A discussion; more girls playing video games and kicking ass

[JediAmanda]

They're out there in Halo sniping the hell out of ya, beating you to a pulp in Super Smash brothers and owning you in anything Sony related; We're everywhere. Yet we're a scarce group.

How does this make you feel?
Start discussing!

[yotobari288]

That makes me feel great because I AM a female gamer! lol. I always wanted to see if there are more females in this forum...

[JediAmanda]

O my gosh yay! I think there needs to be a soapbox about female gamers...a good rant lol.

[ShaStOne]

Well, we're superior in almost every competitive sport, so girls being just as good at video games is no damage to me, aside from seeking attention in Xbox Live pregame lobbies.

[JediAmanda]

Yeah well you'd lose at giving birth we definitly beat you there lol.

But seriously I think girls who play video games need to stand up and just beat guys at first person shooters and such. The tag "Girls don't play video games" will probably be gone in like five years.

[ShaStOne]

Yeah, it's totally bogus that girls don't play games, they love The Sims and Cooking Mama for example

[JediAmanda]

I don't know if that was an insult or not...The cooking mama part seems to be...Anyone else see it that way?

[BibboTheFirst]

I don't know many girls personally that play video games, but the ones I do know mostly play RPG's and that type game (WoW mostly). I don't care about the cultural and social stereotypes of girls and gaming. Whoever wins, wins and whoever loses, loses, regardless of gender.

[JediAmanda]

Yeah gender doesn't matter, I just wish more girls played video games. It has a negative vibe to mention it in the same sentence with girls. Like we're freaks or somthing; the sterotype that we're unattractive just sint true. We can be beautiful and kick ass in video games too!

[BibboTheFirst]

I only become perturbed when someone who has never played the game before completely and utterly destroys me in a game I fancy myself to be at least mildly proficient in. It sucks when you get your butt handed to you by a newbie.

[ShaStOne]

Everyone knows Master Chief's really a girl

[JediAmanda]

You see thats why no one is allowed to see him lol

[ShaStOne]

Well that and the Chief never has time to put on her make up while on the job

[JediAmanda]

I bet she is the true image of feminism! She free birds, goes for that natural look, uses her blackberry while killing people and God I want to be just like her! How does she get the time to do anything!

She'd make a good soccer mom.

[ShaStOne]

Well if she were to become a soccer mom she'd naturally get Wii Fit, and if she does Microsoft will come after her because that's the competition, and she may be able to take on an army of aliens but Microsoft's lawyers are a whole different story

[yotobari288]

wait, how did we get on the subject of Master Cheif being a girl?????

[JediAmanda]

Because girls just kick ass in and out of video games.

[yotobari288]

o0o0o ok. makes sense.

[JediAmanda]

Does Adam read these lol. He might be all offended :P

[ShaStOne]

plot twist: I'm Adam. and yes, I am offended. I'm not sure why I'm offended, but I am

[DeityBrett]

It makes me feel hungry! Go make me a sammach! :p

[lightknight77]

Girls have bones with smaller diameters and less density causing easier breaks and weaker structure. A larger angle at the pelvic bone causing slower movement and worse weight distribution. To sacks on the chest that can actually damage the back and inhibit several actions. Not to mention the lack of testosterone to help with muscle development.

So, it's cool that you gals can be good at games. But we still have to split us up in real events.

Damn. I was joking and that still hurts.

Nah, in all seriousness, it only stands to reason that as gender roles become less "wimpy" for females that they will begin to enter into and excel at areas that were previously sausage fests. But it's just a load of crap to pretend that one gender is "better" at it than another.

[ex belle]

I take kind of the opposite viewpoint. I'm a (not socially and emotionally stunted) girl who loves video games, and I can beat all of my friends in Halo. But I HATE all of this "we girl gamers need to proclaim how special we are everywhere!" thing. Girl gamer groups and all that crap. You're not a special snowflake if you play videogames and have a vagina at the same time, you're just another gamer. We don't need to go around having parades about it, guys don't need to discuss how it makes them feel, it's just a bunch of people playing videogames.

Most of the time, it's not guys who are like "No way, girl gamers don't exist!" It's the girls who are perpetuating the stereotype by going around proclaiming "Yes, girl gamers exist!"

And that's MY soapbox.

[lightknight77]

Ah, fantastic point. It shouldn't be "girls can be good gamers", it should be, "of course girls are good gamers". I hadn't considered saying it that way before.

