17-year-old girl explains how poorly girl gamers treated; is better than 80% of VG journos out there
Jessica Cernadas is a 17-year-old girl gamer. And she doesn’t get an ounce of respect or kindness from the boys (and, regardless of age, they’re boys) in the online worlds she romps in.
Her piece on NPR is a great little radio documentary and shows what’s wrong with the whole of video gaming culture. In five minutes, she manages to touch on how female characters are hilariously flimsy, the misogyny of online gaming and the harassment that goes on when women kick ass at games.
Now, my opinion is simple: girl gamers are fucking rad. They deal with so much bullshit and crap from the misogynistic louts who populate game worlds (one of the reasons I hate playing video games online is inevitably dealing with them). They have little positive representation in video games. Female characters in video games are usually sxxy laydeez, not fiercey badass chicks ready to take on what’s happening. And even if they are, they might end up as damsels in distress anyway!
Some games have hilariously BAD female representation even when the heroine is covered head-to-toe. Super Princess Peach,a Nintendo DS game, required her to use the POWER OF HER EMOTIONS to fight enemies. The developers gave her as one of her 4 emotional abilities… the power to cry. For srs. Look below (~ 15 seconds in)
Now, a lot of gamers quite simply don’t know why this is hilariously misogynistic. That’s a problem. Gamer culture is infused with needless machismo. It’s unsurprising considering the sheer amount of, literal, dicks that are attached to video game players. It’s not because girls are somehow inferior at games (one dudes argues that in Cernadas’ piece — he’s a rube) but because of culturation practices.
Ironically, that doesn’t mean girls aren’t gamers. There’s tons of women out there playing FarmVille/CityVille/Bejeweled/Nintendogs/Wii Fit and they are definitely gamers. Gamers of a different sort, but gamers still. What happens is that they aren’t part of the “important” group of players who like “important” games — Gears of War, Halo and Bulletstorm — video games made for immature teens who like their heroes blocky, muscle-bound dolts. This group has deigned these “unimportant” types of games with a sneering “casual” label. These kinds of actions, in turn, show women that there isn’t room for them here unless they find the concept of blowing out a mutant’s asshole thrilling.
Seriously, it’s considered a positive that you can blow an enemy’s butthole out in Bulletstorm.
The problem isn’t women aren’t attracted to games. It’s not a matter of “converting” a woman into liking video games (I’ve read innumerable posts on how to get your girlfriend into video games, which I find kind of condescending). If they playFarmVille or Bejeweled, they’re already gaming. It’s not true that women are less interested in playing video games; any male who says that is trying to protect himself for the potential humiliation of getting his ass handed to him by a lady.
Now, this gets into the realm of more speculation based off evidence from female friends and the like. As a dude, I’m just offering my pissant observations on some things I think might help “hardcore” game designers to appeal to women in a non-cynical way.
1) Strong female characters
Female characters need to be de-sexed a bit. Maybe instead of throwing them in a chainmail bikini, throw them in tight-fitting, non-boob-a-riffic chainmail armour instead. Make sure the female character is strong and can handle her shit; nothing’s worse than princesses in distress. This includes, like most BioWare games, the ability to create a male OR female character when playing. Many women want to play as women characters, and denying them that opportunity is the easiest way to prevent that audience from crossing over.
2) Customizability
A lot of female play comes in the form of dolls and make-believe play — which is exactly what video gaming is, essentially. Now, in the radio piece, Cernadas says she never had any interest in those pursuits as a kid — but she seems like a hardcore gamer. Highly customizable video game avatars is just another kind of doll-making and playing. Even some levels of customization (Borderlands allows you to choose the particular colours of your character’s costume, for example) can at least increase interest and identification with the avatar — which, in my opinion, is essential for any good video game experience. Syd’s obsession with having the best-looking gear in The Guild is a perfect example of this.
3) Simplicity
Video gaming is not a simple pursuit. Controllers are still extremely daunting, and just screams information overload. The PS3 controller has ten face buttons to control actions, start, select, two joysticks and a directional pad. That’s too much for me sometimes — and I’ve been playing games since I was 4. What video game developers should do is reduce the overall complexity of their control systems or provide a better learning curve (preferably, both).
4) Increased social interaction (and removing the douchiness from it)
This is something that, in all honesty, needs to happen anyway. Online gaming is a pit of shit and there needs to be a way to improve it. Whether that’s improving douche reporting and matchmaking or allowing for different “types” of servers to play on, there needs to be an honest effort by developers and gamers to actually weed out the negative elements. Griefing — basically, being a total tool to someone and ruining their play experience — is a problem that’s going to remain forever. But we need to reduce it significantly because it’s one of the reasons I won’t play games on the net — and I’m a fairly thick-skinned guy!
Now, online social interaction is already starting to happen. Steam offers communities that allow for like-minded gamers to meet and play. What needs to happen is systems like this need to expand WITH the game. It’s like journalism — more improved, nuanced social networking tools can help people better connect with the product and improve it — and hopefully publicly shame the turdbuckets who get their rocks off on ruining other’s fun.
