Gaming and Girls, by an actual girl... maybe.

Via the Gamer Girls group at The Escapist Forums, I found an opinion column article about video games and women. The original article can be found in full here and is called "The Geeker Sex", by Noah Falstein. It's a bit dated, 1997 and all, but I think the mindset remains today and I'm just going to pick at bits of what he said. Note that the article was written by a man, and it shows, even though he actually seems to be trying to take a positive, pro-girl stance on the issue. He still just doesn't get it. If he happens to see this, hopefully by now he's come to see the light.

"...that game appealed to far fewer women than the asexual Tetris, which would to traditional thinking have been predicted to be a male-oriented game because of its dependence on spatial perception."

Wow, just wow. He's either being sarcastic, or the attempted "pro-girl" stance isn't quite so pro-girl.

"In the early LucasArts days we were surprised that the Indiana Jones games had more women playing them than the Monkey Island comedy games, which on the surface seemed more gender-neutral than the macho Indy image. It makes sense when you consider that Indiana Jones movies have appealed to both men and women, and compelling stories with strong female characters are big draws in books and movies as well."

No, it's because it had Indiana Jones in it, and he's cute. Sure, he's more than that, being smart and roguish and all that... but let's face it. He's drop-dead gorgeous.

Sometimes it is not hard to figure women out at all. I've had a blast with Vin Diesel's Wheelman because it has Vin Diesel in it and he's my hero. He's absolute studmuffin beefcake and a brilliant actor. However, I also like Need For Speed: Most Wanted, which has nothing to do with Vin Diesel (though I played through the game as "Riddick" which is more of an in-my-head thing than remotely related to the actual game "plot", but whatever). I played NFS:MW first; Wheelman did not lead me into the genre, but the improvements to the genre helped sell Wheelman to me as a bonus on top of the whole "OMG IT'S VIN" thing.

Wheelman and NFS:MW are both racing games, a genre I used to hate but have started to like now that the games aren't clunky and can get into all kinds of fun customization aspects. I've even started to learn about car parts and can recognize some high-end brand names thanks to the games. Let's face it, cars are not a girly thing, and I don't mean "Ooooh he has a cute car" but I mean "Yeah it has x rims and y fuel exhaust system." And I am not a girly girl, but cars used to be a "Uh, you drive it down the road" thing to me, and nothing else beyond the standard "Oh and that one is cooool looking." So in the end, a couple of guy-guy games have appealed to me, a female at least by genetics and biology, and have inspired me to become interested in other guy-guy things.

I seriously don't care about trying to argue that "Oh, but guy-guy things can be girl things too!" I'm quite happy to say I like guy stuff. But then, I actually dislike being a girl very much, so that's a whole other card on my table the average girl might not have. I'm noticing it's a trend amongst my gamer girl friends, though... even if we may have a hello kitty collection or 50 shades of nail polish, we're not happy with the gender nature has given us and many of our tastes show it.

In the end, video games on the market as they stand now, especially big titles, attract gamers. A girl gamer is going to want to frag hell out of something (if she likes that style of game, as I do) as much as a guy is. On the same note, a girl gamer is going to love spending 80+ hours in an RPG-adventure type game as much as a guy is (if he likes that style of game). It would be sexist of me to say "guys prefer fragfests over something with more story" just as much as it would be sexist of anyone else to say "girls prefer story and aren't interested in blowing somebody's kneecaps off purely for the splatter-factor."

Frag on, ladies, frag on. Let's prove to the video game market that we love the titles out there as much as anyone else, or hate them for the same reasons as anyone else (DRM, shoddy gameplay, bad voice acting, bugs, sparkly vampires...). Oh, one moment, I need to turn on Pokémon SoulSliver and see if my berries can be harvested yet...