights series of games. After I moved from PC games to a console (Dreamcast) there was Lara Croft, Phantasy Star, and many other games⌠where I could still play as a female character. Currently I play a huge variety of games - though mostly shooter games like Destiny, Far Cry⌠or WRPGâs like The Witcher, DA: Inquisition, Skyrim, Mass Effect etc. Currently I just started Dishonored (a stealth game) which I am enjoying. Itâs also a first person perspective with a voiceless protagonist (so far) so while the cover might show a male, my Corvo has boobs by simple virtue of âI am the protagonistâ.
If your sister feels that gaming isnât for her, then she simply hasnât found the right games yet. Gaming is massive and offers a plethora of choices⌠non-violent games like the Sims and Minecraft to games where âviolenceâ is just a simple win/loss mechanism. Competitive FPS games (Destiny, MAG, CoD, Battlefield) are not violent video games - they are team based games with a win/loss point structure. Games like MAG had many female players and could be played doing repair work, reviving team mates which put many people at the top of the end game leaderboards with 0 kills. âKillsâ in these games is no different than taking a pawn in chess⌠itâs a game mechanism. Iâm currently playing Destiny which is similar to WoW and other MMOâs in that it is very focused on teamwork in the Raids, Strikes, etc. Communication with your teammates, strategy⌠and just simply having fun, itâs all part of these types of âviolentâ games.
Game communities are all different. I have never had an issue in either Battlefield or Destiny with being a vocal female. My gender has been totally irrelevant. In CoD, I did encounter issues, mostly with younger boys. Internet based game communities are the same. There are many, many, many gaming communities where if you love gaming you will be welcomed as a gamer. However, like any community, if you come into a fashion community saying that fashion is misogynistic and needs to be eradicated, or if you go into a golfing community saying that all golf courses should be turned into low income housing or go into a feminist community claiming that women have achieved equality⌠then you encounter resistance.
Iâve always been a part of various online gaming communities. My gender has never been an issue and I often discuss my specific female point of view of a game. I generally present these as my own personal opinions based on playing the game - and not as a social viewpoint of âall womenâ. Anyone who loves games or want to find games to love is welcomed in gaming communities. Youâll find a vast diversity of people in most gaming communities and if you have a passion for video games or honestly want to find out more information about games you might like - youâll be welcomed regardless of your age, race, gender or sexual orientation, even if you make these things known. Like all internet communities based on a hobby⌠the most important thing is simply an obvious love of the hobby.
Donât believe the press. Gaming and gamers are not misogynists⌠they are just regular people. Iâm sure once your sister (or you) starts talking to gamers or joining gaming communities - this becomes pretty obvious. If she loved gaming when she was young⌠there will be games for her to love now that sheâs older. A short while ago I played a nightfall strike in Destiny⌠myself being a 53 year old female, and my two companions being a gentleman in his mid-60âs and a young man who was in high school. Where else but in video gaming can such disparate people come together to chat, strategize, help each other out and battle the bad guy. 
Oh⌠and advertising⌠itâs the same for gaming as it is for fashion. Men donât buy games because of a sexy woman on the cover, the same as we women donât buy tights and bustiers just because theyâre the current fashion. We all need to question advertising⌠otherwise I truly would be buying $50 bottles of de-wrinkle cream so I look like the 20 year old woman in the advert.
(and apologies for the long comment!! I ramble!)
EDIT:
EDIT: Iâm limited to three posts apparently, so was not ignoring Mindysan and others⌠just couldnât figure out a way to reply.
Regarding my own experiences⌠many women have positive experiences/relationships in the gaming world - I play with these women and read their blogs on gaming sites every day. Iâm certainly not being dismissive of those who have had negative experiences, but as I clearly noted, it depends a lot on the gaming community (whether itâs an internet community or the community relating to a specific game). Gaming has also evolved and changed over time (as it always has done), and being a female in many video games or game communities truly is âno big dealâ nowadays.
Harassment is definitely an issue in gaming and it always has been, but itâs not solely a âwomanâs issueâ - it affects male and female gamers. Harassment is done by and to female gamers, and done by and to male gamers⌠itâs not a one way street of men harassing women. Solving the harassment of women in gaming merely puts salve on a wounded arm, without addressing the gaping wound in the head. Harassment needs to be solved⌠not just harassment of women.
For those that found my old blogs⌠itâs such a shame that the comments were removed when the site was updated to the disqus commenting system⌠because otherwise you would find that a woman CAN express herself regarding her feelings relating to women in gaming and garner 99.9% support in the comments from other gamers. I rarely, if ever, garner any harassment from other gamers in the comments of my blogs. There may be disagreement, but it is usually respectfully worded.