[SeventhSeal]

Shouldn't we be be at a point where the phrase "girl gamer" is no longer needed? Not necessarily in terms of the number of females playing games, but in that it should no longer be considered significant if a woman is playing video games.

[ex belle]

Shouldn't we be be at a point where the phrase "girl gamer" is no longer needed? Not necessarily in terms of the number of females playing games, but in that it should no longer be considered significant if a woman is playing video games.

Exactly.

[ShaStOne]

Fun fact: girls sound like 7 year old boys on the Xbox Live mic

[lightknight77]

But they still aren't as annoying as the young teen boys on mic.

[JediAmanda]

Our voices don't crack every five minutes when we're thirteen :P. Yeah I know we're not special, its just fun to point it out. Me, I'm not like some super feminist...they scare me.
I'm just proud that I can beat my boyfriend in Brawl. He beats me in everything else...he's a nintendo fanboy -_- but not a hardcore one. It gets on his nerves though when I bring up Kingdom hearts.

[lightknight77]

I like to distinguish between feminism and feminaziism. Feminism is simply believing that women should be considered and treated equally. But feminazis believe that women are superior (and sometimes think men should be slaughtered in the street to the tune of "rise of the valkyries"). There's nothing wrong with being a feminist. Women are still having difficulty getting equal treatment like equal pay and we need people who continue to vocally fight for those rights.

Oh, and I'm sorry your boyfriend beats you.

[yotobari288]

I take kind of the opposite viewpoint. I'm a (not socially and emotionally stunted) girl who loves video games, and I can beat all of my friends in Halo. But I HATE all of this "we girl gamers need to proclaim how special we are everywhere!" thing. Girl gamer groups and all that crap. You're not a special snowflake if you play videogames and have a vagina at the same time, you're just another gamer. We don't need to go around having parades about it, guys don't need to discuss how it makes them feel, it's just a bunch of people playing videogames.

Most of the time, it's not guys who are like "No way, girl gamers don't exist!" It's the girls who are perpetuating the stereotype by going around proclaiming "Yes, girl gamers exist!"

And that's MY soapbox.

I get what you mean, but sometimes dont you think that a girl needs to get some respect about gaming?

[BibboTheFirst]

Well, the girl I knew from earlier (see page 2 [or was it 3]) plays Unreal Tournament 3, to my surprise. I've never played Unreal Tournament so I don't know how good or bad she is at it (I assume good).

[JediAmanda]

I don't think we'll get equal treatment until men magicly give birth...not pregnant manwomanman. Then maybe they won't see it as something that make us weaker.
Yeah feminazis basicly wanna become men, but still be a woman?
I'm happy at how far women have got. Gosh why didn't men listen earlier? Then maybe there would have been less resentment and feminazis.

Thanks, one day I shall break his fanboyish will lol.

[lightknight77]

I don't think we'll get equal treatment until men magicly give birth...not pregnant manwomanman. Then maybe they won't see it as something that make us weaker.
Yeah feminazis basicly wanna become men, but still be a woman?
I'm happy at how far women have got. Gosh why didn't men listen earlier? Then maybe there would have been less resentment and feminazis.

Thanks, one day I shall break his fanboyish will lol.It has nothing to do with males giving birth, it has to do with the underlying perception of inferiority. Women are naturally physically weaker than males due to all the things I mentioned earlier and physical strength has been the respect gainer for many millenniums. Once people start realizing that this world is becoming a world of brain and not brawn and intelligence becomes the mark of respect then people will start naturally treating women as equals like they really are. Until then, the government needs to ensure that a woman gets equal pay for doing the same job a man does.

[SeventhSeal]

I get what you mean, but sometimes dont you think that a girl needs to get some respect about gaming?

Why should they?

They play video games, I play video games, we just happen to have the same hobby with the only difference being that they have vaginas.

I don't see how someone should be given respect for possessing something nature gave you.

[JediAmanda]

It's just percieved that girls aren't as good because there isn't many of us out there. And that's true, alot of girls at my school don't like video games because its I don't know dorky to them or something. Its like comparing guys who play with barbie dolls(who are like 10 kay)? No shame in girls saying it but when guys say it, it seems to be a huge deal.

[ex belle]

I get what you mean, but sometimes dont you think that a girl needs to get some respect about gaming?

