Women in games and women that like to play games

I remember the old days, when gaming was anything but cool and talking about it with friends would be rare. I´d grab my controller the moment I got out of school and played until it was time for bed, sometimes I´d play all night long if possible but that would be a big mistake if I´d had to go to school the next day. For me a lot has changed in the 21 years I´ve been gaming. I´m not just talking about the consoles and the games, but also the people that play games now and definately the amount of people that like to play games.

It´s still strange for me to see women that are interested in gaming, now don´t get me wrong I have absolutely nothing against that! It´s just that when I started playing games there was not one girl I knew that liked it, actually if the girls I dated as a teenager knew I was into games it would be a big turn off for them. I´ve tried to convince girls sometimes to play games, but often this is met with a lot of resistance or just a complete lack of interest. But one girl doesn´t define another, it´s the same for guys. I had my first girl gamer contact in an mmorpg on the pc, apparently you find more games there. Just for your information, this was actually a girl and not a guy pretending to be one! Anyway girls slowly crawled into the world of games and I´ve always welcomed them!

I can´t really say that I remember when it all started, maybe girls where always interested in gaming and they just kept it a secret? Perhaps some games became more fun later for girls to play, when developers found out that there is a market for a certain type of games. But really I see women playing games like Resident Evil, CoD, Gears of War, etc. Somehow I don´t think these games are seen as your typical game for a girl, but why would you look at it like that? Games are there for everyone to enjoy, well I should add that you need to have the right age to play them. I guess what I´m trying to say is that it´s not so special to see women play games, they´re people just like men and there is nothing wrong with it that they have a love for gaming. I´d say that if a couple enjoys playing games then playing games can actually bring them closer to eachother. Like helping eachother out or settle some unfinsished business (for example the person who loses has to do the dishes). But above all it´s about having fun with the person you love, isn´t it great that you can share that with someone else who also has a love for gaming.

So if gaming is so great and women are good at it, why do some of them hide? Unfortunately not everyone is that friendly to other players, especially when someone is a girl the envy of succes can turn fellow gamers into nasty buggers. Well you don´t even have to be a girl to receive such hate, but as a girl the insults often get worse and some people can be persistent with such behaviour making it difficult for some people to enjoy the games they´re playing. So it´s not strange for some women to have a male avatar, a none reveiling gamertag (like Rain drop or Rubber duck) and not using a mic. Personally I find this a shame, because if people have to hide and can´t play the way they want to then there are people out there ruining the fun of others. And for what? Because you´re good, because you have more achievements/trophies or because you´re a girl?

I won´t lie to you, I get mad sometimes and I´m not a pleasant person when I get mad. But I have the decency to plug out my mic (most of the time, sometimes I´m just too mad to act so quickly), I´m not going to scream at someone online for whatever reason (I do try to avoid that, but unfortunately stuff happens and I do regret that afterwards). If I´m unhappy (to put it mildly) with someone, for example someone is camping or using cheats, then I´ll tell them that in a message. I´m not going to insult, nor will I be the one that bothers others with voice messages. It´s just a text message that tells that person something, often coated by some sarcasm. When someone camps I´d say: "Excuse me, your cowardice is showing." Another example: "Well done, it seems hiding in a corner with a shotgun is the key to victory and not getting credit for it from other gamers." I don´t care if someone is a man or a woman, I won´t go insult someone because of their gender. Half of the time I don´t even think about the other people and if they´re men or women. Does it really matter? Playing with or against women is just as much fun as playing with or against men.

In CoD Ghosts you can play as a woman now, which is awesome in my opinion. I like originality, to see people different than me and I like to be different than other people. So to have my guy out there and to meet some female soldiers would be interesting. Of course I don´t expect every woman to play as one, because not every man is going to play as a man in the game. Whatever makes you feel happy, play as who you want to and have fun just the same! But now some people are complaining, is it wise to put women in CoD? Stabbing a woman in the chest or shooting her in the face is too extreme? Ok I have a simple answer for this, the women you see in the game aren´t real women but artificial characters that look like women. So just like the men in the game they´re not real. It´s a shame if it makes you feel bad to pull the trigger, but maybe seeing the other person not hesitating to shoot you might make you feel less bad and you´re less reluctant to shoot them. It´s just a game, never forget that!

But it´s nothing new really, women have been in games for years and also in certain games that aren´t friendly to you when you die. Look at some of the deaths in Resident Evil 6, Tomb Raider and Gears of War Justice. Most of these games are dismissed because they´re not as realistic as CoD, ok maybe the part of artificial character didn´t reach everyone but really it´s not like you´re shooting a real person. In a way I actually feel offended, that shooting men in CoD is perfectly fine but when a woman is shot then all hell breaks loose. This smells like someone is trying to make a point with something but it has nothing to do with gaming, so maybe these people should stick to their own stuff and leave the world of games to the people that like to play games!