First of all, I haven’t posted a new book club because of the holiday. But it occurs to me that we could do a new one for the new year. Possibilities: on the non-fiction front, Virgin: The Untouched History by Hanne Blank and on the fiction front, The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perotta. Which would you like it to be? Also, for those interested in feminist history, I’m reading Susan Brownmiller’s memoirs right now and should have a review up.
And damn Carrie Brownstein for being a marvelous blogger on top of her musical talents. Or thank her, actually. This blog post examining whether or not you can really divide people into gamers and non-gamers when video games and in fact games themselves are everywhere is pretty damn good. Thoughts? Is there such thing as a “non-gamer” these days, at least in the under-70 set?
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I am a non-gamer — enough so that I feel the warm flush of self-satisfaction for even knowing what that sentence means.
People, I don’t even know what “skillz” are. Seriously. I’m also deeply perplexed by “teh.” These things may mean The End Of The World. (”Teh” End of the World? And if so, why?) They may not.
I’m old and tired now. Good night.
Whatever you do, don’t read that other book she wrote where she morbidly examines her own aging body and angsts about it.
Thoughts? Is there such thing as a “non-gamer” these days, at least in the under-70 set?
I’ve never heard of one in the under-30 set.
The good news is, when we have gamers in Congress we will never again have to sit through Joe Lieberman hearings about Night Trap.
I thought of myself as a non-gamer until the Wii came out. Now I’m hooked. My wife, too.
Well… my wife is just past 30 and certainly a non-gamer. But then, that’s only if you’re talking about video games, which I assume the question is about. She plays board games and RPGs.
I don’t have time for video games anymore between the baby, homestay student and school. Dunno if that counts or not. I still like video games, just don’t have time for gaming.
I always considered “gamer” to be strictly RPGs (and I use the term fairly regularly, as in, “I don’t think I ever dated a non-gamer”); I didn’t include video or computer games in the mix.
That said, in all senses of the word, I am strictly a non-gamer. I don’t even really like card or board games, with a few small exceptions. I don’t play well with others.
Most of the people I know that would call themselves “non-gamers” are the significant others of people who game too much
I’m a non gamer, mostly because I can’t be bothered to find games I really enjoy for the Mac. Many years ago, while the earth was still condensing out of the protoplanetary nebula, I was an abuser of Tetris. Now I waste time reading blogs
I’m voting for Abstinence Teacher.
Well this book is pretty damn riveting—I get no small amount of glee thinking about how the path to securing abortion rights was forged at an Austin, TX garage sale. Sort of defies the stereotype that all us red state women are wilting flowers.
Not a gamer. Not computer, not console, not even board games. Can’t get into it.
What’s a ‘gamer’?
–tinfoil hattie, age 47
Second the motion for burying “teh” and other lolcats conventions under several tons of nuclear waste.
Eh, I actually find lolcat-speak to be amusing, mostly b/c it’s short, intended for humor phrasing. plain old lolspeak is what I really can’t stand. The stuff should be used for effect, not for discourse.
I read The Abstinence Teacher last month and, while it raises some interesting themes and issues, the book itself is pretty weak.
The chair does not recognize Em. If anyone needs a fad for December 2007, we could all try remembering and deploying phrases from Wayne’s World sketches. I myself am coming up empty.
I was once an RPG gamer from about age nine to fifteen; after that, I got into other activities and the rest of my gaming group stopped playing anyway. I played Magic: The Gathering for about a year in the mid-1990s because my then-roommate was really into it and wanted someone else with whom to play.
I played video/computer games for about twelve years starting in the early 1980s. On my computer, I was really into fantasy-RPG games like The Bard’s Tale (my favorite) and Infocom’s wonderful all-text games; the other big category I was into was comprised of military games, either historical turn-based battle games (‘Nam, V for Victory) or naval simulations (Strike Fleet, Harpoon, and The Ancient Art of War at Sea).
Since about 1995 or so, I’ve been pretty much a non-gamer. The technical requirements of of games exceeded the capacity of my hardware around that time, and I started getting into the Internet instead. I played Civilization III and IV a few times on my ex-girlfriend’s computer, but that’s about it.
A lot of the games out there just seem to require a lot more effort and focus than I’m willing to give them. I get bored and then I give up.
*sigh* I had a nice long response, but it disappered into the cyber-netherworld as sometimes happens here.
To make it much shorter: I pretty much have been a non-gamer since around 1995. My real-life gaming groups broke up, as we all moved on to other things, and the technical requirements of computer games exceeded the capacity of my hardware. That’s right around the time I started turning to the Internet anyway.
Pretty much everybody I know is a gamer, from friends to co-workers … … but I work in the game industry … so I might be biased
DeadMan
It’s interesting; the blog post Amanda linked to has a quote from a Slate article which make some mention of the blurring of the distinction between reality and fantasy. I’d been recently reading some works by the French philosopher Jean Baudrillard, particularly on his concept of the “hyperreal”, which the Slate article pretty much gives an example of.
I’m a gamer, but I do think the term is becoming more and more like the term Trekky. Lots of people watched Star Trek and enjoyed it, but not all that many call themselves Trekkies. It’s a term for the people who are particularly into the fandom. I suppose Foodie might be another similar term. I mean, come on, who doesn’t like food? But we’re not all foodies.
I think a lot of people, at least on the internet, when they say “gamer” actually mean one specific kind of gamer, usually that subset of gamers who really like GTA and Halo. If you don’t like the same things that clique does, then as far as the clique is concerned you don’t exist.
Unfortunately for a long time it has seemed like that clique is all that certain sections of the gaming industry are willing to cater to… but, it also seems like that’s changing.
Today’s Penny Arcade, by coincidence, is kind of relevant.
I thought the hot thing this season was talking like Skwisgaar Skwigelf.
Lolcats is, I believes, totally dildos. Pfft.
I think people are getting close when they say that “gamer” is not just someone that plays video games/rpg’s what have you. But I think much like the Trekkie reference it is not just an obsessive fan or a certain type of fan but a label people use to categorize themselves.
There is a huge “gamer” subculture much like there is a huge Trekkie subculture. That being said I think the label has shifted where it once meant that you did serious “rpg” book stlye games now it mostly means that you play video games and self identify with that subculture.
Gamers are nerds. People who play Halo and Guitar Hero might be gamers, but they also might not be. They might just be frat boys who like to play some video games. A gamer is somebody who does /played in World of Warcraft and the amount of time is measured in months. Or maybe that’s a hardcore gamer. You can be a gamer and not play video games; many of my friends play tabletop RPGs, collectible card games, and board games (Shoots&Ladders doesn’t count - I’m talking about Axis&Allies, Civilization, etc.) but not video games. My point is that not everybody who has ever played Super Mario Brothers can call themselves a gamer. Gaming is an entire subculture, which is part of the reason why we type in ways that are annoying to other people. When you get involved with a group of people and you play together for a long time (literally a couple years for my WoW guild) you develop your own inspeak.
I’m about as close to being a non-gamer as it’s possible to be. I play one computer game semi-regularly, and I don’t play it for the same reasons everyone else does. (The game is Bookworm Adventures, and I play it because it’s like competitive solitaire Scrabble.)
I mostly don’t see the point of games. I don’t find vacuous arbitrary “challenges” fun, and I don’t see the point in creating vast artificial problems to solve when there are hundreds of millions of vast real problems to solve that are more interesting than the artificial ones. I also dislike that the conventions and rules of a lot of games seem spurious and arbitrary to me.
Virgin.
Heh.
Guild Wars rulez, World of Warcraft droolz!
Ditto the comments that make the distinction that playing games does not necessarily make one a gamer. Saying that you’re a “gamer” carries certain connotations that saying “I like to play games” does not. I like the comment that draws comparison to “I’m a Trekkie” versus “I watch Star Trek.”
