Yes, exactly. There is nothing "inherent" about gender-based videogame likes and dislikes. It's all social.

I guess I just figured a game where you can have sex with hookers then kill them to get your money back would be a turn off for females. But hey, I'm male, I know I sure as hell don't understand women, and probably never will.

Hello Kity is actualy a science experiment by a student from the university of hell.

He wanted to know how stupid people were, to see if they would buy ANYTHING with a cute picture on it, regardless of its practical functionality or price.

Even he, commander of his own HellSquad force was supprised at the result!



Back to the girl thing: Lets face it though, there is less girls playing 'hardcore' PC games than men and also less in the industry. Why is that a problem? Aslong as there is no discrimination ("OMG, yur a GURL! You can't have a job here sorry but can I have your number?" etc) then I don't understand these "Qucik get more girls into jobs which they wern't in before!" things. Who does that? I want talented game developers regardless of their gender, you know the ones who say "Guys, the controls of our game Alone in the Dark (2008) sucks ass - lets fix it so its fun!".

but if it had male hookers, than it would make it more appealing to females. Those particular games have a specific audience.

Even so,again, people play games regardless of sex. Its our not fault that some people still view video games as toys for teens.

I don't think its the issue of pointing games in the direction of girls. I think its just the same thing as understanding. Ever been with a chick who didn't understand and action movie or doesn't like watching scary things just because she hasn't seen alot of them. My sisters hate those type of girls and they play games like COD4, SOASE, Battle field, GTA, and such games that world be called hardcore. and when I asked them why girls don't play video games they answered most girls don't even give it time or even try to see if they like games to begin with. I thought that was a sad answer but in reality thats what it actually seems like.

I've never done that in the GTA games. GTA is not explicitly about luring sex workers into your car, having sex with them, and then killing them to get the money back. That's one thing you can do in the games, but you do have other options. They also have actual stories in them that you play through in the missions. You can also collect cars and put them in your garages. You can drive around and cause random violence, put out fires, arrest (well, kill) criminals, drive a taxi... there's so many minigames and options in the GTA games that I find it impossible to pick one aspect and use it to define the entire game, as you just did.

On the other hand, my niece derives great enjoyment from the tactic you describe. I'm sure she'd be amused at the idea that being a girl should disqualify her from it. I'm not saying that women will automatically like GTA, or that no woman will dislike it for the reason you mentioned, but these are individual choices for personal (or political) reasons, not some hardcoded genetic wiring in the second X chromosome.

Also, this "I sure as hell don't understand women, and probably never will" is exactly what I was talking about when I said that it's stupid to treat women like we're aliens. It leads to nonsense generalizations like "women are inherently averse to playing videogames." Women aren't incomprehensible aliens.

Spiral, one of the reasons that women don't give those things a chance is because those things don't appeal to them. I'm sure there are men who are the same about the exact same topics, and of course there are men who don't care to give media women are supposed to like like the same chance - hence derisive comments about "chick flicks" from guys.

Another reason is that, societally, women are told that these things aren't interesting to women. They're presented as "guy" things, so often women are actively discouraged from participating.

But mainly, not everyone is going to like the stuff you like. You're not going to like everything that other people like. There's no need to stereotype women who don't like your hobbies, or make it out to be a feminine trait.

Personaly I blame those childrens stories that always have the big men with the muscels killing things and the women being helpless and being saved while wearing large expensive dresses.

If on the other hand all childrens stories with women in them were about amazons killing evil creatures in burnt out churches or fighting dragons with sticks and stones, then we would be in a much better place!


Maybe thats just cos I like seeing women in armour but whatever. Not that it really matters, I don't have the time or confidence for that sort of thing! :P

Interestingly enough I found this post at random while looking for what other games Stardock has. Information for anyone (who cares, if you don't w/e) I'm a gamer girl and have been for about 10 years now.

To be honest I find RTS games incredibly fun, especially games like Sins of a Solar Empire. I've had tons of fun with Sins, it's really innovative in galactic conquest. As well I don't really think it's uncommon to find other female gamers when you have such a broad selection of games as I do. It's not that there aren't as many female gamers. It's more that.. we don't care to point it out.

