Video Games just for Guys? Wrong!

[Sami365]

It seems like no matter where you are online, there is always some sexist guys who act like girls shouldn't play video games or that they aren't good at them because they don't have a stick between their legs. Really? Since when does that make a difference in terms of skill? Why is it a crime to some guys to hear that a girl plays Call of Duty or that a Skyrim mod was made for to add more expereinces for girls (which I had actually seen this be argued before on Youtube, with two guys saying in the comments of a video "Girls only play Candy Crush and dress up games" while saying that mods for girls shouldn't be made. Are you kidding me?)

I found a video that really explains the history of video games well and why girls should be more included in such a thing, which is what made me want to write this.

Now, what are your opinions on this? In your mind, can girls be gamers?

[Gems692]

I completely agree with you although I haven't heard anything like that in a while. In fact, a lot of my online characters that I have are black 25 year old men to completely divert any attention like that away from me. When a guy I had been playing with for a couple months finally realised I was a girl, he started buying things for me and always 'protecting' me. Although it's a nice gesture, it's the exact attention I wanted to avoid.

Another thing I can't stand is the hype about typical 'gamer girls'. The type of girls that just go on and on to boys about gaming and what a 'LOL nerd XD' they are when they've only played a game of blops 2.

Yes I game, but I wouldn't say to someone I'm a girl gamer. I simply just play the game and I happen to be a girl, I'm not a hardcore pro at all the games I play but hey I'm decent and I enjoy it.
I'm not sure if that made any sense to but I tried ;)

[Mesonfielde]

Girls clearly are incapable of playing video games by nature because they were designed to be good at nothing but birthing children and cooking... Obviously.
Women are too emotional and not logical enough for that kind of thing. Only REAL MEN know how to handle the Skyrim Nexus. It's inherited in your genes since men have been cavemen! It's a skill passed on from men to men for generations, for millions and millions of years (although only 6000 years if you ask a creationist).

Obviously.

[Mesonfielde]

/s..

[buttheadkakakak]

Tell me this is sarcasm lol I can't tell 😂

[Mesonfielde]

@buttheadkakakak I specifically said /s to denote that

[buttheadkakakak]

Yeah sorry didn't notice that 😂 I'm very tired

[skeptic007]

lol that was funny
and yes 10k to 6k years would be accurate

[blondfrog]

LMFAO hahahahh omg lol

[M_A_X]

See now, you're joking, but as I said above, it has been scientifically proven that women have a better ability for judging color, but slower reaction times. Now, I've heard arguments that slower reaction times don't affect gaming ability, and that prediction is more important, but that's wrong, and here's why - Making a prediction doesn't matter if you don't have the speed to capitalize on it.

If women want to become good at games, they have to work harder than boys/men do, but I'm definitely not saying it's impossible. We shouldn't, however, ignore scientific data to protect our own egos.

I have 2 sisters that play games, and they're good enough to beat a lot of guys, but they'll never catch up to me in their lifetimes lol

[heavensgift2girls]

Of course girls can play video games. Those guys saying that are just trying to get under your skin. I don't know anyone that thinks women shouldn't play video games. The online world is full of trolls that say things they don't even mean just to hurt others.

However that video is nonsense. Video games don't need to be changed for girls through some forced politically correct message like the video is trying to suggest. The companies making the games will make any such changes on their own as more women are willing to start paying for games. The video game industry needs to be ran like a business, and should be created for the target audience. Some games will naturally be more suited for a certain gender, or age group and should reflect that in its content. If more of those games are getting bought, then it is only natural that more of those games are going to get made.

Major game companies aren't refusing to cater to an untapped market. They have made several attempts to get more females interested in video games. Those attempts have been largely unsuccessful.

Cell phone games are popular because of their convenience and how cheap the games are to play. The women already have cell phones, and the games are simple to learn. It allows for a different type of market that game makers didn't have access to before. Those same people won't spend hundreds of dollars for a game console, and pay $60 a game for a game like candy crush. Maybe some day things will change, but for now women just aren't supporting the market enough, to be a major factor in A list games.

