Apparently video games can save the world...

I was listening to an episode of the Guardian's Tech Weekly podcast last night and the final item was an interview with a games designer, Jane McGonigal, who seems to believe genuinely that the key to "saving the planet" lies with video games. I'm personally very averse to her whole perspective: it creeps me out, actually. But she is getting a lot of exposure, including a slot earlier this year on the TED Talk circuit. Whether you watch the video or listen to the last part of the podcast, I'd be really interested to hear your views on all this... especially if you can give me some reasons to tone down my cynicism and distaste for the views expressed by McGonigal!

New media as creative outlet.

One of the best things about new media is all the creative things people are doing, the internet especially is a way for people to easily share their creativity with the world, especially in games, comics, design.

The websites like Kongregate or Newgrounds acts as a sharing site where people or developers can place flashh games and provides a easy method for people give feedback or to donate to developers they like. Previously it was next to impossible to make games and distribute them easily without suport from a producer but with sites like these it it possible for people to produce and improve their skills and even earn money from creating games.

Threadless a website selling t-shirts designed by its users. Designs are submitted and voted on for a 7 day period, if they score high enough the design is put into production and the designer is awarded $2,000, a $500 voucher, a gift bag, and is elegable for a $20,000 best design of the year.

Comics have boomed on the internet. From small simple comics updated daily (Explosm, SMBC, Dinosaur Comics) to long storylines updated less often (Order of the Stick, Erfworld, Templar, Captain Excelsior) it is easier than ever to create and distribute comics.

Girls vs. Guys @ Gaming - Is it fair to talk about?

So, apparently men are far more likely to be willing to dedicate hours on end towards acquiring the skills to enable them to successfully compete in complex online strategy games...compared to girls, who incidentally just want to feed a virtual dog and post an update of its well-being every hour.

Now, surely in the 21st century you all find this type of comment that devalues the efforts of women in our society completely offensive and down right unnecessary - right? We shouldn't be putting women down when it is so clearly not their fault - when it is merely a reflection on the way society has always been. Since time immemorial, the woman's role has been confined to washing, cooking and having a baby now and then; it is the man who was given the more complex role in life having been dealt the 'sole responsibility for his family's survival' card. In his effort to satisfy societies expectations of him - tilling the fields everyday to ensure the daily bread, trying to maintain friendships with other men whilst also trying to be more successful than them, constantly negotiating the line between strong bloke/ sensitive husband etc, he has been given the upper hand in developing the necessary skills and patience to allow him to do better than a women could at complex online games.

Men, be aware however. As Judith Butler says, gender is performative and new media has given women the perfect vehicle through which to mask their identity and adapt their performance to enable them to compete in the masculine domain of both real and online societies. Though it may not be happening immediately, these experiences that new media affords them will only aid, through opportunity, in educating women on masculine roles. The result - a new dominant woman figure able to match it with and defeat man at complex online games *big gasp* ... oh, and in every other facet of society as well by the way... muhuhahahaha

OMG IT'S A CHICK ?1?!

Firstly, to avoid confusion/excitement, I am a male, but the nonsense in the title is unfortunately something that most online gamers would have come across at one point or another. Sadly some gamers are so excited about the prospect of a female talking in a game they are playing on that they are oblivious to the fact that the voice is clearly that of prepubescent boy rather than a girl.

I am an ex WoW (World of Warcraft) addict. I was in a fairly serious raiding guild and played a part in the recruitment of new members so would generally have some relationship built up with the newbies in the guild. Our guild leader, being quite the joker, had a voice masking program to make him sound like a chick when he spoke, he wasn't some freak trying to pass off as a girl for anything sexual, he just did it once in awhile for a laugh. I won't lie though, the voice sounded pretty hot. Whenever we would take newbies on a guild raid he would turn the voice on, almost every time when the newbie would hear his voice, I or someone else would get a private message saying something along the lines of "woah, the guild leader is a girl?" I would play along and say yes etc and then usually get a follow up message of "is she hot?" and depending how much effort we felt like making at the time, we could usually make these people get very interested in this supposed "chick" and they were willing to accept all kinds of ludicrous stories we came up with simply because they were to stoked that they were potentially living out some fantasy of finding a hot girl on WoW.

