Jarod 'streetrunner' Reisin from GamingJunky.com has posted Part 1 in The History of Women in Pro Gaming. Pro gaming is big in Asia and ... well ... still a bit fringe in the US and Europe. Womens Pro Gaming is smaller still. Companies like MLG are working hard to bring the same sort of audience to Pro Gaming that fans in Asia have enjoyed for some time. What's it going to take? Should women be treated differently?

They shouldn't. There isn't a disparity between boys and girls in gaming because of descrimination. There's disparity because most girls frankly aren't into games. Don't get me wrong, I know there are lots of girls who do/did compete professionally, but looking at the girls I know in real life there are only two or three that are actually serious about video games, and then only because their brothers or boyfriends are. Look at the stats on any major online service, male gamers outnumber female gamers by five to one and in some cases even ten to one. And how many girls post on these forums?

(Note: I don't consider The Sims to be a videogame)

Agreed. I am completely against treating anyone differently based on gender or any other factor. I prefer equality in treatment of everyone *whenever possible*. And I absolutely don't like when a minority (of race/gender/religion/etc) strives for equality and then, once they have it, they strive to get more than their equal "share." That just bugs me when someone claims they want equality and they're asking for what the non-minority doesn't have/get. I've seen it often with various minority groups trying for equal rights (which I support) and then eventually pushing for extra rights (which I oppose). Note that I'm not just talking about racial minorities, but minorities in all aspects that can be discriminated against, such as the few examples I mentioned above.

I couldn't have said it better myself...

But this thread is going into a dangerous direction; shouldn't we switch the topic and talk about tentacle porn as soon as possible? :)

Damn, where is this Indra when we need him? :)~

That particular topic is starting to annoy me after the 12th time it's been brought up in a completely different discussion. Please stop.

There's no reason why female gamers can't compete against men - it's not as if it's a game of physical contact. One interesting theory that I've read is that women are generally not interested in games - of any description. Men tend to have more of a competitive streak, while many women prefer leisure activities in which all resources are being put towards a positive goal (which I guess is where The Sims comes in). Even in games where the female brain might be an advantage over the male brain, such as Scrabble, competitive play is fairly dominated by men, as women are less likely to meticulously learn lists of obscure but useful words, or think completely tactically on each move rather than simply putting down the best possible score (this certainly reflects my mum's play....)

And that happens 'cause games are aimed to a male audience, in its majority...

Actually pro gaming existed in the US before Asia. Dennis Fong (American) won a Ferrari and was raking in about $50k/year before major US titles were even released in Asia. Let's not forget Kornelia, a pro female player that is well respected in professional gaming circles. While professional online gaming was at its peak in the US, professional gaming in Asia was mostly restricted to very localized arcade competitions. Pro gaming is not as big in the US anymore largely due to the market being so broad, which prevents a single gaming title from dominating the headlines, thereby making sponsorship difficult.

Check this out: http://www.purgatory.net/kornelia/42/kornelias_bio.htm

Make sure the check the pictures and links. Good stuff.

I love women who game, even if casual, they don't have to be "hard core." My wife is my best friend, and she and I have gamed quite a bit. We used to game more when we were younger, and not so "wrapped up" in our careers. Although we are both now cutting off a lot of our "work outside work" as of late, and are gaming more (e.g., for the last 5 years, I only gamed about 4 hours/month on average, but am now pushing to 20+ hours/month again).

And to be a blunt, male pig (please don't read this wrong, I'm just being dead honest), I love brunettes, especially fuller figured women. So the fact that Asian women (virtually all brunettes) are gaming, and they tend to be a tad less "athletic" and fuller figured, suits me just fine! But there are American and European gamers -- and my wife is one.

That's amazing, I also play games with my wife, and I also like full-figured brunettes :) LOL :-)

But usually, Asian women tend to be quite skinny... although they are all brunettes, of course. That is, unless they dye their hair :)

At least here in China, girls play games almost as much as men. Even if they don't play, I rarely hear them saying that games are all toys for the boys, as most Western women think. Chinese girls also display surprising skills, especially in games that require patience (like RPGs).

I remember how a pupil of mine, a 17 year old girl, noticed I was carrying a Chinese RPG in my bag and asked me about it, I was ashamed to admit that I actually do play games, and was amazed when she calmly reacted: "Be careful, there is a very hard boss you have to fight when you reach the valley of Miao; I'd recommend level 43 at least, and be sure you stock on MP-restoring items, because you'll definitely have to summon the Heavenly Guardian several times".

ashamed to admit you play games? come on man...

Ashamed to admit it to my pupil! She should think that her teacher is a very serious person who is too mature to play with boy's toys! :)

Gaming isn't just a "nerdy" thing to do. It's something that a LOT of people do. And many games are very serious. It isn't anything to be ashamed of. Next, we'll see people being ashamed that they play Monopoly or something like that. Why is a computer game more shameful than a board game?

I usually stop by the forums of this argentinian website, and I "discovered" that at some point in time an entire generation of gamer girls sprung up. They're all around 14-19 years old, and I'm not talking about reclusive, nerdy social rejects, or girls that kick back occasionally with Tetris or The Sims either, I'm talking about regular next-door girls with perfectly adjusted social lives, who happen to like gaming, and most of them like gaming A LOT. Some of them are quite hardcore, they even lead clans (or whatever you call them) in a wide variety of games ranging from Quake III to DotA.

So, either this forum I talk about happened to gather together a really odd group of people, or there is actually a new generation of hardcore gaming girls, and we're just now finding out because, well, I don't know how to tell you this, but... we're old news, man TT____TT

I remember on an Age of Empires II site I visited they were hosting an all-girls gaming tournament called Girls Gone Wild (yes, I agree that is the worst title ever). I didn't find out how it ended but I think it received over 500 entrants who played several thousand games. It was held over an internet forum so I'm not sure how they verified that someone was a girl.

