Gamertell

An interesting article by Jason Hill on Stuff.co.nz presents a bit of a biased and opinionated view of female gamers. Even the title irks me. It starts off as “Game plans for girls,” which makes me assume it will refer to positive influences in the industry or studios and companies that are focusing on games with everyone in mind. Instead, the first half of the article largely focuses on common misconceptions.

Opinionated statements appear quickly - in fact, in the third sentence. Hill states, “More than 40 per cent [sic] of game players in Australia are female, yet most games on the store shelves are of little interest to them.” Yet he provides no information on how he arrives at this conclusion. I know when I walk into my local GameStop, there are at least 10 titles I would instantly buy if I had the money. Perhaps Hill should have staked out a GameStop and talked to some customers without Y-chromosomes before writing his article.

He goes on to cite titles like SingStar, Buzz!, Wii Sports, Brain Training, Nintendogs, The Sims and World of Warcraft as being responsible for the sudden influx of girls playing video games. I won’t argue that those titles may be popular (among both genders), but they aren’t the only reasons girls are playing. I’m a woman who games, and I’ve never played (or had any interest in) SingStar or Buzz!.

I think that journalists who want to write an articles on female gamers should be required by some sort of secret journalistic code to actually go out and interview between five and seven women who play games. I’m sure they would be astonished by the variety of girls who game and the wide selection of titles they adore.

I’d also have to guess that the reason that statistics are showing more women game is because more women are proud to admit that they play video games for fun. I only proclaimed my gamer status in college - in high school I hid it. None of my friends knew at home I’d be alongside Cloud (FFVII), Rena (Star Ocean) and Dart (Legend of Dragoon) saving the world. None of my female friends ever talked about games, and when I brought my Game Boy Color to school once I received odd looks, so I was sure none of them played. Now that I think about it, maybe some of my high school friends who were girls were gamers as well. Maybe they were like me - afraid to admit they played games for fear of being ostracized.

Read [Stuffconz]