FEMALES AND GAMING - #1REASONWHY

author=Milos
To be honest, I agree with Solitayre. Only boys can be obsessed about women in the gaming industry. It reminds me of the time when you were a kid, and you wouldn't play with children "of the opposite sex". My personal opinion is that no-one should be judged by the organ he/she has down his pants, but rather by his skills and intelligence in this industry. Women can only help the industry by proving a view of the other side of the coin - since of the emotions 'n shit - and that may pop out more interesting titles. Otherwise, gamer chicks are hot. Too bad I never met any, for crying out loud. In ma city, damn duckface 13-year-old's-dressing-as-20-year-old's are pretty much the main catch. But that's another topic -.-

Women already do help the industry. No one is telling women not to do so. And frankly, it is rather sexist to say they can help "because of emotions 'n shit."

Do you know how hard it is for anyone to get in the game industry? Man or woman? And even if you do get in, do you know how hard it is for anyone to care what you think about game design? It's not just a "you have good ideas, here's a job" world. You start from nothing, scratch and claw for every opportunity, leverage every contact, and keep doing so until something clicks. In order to have direct input on actual game design, you have to build up quite a reputation with whatever institution pays your salary. Penis or vagina under the belt does not matter.

Wow, so I only just checked back but what I meant by that statement was that people think different. Women prioritise things differently than men do. We see things differently to each other - each gender is different and it doesn't matter how much you or anyone else says "No, say it ain't so!", it's still true.
Is it a bad thing? Hell no. Is there some cross-over? Well, duh, of course. You're always going to get a few rare people here and there who are more understanding and empathetic, who have broader horizons and can learn to see through others' minds.
But even then they won't fully understand the other gender. That's not to say they can't understand a lot of the things that go through someone of the opposite genders' mind, but there are things that are hard-wired into a person that we don't realise is there that makes us act certain ways.
It just is.
(I knew I should have added a vice versa there, but I - stupidly - didn't see people misunderstanding what I wrote as much as apparently has occurred. :\ )

author=Caz

author=Liberty
Wow, so I only just checked back but what I meant by that statement was that people think different. Women prioritise things differently than men do. We see things differently to each other - each gender is different and it doesn't matter how much you or anyone else says "No, say it ain't so!", it's still true.
Is it a bad thing? Hell no. Is there some cross-over? Well, duh, of course. You're always going to get a few rare people here and there who are more understanding and empathetic, who have broader horizons and can learn to see through others' minds.
But even then they won't fully understand the other gender. That's not to say they can't understand a lot of the things that go through someone of the opposite genders' mind, but there are things that are hard-wired into a person that we don't realise is there that makes us act certain ways.
It just is.

This I can agree with. There are obviously certain chemical changes in the brain which differentiate a large majority of men and women, and it's difficult to deny that they can act differently and that it would be good to have two sides of that to better develop the personalities of characters.

But there are people who completely change that fact. I can't understand my own gender at all, but I get along with guys and understand them really well. I can't write female characters for shit and I think it would be really awesome to work amongst someone who could give that viewpoint. But that doesn't necessarily mean it has to be a female.

I second this. But I want to point out that when writing roles, gender should not be indicative of quality. Gender is a word we give someone with one (or two) specific sexual organs. It all goes back to personality and to character. When writers are creating male and female roles, they have a specific quality of character that they are attempting to portray, and for many game developers, it could possibly be easier to create a male or female with the stereotypical model in mind. Why? Simply because it has been a character design shown and instilled in their brains since they were our age. Not saying that I agree with this (at all), but if you ask someone to describe the stereotypical woman/stereotypical man, 99.9 percent of the time you'll get the same answer. And if it just so happens that the stated mindset is a predominated view amongst society, and by the developer, then that ends up being written about - What people subconsciously expect. This is all due to the media setting false standards for men and women - Be it both physically and emotionally.

I think when writers go past gender expectations, and focus more on the intrapersonal quality of character, we get good VG role models. Though women and men are different, we have a lot of things in common, more than what we let on. Though I know that, genetically, women and men are different, through my beliefs, I find it hard to believe that we are as different as we make ourselves seem. My 6'1 stepdad has his sunday-don't-interrupt-me football days like my 5'2 female roommate. I get giddy and riled up watching martial arts and people fighting as much as my older brother. I mean, mindsets are similar too. There a women who are just as closed-minded and emotion-deprived as there are overly-emotional and mushy men. I personally think that, as humans, we try so hard to seem different that we sincerely forget that we ultimately have more in common with each other as people. Finding people with similar qualities that over-step the Gonad-line is much less rare than we make it out to be.

Having more women in game development would be awesome, but it all goes back to leveling the playing field - So what if the teams are even? If they are both Nazis, the Jews are still screwed. Misconceptions and stigmas man... We have to deal with those first if we want to see real change.

I feel like I just opened a can of worms.

I'd just like to point out that female characters with "big boobs or a cute face" aren't always necessarily the creations of male creators, women can and do create such female characters as well and I've seen many cases where the audience actually didn't realize that the content they were consuming was in fact created by a woman.

In fact, I'd go as far as to say that putting forth such an arrogant stereotype as you did in this discussion is a step in the wrong direction. You may not realize it, but you just stereotyped men in just the same way that you hate how women are sometimes stereotyped. While I certainly understand what you actually meant and respect your opinion, you have effectively contradicted yourself with your post and you're not conveying your thoughts and opinions in a way that others will constructively read and discuss about. We are all open and willing to discuss this sensitive topic at hand maturely and seriously, as I'm sure the preceding 7 pages of posts will imply, so let's not start fighting stereotypes with more stereotypes, that's just bad for the atmosphere. (｡= ω =｡)

As for the comments you found about "poke her or touch her boobs", those are just run-of-the-mill tasteless comments swarming the internet. There are places where people talk constructively and in-depth about whatever the subject-at-hand may be (RMN right here is a great example!), you just happened to bark up the wrong tree and I sincerely hope you have better luck here and at other communities you frequent.

(￣▽￣)ノ

>complains about not being able to get a girlfriend that likes videogames
>tells every girl gamer to go make a sandwich

The above probably explains the equality issue.