Why Do Girl Gamers Get So Little Respect?

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Here we go again with the "girl gamers get no respect" stuff. See that dead horse over there? Get your sticks and follow me.

Forty percent of the people who play video games in the U.S. are female, according to the industry group Entertainment Software Association. But according to 17-year-old Jessica Cernadas, the games are designed to appeal to guys. And that, she says, is very frustrating.
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The thing is the girls will play the games regardless. if a game is geared toward a gril a guy wont touch it so they lose sales.
 
The gaming industry bitches about not being taken seriously, then you have Duke. If you want to really being taken seriously, have more female characters like Alyx from HL2 or (reportedly) Jade from Beyond Good and Evil.
 
Define games. Farmville? or we talking more or less games like mass effect and so on?

The ones ive met from the latter category are usually fat, obnoxious, and ugly.
 
Its because they expect guys to give auto respek knuckels to them.

Not how it works.

Also "girl gamers".
 
yeah i feel like most "girl gamers" play facebook games, or maybe the sims and rock band. i know there are some girls that play racing, shooting, and adventure games, but i find 40% to be a bit high (i personally only know one). i hope im wrong!
 
The girls that would get respect have learned long ago to hide their identity. All the rest have overly obvious names announcing their femininity, and often are attention whores, playing games more so for the immense amount of attention guys will throw at them (at it is A LOT). Because the rest hide, these ones become the face of female gaming (non-casual), and this is where we are in that regard.
 
95% of sanitry towels are used by women. So the advertising appeal is aimed at women. How did that happen!?

What they are basically saying is that games don't appeal to them, so they should all be changed. That would like me going to a fondue party instead of a sandwich party and saying I hate fondue so this party sucks.

Plus if anyone is stereotyping womens it's her. I've know girls whos tastes are more manly than steve (sans brasiere).
 
My current GF likes video games, heck she's been a gamer since the early 90's. And I'm talking games like Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, any good FPS, almost all of Blizzards library, etc.

She doesn't ask for respect, she earns it, she's damn good. :)
 
As a gamer, and the father of "girl gamers" I've heard and seen it all. 99% of the "guy gamers" are total dicks when a girl speaks up when gaming on-line. It has been this way for years. My eldest stopped gaming on-line because of all the guys constantly hitting on her.

The "girl gamers" I know don't demand respect - some are good, some game because it's fun and they enjoy it. The good ones don't use voice anymore, in fact very few I know do - or, they use a private voice server rather than in-game. (teamspeak / vent). The ones that are good are always challenged to prove they are girls, as no girl could ever beat them... blah blah blah.
 
DeathPrincess said:
Plus if anyone is stereotyping womens it's her. I've know girls whos tastes are more manly than steve (sans brasiere).
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For sure. Hell, my girlfriend loves the God of War series, for instance. Among other awesome titles (and not so awesome, frankly).
 
If you want to be taken seriously as a "girl gamer", stop referring to yourselves as "girl gamers" and instead use "gamers."

Also, notice that the majority of online players are of the 12 year old mindset that even halfway mature adult male gamers can't stand.
 
Well now, lets not act like the internet and gaming voice chat rooms are bastions of kindness, respect, and mature behavior at all, much less when girls are involved.
 
Kalabalana said:
The girls that would get respect have learned long ago to hide their identity. All the rest have overly obvious names announcing their femininity, and often are attention whores, playing games more so for the immense amount of attention guys will throw at them (at it is A LOT).
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I agree with this some what. Not so much that they need to hide who they are, but when they do it, the attention whoring is obvious. Also, (purely my own experience here) most women I've played with were generally not very competitive. It's hard to take someone seriously when their "hearts" aren't into it like the other people around them.

Games are centric towards the male population. If they want it to change... then... *gasp*... more women/girls need to start infiltrating the market. Until then, they'll just have to suck it up and live with the consequences of being "out of the norm". Listening to this 4+ minute bit was like listening to some guy bitch about the weird stares he gets when he goes to tupperware or "passion" parties...
 
How many fucking Barbie games has there been? :rolleyes:

Or Pokemon, or Puzzle Games, or LittleBigPlanet, or (insert other million titles that appeal to either both m/f or just f)

Now if you talk about games that are marketed to mainstream media... yes, its more guys games. I think this girl is just a mainstream puppet and thats why she thinks this. Definitely owns an iphone I bet.

This nerdy banter and the nerdy girl is talking about lame ass anime games, and the entire sound piece was really lame, definitely editted and mainstream japanese crap from NPR.
 
Its been my experience that girl gamers fall into two main categories:
1. Gamers who are just looking to be one of the guys, chill out, enjoy playing a game on their terms, be it competitively or just to have fun.
2. Attention whores looking to disrupt a game by establishing the fact they have boobs.

The first one I don't mind having around. Heck, there's many I've come across that are better than many "good" male gamers. The second type I wish could just go away forever. They take up space in multiplayer games that could be occupied by people who actually want to play. For them, playstation is datestation, and xbox is cam-box.
 