Being a gamer does suggest that you’re part of some kind of gaming sub-culture. It’s not just something you do casually on occaision, but something that’s a serious hobby. And, just like other hobbies, I think that it can become pretty specific. There are car buff who are only into classic cars, or muscle cars, or import cars, or racing cars. Most of us probably drive, but we’re not all Car People, and we’re certainly not all Classic Car People. And you could get even more specific and get involved with the Classic Mustang People.
Ento — you’re trying to pull up the ladder to the clubhouse to keep out the undesirables. It ain’t gonna work.
The definition of a “casual gamer” and a “hardcore gamer” is something absolutely steeped in anxious masculinity and gender stereotyping*. And it’s because we have people so damn invested in drawing meaningless lines about who “likes games more.” When I talked to my uncle who lives out in the woods and until only a few years ago didn’t even own an answering machine, but had gotten a computer to research some of his old cars, and he was going on and on about how he loved using the computer to play pinball, card games, and all the other stuff that got loaded on, I realized how meaningless the term “hardcore gamer” is. Yes, I think there are gamers and non-gamers. A person who might occasionally play a round of solitaire to kill a little time might not necessarily be a gamer–they may prefer to spend their free time knitting, or reading, or running. But if someone looks at games as a means of entertainment unto themselves, whether they be videogames or board games or tabletop RPGs or Minesweeper, and will actively try to make time to do those things and not see them as a way to just pass a little time, then you’ve got a gamer on your hands, whether they could pwn your ass or not.
* sorry for the link farm. But you knew I would post them. :p
I’m voting for Virgin.
I read Virginity Lost earlier this year. While the author did a good job of talking about different groups (race, sexuality, class) and their ideas/experiences of virginity, I still found it lacking.
I’m pretty sure I’m a nongamer, unless you count board games. My entire gaming experience comprises:
-A few minutes in the early 80’s when the neighborhood boys let me take a turn on the Atari
-One deadly-bored afternoon of Dungeons & Dragons, just to humor my friends, circa 1990
-A weeklong fling with mahjongg on someone else’s computer during a stint of unemployment more than ten years ago.
I’ve never played an arcade game, or any kind of console game except for the one bit with the Atari. I’m 34.
“Virgin: The Untouched History” by Hanne Blank sounds pretty interesting.
I vote for Virgin: The Untouched History
Virgin!
In my experience anybody who plays games is considered a gamer. There are massive subsets though, the casual gamer (the Wii is aimed directly at them), the hardcore gamer (even in this group you’ll have other subsets … the hardcore FPS gamer, the hardcore MMORPG player … hell I’m considered a hardcore Virtua Fighter player even though I barely play anymore), the old school gamer … there are many types of “gamers” out there … and I think most of these subgroups would self identify as “Gamers”.
DeadMan
I think it is fair to say that unless you have been willing to dedicate a major part of your home to recreating WWII with your friends for several months, then you are a gamer but not a hard core gamer. Most everyone games at some point, to appease a mate, to please friends or to while away a snowed in weekend. Computers and consoles have made gaming more space compliant than in the bad old days when I helped run a club so that people could set up massive games for months on end without risking divorce or catcidents.
Computer gaming has increased the number of gamers but some subsets of the gaming community are still reserved for the truly insane.
Ponygirl, if that’s true then my distinction between “tv show watcher” and “fan” is rooted in anxious femininity. (And my distinction between “knitter” and “made a scarf a couple of years back”, “unpaid lobbyist” and “once called the White House”, “church-goer” and “dropped in on easter”).
If something’s a big enough hobby that it soaks up more than 5% of your time, you make uninterested people listen to you talk about it (”Seriously, I can show you the socks I made, they’re just upstairs, I used a bamboo/emu yarn blend and purled every fourth stitch”), you speak an incomprehensible subcultural dialect when talking about it, and you’ve gained some level of expertise in the field, then you are an ornithologist, painter, wacky car-obsessed dude, etc.
For the record, I am not a gamer, as I find gamers unbearably nerdy. Instead, I write Doctor Who fanfiction.
I vote for Virgin, but discount my vote by 50% since I’ll only listen to it in audiobook format (assuming I can find it).
I’ve just got to throw this out there… 1337 gamez pwnz0rs
I love this illiterate gaming culture.
Recovering gamer. Started out on Pong, quit when I found myself playing WAY too much Asteroids back in 1979.
Again I apologize to anybody hurt by obsession back then.
“Recovering gamer. Started out on Pong, quit when I found myself playing WAY too much Asteroids back in 1979.”
I’m glad we couldn’t afford Pong back in the day. Apparently it’s a “gateway” game that just leads you on to the harder stuff…
I think that is an interesting question about gamer vs non-gamer. As Brownstein points out, our culture is pretty much saturated in it. Trying to find someone who hasn’t played some sort of game would almost be impossible. Then trying to figure out which among those people who have gamed are “gamers” would be incredibly difficult. It is such a relative thing. For example, I used to own a Sega, play some PC games (mainly adventure games, Sims, and WoW) and socially play D&D, although I’m not obsessed with it. I call myself a gamer. My gamer boyfriend doesn’t play video games, but loves PC games (WoW and Civ 4 right now), plays D&D. Allies and Axis, and (almost) owns a complete Warhammer 40K Battle Sisters army. His best friend who is a gamer has a special room dedicated to all his console, PC, table top, RPG, and minis games (with a lights system that highlights the best figurines). The DM of our D&D game and his wife are both gamers. She is an anthropologist who did a study on the subcultural norms of D&D for her anthropology MA but only plays RPGs. The DM is an unemployed MBA who spent 3000 dollars of a minis game while they couldn’t make the car payment (and she didn’t divorce him!), wins tournaments in Allies and Axis, but thinks that computer and console games aren’t a “real” enough experience. We are all “gamers” but our lives and gaming habits are very, very different. So, trying to come up with some litmus test to sort people out is silly. People are going to define and sort themselves by all sorts of standards, and that’s OK. It’s part of human nature to want to find community and belonging. In the end, isn’t all that matters is that we have fun?
It depends on context. I play board games, card games, video games (including the occasional bout of WoW), and RPG’s. Only people who play the latter two seem to self-identify as “gamers.” There is a difference between someone like my friend, Kate, who picks up a game of Wii tennis or Guitar Hero, and her partner, Jon, who can play for hours at Halo or Final Fantasy. Kate would say that she plays video games, while Jon would say that he’s a gamer.
However, if we’re defining gamers as those who play games, rather than those who self-identify as such, then I don’t think I know a single non-gamer. Even my 75-year-old grandma loves playing Yahtzee! on a hand-held electronic device. Maybe my dad, since he only goes for card games.
I’ve been wanting to read Virgin for a while.
I vote for the “Virgin” book.
Unless playing tetris on my mobile phone counts as ‘gaming’, count me as an under-30 year old non-gamer.
I am far too obsessive a gardener (fitting entirely with purpleshoes’s definition above: “Harvested twenty four tomatoes yesterday and want to come out and see how my sage is doing? No? You sure? Got some gorgeous variegation going on my zucchini leaves. Here let me send you home with a bouquet of parsley and silverbeet!”) to have time for such foolishness as gaming.
Although I have discovered and confirmed that I am the sort of nerd who will be insanely nerdy about whatever it is that catches my interest. Used to be books, then it was programming, now it’s gardening- a lot like programming, but more forgiving of chaos. Skipped gaming entirely apart from a few years of email-based text roleplay back in the 90’s.
Some of that is true, Mighty Ponygirl. However, it’s about more than just who has the biggest e-peen. Gamers are my people. When I found the gaming society in undergrad, it was like I’d found home. It’s not just gaming, it’s also sci-fi and science majors and other nerdy things. It’s the shared experience of being ostracized and picked on for being smart and socially inept. That’s why the frat boy who plays Halo doesn’t get to call himself a gamer.