No, I don't. They're video games, they're not an accomplishment. I deserve the same amount of respect for beating my friends in Halo as my guy friends, and that amounts to "Duuuuuude, I'm so going to get you next time!" That's it. Saying that we deserve respect for it when guys don't is saying that we're somehow overcoming some sort of chromosomal deficiency to become good at games, and that's insulting.

[JediAmanda]

They're out there in Halo sniping the hell out of ya, beating you to a pulp in Super Smash brothers and owning you in anything Sony related; We're everywhere. Yet we're a scarce group.

How does this make you feel?
Start discussing!


I meant for this to be like a bragging session lol type thing...I'm sorry people are getting offended and mad :'(

[ex belle]

I meant for this to be like a bragging session lol type thing...I'm sorry people are getting offended and mad :'(

I'm not offended or mad (don't know if anyone else is). I just disagree with you.

[SeventhSeal]

I meant for this to be like a bragging session lol type thing...I'm sorry people are getting offended and mad :'(

I don't necessarily think anyone is getting offended and mad, I think it's just more of a feeling of "Is this really needed?".

[lightknight77]

I remember hearing a news cast about a female medic that got all the awards for aiding wounded soldiers in a combat zone. I also remember getting pissed off because there were other medics doing the exact same thing that got no awards at all. It seemed to me that the government sometimes does things to show just how unsexist or unracist they are by treating a gender or race unequally.

In the same way I understand Belle's point. That medic was a US Soldier first, not a woman first. To set her apart for having a vagina is like saying that women can't normally do the same task a man can.

It's cool to see more women playing games, but moreso because it shows the loosening of a grip of timidness that has been forced on the gender for nearly all time. It is not remarkable that women can beat men at something, but rather remarkable that women are now competing in the same arena after so long. Social progress.

[RageAgainstTheAmish]

My girlfriend is a gamer. I love it.
More power to you.

[JediAmanda]

On a list of things my boyfriend finds sexy about me, being a gamer is probably on there like ten times ^_^

[JadeGL]

I'm a girl gamer I guess. I just really call myself a gamer, though. I don't think there is anything special about it since I have been playing games for so long.

I play games by myself and I play co-op with my boyfriend. I'll watch him play games that I wouldn't really want to play, like Metal Gear Solid 4, just so I can see the game and the cutscenes and maybe help him with spotting a tactic he may have missed. He'll watch me play games too. He even watched me play Condemned, and told me that he could never get into playing a game like that. It was too scary and brutal for his sensitive disposition I guess. :)

I guess what I am trying to say is that it's no big deal to me that I play video games. I always have and I always will. Me being a female is just a facet of it, I guess. But when I sit down in front of the TV and turn on my XBox 360, I don't think about how I am a girl playing games, but I think about how awesome it's going to be to plug a Super Mutant with my Gauss rifle in Fallout 3. My gender never crosses my mind.

[Kuwai]

I have group of friends who love to get together just so we can play games, and while the majority of us are guys, there is a lot of girls also. When we game online no one usually notices because we treat them the same as everyone else, though sometimes one of those annoying guys on Halo 3 pulls enough braincells together to figure that one of the people that kicked his ass was a girl and starts to make a big deal out of it. As for Master Chief being a girl, (putting aside all the back story) she sure has one deep voice!:)

[lightknight77]

On a list of things my boyfriend finds sexy about me, being a gamer is probably on there like ten times ^_^Well, you're interested in the same things he is. It makes perfect sense.

[yotobari288]

No, I don't. They're video games, they're not an accomplishment. I deserve the same amount of respect for beating my friends in Halo as my guy friends, and that amounts to "Duuuuuude, I'm so going to get you next time!" That's it. Saying that we deserve respect for it when guys don't is saying that we're somehow overcoming some sort of chromosomal deficiency to become good at games, and that's insulting.

true, true. looks like we will have to agree to disagree.

[JediAmanda]

I have group of friends who love to get together just so we can play games, and while the majority of us are guys, there is a lot of girls also. When we game online no one usually notices because we treat them the same as everyone else, though sometimes one of those annoying guys on Halo 3 pulls enough braincells together to figure that one of the people that kicked his ass was a girl and starts to make a big deal out of it. As for Master Chief being a girl, (putting aside all the back story) she sure has one deep voice!:)


She'd be the bass in the choir :P Maybe its all the blows to the throat. Or she smokes?

[BibboTheFirst]

She'd be the bass in the choir :P Maybe its all the blows to the throat. Or she smokes?