We have two "girl gamers" in my FPS gaming clan, and neither of them take any shit from us 40+ guys. Emo girls will always cry like a bitch no matter where they are or what they are doing.
 
Because most girl gamers want it to be known that they're girls. I've been a few clans that had girl members and they were all great. Nobody tried to hit on them and they were just as good as any other member.

This is mostly why girl gamers get no respect: http://i.imgur.com/qDPza.jpg
 
Well, FarmVille and similar games don't count in my book. For the females that do play "real games", most are attention whores. OMG LOOK EVERYONE I HAZ A MIC AND I'm UH GRILS LOLOLOL It's annoying as hell. Finally for the very, and I mean very small percent that are "normal" they are run off by a bunch socially awkward kids.
 
I'm sure its an extremely low number, hence the games are geared toward men.
 
Wow. Look at all the misogyny. You know, it's far more likely that if games that you'd consider 'hard core' were to try just a little bit harder to appeal to women in addition to men, then you'd find that women would indeed play them more. Case in point: My wife. She grew up playing PC games like Baldur's Gate, Doom, Wolfenstein, Duke Nuke'm (both the original side scroller and Duke Nuke'm 3D), and continues to play games to this day. What's the quickest way to grab her interest in a game? Make the main character customizable so she can make a female character, or at least a female option. It's a fact that if you can identify with the primary character, then you're more likely to be interested in the product. That alone was the reason she'd spit on the developers of Brink if she could. But none of you will ever care, because you're represented already. Sure, some games will have an appeal that's hard to resist (killing zombies in Dead Rising 2 in co-op, for example), but it seems really lazy to exclude people.

I also love the stereotype of the 'attention whore' female gamer. What about the idiot griefers or the people that sh!t talk during games? Those are attention whores too. Hell, a large chunk of the people who use the headset on Xbox live are attention whores, regardless of gender. I'm also loving the comment here about girl gamers being fat and ugly. Hey, that's the GAMER stereotype there, not the girl gamer stereotype.
 
I wasn't aware that male gamers got respect either. I have had my sexual preference questioned more times than I can count in online shooters, and I play on the PC where the crowd is generally more mature (seriously compare the 360 to the PC some time, you'll be amazed). There are a lot of socially mal-adjusted people who play online games and since there is the cover of anonymity separating them from others, they feel no reservation about being dicks to everyone. They are mean to women, but not because they are women just because they are mean to anyone they feel they can target.

So really there are only two things to be done about that:

1) Ignore it, don't let it get to you. Assholes feed their egos based on responses. If you just ignore them it is the best thing you can do. There is no reason to take it seriously.

2) Play with friends. Most games and platforms (like Steam) have good systems for helping you build friends lists and getting in games with people you like. Do that, play with people you like, blacklist those you don't.
 
Seraphical said:
Games are centric towards the male population. If they want it to change... then... *gasp*... more women/girls need to start infiltrating the market. Until then, they'll just have to suck it up and live with the consequences of being "out of the norm". Listening to this 4+ minute bit was like listening to some guy bitch about the weird stares he gets when he goes to tupperware or "passion" parties...
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+1

If they want games programmed for women, then they need to start learning how to program games. But instead there's whining, and expecting men to cater to their wishes.
 
synapsis said:
If you want to be taken seriously as a "girl gamer", stop referring to yourselves as "girl gamers" and instead use "gamers."

Also, notice that the majority of online players are of the 12 year old mindset that even halfway mature adult male gamers can't stand.
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The first part of this quote sounds right to me. If you want to be called a girl then get in the kitchen and make me a sandwich!
 
ballistic90 said:
But none of you will ever care, because you're represented already. Sure, some games will have an appeal that's hard to resist (killing zombies in Dead Rising 2 in co-op, for example), but it seems really lazy to exclude people.

I also love the stereotype of the 'attention whore' female gamer. What about the idiot griefers or the people that sh!t talk during games? Those are attention whores too. Hell, a large chunk of the people who use the headset on Xbox live are attention whores, regardless of gender. I'm also loving the comment here about girl gamers being fat and ugly. Hey, that's the GAMER stereotype there, not the girl gamer stereotype.
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Oh please tell us more about the depraved situations girl gamers must "endure" in order to play their craft. Like the days they were forced to sit at the back of the bu... er tank or the time they had to drink out of a separate "girl gamer" drinking fountain....

On your second point, we all have to put up with assholes of the internet. They perhaps get a different flavor of it, but if they're truly in it to have fun... they'll do what all others have done before them have done... carve out their own nitch and kick the bullshit to the curb.

Sure, it may be misogyny to you, but from what I've seen so far... it's stereotype based on experience for the bulk of those who have posted.
 
I'm having trouble figuring out why "girl gamers" are feeling left out. You either have an interst in blowing the heads off of zombies, terrorists, nazis, russians, insert other bad guy here or you do not - that seems pretty gender independent. Then there are games like The Sims, Hello Kitty Online, etc that are obviously catering to the demographic that do not care for blowing the heads off of things.

I mean, are they feeling left out because you cannot play a female soldier in BC2 or something, or get different hair style unlocks? I don't get it at all.
 
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