They dissipate the pungent odor of a power holder.
Sand kickers comin’ sixty clicks upon the sonar.
They’re gonna fold me over like a trapper keeper folder.
If this was D&D, you’d see me jump into a portal.
I’m a geek, spelled g double e k.
I’m trying to keep out the undesirables? Ha. I am the undesirable.
22 year old here and a non-gamer. No computer games, no consoles, nothing.
I’m with Em. I’m just not into it.
Non gamer, but then I’m 49. They bore me.
Gramp started me on Pong when I was 10, then came Space Invaders, then Pac-Man/Ms Pac-Man, and Centipede by high school. Went cold turkey for years, then was introduced by my husband to Sid Meyers’ “Civilization”- it was all downhill from there.
Eventually became a raving Doom III maniac, even introduced my impressionable young daughters to the joys and thrills of blowing up gory, nasty monsters. The girls have managed not to catch their mother’s addiction; their Gameboy gathers dust from neglect. I’ve since broken my habit as best I can and keep myself limited to Bicycle Board games now…
So, not “quite” a gamer- it’s like I’ve tried it a few times, but I didn’t inhale.
Oh, and I’m 42. If I had more time and no kids, I’d probably be a full-blown gamer. Best pal from high school got me into D&D; we had a gang of 6 kids (we were the only girls and dated 2 of the guys in our group) who role-played every weekend- she is still into fantasy role-playing, as were both of her husbands.
Where is my Orange Box?
A week from tomorrow…grrr.
About once a year i get sucked into a computer game, but i don’t own a console and probably won’t buy one. I’m not sure i fall within the parameters of a gamer.
The definition of a “casual gamer” and a “hardcore gamer” is something absolutely steeped in anxious masculinity and gender stereotyping*.
Maybe you’d like to tell that to Stevie Case, who defeated John Romero in a Doom deathmatch the first time they ever met.
Somehow I don’t think Killcreek was too anxious about her masculinity, which makes your comments pretty ignorant and stupid. There is a discernible difference between gamers and non-gamers; gamers have a suite of skills (or “skillz”, if you will) developed for interpreting and interacting with virtual media and virtual worlds.
There’s a reason that the US military recruits heavily in gamer circles with things like “America’s Army”, and it’s not because video games turn people into killers; it’s because hardcore, and not casual, gaming develops a discernible suite of skills and characteristics that they think are good for soldiers.
Of course there’s nobody who doesn’t “play games.” Probably every house in America with kids has a copy of Monopoly in the closet. That doesn’t have anything to do with who’s a gamer and who’s not. If you have to ask if you are you’re almost certainly not. (It’s kinda like “gellin’”, I guess.)
Martinet! My thoughts exactly!
I guess I’m a friend of gamers, though-
my boyfriend is credited in one of the first BTVS role-playing books (apparently he used to play role-playing games?), and my best friend was president of KUGAR: KU Gamers And Roleplayers, when we were undergrads. Even my best friend, Ben, was wary of some gamers, though (I guess they were a little too hardcore).
I gravitate towards “nerds”, but I guess I don’t like playing with them.
I can also do without friends having heavy-on-the-alcohol- game nights. I just want to socialize and get crazy- not act out stupid sayings, or whatever. “Whiskey, and hold the Cranium, please”.
Gender has little to do with how “leet” a gamer is, but there is certainly a strong vein of sexism in gaming, especially online play. I swear to god the whiniest bitches on the planet are adolescent boys (you’d think it was the end of the world if you politely told them to stop throwing around “rape” as a slang term or asked not to be called a “guy”…oh noes, teh feminazis are here to castrate us!!!!11!one!).
Does Freecell count?
“Virgin”. And I only play a couple of PC games. RPG’s don’t really sound like fun to me.
(If I can get my hands on a Wii for my kid I might discover a couple of other games I like).
Love it.
Pointing to a girl gamer is somehow proof that anxious masculinity is not an issue in gamer culture.
Next, pointing to a virgin is proof that rape doesn’t exit!
Another non-gamer here. Unless playing board games and Go Fish with my child count?
I did play a Playstation motorsport game at a friend’s house one afternoon and had everyone in hysterics as I got all aggressive and mowed down the spectators and crashed my cars every way possible. It certainly confirmed the sensibleness of my decision to remain a non-driver IRL.
Heck, anxious masculinity was what made the walk to take my first place trophies so much fun. The mumbles on the first walk, the whispers on the second and the dead silence as I kept getting up… ah, those were the days. Of course. I’m 45 now and I just can’t do five or more gaming sessions a day over three days anymore.
Oh no, Ponygirl is absolutely right. On gaming messageboards, discussions of “casual” gamers/games vs “hardcore” gamers/games is saturated in masculinity fears.
Any games that don’t fall into a narrowly defined model (dark colour pallette, gun-centric, angry male central character, gory, possible casual female nudity) are derided as “casual”. Anything that’s colourful or different is associated with the childish and (worst of all) the feminine, with no attention paid to complexity or quality.
Of course, that vision of maturity is pretty much shaped by what 12-20 year old boys think is cool, which is horribly depressing.
It’s been partially dismantled recently by Nintendo’s annihilation of the competition; they’ve provided an excellent gender-neutral female-friendly (without being patronising) vision of gaming. Even if they do still have too many helpless princesses in pink.
I am a tabletop gamer, for life. Videogames, not so much. I’ve played a few, but aside from puzzle games, I generally don’t bother. With tabletop RPGs, there’s a wonderful social aspect– which I guess people also get going head-to-head with a game console, but I can’t afford anything like that.
Everybody I know plays games of some sort. In fact, everybody I know really does it for enjoyment quite a bit. My father plays Bridge online, my mother plays Scrabble online. My grandmother doesn’t use computers, but she goes out to a Tarbish (Tarbish is a bidding card game that rewards dealt runs, however the card order doesn’t match the rank order, and the trump order is different than the normal order..really complicated game) game once a week, or more sometimes.
Everybody I work with pretty much plays something or other. 5-6 people I work with (including myself) are neck deep into Guitar Hero right now, I know a few WoW players, etc.
My wife plays DDR Mario Mix on a daily basis, as well we play as much together as we can. (Had a ton of fun with the new Resident Evil shooter)
So this sort of thing surrounds me. Games intrigue me on a personal basis. I study them. The systems, and how those systems build upon one another, and all that is a good way of allowing myself to flex that part of my brain in a non-piss me off type way. (As opposed to politics/policy/society, that sort of thing)
Pointing to a girl gamer is somehow proof that anxious masculinity is not an issue in gamer culture.
When we’re talking about a culture where women thrive and lead, and are represented in progressive and egalitarian ways, at what point does it start to get ridiculous to assert that it’s all about “anxious masculinity”? Sure, there’s masculinity issues in gaming; men game, after all. But to assert that the whole thing is about that is to be ignorant and arrogant of a culture you know nothing about.
It’s like saying the whole internet is about anxious masculinity. Sure, it’s there, because men are there. But such a sweeping statement ignores all the places where that’s simply not an issue.
With tabletop RPGs, there’s a wonderful social aspect– which I guess people also get going head-to-head with a game console, but I can’t afford anything like that.
We’re really entering an age when the idea of a game with no social component will be a thing of the past. It’s exciting.
Being as I’m too tired to even skim the comments right now I’ll just answer this one question and then crash.
I mainly play games on my PC, not investing in an Xbox or Wii or anything because I remember what a pain in the ass it was to buy the original Nintendo system when I was a kid, followed by the SuperNES because they stopped releasing games for the original one, and of course eventually they stopped releasing games for that as well.
As for what I play, I’m too much of a WoW junkie for my own good, as well as the Warcraft series, Starcraft, Civilization II, Sid Meier’s “Pirates!”, and NBA Live 2005 (I’ll buy a more recent version of that last game one of these days, but for now I’m happy with the one I’ve got). So concludes my pitifully short list of games that I play.