Males tend to be more obsessive in their behavior than women. Men are more likely to be fanatical sports jocks, fanatical comic-book collectors, and fanatical suicide bombers I guess. Girls seem to lead more balanced and relaxed lives and enjoy a wider range of interests, so maybe that has something to do with it.

The worst part about these debates is the fact that all of our conclusions are based off of second-hand knowledge, the worst kind there is. We need some girls on MG so they comment.

Where the hell is that RE4 girl when you actually need her?

Or maybe Jeanne is around?

Well, I haven’t been a "girl” for quite some time now, but I can shed some light on the disparity between male and female gamers from my generation – it just wasn’t cool. I would guess that 1985 or around then was when games started to come into their own. I wasn’t a kid then, either, but it was made obvious that anything connected with computers was a guy thing, and if a girl wanted any kind of social life she should stay out of it. Not all of us succumbed to social pressures, of course, but there was a subtle mind-set that persists to this day, I think, about gaming not being cool for females. Maybe this MySpace generation will change that.

Good answer.

MySpace is evil! Heh. :D

I do think that the mindset you speak of is falling away quickly. I find many girls and women who enjoy gaming. It's true that they tend to be more casual gamers and they tend to enjoy more "quickie" games like those found on Reflexive (though I enjoy some of those as well), but they are still gamers.

Evil, maybe...but MySpace and it's many clones (Facebook, Friendster - I'm looking in my daughter's folder, here, BAD mom) are probably here to stay 8P

I don't see any of my daughter's female friends playing games, if you exclude Sims and their various permutations, but it's a question I'd like to ask her if she's ever home...(she's 18)

I'm lucky enough to be close friends with a lot of girls who play video games (more hardcore than most) but surprisingly none of us talk about it a whole lot.

My biggest issue with MySpace is all of the young girls who claim they are 18+ and include a LOT of personal information about themselves. MySpace has places to put just about every piece of identifiable information you can think of on there and young kids often will enter all of the information that is asked without thinking of the consequences. It's a dangerous place for young kids (especially girls) because it is the perfect place for "predators" to find them. Besides, a LOT of the pictures posted by young girls tend to be rather risque and shouldn't be online, let alone taken. And because so many parents don't know how to check if their children are using sites like MySpace, they aren't able to monitor what happens and that can make it even more dangerous to the kids. Btw, MySpace has had a lot of bad news about it around here... and few sites get *any* news. That has to tell people something about the kind of site it is. Ok, done ranting. :)

But do you know girls who play heavy patience-requiring games, like RPGs? In China it's not uncommon to meet a girl who spends hours to find secret weapons or to level up :)

There are many "heavy patience-requiring games" that girls tend to play more than guys. Puzzle games can often require a LOT of patience and girls are more likely to enjoy those than guys are. RPGs aren't so much about patience as about the willingness to spend hours working toward a single goal. Yes, that's still a kind of patience as well... it's just not quite the same thing, imo. I know that I have little patience for things, but that's not an issue with RPGs.

As far as girls playing RPGs, I know many who play WoW (and many husband/wife groups who play). There's a request that keeps coming up to make some kind of family account option for the game so that husband/wife pairs, as well as kids, can play together without paying for multiple accounts. I doubt it will happen, though. That may be what will put LOTRO ahead of WoW. Anyone who preorders LOTRO can choose at some point to pay $199 for a lifetime membership. Even if people staggered those payments, you could have 2-3 lifetime accounts for the cost of playing those 3 accounts on WoW for about 1.5 years.

That said, I will admit that you probably do have more hardcore female gamers there than we have here.

You might be interested in seeing what games they talk about in the IRIS Network - new forum for female gamers. If you can get past the color scheme and the initial talk about crafts it's sort of interesting. Much about RPGs and FF and MMOs.

Not at all (to it's detriment, I think) the same kind of back and forth banter and humor and debate that goes on here, but interesting nonetheless.

(Sigh. One more edit. Here is actually the IRIS Network main page).

"Quickie" girls are fine by me :)

Just knew somebody would say that ;-)

Most of them wouldn't dress or behave that way in real life, but they do it for the same reasons flamewars start with almost no provocation: people feel "safe" when they're behind a keyboard.

Myspace is just the domain of emo kids anyway...

Well, it wasn't me who said that, but thats ok:=)

There was a big mess around here not too long ago when a high school kid posted nude pictures of his girlfriend on MySpace without her consent.

That stuff shouldn't happen.

Welcome to the internet age. Rules change, people change. Yesterdays trend is todays old skool.

Girls that play games. I never seem to be in the right social circles. Then again, being a hardcore gamer also tends to mean you don't have one.

Funny, my younger female cousin (she's 18 or something) is playing Sims a lot. I kinda agree with Mom, saying that girls in front of a computer playing games is a wierd visual perspective for me. Probably more of a cultural thing I figure.

Real life? It's as real online as offline when it's pictures.

And, considering that MySpace lets you post so much personal information (that kids generally fill out completely just because they are asked), you are far from safe if someone sees a picture of some kid and decides to find that kid in "real life."

Do you *really* need to put where you go to school? Where you live? Where you work? Etc?

It's one thing if a site lets you write whatever you wanted in text boxes for people to read and someone chooses to include that information there. It's another thing if a site puts that sort of personal information into your preferences so that kids who really don't know better are going to fill it all out just because it's there.

Anyhow, you won't change my mind about MySpace. I've seen/heard too much to ever approve of it. I refuse to even visit it even if it's a friend's page.