Do I always have to come up with an original title? That could get old quick . . .
So I know I haven’t been putting up much game review, but seeing as Brad recently purchased Resident Evil 5 I guarantee I will be posting my review of that soon. Possibly next week if he doesn’t get sick of it before I get a chance to play co-op.
While browsing through titles of different areas that I might be interested in posting I ran across this. Yes this is quite an old post, dated November 2, 2008. Still, I felt some part of me cringe at this whole article.
First off, I do not distinguish between “gamer girls” and “female gamers”, I think the whole idea is simply preposterous. You either game and you are female, or you don’t. If you play games occasionally such as Guitar Hero or Mario Kart you are a social gamer. There are guys that are strictly “social gamers”. These types simply play with groups of people, they aren’t likely to play Metroid or Devil May Cry. They would probably fall more in the Halo or Super Smash Brothers category, strictly. Is that bad? No, it’s not. It’s the difference between a guy that would prefer to play tennis one on one and a guy that would prefer to play doubles. It’s a PREFERENCE.
I think what bothered me most about this whole article is the categorization. Does this mean that if a guy acts a certain way about gaming that makes him a different “type” of gamer? No, he’s still just a male gamer. Are we females so separated that we have to categorize which females do what?
I call myself a gamer girl, does that mean that I seek social acceptance from the guys around me? Ummm no, not really. It’s a great conversational piece yeah, but I don’t just bring up gaming for the attention or approval. About this whole anger or jealousy thing, yeah one of my biggest pet peeves is when a girl calls Link “Zelda”. Does that mean that I’m not really a true gamer outside of social acceptance from men? No, I get just as upset when I hear a guy call Link “Zelda”. You want to know why gamer girls get upset when a potential better gamer girl shows up? It’s competition. Not for the guys’ attention but for the game.
I mean, my gosh, that whole article explains why girls have such a problem breaking into that kind of stuff. It makes me want to slap myself. The fact that this person feels she can separate all gamer girls into two groups proves how “above us” she feels. It’s completely hypocritical.
I mean, come on guys, let’s all be completely honest here. Girls game and they want to be recognized as GIRLS, not just like boys that game. Why? Uh, less sponsorship opportunities. They basically ADVERTISE their gender along with their gaming ability. Not a bad thing but can we at least admit it?
So here is my question to you out there. If you had to categorize gamers, how would you categorize them? Would you specify them by gender or by playing habits?
Here is my take:
Category 1: Hardcore Gamer
Category 2: Social Gamer
Category 3: Lone Gamer
Category 4: Casual Gamer
or if you want to be more generalized
Category 1: Online Gamer
Category 2: PC Gamer
Category 3: Console Gamer
It’s been awhile since I commented, but this caught my interest.
I don’t entirely disagree with the article. Shoot me if you want, call me sexist if you want, I don’t care, because this goes for just about anything.
I do think there are people out there that do things for acceptance; in this case, I do think girls will play games to be “one of the guys.” I’m not saying all girls/women who play games do. Hell, I’m not even saying most do. However, I’m absolutely positive that it happens. Gaming is no different from any other hobby, it’s just riddled with a plethora of stupid taboos and preconceived notions.
I don’t think there are two seperate types of girl gamers. Well I do but I think it stands the same with guys. My friend (girl) never plays two player games she plays one player games like pheonic wright. However I intruduced her to halo and such and she likes thouse just as much. My other freind (male) likes games like fire emblem but still likes multyplayer games as well. For two other friends one boy one girl they both only play multyplayer games.
It stands to reason that there is no group’s based of of gender. The question remains why are girls grouped diffrently then boys? Why are more girls in theatrical preforminces then boys (I am in a bunch). Peronaly I think it has to do with peer presure. Boys wont risk being being in theatre as to not be called feminine by there friends. And girls wont play video games and be called unfeminine.
Now this does not stand true for everyone. There are people who are smart enough to find friends who wont call them names but will respect there opinions and allow them to do what they wish. I think that you and me are two of thouse people.
Err. sorry about the spelling mistakes, it’s hard to type with this lag.
Haha you kind of hit on my point that Alejandropo. I don’t like the dividing of gamers in general. It was more of a play off of the article’s whole theme.
Besides, like I told Brad after I posted the article, even my categories wouldn’t work. Why? Because so MANY of those groups can just be combined to fit a particular gamer. You managed to hit on that point pretty solidly. You just really drove it home. Haha
By the way, your English is very good. I’m impressed.
Oh, and long posts are okay? I’m always afraid that if I make them too long they just go on and on . . . don’t want to annoy anyone.
Man, I just beat Killzone 2 a little while ago, the controls are terrible (specially for someone who likes to swap the sticks). Some dude sat there with a high speed camera a calculated the input lag, it’s about as bad as a really laggy cheapo HDTV. I’m talking about the ‘hit the stick and wait for your aimer to start moving’ lag, not anything to do with online. On top of that, they try to mash a Call of Duty quick over the barrel aim with Halo’s click to zoom in toggle aim, and the results are… counterintuitive, to say the least. Not to mention the game doesn’t even hit it’s stride until maybe an hour before it ends during the ‘beginning of Halo 1’ spaceship scene, and the Mech scene.
I played online once, it was a noob fest. I should probably try it again, though. Doesn’t help that there’s only one gun in the entire game with anything close to accuracy, and no sort of battle rifle / Halo 1 piston / m 16 / carbine gun with high accuracy and decent range. I think I heard that the high point of KZ2’s multiplayer is the clans, but seriously, I’m an online loner, I hate the idea of buddying up with people that I don’t know. I have way too many games to form any sort of commitment online.