(I’d been thinking about buying Spider-Man: Friend or Foe, but have been told it’s not that good, so I’m gonna pass for the time being at least.)
I’ve been interested in Blank’s book since the Bitch article on it, though I don’t know if they’ll have it at my library. I’ll look for both the next time I go through the catalog.
What’s the weather like on your planet, chet? Jade Raymond may be a successful producer, but that doesn’t stop the fanboys from distributing bukkake comics of her on the web to take her down a peg. Women may be programming and participating more in the industry, but that doesn’t stop IGN from publishing a “Top 10 hottest women in tech” article to remind the boys what the women are *really* there for.
Soul Caliber IV’s depictions of women in their fanart is so offensive it’s actually starting to make the fanboys themselves a little uneasy.
Teabagging your kill.
Calling your opponents “fags” and “pussies.”
Reacting to every professed female gamer with cyber requests.
Nope, no anxious masculinity there.
Could we please get trolls who can at least provide a decent attempt at intellectually honest debate, instead of Chet here who passes monopoly money and can’t understand why you won’t let him buy the candybar?
Also this: a female member of a guild used to belong to in WoW was telling us that during a PVP battle after she clarified that she actually was a woman in real life, everybody started putting her down because of it, as well as the PVP skills of the female gender in general.
That is insane, and sure came as a surprise to me. You think that you live in a society that’s come a long way, and then hear about something like that…
I also see a lot of people describing things they don’t like as “gay”. Sometimes I’ll try to tell them that’s not cool, and sometimes I feel like there’s no point trying to get through to them.
Not everybody on my server is like that, but the number of people who are is often discouraging.
In the industry we use “casual gamer” and “hardcore gamer” as terms to define what fan base we are attempting to sell to. We mostly use it when doing playtests (focus groups for games). Accessibility and an easy learning curve is king when it comes to casual games where in a “hardcore” titles those things are less important. They’re actually pretty useful terms … …
Having said that the little douchbags on x-box live who can’t stop calling everybody noobs and fags and love nothing more than to talk about how hardcore they are, well those idots are useless.
DeadMan
(Sorry ‘bout the double post but forgot to include this part)
“When we’re talking about a culture where women thrive and lead, and are represented in progressive and egalitarian ways”
Uh … what?!? … … what game industry are you talking about cuz I’m damn sure it’s not the same one Mighty Ponygirl is talking about.
DeadMan
The gaming hobby hasn’t changed socially since the first caveman carved a piece out of bone and threw it against a wall. In the 25+ years that I have been involved, more so when I was younger, the initial reaction of most young male gamers to a female gamer is to hand them the empties to throw out. It gets tiring having to prove yourself to each new gamer as they come through the door. Watching some male dipwad who has to have the rules explained over and over get the benefit of the doubt while you had to prove yourself and still have to is tiring. Teaching friends that you game with that they do treat you differently than the male gamers (and they do!) is tiring. With the advent of computer gaming, it is very tiring to read all the slams and putdowns that have become such a common background.
But what makes it all worthwhile is making an impact on new gamers, seeing them get into more complex games, helping them overcome those attitudes and start to learn how to strategize and incorporate tactics into their games. When you see a young gamer get past all the noob, frag and other drivel and into the meat of the game, that is invigorating.
Just because Chet disagrees with you doesn’t mean he’s a troll. I suppose the Internet Fuckwad Theory might make things worse, but in general I haven’t found MMOs to be a more hostile place than say, the boys hockey teams I was on as a child. Less QQ more pewpe
I’ve played games, but I don’t play them regularly, so count me as a “non gamer.” Like Interrobang, I just don’t see the point most of the time.
No, but passing blatant lies does.
The average age of ‘gamers’ who actually talk in online areas and in PVP pits is about 13. In other words, barely past the “girls have cooties” stage of psychosexual development. In fact, I suspect games are a refuge for the teenage guys who didn’t really, quite, get past that stage yet. (I.e. what you see as a den of misogyny I see as a pit of immaturity, and what you see as ‘anxious masculinity’ I see as ‘anxious adolescence’.) From their perspective, you(not just as a female, but as someone above the age of 20) are invading their space, and they behave much like chimps on encountering another band on their territory.
A lot is explained if you assume no one there has ever had a kiss, a date, or any particular prospects of same, and their only experience with females outside of school is with annoying authority figures (mom and teachers), obnoxious younger sisters, and/or intolerant older sisters. Young teens are establishing their identity, meaning learning and drawing distinctions of type - me guy, you girl, me great, you suk, thus all guys rool, all girls drool - establishing territory (noobie sux! ha! ha! ), and the like. Basically, you are in a middle school boys locker room, with the least socially adept set of kids. Add in overactive hormones making everything, including linoleum, sexually charged, and all conversation becomes sexual competition, all ‘pwning’ (in game and otherwise) becomes rape, and you are either having a ‘hardcore’ or ‘casual’ experience, with the former hot and the latter not.
The ones who manage to get to their mid-twenties without dropping the rape jokes, noob-hating, and pwning are the ones to worry about. 90% of the rest will grow out of it, and may have adopted it in the first place partly because they know it annoys older, censorious authority figures and killjoys (like, for example, everyone here, my 36 yo self included).
Just to contribute to the demographic survey here: Played D&D pretty regularly for my first three years of college, but only a handful of times since 1981. Have very rarely sampled computer games of any kind in spite of having had a computer at home since 1990.
Oh, wait. I played Populous for about a year. And one spring in college I totally ruled at the original arcade Star Wars. Forty-five minutes on a quarter.
Jade Raymond may be a successful producer, but that doesn’t stop the fanboys from distributing bukkake comics of her on the web to take her down a peg
And, yet, she’s still the producer of one of the top-rated games for the PS3 and its sequels.
I’m not saying that men don’t game, and that they don’t bring their masculinity issues to what they do. Obviously, they do.
But to assert that the whole thing is about anxious masculinity - that a woman asserting her gaming identity is grappling with her masculinity, natch - is nonsense. You’re completely ignorant of the culture you’re talking about. What kind of basis is that to make assertions, Ponygirl?
Could we please get trolls who can at least provide a decent attempt at intellectually honest debate
Why don’t you take your own advice? If you left there’d be one less intellectually dishonest troll.
Uh … what?!? … … what game industry are you talking about
The one that exists. Ponygirl is talking about the one that’s only in her mind.
No, but passing blatant lies does.
You mean, like the way you’re misrepresenting my arguments? Those kinds of lies?
So stop trolling, then.
I was into WoW for a few months a couple of years ago. Most of the officers in my guild were women. I don’t know how they fared outside, but they were treated with respect within the guild. Probably because they were super high level, and could kick you out if you were obnoxious.
And, yet, she’s still the producer of one of the top-rated games for the PS3 and its sequels.
Yep she’s still the producer for one of the top rated games… But frankly the only reason she’s as well known and obsessed over as she is because she’s “hot” and she was on a TV show, and because Assassins is considered a “hard core” game and so attracts a lot of fanboys.
There are a few other female producers at Ubisoft (the studio that made Assassins, and the one I work at) who nobody ever really hears about because they are not “marketed” or perceived that way.
I think this is another subset of the hardcore gamers versus casual gamers issue. Many female producers work on casual games and so aren’t exposed to the same treatment as the women who work on hardcore games. They do a great job and their games sell well, and that’s pretty much where the buck stops. Its all about competence and that’s just fine.
But when it comes to “hardcore” games, like assassins or splinter cell, as opposed to surfs up or ninja turtles, the people on those hardcore projects can become almost fetishized by the fanboys that make up a large chunk of hardcore demographics. These are people who devote a lot of time to games and their voices are many and so, much louder than those who play a little mario galaxies every now and then, or who picked up a wii to play bowling games.
