Vigormortis said:
Kathinka said:
while surely true for farmville, i dare anyone to boot up red orchestra or wargame:RD for example and come up with more than two females players after a day of looking.
I can't speak on those two games, but I
can tell you that nearly half the players on my friends lists, of whom I play games with (games like Dota 2, Left 4 Dead 2, CS:GO, Titanfall) are female. All of them met through the games and not some outside source.
So I guess, in a roundabout way, you can consider your challenge accepted and defeated. At least in my particular case.
Doom972 said:
TheArcaneThinker said:
Emanuele Ciriachi said:
I think the better question is: Why do so many seek to discount social and mobile games? It's like saying anyone who doesn't play professional poker isn't a
real poker player; no matter how often they actually play.
Or, as Verlander put it -
Verlander said:
Games are games, regardless of how "casual" they are.
It's rather simple. There is a culture that surrounds gaming that involves mostly "core" or "hardcore" (to use the analyst site's definitions) gamers that not only play games, but discuss games and game design and basically make it their passionate hobby. Those kinds of people typically do not play social/casual games or at least do not primarily play those kinds of games. It comes down to the "one of us" feeling that you get from someone you talk to and they get all your references and feel kinship with them. Those people are not the people that spend 2 hours a week on Farmville and don't care about anything else gaming-related.
So yes, there is absolutely a valid reason to discount them when you're talking about female "gamers" or women in gaming culture. As far as "people that play video games" are concerned, the rise of casual, indie, and mobile games (not all of these classifications are mutually exclusive) make there a sharp divide between casual and "gamer" demographics.
BEGIN SLIGHTLY OFF TOPIC RANT:
The problem is that gaming and gamer culture started out as a boys club and largely started out (and continues to be if you watch Colbert) being ridiculed by women in general and non-gaming men. Gamers were seen as unattractive, outcast nerds that couldn't get a date and weren't liked by women. That brand still has some historical sting to it despite the fact it is no longer true. That's one of the reasons why you see so much resistance to the increased attention of feminists in gaming culture. There's still this stigma that's present in gaming culture, and folks like Anita Sarkeesian are really helping to reinforce it and alienate gamers further, which causes reactionary narratives and (in the internet day and age) harassment.
I think that barriers need to be broken down through discussion rather than heavily political language and, to be perfectly frank, women seeking to criticize gaming culture need to come with an olive branch and watch what you say. It's a touchy subject, much like race in America, where saying something that's a totally valid observation can lead to widespread ridicule and disdain because of how you say it. It's inverted in this case because gaming is dominated by white males who are typically seen as the "privileged" ones and women are typically seen as repressed in some form or another by white males. In this situation, the roles are reversed and nobody is willing to admit it.
None of this is an excuse for how prevalent harassment is in gaming and online culture in general, though. It comes as a side-effect of anonymity and the decrease in individual responsibility in the internet age. It's definitely a topic that needs to be discussed, however, the only people that think that this behavior is acceptable are those perpetrating it, which is a very small but very vocal minority. In order to actually have frank discussion on the topic, the overly broad buzzword labels need to stop flying (gamer as harasser, feminist as radical Sarkeesianist, etc.) and people need to talk to each other like human beings. Those who are not familiar with the totality of gamer culture should seek understanding, and gamers should support those that do, especially women and other underrepresented demographics.
End slightly off-topic rant.