And ‘Killzone’? Seriously, what kind of name is that?? Why not ‘Deatharea’? or ‘Painplace’? At least Madworld doesn’t make the slightest attempt at taking itself seriously, save from the pretty good story line.
On topic: I love the critique of this article. Why even point out that there’s ‘casual’ girl gamers and ‘hardcore’ girl gamers? Seriously, stop making the distinction between dude and chick gamers. Well, besides the inherent fact that guys like to watch girls play games (when they don’t suck) more than they like watching guys play games…
I played the demo of RE5 and it was alright. The main problem I find is the controls, Chris (and Sheva) are trained agents and they can’t RUN AND SHOOT. I mean: Seriously? I just find the RE5 controls so awkward especially after playing RE4 on the Wii (aiming was a piece of cake on the Wii), ok I understand the stop and shoot thing could be seen as a gameplay mechanic to build tension but it’s so unrealistic I find myself pulled out of the game’s immersive atmosphere (graphics are great btw) when I’m aiming and then try to move.
Oh well, I guess it’s because I’ve been playing a lot of Left 4 Dead.
P.S. Zombies on dirt-bikes = AWESOME. (Zombies on Velociraptors = MIND-PLOSION)
/rant
Anywayz, now that I got that out of my system… I understand what you’re getting at FO. And yes, “gamer girls” and “female girls” are one and the same to me; they mean the same thing and I count it as so. But as some people above (alejandrapo, Gazzo) have stated, people (not just girls) get into gaming for the sake of “fitting in” since video games have gone so main-stream. Although to most people, it seems much more obvious when girls try to fit in through video games due to video games being typically labelled as a guy thing (which frankly isn’t true anymore).
I saw this happen to a female friend of mine, everytime we has a get-together; me and two other guys would almost definitely deviate onto the subject of video games. In the end she bought GHIII and a Wii to fit into our conversations. Granted, it was sorta pathetic but at the same time it brought her into the wonderful world of video games (actually I think that’s a good topic you should look into, music games as a starting point for newbies) and slowly but surely I introduced her to other forms of games. Almost a year later, she owns a XBox 360 Elite and plays Halo 3/Left 4 Dead almost daily – she still comes to me for recommendations for games though.
Well, I guess my little story there was meant to show that even if a person gets into gaming to become popular, it’s just as easy for them to really come to like games during that process. So people shouldn’t judge too harshly.
As for categorising gamers. That’s impossible. That’s like listing 10 or so genres and attempting to fit every movie ever made into this predefined categories. Personally, I don’t care who you are/what gender you are/how often you play/what you play. The only thing I care about in this context is that your playing a game (thus making you a gamer) and you’re enjoying it; because, in the end that’s what it’s all about.
Whether it be an oddly addictive browser game or the next Grand Theft Auto, as long as you’re enjoying this beautiful medium; I’ll class you as a gamer.
Ok, just a little thing I noticed. At the bottom of the screen below the “Powered by WordPress” stuff Why does it say “O HAI”???? (: (just testing out the smilies)
WJUK:
“As for categorising gamers. That’s impossible. That’s like listing 10 or so genres and attempting to fit every movie ever made into this predefined categories. ”
Yet I find that calling people core gamers and casual gamers is like calling people ‘movie goers’ and ‘non-movie goers.’ Are there people out there who wouldn’t consider themselves ‘movie goers’? Of course. Is there anyone out there who wouldn’t enjoy watching any single movie ever? Not a chance. Are there movies out there that aren’t accessible enough that most people wouldn’t enjoy them? Sure. But ‘regular’ movies are of the mainstream variety, whereas ‘regular’ video games lean towards the ‘hardcore.’
He, He, It got changed to should it say somthing else. Yes, I think so. I like “If your reading this you pay to much attention to detail”
@FO: Yea I can understand why you don’t understand, but it happens.
@DrNeroCF: I guess you could say that, but it really depends on the end-consumers perspective. Whereas a person who plays COD4/GoW etc. might see ‘regular’ video games as those that interpellate the ‘hardcore’; however, say, a Granddad who owns a DS and plays Scrabble etc. on it might see those as the ‘regular’ video games. The thing is now, there are just as many ‘casual’ games as there are ‘hardcore’ games so there can’t really exist such a concept as ‘regular’ video games.
Granted, when most people think about video games, they think about games like GTA/Halo which are targeted towards the hardcore (not specifically though, since they try and capture as wide as audience as possible) which may be what you’re getting at.
I guess if you really wanted to categorise gamers, the casual and hardcore could work but only in an extremely general and broad sense. What I was trying to get at in my earlier post was that it don’t care much for this whole categorising malarkey, the only thing I care about is the fact that people enjoy the games they play.
@WJUK
Well, I’ve seen it happen. I know of at least one girl that tried to transform herself into me to get Brad to like her. It was a bit weird. At the same time though, I really didn’t get it . . .
I guess I’ve also seen a few girls that use the whole “I don’t get the controls” thing to try and get guy’s to pay attention to them. I never played that one though . . .
Haha oh yea you talked about that before, I’m pretty sure. I don’t get why anyone would forcefully make themselves do/play something to gain approval; I mean: you are who you are, just because we have different hobbies/interests doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.
And the “I don’t get the controls” thing can get really annoying. Ok, sure I’d understand if it’s your first time and you’re a bit overwhelmed so asking a few times is alright. But sometimes it just gets ridiculous, asking in excess of 20 odd times is NOT ALRIGHT. As you can tell, it’s happened a few times to me. Specifically at Brawl it seems, but one time at Mortal Kombat (the original one) which was actually really hilarious in hindsight.
Hmmm… It hasn’t been changed yet.