11–20 of 79 posts
In my times playing Counter-Strike (and Source), you'd frequently be playing on the same server, and so a community would build; everyone was generally very cool to both girl and guy. But there are bad/trolly servers of course. WoW probably fits somewhere in this model too.
I guess I'll give a shout-out to the AHP custom map server (on cs source), as that is probably one of the best examples of good.
Sucks, but in almost every game there is no requirement to identify yourself much.
Nonsense, a lot of male players play with female characters. No one who played such games for longer than a week would even assume you're female based on your character.
Yes, but calling yourself Dizzy Lizzy instead of Lord of Death Pain Master is a dead giveaway to pro gamers. Also, nonsense what? You never encountered sexism when playing online? Just consider how it's actually considered perfectly fine by many to call a decisive win "rape" :/
Surely there where a few people who thought I was female and surely they were behaving differently. But I think that's true for a lot of people playing those games regardless of what gender they think they're playing against. It can be nonsense and obscenities through and through.
How does this differ from the normal male experience in video games? "Go get butt-raped" would hardly be an uncommon thing for a male player to hear. Wouldn't it be sexist for gamers to tone down the trash talk simply because a woman is playing?
The first thing I hear when I log into games is not "Oh great... a boy player? Fuck. Are you serious? Let's kick her and hope we get someone else."
> Wouldn't it be sexist for gamers to tone down the trash talk simply because a woman is playing?
Did you seriously just ask if it would be sexist to not be sexist?
Nonsense, a lot of male players play with female characters. No one who played such games for longer than a week would even assume you're female based on your character.
Yes, but calling yourself Dizzy Lizzy instead of Lord of Death Pain Master is a dead giveaway to pro gamers. Also, nonsense what? You never encountered sexism when playing online? Just consider how it's actually considered perfectly fine by many to call a decisive win "rape" :/
1) As a guy, I've had horrible stuff said to me as well. I've heard N-word, "fag", etc... These are 12 year olds we're dealing with. 2) There seems something deeply ironic that the big strong man was signing on to unlock things for the poor wife here...
I've often thought, in League of Legends, that I'd pay $100 for access to a special queue which matched me up with other people who had paid $100 to access it. If you earn an account ban, you can probably find a new credit card, level up again, and pay $100, but it should cut down on casual sociopathy. (Yes, that's classist as heck, but after a bad day of LoL I'm pretty OK with that as long as it means that I can play a relaxing game with people who are capable of meeting the absolute minimal norms of civilized society.)
1) As a guy, I've had horrible stuff said to me as well. I've heard N-word, "fag", etc... These are 12 year olds we're dealing with. 2) There seems something deeply ironic that the big strong man was signing on to unlock things for the poor wife here...
Yes we trash talk a lot in games, and yeah we don't see it as a big deal for the most part, because there's a part of creativity in trash talking in some ways so we can ignore all but the more original (and often laughable) insults.
But when someone is revealed as a woman, some people really go nuts. It activates some really ugly beta part in their brain, they can't help it, they need to harass, tediously, methodically reduce the other player to her gender, whatever she is doing or however she performs, whether she's in his team or not is irrelevant. That wouldn't be an issue in itself, there are crazy and stupid people everywhere. The problem is, the proportion of obnoxious and sexually insecure male gamers is through the roof, maybe something as high as 5% of the gamers are like that, and they are very vocal, and they don't quit. Such people don't rage quit on girls like they would on guys, when they get beaten or when they're ignored, for some reason they need to keep harrassing forever, it's a matter of virile pride you know. It's either that or they fall in love, which sometimes is even worse.
Girls have to deal with them every single day.
People really need to wake up on these issues. They add up and pile on each other. They span a very large spectrum of the industry, from day to day community interactions to elements of storytelling and character design.
If you want to wake up to these issues in pictures and with a good laugh, check out these two blogs:
http://womenfighters.tumblr.com/ (a more constructive take on the issue of character design, specifically female armor)
http://thehawkeyeinitiative.com/ (a hilarious take on the issue of objectification of women, this time in comics)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Female gamertag, not character. There are far fewer males running around with female tags, not that it doesn't happen.
Oh, I misread. Well, my point still stands in other games were the sex is only given away by the character.
Forgive the brief reply, but I'm entering this on a smartphone.
This is an important matter, and you clearly haven't got it yet. Think about it for a while. If, after some reflection, you still don't see why your point doesn't stand, post a reply, and I'll explain when I'm sitting at a keyboard.