Girls and Games...

[someonehairy-ish]

I've been playing games of various sorts since I was 5. I'm now 18. Give me any game and I will pick up your control scheme in about 5 minutes, unless the scheme is monstrously retarded.
Yet there are girls who can kick my ass in certain games, because they play more.

Even things that seem ridiculously simple to us are difficult for somebody with no experience with them. Ask somebody who's never owned a TV to switch yours on and flip it to the right channel, see what the response is...
And this is equally true for guys and girls. If your female friends can't play a game, it's because they don't have a lifetime's worth of experience doing so, if your guy friends can play a game, it's probably because they've spent the last five years on COD.

 

[someonehairy-ish]

Lets take a, "Easy" game, a friendly beginners game that is simple to pick up. WoW. Lets find a screenshot.

Spoiler

Hell, I'm experienced with the interfaces of games of all types, and even then, that screenshot just looks arcane. I mean, I've played games dating back in their original form to the 1950s, and I could work out the details piece-by-piece, but I couldn't necessarily do it quickly. That UI is a mess.

Aye, but if you've taken the time to level that character up you'll know what every single button does and where it is without thinking.
I'd agree with you if they just plonked you in a game with a hundred different spells an expected you to figure it out, but they start you off with two or three and build it up.

 

[Jhooud]

So this has already been beat into the ground, but just to put in my two cents - my daughter and I play Gears and CoD together for their respective horde modes. She's awesome! Just as good an wingman as my son. My secret? I've been playing games with both of them since they were old enough to hold a controller (very fond memories of Elmo's Number Journey & Letter Adventure).

So, yeah, whatcha' know. The experience you have and the expectations you're met with can shape your interest in and enjoyment of a variety of pursuits.

 

[itsthesheppy]

It's not girls, it's people.

It takes much more than an hour to get used to a controller, the movement isn't natural. You just take it for granted because you have likely been playing for years.

I'm kind of surprised the thread moved past this post right here.

Oops, I'm part of the problem, aren't I?

 

[Irridium]

If I handed a controller to my dad (who refers to all video games as "Mario tapes") and told him to play some Gears of War multiplayer, it would probably be a pretty similar experience to what you described.

Jesus Christ.

Yeah, pretty much this.

You give someone who hasn't played games a controller they're not familiar with with 16 buttons and tell them to play, they're going to be confused and not know anything.

You'd be surprised how much you take for granted when it comes to be able to use a controller.

Most people these started with the NES, which had, what, two buttons and a D-pad? Now if you want to start playing games, you'd most likely start with a 360 or PS3, which has 16 buttons. Is it any wonder why they might have a bit of trouble when they first start out?

Here's [http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=168] a good bit of reading for how far FPS games have advanced. If you started while FPS games were still young, you had a nice, smooth learning curve. People now have to start right at the hardest part. Here's a follow up [http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=170] post on the one I linked to before. Another good read on the subject.

 

[Hjalmar Fryklund]

It's not girls, it's people.

It takes much more than an hour to get used to a controller, the movement isn't natural. You just take it for granted because you have likely been playing for years.

I'm kind of surprised the thread moved past this post right here.

Oops, I'm part of the problem, aren't I?

You dare to post here?! You actually dare?!

On-topic: Jokes aside, I am actually kinda surprised the thread has been relatively stable so far. Can one take this as a positive sign?

 

[Smooth Operator]

The combo of your name and the thread is just glorious
But anyway everyone needs time to learn controllers, they are by no means intuitive, add to that someone smartass backseat gamer judging you and the learning process it all sorts of horrid.

We all sucked at games first time around but now we have years of experience, that's why we make "why can't I get a girl" threads instead

 

[Zack Alklazaris]

My wife is a WoW veteran with world first achievements. Even she had issues using a new controller, so did I. People who have not been lucky enough to keep up with consoles all act like that. Its a very unnatural setup and to be honest, unless is a simulator game, the thumbs would end up pissing me off.

Its people and their experience level with controls, not women. I feel bad for you, you clearly have not met the right gamer girl yet.

 

[StBishop]

Meh, everything I wanted to say has been said.

I do want to add that I couldn't (and I mean literally couldn't) play First Person games which had two axes until about age 15. And I still can't play them properly with a mouse and keyboard.

It's a matter of practice. I don't play first person games on PC, and before I got a 360, I didn't play them at all. But I could play platformers.

My sister couldn't play first person game when she was really little, she could only play the 3D GTA games (yes I'm a horrible influence, I let my 6 year old sister play GTA: SA) and driving games.

But, when I first played BlOps with her she wiped the floor with me for the first 3 hours or so of playing, until I finally started winning more often than losing.

