Female? Male?

“Hi, my name is Amy. I am 19 years old, a straight, Asian (South Korean to be specific) female. I am a power gamer. Wow, CS, you name it, and I probably would have played it. :)”

With the information I've given you here, you might imagine me reliving the photo above at home, 24/7. Well... Surprisingly I’m just an average girl and I do have a social life.

Some non-gamers think that people play games because they are bored out of their minds due to their incapability to socialise, or if one chooses to play games over going out to socialise, he/she is called an addict. I DON’T THINK IT’S FAIR. Gaming is a form of entertainment, just like watching TV or going to the movies. I understand that games are more addictive than those other forms of entertainment, but it doesn’t mean you become an addict once you click ‘play’. So yeah. Wipe off that stereotype please :)

My direct influence that got me to start Wow and CS (the apparently MASCULINE games) was my boyfriend. I know of many females who have been introduced to masculine games by their boyfriends (because he played more of games than of her :P)and most of them do enjoy it. Whenever I say I play online games with my boyfriend, the response is ‘LOL’. We may do less ‘staring in to the eyes’ than the non-gamer couples but I would say we just have one more type of entertainment to enjoy.

I’ve always liked games since I was a little kid. I’ve always had some kind of gaming device in my life as far as I can remember (maybe just because I’m an Asian). I was never given a Barbie doll to play with despite the fact I have 2 older sisters (they never did either), but more of Lego and Nintendo. It might be that my upbringing has influenced me to have more male friends than female friends since childhood.

I don’t like being left out of a conversation. I mean who does. And it is a common experience for girls to be left out of a conversation with a bunch of guys, talking about games. So why not join them? Why should we be a GIRL and be left out of a conversation? Why should we make sandwiches and prepare drinks while the guys sit on their butt and play games with their mates? Maybe I’m PERFORMING male gender here, to prove the equality of males and females.

Well I’ll quit my blabbering here.
I’m extremely sorry if I offended anyone. Cheers :D