She has the Darth Vader voice changer

[Dima_todd]

Not very differently. Girl gamers were bound to happen sooner or later, so I just preapared myself for it a while ago.

[Sheik_the_Geek]

I support Gamer Girls 4 life.

[drgnmstr44]

I'm not bothered by the fact girls play games. I know a ton that play. It's a lot of fun really. If they beat me, it doesn't matter. I've got a pretty good competitive spirit and always try to be a good sport about it even when other aren't. I've been to tournaments for various games locally where there was a good turning out of both genders and some really good matches were had. Having women that are also gamers means there is more people to play with in games.

I think the problem is that most males get this idea that they can't loose anything to a girl and it's humiliating if that happens. Kind of like a preprogrammed lesson that's just picked up. I used to think that when I was growing up and when a girl beat me at something it kind of felt like a blow to the balls. Now, it just seems immature and silly.

[Kumiko]

This is a topic I normally could go on and on about, but I'm growing tired of beating the dead horse. Sometime ago I was asked to write an article about the growing female gaming population and mention the struggles I had as chick just trying to enjoy a hobby I love. I posted it on what was suppose to be the X-Play forums (http://level122.blogspot.com/]my constantly updated gaming blog[/url] (until I ran out of topics worth talking about). I even posted it on [url="http://forums.g4tv.com/showthread.php?t=53133&highlight=genderless) since it was a X-Play poster who requested that I write it.

I'd like to share my thoughts with you but I'm just going to copy and paste what I already wrote since I honestly don't want to type it all up again...(Original Post (http://level122.blogspot.com/2008/11/genderless-gaming.html)):

It isn't new to say that gaming is generally a male dominated hobby and industry. It isn't new to say that more and more girls are becoming interested in gaming. It isn't new to say that some will gladly sit down and play a game of Gears of War 2 while others will poke at their dogs in Nintendogs. And it isn't new to say that some of us get stuck in the middle.

I've been a gamer ever since I was 2 1/2 years old. My parents owned a NES when I was born and one day after seeing someone play it, I tried out Super Mario Bros. With them seeing me enjoying it and with my uncle also being a gamer and living next door, they got me a Genesis and I use to spend my days playing Sonic. (I was pretty damn good for only being three.) As I got older, my gaming interest only grew.

I had a wide variety of handhelds and systems over my life time and can remember spending a few summers at my uncles house sitting at his computer and playing WarCraft II all day long. To me, being a gamer mean nothing. I liked games, my cousins liked games, and my uncles like games. It was just an enjoyable hobby until I started to mingle with a wider community. Then I began to find myself out of place.

Other girls looked at me like I had two heads and a tail because I would sit down with a GameBoy Color over a Barbie doll. While they all became googly-eyed over some pretty boy singers that they'd never met and started whoring themselves out in the 5th grade, I had my GameCube and PS2. I was an "outcast" in their eyes because I wasn't a typical girl. Then most guys mocked me because I was a girl; after all, girls aren't gamers. That was of course until I kicked their asses in a few rounds of Soul Calibur II; then I gained their respect.

Then when I first started posting here, I was getting noticed just because I was girl; not because of the games I liked or the quality of my posts. It took me quite awhile to get people's minds to shift from, "Oh she's a chick! Hot damn!" to "Oh wow! That was an intelligent comment".

All of this brings me to how things are now: separating yourself by gender causes a huge mess. I won't lie, being a minority does suck. I deal with sexism in some form or way almost daily on XBox Live or even just walking about my local game stores. As you just read above, it's not easy to get your foot in the door and be taken seriously, but I always use to ask myself why until I discovered my answer: girl gamer communities.

I don't mind the idea of having communities for specific things; if you feel the need to have a support group, then by all means do it but after some experience with a few of these communities, I realized that they were harming the view of female gamers more than they were helping. Perhaps it is just me, but I don't think the best way to try to include yourself into a group is to separate yourself. If guys don't walk around saying, "Hey, I'm a guy gamer" then why do we need to say, "Hey, I'm a girl gamer"? Is it really necessary? I will admit that I will typically correct someone on the forums if I am called a guy (call it hypocritical if you wish) but the point I try to make when doing so isn't to separate myself; it's to just toss out the idea that regardless of gender, we can all be the same.