I think when PonyGirl talks about anxious masculinity this is really where it comes into play, because hardcore games tend to be where the fanboys congregate the most and in my opinion fanboys as a group are about as anxiously masculine as it gets.
The one that exists. Ponygirl is talking about the one that’s only in her mind.
The one that I work in is pretty similar to the one Ponygirl is discussing. I didn’t even know Jade Raymond existed, then random D-bags at EB noticed my Ubi logo hat and started asking me if I’d ever met her or if I could introduce them to her and other less pleasant things… and then some of the guys I work with showed me one of her “fan sites” *shudder*
Frankly, the idea of the games industry as a culture where “women thrive and lead” is pretty ridiculous to me. There’ve been some strides, to be sure, but I still have to smack down fools on my projects for sending demeaning or offensive videos out to the whole team, or making asses of themselves trying to hit on me or one of the few other women on the team.
I think we women were 13% of the population at Ubisoft last time I checked, and it does show sometimes. Its a lot better than it used to be, and my company does try hard to get and retain female talent. We don’t tolerate sexual harassment or anything like that. But from the top of the company to the floor with the grunts there’s a certain bias always present.
Just look at the “games for girls” out there on the market or about to be released, and you’ll see how the industry as a whole views female gamers. We very rarely exist outside the context of sex objects. When we do get “games for girls” they are mostly about how to care for babies or sick animals or go shopping.
Kane & Lynch advertises their shooter in Playboy.
EA used topless models to advertise Need for Speed.
When I wrote an April Fools post on my site about how Tetris is sexist, I got trolled with the usual cavalcade of “shut up bitch” and “you just need a hot dicking” replies.
You mean a culture where women are tolerated at best, and actively exploited at the most realistic. Where even the more credible online gaming journals encourage consumptive attitudes towards real women. And represented in progressive and egalitarian ways–are you talking about the DOA: Beach Volleyball babes, or Screw Attack’s “Top ten hotted gamer babes” series and their lovely sections of “I’d hit that!” comments? Perhaps you’re talking about those wonderful egalitarian, progressive booth babes at the gaming conferences, or the Frag Dolls which continue to reinforce that in order for a woman to be considered a “gamer” she must first be considered “fuckable” ?
If you honestly don’t feel that gaming culture is steeped in anxious masculinity, you either fail to recognize misogyny and homophobia when it is trotted out again and again in the forums of Kotaku, Destructoid, Gamespot, IGN, and Joystiq, or you just don’t involve yourself in gaming culture.
When I wrote an April Fools post on my site about how Tetris is sexist, I got trolled with the usual cavalcade of “shut up bitch” and “you just need a hot dicking” replies.
Tetris is sexist? I don’t know, maybe they didn’t get the joke. Since you don’t link to the post I have no idea. You don’t strike me as that funny, honestly.
And represented in progressive and egalitarian ways–are you talking about the DOA: Beach Volleyball babes, or Screw Attack’s “Top ten hotted gamer babes” series and their lovely sections of “I’d hit that!” comments?
No, I guess I’m talking about games like Beyond Good and Evil, the Metroid series, Mass Effect, Rock Band, any one of a thousand RPG games with female leads, and so on.
Probably all games you’ve never even heard of. The market has spoken and games that are gratuitous pixelated T&A simply don’t succeed these days - because women play a lot of video games. They may play them more than men according to some research.
All things you might have known if you’d bother to learn fact one about what you’re criticizing.
Perhaps you’re talking about those wonderful egalitarian, progressive booth babes at the gaming conferences
There haven’t been “booth babes” for years, now. Maybe you hadn’t heard but the gaming conference of note these days is PAX, where women not only administer and arrange the conference, but also volunteer as “Enforcers.” E3, on the other hand, died an ignominious death.
If you honestly don’t feel that gaming culture is steeped in anxious masculinity, you either fail to recognize misogyny and homophobia when it is trotted out again and again
One’s sensibilities don’t have to be all that fine-tuned to realize that you haven’t got the slightest idea of what you’re talking about. Sure, men play video games and they bring men problems with them. Quelle surprise. I’ve never said different. But only somebody completely confident in making pronouncements on subjects they know nothing about would have such an ignorant and outdated perspective on gaming culture. Quit saying stupid shit for a minute and try playing a video game you didn’t have to blow the dust out of, first.
The fact is, you accused a woman of having anxious masculinity issues and you got called on it. And now you look like an idiot because you don’t know the first thing about gaming culture, and you don’t have the courage to admit it, particularly to someone you think is male.
Yeah, I know nothing about gaming. That must be it. You’ve got me.
And now you look like an idiot because you don’t know the first thing about gaming culture, and you don’t have the courage to admit it, particularly to someone you think is male.
I only see one person looking like an idiot here, and it’s not MP. It takes ten seconds of looking around gaming sites to see the sexism that gaming culture is still brimming with. Are there some signs of improvement? Sure. But for every Beyond Good and Evil (a game that’s what? Five years old now? And that barely made a blip on the radar of most gamers?) there are a dozen Dead or Alives. Rock Band sounds awesome… for a game that has all of a half dozen songs by female vocalists. Of course as awesome as Rock Band sounds, Guitar Hero III decided to go with dancing girls and disembodied body parts. Lovely. And that doesn’t even begin to touch on the blatant homophobia and sexism of gamers in most online games.
It takes ten seconds of looking around gaming sites to see the sexism that gaming culture is still brimming with.
And, in your view, gaming sites that exist to sell advertising revenue constitute the entirety of gaming culture?
One more person who doesn’t know what the hell they’re talking about, looks like.
And, in your view, gaming sites that exist to sell advertising revenue constitute the entirety of gaming culture?
One more person who doesn’t know what the hell they’re talking about, looks like.
Well, Chet, if that were the only thing I said, you might have a point. But, you’re right, if you ignore the sexist games, the sexist gamers, and the sexist media coverage- gaming culture looks pretty good. That’s a real winning strategy you’ve developed there.
But, you’re right, if you ignore the sexist games, the sexist gamers, and the sexist media coverage- gaming culture looks pretty good.
Well, let’s see if you can play this game - it’s called “prove you’re not arguing a strawman.”
The object is to show me one place where I said that stuff didn’t exist at all. And… go!
Sure, the game universe looks pretty sexist if you stop looking at the first sexy ad that you see. That’s the level of rigorous research that leads to a conclusion of, I dunno, sexism in Tetris or whatever.
Obviously there’s sexism in gaming, because men game. I don’t know how many times I have to repeat that before it sinks in with you people. But if you stop looking at the first website where you see some titties, you’re nowhere close to actually getting in touch with gamer culture, and you simply don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.
“No, I guess I’m talking about games like Beyond Good and Evil, the Metroid series, Mass Effect, Rock Band, any one of a thousand RPG games with female leads, and so on.
Probably all games you’ve never even heard of.”
Dude you are soooo 1337! we shouldn’t be arguing with you’re massive knowledge of gaming!!!!!
DeadMan
PS did you know beyond good and evil’s poor sales are actualy blamed on the fact that there was a femmale lead in that game?
Female lead (stupid typos)
DeadMan
Sure, the game universe looks pretty sexist if you stop looking at the first sexy ad that you see. That’s the level of rigorous research that leads to a conclusion of, I dunno, sexism in Tetris or whatever.
Regarding “sexism in Tetris”: I wasn’t aware that an April Fools joke required or deserved “rigorous research”.
