Saturday, April 30, 2005
As soon as I have finished some writing stuff, I hope to post more often again. I couldn't let this month pass by without writing anything though, thus I added some links to my blogroll and decided to explain a bit why this specific category is added.
There was a time I was preoccupied with girlgamers. As being one myself (sort of) I saw a lot of misunderstandings about girls and games. I was ready to take on the world and everyone who said girls and games are no match. ( I think I still have a draft about girgamers somewhere in blogger). Lately I have other concerns and interests but today I stumbled upon a website of a dutch girl gamer who wants to unite the Gamer Girls (which gets me thinking, are those the girls of gamers then?). I once wrote together with others, a paper which was about the desirability of such initiatives and communities. Is it empowering? Or is it working against equality and just upholding the common views about girls and games? (this needs some working but I currently don't have the time so I will throw it out there, maybe in the near futre I will clarify myself somewhat more). I think that it shouldn't make a difference if you're a male or female to be able to play games, so why make that difference then?
But there seems to be a need for those communities, and I myself still like to know that there are more girlgamers (yes, I don't want to be alone ;)) and although I don't really want to put myself forward as a girlgamer because of what I said above, I am happy that there are those communities, so yes a specific notion of that on my blogroll. Enjoy.
Just to add to some (mis)understandings on female gamers, here are some points I'd like to add and would like to wonder if this is true according to the Gamer Girls
It seems if only games would somehow become good enough for womyn, womyn wouldn't be such an exception (think: improve playability, shorten loading times, make the worlds more imaginitive and the challenges more creative, etc, etc.)
but as long as games cost 60 bucks, only guys are going to be crazy enough to buy them (I'm quite sure womyn pick up games as often as men and enjoy the good ones just as much).
Notice also that it's mostly men who obsessively spend money on stupid things like cars, tvs, rare records and other things.
Notice also that so many games are built around competition, again a way of pasttime mostly men participate in. (strangely, Roxy of the Elf really wanted to play Street Fighter with us, but was afraid she would only lose against us, so she didn't play)
So besides making games better, I think they should become cheaper and less focused on competition.
This is actually the tip of the iceberg on these issues.
And if girl gamers are out there? Well, working in a videogame store, it seems 2 out of every 3 womyn who enter are with their boyfriends (and also play games, but never buy them). The other third are mothers buying games for their kids. The small group of womyn that DO buy games seem, no offence, pretty different than normal people.
And as for dedicating lots of time to games; I find this hard to grade. There aren't alot of womyn on xbox live or other online action game, but probably because of the competitive element. You yourself probably have a better idea of how many womyn play World of Warcraft. I wonder how this compares to womyn to play Live Action Role Playing games (which is about one for every three).
At home, it seems most sisters play a fair share of (their brother's) Mario, Sims and Tetris variants. But usually spend less time behind the screen. I haven't been to enough arcades in recent times to see if womyn attend them.
The RPG fans are comparable to their male counterparts, but usually are less "hardcore" (less known to achieve level 99, to collect action figures, buy the strategy guide, things like that)
Anyway, show me the community some time soon, I'm curious to know more about them.
Sorry for spamming your blogg with so much crap, but I thought it was kinda sad there weren't any other posts...
and there's nothing to do here!
See ya tuesday! Enjoy that extra day off (I bet you need it) and good luck!
Robert
Are you going to update your blog soon, young lady? :)
hehe, you are so right Alice! Had something drafted, cheated a bit with it. *grin*
Thank you for reminding me, I still have a blog (and some readers), Alice!
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