She's only had a 360 since Christmas.

So no, it's not a gender thing, my sister plays more of the CoD series than me and is better at them than me despite playing less games in general than me.

 

[Charli]

It's not girls, it's people.

It takes much more than an hour to get used to a controller, the movement isn't natural. You just take it for granted because you have likely been playing for years.

I guess that's true..and maybe I shouldn't have been so quick to judge after just an hour. I guess after awhile it just seems so natural to me that I expect everyone to be able to grasp the "simple" controls.

Nothing much more needs to be said.

I have been on a console/PC all my life and maneuvering a character or picking up a game comes as naturally to me as writing.

My father on the other hand spends at least several hours being reminded what button does the 'special thing'.

...Thread closed? Maybe you should have thought about this a bit more, it was an easy conclusion to come to.

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

Jesus jumping ape shit monkey nuts Christ!?!?

[HEADING=1]HOW MANY THREADS IS IT GOING TO TAKE BEFORE PEOPLE REALIZE WOMEN ARE HUMAN TOO???[/HEADING]

Maybe, I shouldn't ask that...the sheer amount of threads already in existence to this topic has exceeded my patience.

Here's a little hint: We humans are kinda a unique bunch. We're different in that we express how we choose to live in a multitude of ways and that we share different traits in geneology, thoughts and beliefs...but, at the same time, we're all the same - in that we live, express and simply experience as humans will. This supercedes all gender issues, and it always shall.

Stupidity doesn't discriminate, humans do.

And for the record - I give all of my fellow sisters (ALL of them, even my exes) living on this planet equal respect and appreciation...unless you prove yourself to be shit. Like that one woman in Kansas who kept her 10 year old daughter locked in a closet (she weighed 32 pounds when police found her).

Wow... a generic anti-sexism remark that completely misses the point of the thread and doesn't even acknowledge the question asked... or notice that the OP even says he isn't trying to generalise, it was just an observation he had made...
You hero, you...

How old are you?

I'm 24. I've been playing games for as long as I can remember. The first time I played a 3d game (Super Mario 64) I couldn't even move in a straight line.

Haha! It was the first 3D game I played too, and I had that same problem! I always remembered how hard it was running on small ledges! Picked it up years later, no problem at all!

OT: On a similar interesting note, here in the Royal Air Force, statistically men taking the pilot aptitude tests are more likely to score higher in the Spatial Awareness parts of the test, whereas women are more likely to score higher in the maths and english tests. And in the Aerospace Battle Manager world there are 2 jobs, controllers that control aircraft from a RADAR picture, and surveilance who keep a recognised air picture... There are more males who can do the controlling (focusing on controling the A/C with set voice commands, whilst simultaniously avoiding air space clutter... lots of spacial awareness) and there are a lot more females in the surveilance job (fast paced routine based job, that requires an in-depth knowledge of procedures).[footnote]When I say more and less I am talking %age. There are a lot more men in the RAF anyway, so we look at the stats based as a %age.[/footnote]

So you know, there may be a difference accross the population after all... There are conclusive studies that would suggest so...

EDIT: Couldn't find the RAF publication I read a couple of years ago, but I did find this which eludes to similar studies... I will also point out that it is all just averages... There are girls with better spatial awareness than most men of course, and it doesn't say that most men have better spatial awareness than ALL females...!

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

Let's be honest - this happens with men, too. But those guys become gamers anyway because with games like Dance Central, Guitar Hero, Singstar and the like, they will become sufficiently enamored with the idea of owning and playing on a gaming console that they'll come over from the "casual" scene over to what we in the industry call "actual gaming".

Why are more girls "casual" gamers than men? It could be because less games are aimed explicitly at women, while games like Guitar Hero are obviously aimed at frat boys and such. That's cool, though. Hardly expect anyone to take a risk on a for-girls product when for-everyone and for-stupid-men products rake in cash.

But mostly I think it's just because girls, well... having better attention spans than boys. Boys are basically noisy, hyperactive shits who will sit glued to a videogame screen. While girls will play a videogame, but kind of look around and want to socialize at the same time or.. whatever. Just a difference in how free time is filled. Women tend to be multi-taskers, and men seem to be glued to one particular hobby or thing at a time. That's my observation, anyway.

Re: Gender wars.

Cut it the fuck out, please.