Chet, gaming culture looks pretty sexist no matter how deep you dig into it. How deep do you want to go? You threw out a tiny handful of a titles- one of which was five years old- in defense of the idea that gaming culture isn’t sexist. How many ads do you want to look at? How many games? I promise you that the number of games with weird hypersexualized depictions of women far, far outnumber the number of games with strong female leads. And, yeah, I do think it’s important to, you know, look at actual gamers when we’re talking about gamer culture. Gamers who are playing games like Counter-Strike or WoW or City of Heroes or Call of Duty or or or…
You argued that “we’re talking about a culture where women thrive and lead, and are represented in progressive and egalitarian ways”. That’s simply not the case. There are examples of women being represented in progressive and egalitarian ways, but that is the exception, not the rule.
Obviously there’s sexism in gaming, because men game. I don’t know how many times I have to repeat that before it sinks in with you people. But if you stop looking at the first website where you see some titties, you’re nowhere close to actually getting in touch with gamer culture, and you simply don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.
And what, exactly, makes you think that any of us did that besides you? You think we haven’t been gaming for most of our lives? Or do you honestly believe that you’re the only person around here who might actually be a gamer?
You argued that “we’re talking about a culture where women thrive and lead, and are represented in progressive and egalitarian ways”. That’s simply not the case. There are examples of women being represented in progressive and egalitarian ways, but that is the exception, not the rule.
Absolutely. And aside from this I’d add that 13-15% women in a given industry does not, to me, equate to women thriving, leading and being represented in progressive and egalitarian ways.
There simply aren’t enough women devs in the gaming industry to turn this around with any great speed. A lot of women who would make great devs never bother to get into the industry because of the preponderance of insulting or offensive titles, raunchy gamer culture online, or the simple fact that gamedev is pretty much gendered male. A lot of women don’t stay in the industry because they get tired of putting up with BS or having to prove themselves above and beyond the standard for male devs. Thankfully the company I work for is quite good to their female employees and actively looks for more.
But unfortunately it’s a chicken and the egg kind of deal… More female friendly games arent made because there’s not enough female gamedevs to push for them because more female friendly games don’t get made.
The industry has bottom lines just like everywhere else, and the problem is that making games about women and showing them in a healthy way is viewed as a *radical* act, when your basic male-oriented shooter with only male characters rakes in the cash, and titles like Beyond Good and Evil sell poorly, despite the fact that it was an excellent game across the board. When you have so few games with female leads, the ones that flop are seen as having flopped in part because of that critical difference. Regardless of whether or not its true, or logical, or even financially sensible, this view exists. And it makes a lot of investors wary of ponying up the millions to have those female friendly games created.
As long as female leads are seen as “risky” then male leads are the default we get. Depending on what company you work for it can be very difficult to turn a game away from that default. You could probably convince an investor to pony up for an adventure game with a female lead, but it’s harder to convince them to make, say, a tactical shooter with female main characters, especially when the target audience is all male. The sexism that exists and is perceived to exist in the industry is a very real factor what games get made and what people think will sell the most.
I would love nothing more than to bring up the numbers of women across the board in the industry. But that wont happen by denying reality, which is that the industry is gendered male and that many games have sexist representations of women or, more often, very little representation of women at all. And the reality that women oriented games are seen as risky in that they simply wont bring in the numbers that the next Halo or Call of Duty would bring.
We can get more women in the industry and more feminist games by seriously discussing the sexism in games and attempting to find solutions that work, and that dont scare the pants off bottom-line oriented production companies who aren’t used to thinking about women as their target audience. We can keep more women by enforcing standards of conduct within the companies and dev teams themselves. By planning ahead so that there’s enough memory available to even put in the option of a female character with female dialog, along with the standard male. Should we bother putting that memory into female characters or using it to make our animations better? Those kind of trade-offs are a real factor.
We wont get more female friendly games by ignoring the sexism and lack of visibility that exists and insisting that everything is hunky dory the way it is.
And by the way Chet… if you’re going to continue your line of argument you should be aware that you’re fighting against two experienced devs here, both myself and DeadMan and it seems like Ponygirl and Roy both know quite a bit about games as well (though I don’t know if they have any industry experience.)
So if you want to continue to insist that nobody but you knows about sexism in games, you better bring some cred, because you’re arguing against something that most people in the industry view as an established fact.
Chet, gaming culture looks pretty sexist no matter how deep you dig into it.
That would be a conclusion I could accept if it was obvious any of you had done any digging.
But you haven’t. You’ve looked at ads on GameSpot and used that to indict the entire field and everyone who plays games.
That’s fuckin’ ridiculous. It’s ignorant and arrogant. And it completely overlooks the fact that not everybody who stakes out an identity as a gamer does so out of “anxious masculinity”, but in fact that a great many gamers stake out that identity as a reaction to anxious, forced masculinity. They always have.
You threw out a tiny handful of a titles- one of which was five years old- in defense of the idea that gaming culture isn’t sexist.
I never said there wasn’t sexism in video games. In fact I’ve stated the exact opposite - the sexism is there, it exists, and it’s a problem.
But is the entire thing, and everyone in it, sexist? That’s bullshit. And it’s abundantly obvious that it’s bullshit, so obvious that despite the fact that’s exactly the position you and Pony asserted in the beginning, it’s not at all the position any of you have tried to defend.
And you act like five years old makes a video game irrelevant, but actually the age proves my point. There have always been video games that represent women in progressive ways. How can those games be about “anxious masculinity”? It’s instructive that neither of you have even tried to explain.
And what, exactly, makes you think that any of us did that besides you? You think we haven’t been gaming for most of our lives?
Yes, I don’t. If you did you simply couldn’t make the arguments you’ve been making. You’d realize how indefensible it is to assert that there aren’t depictions of women in progressive, leadership roles in gaming; that women don’t hold leadership roles in the game industry.
You know, all those things you rejected when I said them. If you were an actual gamer, you’d know that what I’m saying is true, and you’d have a greater depth of research than “the first titties ad I saw on GameSpot.”
And aside from this I’d add that 13-15% women in a given industry does not, to me, equate to women thriving, leading and being represented in progressive and egalitarian ways.
The hottest new game for the PS3 had a woman at the helm. Her project.
How can an example of a woman leader in the game industry not prove that there are women leaders in the game industry? You people aren’t making any sense.
Why are you so quick to disregard the contributions of women to gaming? They’ve been there, throughout. For egalitarians you’re rather quick to turn your back, completely.
We can get more women in the industry and more feminist games by seriously discussing the sexism in games and attempting to find solutions that work
You know what? I agree. I just don’t think the discussion should begin, as Ponygirl began it, with “Oh, you’re a gamer? You sexist. You just use your penis issues to exclude others”, addressed to people who don’t even have penises.
It’s absurd. If you want to discuss the culture of gaming, it’s imperative to have a deeper understanding of it than has been evidenced by you all, so far.
Chet, gaming culture looks pretty sexist no matter how deep you dig into it.
That would be a conclusion I could accept if it was obvious any of you had done any digging.
But you haven’t. You’ve looked at ads on GameSpot and used that to indict the entire field and everyone who plays games.
That’s fuckin’ ridiculous. It’s ignorant and arrogant. And it completely overlooks the fact that not everybody who stakes out an identity as a gamer does so out of “anxious masculinity”, but in fact that a great many gamers stake out that identity as a reaction to anxious, forced masculinity. They always have.
You threw out a tiny handful of a titles- one of which was five years old- in defense of the idea that gaming culture isn’t sexist.
I never said there wasn’t sexism in video games. In fact I’ve stated the exact opposite - the sexism is there, it exists, and it’s a problem.
But is the entire thing, and everyone in it, sexist? That’s bullshit. And it’s abundantly obvious that it’s bullshit, so obvious that despite the fact that’s exactly the position you and Pony asserted in the beginning, it’s not at all the position any of you have tried to defend.
And you act like five years old makes a video game irrelevant, but actually the age proves my point. There have always been video games that represent women in progressive ways. How can those games be about “anxious masculinity”? It’s instructive that neither of you have even tried to explain.
