Girl Gamers

Girl Gamers. What are they? Well apparently they’re so special they need to be distinguished from other gamers, i.e. the male ones. I am one and I cannot see what all the fuss is about.

I guess at one stage females that played games would have been quite a rarity. But seriously, times change, so do games, and girls that play them have increased significantly. There are all kinds of reasons for this. I think games have become a lot more accessible these days for all types of people. The Wii is probably the best example. It’s so simple to use that just about anyone can pick up and play it right away. There are many games that have been created to particularly attract girls (dancing games, singing games, not to mention the Nintendo DS which came in pink), and there are lots of party games for groups of friends such as quiz games (Buzz) and music games (Guitar Hero/Rockband). For a lot of females, this is probably where their experience of gaming starts and ends. But for others, such as myself, this is only the tip of the iceberg.

Actually I have my mum to thank for introducing me to the world of gaming. When I was about 3, she bought herself a Sega Mega Drive console. We used to play games together a lot. Sonic was our favourite! As I got older, I started to play games by myself. I got my first computer at the age of 8 and I played a lot of games at arcades as well. I eventually got a Playstation. I also played various PC games (Age of Empires/Sim City/Theme Hospital) throughout my teens. Finally once I moved away from home to start university, I was introduced to MMORPGs. I guess that would be where I consider my “gaming” days to officially begin.

I tried out various MMOs (City of Heroes/Guild Wars/LotR online to name a few), but World of Warcraft is the one that hooked me. I went into the game without any preconceptions of what a gamer should be. Honestly it never even crossed my mind that I would be one of few females playing it. I played it because I liked the game play, the story, the pretty world that had been created, the fact that I could tame an animal and train it to be my own (yes I leveled a nightelf hunter to start with – oh the shame!). In fact, I gave little thought to the other players in the game for quite some time. It wasn’t until some months later when I really began to interact with other people. In fact two of the first people I met in the game were a male/female couple in real life. Shortly after I met another pair, a father and daughter. So from day one, there really wasn't this so-called “divide” between males and females within the game, at least from my perspective.

I would be lying if I said that I never experienced different treatment for being female. Some people felt that they needed to protect me from the onslaught of hormone-driven teenage boys playing the game, some would bombard me with virtual gifts, some even declared their undying love to me! But I never got the feeling that any of it was meant in a bad or malicious way. I made my position clear to those involved and they subsequently backed off. Over the past few years I haven’t had any problems whatsoever. Nowadays I think there are a lot more females playing and I haven’t experienced any surprised reactions when revealing my sex. That said, I don’t particularly feel the need to identify myself as female. If it happens to come up, then fine, but I don’t especially see the relevance. I mean, sex does not have any effect upon game play. I have met some amazingly skilled players who are female, and some utterly dreadful ones! Likewise with males. Sexuality is insignificant.

So why do females get distinguished from other gamers? Maybe it’s just because we are still the minority. I do think there are some female gamers out there that enjoy being viewed separately. They relish special treatment and receiving lots of attention. But they will more than likely be the first to cry when they get too much unwanted attention as well. I do feel that these individuals give the rest of us a bad name. Personally, I enjoy being one of the guys. I like joking around with everyone else, I’m not especially sensitive and am more than capable in dealing with boys and their sometimes crude sense of humour.

I read an article yesterday about girl gamers that join female-only online communities as a way of escaping from the males. I think this just draws even more attention to them than anything and I’d sooner quit playing games than do something like that. Not to mention that not all males playing these games are bad! I’ve made some excellent friends through online gaming, some male, some female. And I have also met some incredibly irritating people, both males and females. Rather than deciding to avoid that entire sex of players, I just ignore those particular individuals that agitate me. Simple!

Perhaps I’m being a little narrow minded here though. Maybe I just haven’t experienced what some females have which would make them want to jump to these extremities when playing games. It could just be that I’ve been incredibly lucky in my encounters thus far. But for me, I would like to see this gap closed between male and female gamers. We are all gamers, and at the end of the day, isn’t that all that matters?