Again, there is a huge dispartity between gaming press and gamers. This was evident in my âkittensâ blog where the site no longer used pics of women and instead went to a phase of using adorable animal pics (with a penchant for Corgis) - largely due to other posts like mine at that time.
⌠and yes, I do disagree with Feminist Frequencyâs feminist viewpoints⌠but so do a lot of other feminists.
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Boys replace human female relationships with games. If a group attacks this fact and tries to take this away from those individuals theyâll reap the type of backlash that comes when a person tries to take something as important as an intimate relationship away from someone. This supplement for human relationships by games is known by psychologists and has been reported in the media. So in a way women are competing with games for the affection of men. In general men are aware of how catty women can be between each other when they are competing for a maleâs attention, but no amount of derision for a gameâs portrayal of a women will increase a male affection for the complaining woman. I suggest just leaving the game-male relationship alone.
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Your own experiences have been positive, and thatâs great. however, why not at least listen to others when they say theyâve faced harassment for gaming? Do you think your experiences are the only ones that matter or are correct? Do you think women whoâve discussed harrassment are lying? To what end? If youâve had different experiences, largely positive ones, thatâs fantastic, but what about all the women/girls who havenât? Are they just to be dismissed because you donât see what they see? Are you the only objective person and they are not?
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I think people too easily succumb to stereotypes in all areas of life, and games are no different. Marketing is obsolete in the modern world, where anybody can search and instantly find whatever they need. Also, like other arts, the interesting developments donât happen in âthe industryâ. Most games - like most music and movies - are made by individuals. It is foolish for people to complain about the apparent lack of diversity if they then only buy stuff that targets the LCD of somebodys demographic. People seem to be fooled into assuming that âthe industryâ are âthe mainstreamâ simply because their voices are amplified, but they are really a minority.
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Some of us that support âgamergateâ are 53 year old women who have been gaming since PONG. âGamergateâ was simply a cry for gaming press to more fairly represent social issues when discussed in the context of gaming. There is still a sex-negative and sex-positive divide among feminists where some feel that women have to become non-sexual, non-feminine within the structure of games, while other feminist ideologies (that received NO press in gaming) advocated that women can be sexual or feminine⌠and STILL be equals to men.
Gamergate was simply a request that when presenting âfeministâ analysis of games, that equal time or representation be given to equality, liberal, radical feminist streams of ideology (which are often opposing).
The other issue was simply that at least a small modicum of investigation be done before printing stories. For example the recent headlines found everywhere about the âmen who harass women online are losersâ was apparently based on a 2012 study of ONE video game - Halo. This was not mentioned in most of the headline grabbing media articles. Gamers are simply tired of being misrepresented by press that doesnât do any form of investigation, verification (or apparently even acquiring source material). Gamers were tired of being told a game was 10/10⌠when it later becomes apparent that there were personal relationships involved between the reviewer and game creator.
Many gamergate supporters simply want a broader diversity of voices to be heard (various forms of feminism including sex-positive feminism), that gameplay must play a role in reviewing and evaluating art or social issues games, and that personal relationships that might impact on articles be disclosed.
Itâs not about at all about silencing voices⌠itâs about letting others speak instead of the gaming and mainstream press being dominated by a few very negative voices.
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Yes⌠cause men have such a hard time being heard in our societyâŚ
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Regarding Dragonâs Crown⌠the only female character that gets the press is the overly sexualized feminine Sorceress. Itâs rarely noted that there was also a masculine, muscular female Amazon and a more athletic, normal figured female Elf.
Essentially⌠all aspects of âwomanâ were taken to extremes with this gameâs characters - the feminine, masculine and a less gendered middle character. Personally I like the artistic value in presenting these extremes of âfemaleâ.
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Is that a gender issue? 4X are my favorites too. Itâs not a gender issue - they went out of style a decade ago or two, pretty much before Civ V, which was the last gasp. I just discovered Space Empires. It hasnât been updated since 2007. Companies do not spend on big ad campaigns unless thereâs big money to be made.
Where did she dismiss those who have had bad experiences or claim that her experience was the only one that mattered? The only thing she did do was question the universality of a statement like âno girl winsâ. As far as Iâm concerned, itâs good to hear that the bad experiences arenât universal and there are already many places to enjoy gaming as a woman, even if gaming does have big problems with misogyny.
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Nor does the article say anything about all women feeling the same way. This post claims that women who have experienced harassment âhave just not found the right communityâ and seems to shrug at women who have very much felt such things in gaming spaces.
And I did ask a series of questions, which the poster studiously ignoredâŚ
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