And what, exactly, makes you think that any of us did that besides you? You think we haven’t been gaming for most of our lives?
Yes, I don’t. If you did you simply couldn’t make the arguments you’ve been making. You’d realize how indefensible it is to assert that there aren’t depictions of women in progressive, leadership roles in gaming; that women don’t hold leadership roles in the game industry.
You know, all those things you rejected when I said them. If you were an actual gamer, you’d know that what I’m saying is true, and you’d have a greater depth of research than “the first titties ad I saw on GameSpot.”
And aside from this I’d add that 13-15% women in a given industry does not, to me, equate to women thriving, leading and being represented in progressive and egalitarian ways.
The hottest new game for the PS3 had a woman at the helm. Her project.
How can an example of a woman leader in the game industry not prove that there are women leaders in the game industry? You people aren’t making any sense.
Why are you so quick to disregard the contributions of women to gaming? They’ve been there, throughout. For egalitarians you’re rather quick to turn your back, completely.
We can get more women in the industry and more feminist games by seriously discussing the sexism in games and attempting to find solutions that work
You know what? I agree. I just don’t think the discussion should begin, as Ponygirl began it, with “Oh, you’re a gamer? You sexist. You just use your penis issues to exclude others”, addressed to people who don’t even have penises.
It’s absurd. If you want to discuss the culture of gaming, it’s imperative to have a deeper understanding of it than has been evidenced by you all, so far.
So if you want to continue to insist that nobody but you knows about sexism in games,
Funny, but that’s not what I’ve said at all. Sure, maybe you develop games. Does that mean you’re a part of gamer culture? I don’t see that it automatically does. If anything you’re more likely to be insulated from the culture, not part of it.
Christ on a cracker, Chet, I didn’t realize that you were an idiot, or I’d have been more explicit. I took it for granted that you’d understand that, when we’re talking about systemic problems, we don’t necessarily mean every last member. Rather, we’re talking about trends. When we talk about how gaming culture is rife with sexism, it’s not suggesting that every last gamer is sexist, only that sexism is ridiculously common. When we talk about games being sexist, it’s not a suggestion that there’s not a single game out there that has strong female characters- only that those are a minority. You’re the one arguing a strawman. Nobody here is suggesting that all games and gamers are sexist- so I’m not sure why you feel the need to argue against that. Ponygirl said that “The definition of a “casual gamer” and a “hardcore gamer” is something absolutely steeped in anxious masculinity and gender stereotyping*.” That’s not suggesting that every gamer is expressing anxious masculinity or gender stereotyping- it’s a claim about trends. Which is why pointing to one example of someone who doesn’t reflect that doesn’t refute the claim. We’re talking about a pattern of behaviors and actions, and you’re pointing out the rare exceptions like they’re the norm- they’re not.
That would be a conclusion I could accept if it was obvious any of you had done any digging.
But you haven’t. You’ve looked at ads on GameSpot and used that to indict the entire field and everyone who plays games.
No, Chet, that’s not what happened. I’m drawing on over two decades of experience, countless magazines, hundreds of games, and gods only know how many hours of online experience. And, again, we’re not talking about everyone who plays games, and it’s either gross ignorance on your part, or intentional dishonesty to suggest otherwise. Or do you take such a ridiculous, argumentative stance on other issues as well? If someone talks about how the United States is a “free country” do you point out how there are people in prison and there are kidnapping victims so it can’t possibly be the case that we’re free?
That’s fuckin’ ridiculous. It’s ignorant and arrogant. And it completely overlooks the fact that not everybody who stakes out an identity as a gamer does so out of “anxious masculinity”, but in fact that a great many gamers stake out that identity as a reaction to anxious, forced masculinity. They always have.
Sure, many gamers have become gamers because they’re outcasts because they’re not necessarily “manly” in the ways that society thinks they should be. How, exactly, does that prevent them from also engaging in anxious masculinity within the gaming culture? A kid who is picked on for being a “wimp” and retreats into online gaming as a way of escaping that, but goes on to berate other players by calling them “fags”, or who goes on to hit on every female avatar he sees is simply replicating the anxious masculinity that he sees offline- he may be staking out that identity in reaction to it, but that doesn’t stop him from replicating it, as well.
I never said there wasn’t sexism in video games. In fact I’ve stated the exact opposite - the sexism is there, it exists, and it’s a problem.
But is the entire thing, and everyone in it, sexist? That’s bullshit. And it’s abundantly obvious that it’s bullshit, so obvious that despite the fact that’s exactly the position you and Pony asserted in the beginning, it’s not at all the position any of you have tried to defend.
Well, I guess it’s a good thing that neither MP nor myself have every made a claim about every single gamer, isn’t it? It seems to me that it’s abundantly obvious that claims made about gamers in general don’t necessarily apply to every single one of them. Particularly since both MP and myself count ourselves as gamers, and I guess I can’t speak for MP, but I don’t generally think of myself as being particularly sexist.
And you act like five years old makes a video game irrelevant, but actually the age proves my point. There have always been video games that represent women in progressive ways. How can those games be about “anxious masculinity”? It’s instructive that neither of you have even tried to explain.
Again, I didn’t think you were an idiot, so I didn’t realize I had to explain the fallacy of composition. We’re talking in general about the culture, not about specific instances. Things said about the whole do not necessarily apply to every piece of that whole, just as things said about the pieces may not be descriptive of the whole. That Beyond Good and Evil may not be sexist says nothing about gaming culture, just as saying something about gaming culture says nothing about a particular game or gamer.
Yes, I don’t. If you did you simply couldn’t make the arguments you’ve been making. You’d realize how indefensible it is to assert that there aren’t depictions of women in progressive, leadership roles in gaming; that women don’t hold leadership roles in the game industry.
And if you weren’t, apparently, an idiot, you’d realize that it’s possible for there to be progressive depictions of women within games, but still have a culture of gaming that’s pretty sexist. Sort of like how there are progressive depictions of women within comics, even though the culture of comic books is still pretty steeped in sexism.
The hottest new game for the PS3 had a woman at the helm. Her project.
How can an example of a woman leader in the game industry not prove that there are women leaders in the game industry? You people aren’t making any sense.
How can ONE EXAMPLE of a woman leader in the game industry disprove the assertion that gaming exists in a culture of anxious masculinity. NOBODY denied that there were some progressive female titles, or some women in the industry. THAT DOESN’T MAKE IT THE NORM.
You know what? I agree. I just don’t think the discussion should begin, as Ponygirl began it, with “Oh, you’re a gamer? You sexist. You just use your penis issues to exclude others”, addressed to people who don’t even have penises.
Again, it’s a good thing that’s not actually what she said, isn’t it?
It’s absurd. If you want to discuss the culture of gaming, it’s imperative to have a deeper understanding of it than has been evidenced by you all, so far.
I think it’s also important to understand cultural analysis, which you’ve shown no sign of understanding.
But, hey, that’s just my two cents.
“So if you want to continue to insist that nobody but you knows about sexism in games,
Funny, but that’s not what I’ve said at all.”
Actualy you not only said that none of us know anything about sexism in the industry you basicaly implied none of us knew ANYTHING about the game industry:
“And what, exactly, makes you think that any of us did that besides you? You think we haven’t been gaming for most of our lives? ”
“Yes, I don’t.”
OR
“If you were an actual gamer, you’d know that what I’m sayin…”
And of course :
“That would be a conclusion I could accept if it was obvious any of you had done any digging. But you haven’t.”
Sure seems like you’re saying nobody knows what they are talking about except you.
“How can an example of a woman leader in the game industry not prove that there are women leaders in the game industry? You people aren’t making any sense.”
One example … … one … and nothing else … I think you may have confused what the saying “the exception makes the rule” is suppose to mean. I mean really, can you name a 2nd female producer how about a 3rd?