We're all one in the same. Gender is a meaningless description applied only to separate us as humans. You could chuck it all up to "people likes what they likes," and it'd all be over, but no, it always has to cross into the realms of "sexism". Both "sides" do this, and its childish and embarrassing. So please, just... god. STAWP EET

 

[Timberwolf0924]

I've only played games with one girl who could beat me every now and then. I dated her for about 6 months and she was a huge pot head, but she was such an awesome girl. I wasn't even aware we broke up until I went to go to her house and she had moved to another state to live with her pot grower. But she could play games like someone who know what they were doing, just bad at it. COD, Left4Dead, many co-op games she would know what to do, just have a tough time doing it. She never knife killed enemies cause she couldn't click it quick enough but she could pop head shots all day.

 

[zelda2fanboy]

Thread I Should Start:

Why are women so good at sports?
When I was younger and my sister still lived with me, she demanded I play games with her all the time - tennis, baseball, badminton, volleyball, soccer/football, etc. and she kicked my ass at every single one! It was so annoying! Why did she even want to play if she was going to win every time?

Along these lines, I might also do "Why do women suck at guitar?" "Why do women beat me up IRL when I beat them in a fighting game?" "Why do women always make me jog?" "Why won't women let me read their comic books?" (These threads would pretty much all be about my sister.)

 

[Xanadu84]

Lets take a, "Easy" game, a friendly beginners game that is simple to pick up. WoW. Lets find a screenshot.

Spoiler

Hell, I'm experienced with the interfaces of games of all types, and even then, that screenshot just looks arcane. I mean, I've played games dating back in their original form to the 1950s, and I could work out the details piece-by-piece, but I couldn't necessarily do it quickly. That UI is a mess.

Aye, but if you've taken the time to level that character up you'll know what every single button does and where it is without thinking.
I'd agree with you if they just plonked you in a game with a hundred different spells an expected you to figure it out, but they start you off with two or three and build it up.

And that's the point. WoW is accessible to many of us because time and slow introduction to these mental heuristic has internalized how we interface with these games. This learning happens both within the game through leveling, and through a history of gameing where you adopt understanding concepts like skills, damage, mana and the like. It's much like how all of us can speak at least one language fluently, but if you look at how complex a language is to learn, it is absolutely shocking how complicated it is to do something we do without even thinking. For us gamers, WoW is like reading a Goosebumps book, we know what it is saying without much effort, and what it is saying is pretty straightforward. For a non-gamer, WoW is like a goosebumps book written in Chinese (Assuming you don't speak Chinese), the core may be straightforward, but getting at the basic tools to interpret that message is incredibly difficult. For various social reasons, women are less likely to have developed these tools. But gender is not the proximate cause.

 

[dangitall]

Just my opinion, but in parts of our society video games are still considered a "boys only" activity, especially for my Asian heritage. My peers only see boys playing video games as "normal", if a girl, a grown man, or a grown woman plays games it is not "normal", thus discouraging girls from playing games at a young age.

Everyone struggles when they pick up the controller for the first time. For girls it's still generally later than boys.

 

[purplecactus]

I'm going to add my voice to the 'it happens to everyone not familiar with the controller' crowd. Gods know the first time I picked up a PS2 controller I was all over the damned place. I thought I'd never improve, so start playing games on the PC, which I found easier. Next time I pick up a controller it's for the PS3 and while I'm still not great, I don't game on consoles regularly enough at all, I stuck at it and got better.

As most other human beings, gender aside, are apt to do.

 

[purplecactus]

-double post. Why it keeps doing that remains a mystery to me-

 

[CaptainMarvelous]

Ehh, already been explained but I feel compelled to add, I've played games since I was a teeny tiny kid, I'm friends with a girl who only started at my behest so I usually backseat game when she's got the controller.

Currently, every high-score i have on Lollipop Chainsaw she's annihilated and I'm now stuck frantically trying to work out how she's that much better at it than me.

So, think it might be context sensitive.

 

[Blow_Pop]

Just for fun I wanted to introduce my girlfriend to CoD, and she had serious coordination issues, even after playing for a solid hour. She could not move and aim at the same time or she would get too confused and end up spinning the camera around aimlessly.

I have this problem. Which is why I don't play shooters on console. I can do decently on PC since move, aim, and fire are different and don't require me to move this stick this way and this one that way and try to simultaneously hit this button. ANY game that requires me to do something like that, I can't do and I've been playing games for years. Do I think it's because I'm a woman? No, because I know women who are amazing at shooters on consoles. Do I think it's something about me personally? yes. yes I do. I also have a bit of coordination issues in Portal as well when I have to go through different portals and shoot portals whilst I'm falling to get where I need to be. But it isn't necessarily a coordination issue. My coordination outside of video games is great. Just inside video games is where it gets screwed with. I think it's simply just some people aren't meant for shooters. Because I know men who have the same or similar problems.

hell...I learned playing FPS on a mouse and keyboard...and really I find using a game pad as frustrating as fuck

I second this