It always rubs me the wrong way to see threads asking if any girl (or heaven forbid, gurl gamers- learn to spell) gamers exist here. I never really understood why we would need to draw ourselves out. Just because my chest is natural and not made from Cheeto-generated fat doesn't make me better or worse. At our core, are we really different from our male counterparts? The answer should be no but unfortunately, I see a lot of women saying yes. I suppose it is seen as being a mile stone for the minority when someone like the Frag Dolls wins a tournament but I see it as a step back since the vibe I get from it is that the only purpose they wanted to win was to brag that chicks could do it; not because they liked the game which is what gaming should be about.

I see all these female-only gaming sites or clans; I've even been invited to join one or two. (Naturally I laughed my ass off.) They all want to be taken seriously but aren't because of what they are. In doing some research on a few of the sites, I recall reading one site telling their readers not to go to places like IGN or GameSpot for gaming news just because they weren't designed for girls. I remember reading that, having my mind explode, picking the pieces up, gluing my brain together, and then staring at my screen with a blank look. I suppose IGN's Babe Section turned them off from the site, but it's still a good hub of entertainment news. And I always thought the GameSpot's color scheme and layout was universal for any gender. How can you expect to be taken seriously if you're telling readers not to go to popular news sites just because it isn't designed specifically for females?

Which leads me onto my amazing fight with that one feminist gaming site. (I have long forgotten their name.) The issue that I had with the site and that the site had with me, was the fact that I "criticized" their lack of knowledge and suggested that they double check facts before publishing something on their site. They were doing a 'girl only' Game of the Year nomination in order to show that 'girls know games'. The thing was...In their Game of the Year nominations, they had mislabeled same games by genre as well as had games from a few years ago on the list. It was ridiculous and embarrassing which is why most girls aren't seen as actual gamers. I had commented on it and suggested that they fix the few errors in order to make themselves look better. Needless to say, after about two posts on their forums I was banned.

Why you ask? Not because I was violent in my original post. (You all know how I am with arguments. I use real reasoning.) The reason why I was banned seemed to be because I disagreed with the concept of 'girls are right because we're girls and we need to stick together to overcome boys!' That concept should have died back in Kindergarten...

This then brings me to marketing. As more and more girls start gaming, developers feel the need to market them. You'll see commercials on TV showing women playing sparkled covered DS or playing games with cute animals or pink princesses. Marketing wise, women are being singled out and they are trying to drag more in but in the wrong away, or at least that's how I see it. Remember how I started gaming? I just played Mario. How did some other girls who I know game and are like me start gaming? The same way I did. We didn't have pink, frilly games shoved down our throats instead, games caught our interest because of our taste. So maybe that's the way things should be marketed; look beyond the gender and market the taste.

It is true men and women typically (yes, I say typically because I'd take a gory horror film over some over the top romance any day) have different tastes. I believe some entertainment study said that women prefer films with romance and emotion so why not include that in commercials for games? Let's take a commercial for Gears of War 2 and have it focus on the idea of Dom being dedicate to finding his wife. While some feminists might throw a fit over the idea of a 'woman being weak', most women might be very moved by it, especially since they do tend to like committed relationships.

Though we are starting to see more and more universal gaming commercials that aren't really aimed at any particular gender. Take a look at the Mirror's Edge commercial, it focuses on showing the concept of the game's smooth looking movements and its style. Left 4 Dead focus on pulling in the good ol' zombie love. Perhaps I'll start to see more of what I want: people being interested in a game for what it really is over it being all girlyfied.

Needless to say, I do feel that part of the reason why it is difficult for females to be taken seriously isn't because of their skills with a game. (Sometimes I'm better than my guy friends, other times they are better than me.) I think that the main reason why we're giving such a hard time is because we make it hard. Sure, naturally guys will be attracted to a female gamer because she is engaging in a hobby he likes (but wouldn't anyone like anyone if they had a similar taste as you?). I feel that the best way to get included into the mix is to not separate oneself but, instead, to just prove that we're one in the same.

After all, I'd like to think that I've earned respect for what I've done and for what I've said; not because of my gender.

[JediAmanda]

That was deep, wow.

[FrozenKing77]

They're out there in Halo sniping the hell out of ya, beating you to a pulp in Super Smash brothers and owning you in anything Sony related; We're everywhere. Yet we're a scarce group.