Though rest assured you have more chances of finding a girl on a cute and roleplaying focused game rather then a hard-core orgasmic all-out large scale war game. But to be honest in my opinion, I find most genres of gaming very entertaining. From RTS, to RPG, to FPS and so on. I'm a general try-everything gamer, if there's a good game there's a good chance I'll rate that game on how great it actualy is. Not on a biased opinion like a lot of people tend to give.

Anyways.. That about sums it up, I'm a gamer girl living in a lonely world.. yada yada. My first time on this site, I'd have to say it's kind of nice. And oh yeah, if you wanna chat about something or even if you need game help (Not saying you suck, calm down sweety) I'm always happy to talk. My MSN is "sapphyangely@hotmail" feel free to give me a nudge sometime.

(If I insulted you in any way, get over it. I don't mean to bother anyone.)
*Goes off to listen to "Knife Fight" - by Lemon Demon.*

HAHAHA Thats funny as my niece does the same things. I guess I've just been too exposed to stereotypes. A perfect one is her mother watching the game and then saying she's not allowed to play anymore due to the violence. Yet her husband who plays games (sports, golf in particular)and listens to country music throws his controller around if he loses. I, on the other hand, am calm and controlled despite playing violent video games and listening to death metal music my entire life. If you listen to the stereotypes I'm ripe to go shoot up a building. Everyone has different views on things, regardless of sex.

True that. My niece might grow out of it as she gets older, but right now she has fun with the arbitrary violence. Blue turtles in Mario Kart bother her more.

Hi, SapphyAngely.

i cant even coment on this cause im one of very few gamers in my area and then girls have a huge avertion to games even the none vilont ones so only play when their boyfrends bully them into it.

Oh, bull. Girls do not have an innate aversion to games.

Most, not all, girls like different stuff from guys. So, RTS or strategy games will never match the grocery store as a place for meeting girls, and that is probably a good thing. From the tone of the comments above, I just have to add (quoting Mr. Zappa): "You will find/As you impress her with your mind/that you will just be left behind/for a wiser fool"

While I do believe girls play games, I have yet to meet any serious gamer. Most I have meet online were brought there by their boyfriends which can really mess with a game. Here I am playing an infection map on Halo 3 with my bro when this larger group of players joins our game. Besides being a bunch of jerks the guy happened to bring his girlfriend. Quickly the game degenerated into a bunch of guys slobbering over the one girl in the game. The zombies quickly broke through our defenses which were being manned by me and my bro and everyone was slaughtered. When I complained about it the boyfriend (the leader of his clan), and asked that we stop talking and play, he started spouting hate and hormones at me.

The point is that many male gamers are too immature for females to actively state their gender. This is supported by the statistic that most gamers are horny male teenagers.

I find that more women than men don't care about games.

Women can get into games just as much as men, but most just don't.
Not the least cause of which is described in HeroicHerald's post.

That said, I'd like to mention a couple I heard about when taking a psychology class:

They believed that the differences in boys and girls were only a product of society's preconceived ideas. So they adopted two boys and two girls and raised them all the same way. Same kind of [unisex] clothes, only certain bits of TV, everything.

They finally gave up four years later when they gave the kids carrots: The girls shared with each other, and the boys... well, they started trying to stab each other.

Men and Women are inherently different. Doesn't mean they can't do certain things as well.

that is the best experiment ive herd of but did they realy need to spend 4 years doing that when i know it now and most people do but we can still do the same things but have differnt views on it.

and who do you think buys all those bad barbie and my little pony games they just play differnt types genraly ( i know thats a bit of a genralisation)

Wasn't actually an experiment. The parents were just convinced they could raise them to be the same.

Then it doesn't really mean anything. Odds are good that they didn't treat the kids exactly the same - not because of the outcome, but because it has been demonstrated that people do act differently toward boys than they do toward girls.

I wrote a bit about this subject a while back on my web site.