While we look at reasons why girls may not be as much into games as guys, I think examples of things such as the above are potentially one of the key turn offs. I have no idea what it's like to be female, but I imagine having every second person gush over my gender would be less than appealing. Not to sound like the "White Knight" but I've seen many a conversation where I have put people onto ignore lists etc simply because of the rubbish that starts flowing from some people when a female enters the fray so I can only imagine it sucks even more to be the female. What doesn't help is the huge number of guys using female avatars, trying to cyber people or other rubbish in attempts to score free gold. This is something touched on in the reading where I believe they are called "starfuckers", I'm pretty sure most "starfuckers" I came across in WoW, whoring their avatar out in the middle of Orgrimmar, were males, either that or WoW has the most forward women in the world in terms of sexual advances. Female players that I actually regularly played with on WoW tended to keep their gender pretty much on the low, some choosing male avatars just to avoid the immaturity and not having to deal with PM's whenever they walked through towns asking for cyber etc

While WoW does have a huge user base of highly intelligent people (perusing the forums you come across some really, really bright people) it is also notorious for having some terribly immature people also, so I don't want people who don't game online to get the idea that all online gaming is full of people like the above. What I wonder is that, when looking at the numbers of girl gamers in comparison to guy gamers, is how many girls did we lose from that list because they were turned away from the environment and how many are masquerading as guys so as to avoid it. Obviously I can't get much concrete evidence on that, but this is just what has been on my mind with the gender/gaming topic so I thought I'd throw it out there.

Double clicks starcraft2.exe

YOU PLAY STARCRAFT?!

So Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty came out this week.

-cue fanboyism-

OR, in my case, fangirlism
Yes, I happen to be female.

I am by no means an expert on this game, or games in general, really. And I really wouldn't call myself a 'gamer chick' (somehow I find this title slightly degrading) but I have to say, I was as excited about this game as my brother or my male friends.
I grew up on the original Starcraft as much as any male gamer did.

However, apparently, Starcraft + girl = shock and confusion (and very occasionally, admiration).
Every time i engage in a conversation with a group of males about starcraft strategies or even just indicate that I know the names of the units, literally everyone freezes and the heads turn towards me in slow motion.
"YOU PLAY STARCRAFT?!"

On Tuesday(the day it came out), I was lining up for my copy of Starcraft II (incidentally, the line was filled with males) I received quite a few odd stares and one guy even did a double take when he saw me holding a copy of the game. Their expressions were easy to read: "YOU PLAY STARCRAFT?!"

SO I thought it would be a very good starting point for a discussion on gaming and gender and the supposed lack of female gamers.

I think it would be worthwhile considering briefly what it means to be a 'gamer'.
Does one qualify as long as they play games?

"NO" would be the outraged answer of a 'hardcore gamer'.

So what games do you have to play in order to be considered a gamer?
Do games like Super mario brothers, Final Fantasy, Pokemon or Tekken (to name a few) count? Because I see no lack of a female audience for these games. Gaming consoles are common nowadays in most households and played with my females as much as males.

I see social norms/stereotypes as well as the deeply ingrained social psyche as the root of the problem of the lack of females in games like Call of Duty, Halo or Starcraft. To put it simply, war games. Most girls seem to naturally not have any interest guns, machinery, armour, aliens or intergalactic war. But perhaps it is because they are taught, subconsciously, not to? As children, they are not given transformer robots, toy soldiers, toy guns or spaceships to play with. They are given soft toys or barbie dolls. Social norms mean that girls cannot identify with such games because they did not grow up being encouraged to have an interest in such things.

Also, I think girls find it more difficult to get into games such as Starcraft or Call of Duty is that they cannot relate to the characters.  It is dominated by male characters becasue women traditionally do not take military roles. Consequently, girls do not gain any sense of empowerment in playing such games.

This brings forth the issue of female characters in games. They usually take on a more passive role as either healers or, if they are part of the attack force, mages (which relates to the age old idea of women as witches). Examples include Aeris in Final Fantasy VII and Lulu in Final Fantasy X.
In Starcraft, there are not many female units. The medics are female. They speak girlishly and of course, allude to nurses who are also traditionally female. Dropship pilots are also female. They cannot deal any damage, it is again a passive role.
Of course it is not to say that female characters do not have more active roles in games. However, they are still a minority and there are not enough to attract a large female audience.