How does this make you feel?
Start discussing!

scared XD excited and all types of emotions but the more people diversifying the gaming world the better welcome and good luck cause me and everyone else playing these games aren't slouches either :cool:

[BibboTheFirst]

This is a topic I normally could go on and on about...
...After all, I'd like to think that I've earned respect for what I've done and for what I've said; not because of my gender.

Great read. I agree with you on most points especially,

"I disagreed with the concept of 'girls are right because we're girls and we need to stick together to overcome boys!' That concept should have died back in Kindergarten..."

I can't stand those T-Shirts that encourage female violence towards males and the like, (http://www.zazzle.com/boys_are_stupid_tshirt-235964533711530632) when if a shirt said the opposite genders it would be considered the most vile form of sexism

[JediAmanda]

Yeah I always hear about women beating husbands and I must say for every guy that doesn't hit back I applaud you. And I just don't mean wimpy guys either.

[Kumiko]

Thanks, BibboTheFirst and JediAmanda, for the the nice comments.

And yes, I agree but sadly, that's just how double standards are... Until people stop acting in such a way, no one will ever be equal.

[nslick]

I don't care if the person I'm playing is male, female, tranny, or whatever else there is in the world.

As long as they don't advertise what they are every 5 minutes.

[JediAmanda]

Like a six year old boy in a halo game. "I'm SIX!#L:!K#" Its like...? kay...
How many games are out there with girls as the main charater? Samus...Um Laura Croft I can't remember other games. I like hearing about the shock of people who found out Samus was a girl back when are parents were like "Omg girls?!?! games?!!?@"

[ToiBoi6955]

They're out there in Halo sniping the hell out of ya, beating you to a pulp in Super Smash brothers and owning you in anything Sony related; We're everywhere. Yet we're a scarce group.

How does this make you feel?
Start discussing!


Dude it seems like all I play is girls on SSBB they think its cute I use pika but all my friends on All is brawl is chicks. I taught my gf to play cause she loves Mario.

P.S. I beat her everytime lol

[JediAmanda]

I'm glad this thread was such a hit, I think it was my first thread too. What a powerful topic.

[SeventhSeal]

I'm glad this thread was such a hit, I think it was my first thread too. What a powerful topic.

I wouldn't really say it's a "powerful" topic, since I'm sure a lot of people don't really care if it's a girl playing video games or not.

The only issues I find with the concept of "girl gamers" are the self-entitled women who use the term as a badge of honor simply because they play video games while possessing a vagina. Other than that, it's kind of a non-issue.

[EontheWolf]

I have to agree with Seventh. While yes, it's both kind of and kind of NOT a 'big deal' in the Gaming industry today, there's NOTHING more annoying than young girls and women going "I'm a GIRL GAMER. GIRL GAMERS UNITE. WE'RE THE BEST" Or what have you, just because they believe they need to "disprove the rumors about girls not playing games". You didn't see people constantly announcing in the 80's and 90's "HEY GUYS, I'M A GAMER.". NONE of the respectful, informed, INTELLIGENT gamers believe that "rumor", so really, there's not much of a point anymore to constantly announcing you're a female gamer. I cannot TELL you how tired I am of seeing threads in forums EVERYWHERE where one girl 'wants to know who else is a girl and plays games'... Xbox forums, X-Fire forums, video game company forums, etc. etc. All it does is make the woman seem attention hungry, and shallow.
I gotta say Bibbo, your point at the end of the first page, before i jumped to this page, and your points here, I agree with COMPLETELY. Also, one last tidbit; 'Professional teams', such as PMS/H2O and Frag Dolls, for example, despite their good intentions....in my opinion, they tend to come off as attention hungry and completely pointless now :/. There's nothing more annoying than teams that claim they are 'professional', and yet refuse to allow someone based on their gender.
Okay, that's my opinion for this.... I love discussions, I REALLY do, but honestly... I'm getting sick of this particular topic popping up EVERYWHERE. It's old, it's past news, and honestly...there's no point to it anymore....
EDIT: Kumiko....I just read your long post, and I have to say; Couldn't have said it better myself.

[Rikuo]

Personally, i love girl gamers, as they are least likely yo play Barbie Horse Adventures, and play better, real games, like Chrono Trigger, Street Fighter, and Dead Rising.
The girl gamers i know are very serious gamers, more competitive, and pretty kicka#$.
Girl Gamers are some of the funniest people to play games with.