I've been a gamer for a very, very long time (I'm old, what can I say), and I've been a woman for -- well, okay, all my life. Women gamers are much less of a rarity these days than they were ten years ago, and they span all genres. I don't think that women have any inherent bias against RTS games, and I don't think that RTS has any fewer female gamers than any other genre out there. And I do'nt think that girls are inherently better or worse at one genre than another.

I do believe, though, that many women -- not ALL women, just many of them, so women here may be an exception, just as I am myself -- want different things out of their video games than many men, but, as I say in the linked article, I don't think that there are "girl games" and "guy games".

And by the way, I'm convinced that in another ten years we won't even be having this discussion and it will seem silly that we ever had it. I watch my 11 year old niece and ALL her female friends and they spend 90% of their time on their Nintendo DS or their Xboxes. Give it another decade and the next generation of girls will laugh at the idea that they were once considered rare or special.

This is such an interesting thread. 

I think it's already silly

It's silly that women gamers are sort of treated as novelty, and for a lot of guys it's almost something to brag about if they know a woman gamer. This is so apparent when playing MMOs that you can't miss it. Granted, MMOs are not, in general, known for having a high degree of maturity overall among the playerbase. But, having seen what some women have to put up with if they let people know, I'm not surprised at all that a lot don't bother to and prefer to stay low-key.

But why is it such a big deal if girls and women play? What difference does it make? Gaming is a hobby above all else. In a lot of cases it happens to be a social one especially with most games having an online component, but why is it so difficult for a lot of guys to not make a huge deal of finding out that a real girl is playing?

Online, I tend to play female characters. Yes, yes, I know all the taboo of "Why would a guy play a girl", but there are plenty reasons besides "Omg, boobs" or similar that we get accused of. Regardless, I also tend to use a lot of smileys in everyday chat. This should come as no surprise to anyone who reads my posts on the Sins boards . Not long after Age of Conan launched, I went with a pickup group to do a dungeon. We had a tank (guy who's job it is to keep all the enemies off the rest of the team, for those who don't know MMO-speak) that kept talking about his kids. Now, I was a tank in World of Warcraft, so I tend to like talking tank-related stuff. I sent the guy a few tells to chat about tanking in AoC, and a few happy-face smileys. Next thing I know, every tell he starts sending me ends with "hon". I stopped talking to him pretty much immediately. I never said anything that could've been misinterpreted or confused, but he made the assumption - and this was not his first MMO, either, so him being clueless is out of the picture. And if I was, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have wanted to be called 'hon' all the time by a supposed married guy with kids.

I guess at this point I can come out and say that I find it pretty disgusting how women gamers are commonly treated. Not always - there are mature online communities and groups, but I'm sure most can agree that maturity is a fairly rare trait online and certainly not the norm. If only women gamers were treated like normal people who happen to like games too instead of something to be awed over and worshipped - maybe, just maybe, we'd all find that there really are a lot of them who play. They just don't broadcast it because they know what it can ultimately lead to..

There isn't many reasons to play a female char other than how they look, you just want tha boobies! lol Personaly I only play female chars because they look nice, I "identify" closer with my male chars (im male) but these MMOs simply don't give you the options for a good male char.

Those options are thigh length boots, big floppy hats and bare chests. I like the kilts in AoC though...

Generaly all my male chars are big strong naivie fools who don't want to be evil and are therefore the gaurdians of righteous power... Whatever. All the female chars are 'evil'. Which is to do with look and feel, evil men are usualy just thugs and are annoying and repative but evil females are hot and sexy - and they hate you for no reason. Just like real life!

Even my good female chars want to be hot and sexy and envy the evil girls - pink armour just dosn't... fit. To me how a woman looks says more about her than what she says (subconsciously you know), I don't really pay much attention to how men choose to represent themselves visualy unless its very dark, odd or something - which is what all my male chars TRY too look like, like I say they usualy end up look stupid with yellow boots or something. So when I play a female it dosn't feel right unless she looks like she 'feels'. All the details have to be right (and I don't mean breast size - what is it with people and huge boobs?). But how did I get onto this? Now im just rambling.


Have to say though, people who say "hun" are really annoying. The gender issue is always a soruce of good entertainment in MMOs though.

I started it so of course its interesting

Humble as ever, koscy.