“Sure, maybe you develop games. Does that mean you’re a part of gamer culture? I don’t see that it automatically does. If anything you’re more likely to be insulated from the culture, not part of it.”
Wrong again Chet … most of us spend all day making/talking about/reading about games. No to mention gaming in our free time. We study fucking sales charts and look at market trends (boring!), we read message boards (both Fan and dev). I’m drowning in damn game culture, I dream about the stupid stuff. So no Chet … game dev’s aren’t insulated from gaming culture if anything we spend way too much damn time thinking about it (and maybe that’s why we see sexism where you don’t … you know … the extra thinking).
DeadMan
I took it for granted that you’d understand that, when we’re talking about systemic problems, we don’t necessarily mean every last member.
Woah, when have we been talking about “systemic problems”? What we’ve been talking about is Ponygirl throwing out accusations of “anxious masculinity” at the first sign that anybody is staking out an identity as a gamer.
You know, like she did up in message 30, to a woman.
But, you know, by all means, throw out accusations of “idiot” without even knowing what conversation you walked in on. That’s perfectly reasonable, I’m sure. What game did you say you developed? ET?
Or do you take such a ridiculous, argumentative stance on other issues as well?
Just against bullshit, Roy.
NOBODY denied that there were some progressive female titles, or some women in the industry.
But that’s exactly what you denied, Roy. Do I have to quote you? I asserted that there were women leaders in the game industry, and you popped up to attack me.
Remember?
Again, it’s a good thing that’s not actually what she said, isn’t it?
Reading problems, much? It wasn’t by any means in the general sense that Ponygirl asserted that gaming identity was wrapped up in anxious masculinity - it was in the specific case of Entomologista, who had just staked out her identity as a gamer.
For all you harp on “cultural analysis”, you’ve got a big problem understanding context, apparently.
Sure seems like you’re saying nobody knows what they are talking about except you.
Well, Deadman, when people show up with the shallowest of examples and seem to be completely ignorant of well-known game titles, what else am I supposed to think? I wouldn’t accept the self-confessed “expertise” of someone who claimed to be an expert on music, for instance, but had never heard of Verdi.
I don’t think I’m the expert, here, or that I’m alone in my conclusions. I just don’t think Ponygirl or Roy know what the hell they’re talking about, and I think that’s obvious from their posts.
Wrong again Chet … most of us spend all day making/talking about/reading about games. No to mention gaming in our free time. We study fucking sales charts and look at market trends (boring!),
But that’s what I’m talking about. The sales charts and the market trends insulate you from gaming culture.
It’s why so many of the games you people (assuming you are actually devs) make are so shitty. It’s abundantly obvious that precious few game developers know what people in the culture actually want.
NOBODY denied that there were some progressive female titles, or some women in the industry.
But that’s exactly what you denied, Roy. Do I have to quote you? I asserted that there were women leaders in the game industry, and you popped up to attack me.
Oh, please do. I’d love to see you show me even one place where I said “There are no progressive female titles, nor are there any women in the industry.” Seriously, I’d love that.
No, really.
I’ll wait.
By all means, quote me, please.
Because, it sure looks to me like what I actually said was: “There are examples of women being represented in progressive and egalitarian ways, but that is the exception, not the rule.”
Funny that, isn’t it?
Again, it’s a good thing that’s not actually what she said, isn’t it?
Reading problems, much? It wasn’t by any means in the general sense that Ponygirl asserted that gaming identity was wrapped up in anxious masculinity - it was in the specific case of Entomologista, who had just staked out her identity as a gamer.
Actually, yes, it was, in fact, in the general that she stated it. It was prompted by something that Entomologista said, but the comment was pretty clearly broader than that. It was about “people”, not just one person. If you read her comment and thought that she was only talking about one person, I’d suggest you reread it, and consider all of the comments that followed. They make a lot more sense when you recognize that the rest of us weren’t talking about one specific person, but were talking about trends and systemic issues. Which should have been obvious from her intial comment, and should definitely have been obvious when she said: “Pointing to a girl gamer is somehow proof that anxious masculinity is not an issue in gamer culture.” Note that she’s talking about culture, not a particular person.
I’d love to see you show me even one place where I said “There are no progressive female titles, nor are there any women in the industry.” Seriously, I’d love that.
It’s the part where I said “women are leaders in the game industry and are represented in progressive ways in games” and you popped up to say “no, you’re wrong.”
Remember?
Because, it sure looks to me like what I actually said was: “There are examples of women being represented in progressive and egalitarian ways, but that is the exception, not the rule.”
Funny, because I’ve never disagreed with that. Still grappling with the strawmen I see.
It was prompted by something that Entomologista said, but the comment was pretty clearly broader than that.
How can you design games without being able to read?
That seems pretty specific to me. I’d like to see the backbends you’re going to have to do to argue otherwise now that you’ve been proven wrong.
It’s the part where I said “women are leaders in the game industry and are represented in progressive ways in games” and you popped up to say “no, you’re wrong.”
Remember?
No, actually, I don’t. Because, shockingly enough, that’s not what I said, and that’s not what happened. Like I said, quote me- where, exactly, did I say that there were none?
It was prompted by something that Entomologista said, but the comment was pretty clearly broader than that.
How can you design games without being able to read?
The irony, it burns!
Chet, you’re on a roll.
1. I never said that there were no women in games- I said that progressive depictions were the exception, not the rule.
2. MP never accused any particular person of suffering anxious masculinity, she said that gaming culture is steeped in anxious masculinity.
3. I never said I was a game designer, because I’m not.
So, which one of us really needs to learn to read?
It shouldn’t surprise me, though. You’ve got an axe to grind, and you’re either intentionally misreading/misunderstanding a number of posts, or you’re being blatantly dishonest. You’re arguing against points that nobody else in this thread has said, and you continually misrepresent the things that people have said. That makes you an idiot, a liar, or a troll.
“Ento — you’re trying to pull up the ladder to the clubhouse to keep out the undesirables. It ain’t gonna work.”
That seems pretty specific to me. I’d like to see the backbends you’re going to have to do to argue otherwise now that you’ve been proven wrong.
The only things you’re proving are that:
1. Your reading comprehension skills are abysmal.
2. That I’m a glutton for punishment, since I continue to argue with someone like you.
Like I said, MPs post was prompted by something that Ento said, so, yeah, she replied to Ento. That’s shocking, I know. In particular, it looks to me like MP was referring to Ento’s remark that people who play games, but aren’t gamers, “might just be frat boys who like to play some video games”. MP then said that Ento was trying to keep out the “undesirables”- trying to define “gamers” in such a way that kept people like that out. The suggestion was not that Ento was necessarily suffering from anxious masculinity or going around gender stereotyping, only that those two things are really common in gaming culture. And, a lot of people shorthand that as “frat boys”.
But, whatever. I’m really done with this “conversation”. You’re clearly not interested in understanding what I, or MP, or anyone else was actually saying. From the very begining, you’ve shown no understanding of what was actually being claimed. MP made a statement about gaming culture in general, and you responded by pointing to a specific person, saying “Maybe you’d like to tell that to Stevie Case, who defeated John Romero in a Doom deathmatch the first time they ever met”, as though that an example of a single person invalidates claims about the culture in general. MP rightly pointed out that claims about one person say nothing about the broader culture. If you’re so invested in thinking that you’re the only “real” gamer out of the bunch of us, and that we’re arguing a position that no sane person could possibly hold, by all means, continue to do so. If you’re invested in thinking that MP was somehow suggesting that all gamers are invested in anxious masculinity, or that she was suggesting that Ento is, go for it. You’re making yourself look like a moron, though. The only thing that any of us have been claiming was that gaming culture is still exceedingly sexist. MP thinks that a lot of the sexism stems from anxious masculinity and gender stereotyping, but it wasn’t an accusation against any particular person, or against all gamers.