I'm rambled on long enough. One last thing:
It was mentioned in the lecture this week that perhaps the reason males play more/are better at games is because of growing up with older male role models such as older brothers. I think this is also a truth for girls with older brothers. They are, it seems, more likely to have an interest in games.
I am one of those people i guess.

_

Women In Gaming

As a gamer who has an older sister who consistently is able to best him at games such as Tekken, Ridge Racer and World of Warcraft, I found the idea that women find it harder to get into games which have high access barriers ("hardcore" games) extremely interesting.

Our parents were employed when we were younger, and so my mother bought a NES for my sister and I when we were extremely young. I must have been about two or three, and my sister four or five, when we were casually smashing away at Street Fighter 2, trying to pull off Chun Li's Spinning Bird Kick. My sister is now better at most video games than I am (and most of her male friends as well) and I have an inkling that our early exposure to video gaming could be the reason.

Most girls aren't given a Nintendo or a Playstation when they are younger, socialised instead to play with dolls or whatever else they are given. Video gaming is seen as violent and, by corollary, non-feminine.

Now fast-forward about twenty years. In a society where failure is seen as the worst thing that could possibly happen, we tend to forget that "sucking" is extremely important in the learning curve.



It is rare that you will find something which you are good at immediately. As a kid, you are allowed to suck. Adults don't have the luxury of sucking: it is something which we are to fear and avoid at all costs. Thus, women who haven't been primed to playing video games from an early age end up in a similar state to your mother when she tries to send an email: confused, inept and feeling that they will never be able to move past their ineptitude. They aren't given the space to become good, and they abandon the pursuit of video gaming.

This, I feel, is the reason why there are fewer women who play video games.

Social Gaming

It was mentioned in the Monday lecture, that gaming is a completely antisocial activity. I agree that there are definitely antisocial gamers who spend large amounts of time on their own, but there are also people who spend the same amount of time on their own reading books or watching TV, which may also be considered antisocial.

There are also gamers who play for the purely social aspect of it. Gamers like myself like to go to an internet cafe several times a week with friends to play games such as Heroes of Newerth or Dota. These games are fast paced team games that involve a high degree of team work and conversation to ensure victory. It is not uncommon for people to be shouting at commands at each other or congratulating each other for a well played maneuver. The atmosphere is much like that of a sports field.

I agree that there are many gamers who are antisocial, but there are also many gamers out there who will game solely as a social activity.

James

Social Gaming (Not an Oxymoron)

The other day the point of Gaming as an Anti Social exercise was raised. As an avid gamer myself I decided to look at my own gaming habits and see how this related to me.

In this new tech culture it seems that everyone is connected to everyone else, wireless networks connect households to the greater Web and online community. My flat alone has 7 computers networked not to mention the Playstation and other gaming bits and bobs. We are constantly gaming together and it is in my experience that it brings us closer together as a small household, be it as entertainment, a source of friendly competition or a common ground for conversation.

Online gaming can be a social experience, sure there may not be the physical interaction but that is not to say there is no interaction at all.
First and foremost online gaming is a platform where instantly you are linked to others who have at the minimum, one common interest with yourself. As a stepping stone one can see gaming as a facilitator for new relationships.

For example I used to play World of Warcraft (WoW), which is categorized Massively Multiplayer Online game (MMO for short). I found myself using it not only for entertainment but to socialize, with in game chat I fount myself logging to have a chat and catch up with my Guild mates (a guild being like a player association working together for co-operative play) with the actual gaming being used as a background for this conversation. My flat mates can attest to me blabbering away into a headset talking bout the most ordinary of things and general banter in addition to game related talk. Even after quitting WoW I still regularly talk/chat to those friends I made whist gaming and regularly play other games with them.

I hardly think that games are anti social; in fact I consider games to be just another forum to meet people without the physical boarders that restrict us normally, as the Internet expands so does our interactions with the ever increasing pool of online gamers.