[arora]

While I don't necessarily take pride in that there are other women playing video games, I take pride in that since I picked up gaming at four, I've seen a ton of girls join the hobby. It's pretty commonplace to find a girl every match or so in Halo 3 now, whereas I remember in Halo 2 where the realization that the alleged 'ten year old boy' was actually a woman led to a shiatstorm of horny gamers. I recall being harassed in elementary school because I was a "tomboy" and into everything from Pokemon to Doom 98. I now reserve the right to scream in shock at anyone who hasn't played them both.

This was the timeframe where it was perfectly okay to say "fark you, I'm a chick and I like to bust heads in Unreal Tournament 2k", because there weren't many of us out there playing. However, now it seems to me that most chicks who get up in arms about how we're WOMEN in the MAN'S HOBBY, and somehow that makes us superior to male audiences as well as women who aren't as TOUGH AND DARING as we are.

On that note, sexism is completely backwards and always will be, and men are stupid while women are farking crazy.

[ITsDave]

I think it good. I wouldn't say that they were owning me in any game though. I've been playing L4D for months and I've come across maybe 5-6 girls all of which who weren't better then me, my team had to sorta carry them.

There is only one game which a friend who was a girl, demolished me in and that was Gunz... but it wasn't long before I was playing it on her level and we were pretty equal with the scale tipping in my direction.

What I mean to say is if a girl can play a game as well or better then me, she is a hell of a gamer and props, but I've never met a girl online who gamed better than me yet.

[CatulusFati33]

Alright. Been watching X-Play for years, and G4 kicks ass.

That's the first thing I wanted to say, just cause it's my debut on the forums actually. I never took the time to come here cause I didn't want to have to deal with flame wars. But what the hell, that stuff happens.

Anyways, on to the topic. I agree with the numerous amounts of posts that say that girls who go out and talk about how they play video games and think they're hot or special just cause they play games are annoying. It really is, it's actually more of a turn off in my oppinion if you act that way.

Secondly, girls can kick ass. One of the last things I learned about my girlfriend was that she played video games. We were both big Star Wars fans and all, but damn was I surprised to find out she owned an X-Box and loved the Halo games (and was actually GOOD), when I didn't. My first xbox was a 360. Another thing that kicks ass about it is that she didn't announce it to try to be all, "Oh yeah! I play games too! This is fun!" and then not be able to hold the controller. We actually had an INTELLIGENT video game conversation about some of our personal favorites (Knights of the Old Republic in that list for most of it actually).

Lastly, STOP GIVING THE GIRLS ****! One thing that pisses me off the most about Live is that guys (mostly ten year old boys who claim that dropping the F bomb a million times makes them cool. Of course, it is funny when they claim they are older then we hear them talking to their mom) will immediately chastise and abuse the girls on Live. This causes them to not want to talk, or in some cases, not play for a damn long time.

My point being, REAL female gamers are awesome, fun to play with, and can talk about the games. Female 'gamers' are an annoying pain in the ass who only tarnish the reputation of those girls, like my girlfriend, who play the game for the fun of it. Fake female gamers, go back to whatever you really want to do, an do something that fits you and would be attractive. Real female gamers, keep it real. Ten year old boys or the equivelent of, grow some balls and be a real man. We are all gamers, we all play it for fun. Don't make them want to quit because they don't get respect.

Oh, and if Sessler is reading this by some off chance; I love your rants, love it when you tear fanboys a new *******, and keep giving the flame war dickwads the finger.

[Hellwarden]

I often prefer playing with girls online. They play just as well, and they're usually a good sport.

[JediAmanda]

I dont think adam reads these lol, anyway...I've never heard 10 year old girls playing Halo what if 10 year old boys and girls were in a battle. How intresting would that be?

[TheNordique]

Women are playing video games more and more and it's only a matter of time until companies create games specifically for girls.

For Example:

Get me a Sandwich
Super Mario does Laundry
Menstration Miracle 2


Just jokes, I think its great that there are more girls playing video games. The problem I run into is that if you're not overly friendly with a girl online everyone treats you like your an evil person.

[antitrop]

This thread is terribly lacking in pictures.

Obviously.

[TheNordique]

This thread is terribly lacking in pictures.

Obviously.

You that desperate?

[antitrop]

You that desperate?
Well, the body of the dead girl I had in my basement began to decay a few days ago, so I've had to resort to other means of getting off.

Can you blame me?

[Kumiko]

Women are playing video games more and more and it's only a matter of time until companies create games specifically for girls.

For Example:

Get me a Sandwich
Super Mario does Laundry
Menstration Miracle 2


Just jokes, I think its great that there are more girls playing video games. The problem I run into is that if you're not overly friendly with a girl online everyone treats you like your an evil person.

I had someone apologize to me every time they killed me.

Another time I had two guys follow me everywhere and if anyone killed me, they would gang up on them.

It pissed me the hell off. I don't need "special" treatment or politeness just because I'm a "lady". Chances I are, I trash talk just as badly as any guy and I sure as hell can hold my own when playing a game.

People just need to learn that we're all the same and deserve the same. Be nice to someone in a game because they're nice to you; not because of their gender.

[Falconer13]

Kumiko has a point about the courtesy. Not enough of it.

But as for girl gamers, Hurra! The world would certainly be a better place with more gamers of the female gender.

If I have found one problem with girl gamers, it's that they lack gaming self esteem. And the cold calculating bloodymindedness that guys have. Other than that, women have better dexterity and can think about more things at the same time than guys. Little proclaimed fact: When Pong was first released, some women started hustling Pong tables. How's that for history?

[TheNordique]

Kumiko has a point about the courtesy. Not enough of it.

But as for girl gamers, Hurra! The world would certainly be a better place with more gamers of the female gender.

If I have found one problem with girl gamers, it's that they lack gaming self esteem. And the cold calculating bloodymindedness that guys have. Other than that, women have better dexterity and can think about more things at the same time than guys. Little proclaimed fact: When Pong was first released, some women started hustling Pong tables. How's that for history?

You think men never "hustled" at Pong?

[JLMS_360]

People always think I'm a girl on Xbox LIVE. If you do meet me, I'm not, but I'm not an annoying 10-year-old, either. My friend always brings a girl into our Xbox LIVE Parties. Anyone who Friend Requests them for no reason other than the fact that they are a girl is officially the biggest L0S3R in the Party. That's the way we do it, and I've never lost, 'cuz personally, I don't care about their gender.

[SeventhSeal]

Yeah well you'd lose at giving birth we definitly beat you there lol.

But seriously I think girls who play video games need to stand up and just beat guys at first person shooters and such. The tag "Girls don't play video games" will probably be gone in like five years.

Why don't they just stand up and play and leave it at that.

No one is going to take a female gamer seriously if she's going into gaming with this chip on her shoulder and a need to somehow prove herself.

[Kumiko]

Yeah well you'd lose at giving birth we definitly beat you there lol.

But seriously I think girls who play video games need to stand up and just beat guys at first person shooters and such. The tag "Girls don't play video games" will probably be gone in like five years.

No...No they don't.

The stereotype will never go away until girls learn to just shut up about being girls and just play a game for the sake of playing a game. That's what my whole post was about. If the whole reason why you're playing a game is just to prove a girl can, then you're not really playing a game; you're trying to make a false point.

There's a difference between doing something and doing it out of passion. I can easily start taking wood curving classes to prove that I can make little things out of wood but if I don't really care about it, then I'm not at the same level as someone who dreams of being a famous carpenter.

The point is anyone can do something out of the sake of just doing it. That's why I talked about my run in with the feminist gaming community. All their members claimed to play games but when you looked at the stuff they claimed to be a "hard fact" or something they firmly believed was true...Their information was wrong because they seriously didn't know what they were talking about.

For example, last week at my cello lesson, my teacher showed me how to play a note on the cello. I understand that putting my finger at a certain place on the string and making a certain movement with my bow makes the noise but it wasn't until he explained to me why it made that noise did I fully understand. Of course, now I do and it's helping me progress my playing.

The same goes for girls who play games just to prove that they can; they understand that hitting a button makes the character shoot a gun and they understand that pointing the cursor kills someone but they end up not understanding everything else that goes along with the gaming hobby which makes it harder for people to believe that they truly do play games.

[panthegreat01]

Female gamers are the best on the market. And the fact that more and more are being sponsored shows that we've made an impact on the industry and are fially being taken seriously.

Not to mention the affect of female characters and their portrayal in video games. I'm writing a paper for my Women and Gender studies class on how women are portrayed in gameplay and from what I can tell we have come far in games but still have soo much room to work on. What are you guys' favorite female game heroine?! And what's the most sexist game you've ever seen? (GTA AND Resident Evil duuuh)

Keep playing strong ladies!

<3
-pan.