Saying more adult women play games than teenage boys is deceitful. There are fewer teenage boys in existence than women. It limits the guys to boys between the ages of 13 and 19, while comparing them to any woman 20 and older. That is not a fair comparison at all. If they are having to twist their numbers like that to build a case, then they clearly don't have a good argument to make.

For years females decided to not to play video games, and overall had less of an impact on the market. Blaming it on an ad campaign is silly. They will market it to anyone they think will buy their product.

Today there are more women finally starting to pay for larger title games. That is why more high profile games now give people a choice of what gender they want to play as. The market will respond to the desires of whoever is buying their product.

[Sami365]

Just curious, but can you name an attempt they made to get women more interested in video games?

[heavensgift2girls]

www.denofgeek.us/.../10-bad-attempts-at-marketing-to-female-gamers

If you think about it, the "bad attempts" spoken about on that site are no different than the attempts to market to boys in the video you posted. The only difference is that they weren't able to get the female demographic interested.

[Berethor]

In case of Skyrim it was actually made with girls in mind, because of the fact that you can choose the character's gender in the game, it's still much less common for girls to play action/violent games, but it's safe to assume that the ability to play as an female character in the game is first and foremost for girls and not for guys that want to play as an girl, some reason, even if the classes in the game are not gender exclusive like the classes in diablo 2, and unlike the classes in diablo 3. Yes gaming is generally considered an boyish hobbie, but the sexist guys who didn't like female gamers, are much less surprised when girls are playing the sims, because the sims is considered to be an much more girlish game, as opposed to Call of Duty, and the sims is actually have an huge female fan base.

Unlike College Humor I don't believe that it's only has to do with marketing, men generally liking more action oriented works in films as well, and it has something to do with testosterone, and not only with society. In the end what is wrong is that they are doing too much generalization, with no exceptions, while there are exceptions, not all girls are an typical girly girls. Sorry to tell you this but there is an difference in terms of skill, male professional StarCraft 2 plays still winning almost all the time against female professional StarCraft 2, that is why they have gender separated competitions of StarCraft in Korea, even though males superior physical strength has less effect in gaming and well as in chess, unlike in more physical sports. Anyway I am don't have problem with female Call of Duty players, I still think that guys hobbies are cool, even for girls, and even if girls can't be as good as guys in them, as long as they are doing their best and are playing for fun and not only for trying to win then it's okey, and really an gamer guy would likely to have much more common interests with gamer girl then with girl who care only about fashion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIstL5fvkUk

[Berethor]

I mean an professional StarCraft 2 players. :)

[M_A_X]

Having the choice to make a female protagonist doesn't mean it's made for women or with women in mind at all. A large percentage of female characters in games are played by males... I don't understand why, but there is a subset of male gamers who only exclusively play female characters given the chance.

[Berethor]

So you believe that player characters are made mainly for some odd subset of male gamers who like to play as female characters, and not for encouraging more female gamers to play in those games? even if what you saying was true, even the fact that with such an tomboyish female characters in the those games, it would make almost no sense for the male players of this game to have an problem with girls who love those things, I'm quite sure that there are still games out there that didn't have those things, for those who like to see girls only in classic female roles. And how about games with multiplayer? do you think that guys prefer to see an guy playing an female character that they have meet in the game, or an real girl playing that character?

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GIRL

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Tomboy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Egtux6WA00c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhFMQXr5U24

[hellionthesage]

First, when a guy says girls don't play video games he is reffering to the games he consideres games ie FPS, RPG, Strategy etc. which statisticly is not inaccurate. Its a statement of (in his mind) fact and not an attack on women no different then if women where to say men don't go to spas which is for the most part true, most men do not. Again its not an attack its a generalized statement that is fairly accurate when applied to the total populace. Second I have never heard a guy criticise women who play games or thought she should not quite the opposite actually you will hear guys talking about how they would like to meet gamer girls, since its really awesome to have some one who is interested in the same hobby your interested in. The reason their is contention with "gamer" girls is because it is usually (statisticly speaking) the case that women play games that are not the same as what men play so they do not think of it the same they look at cellphone games as not being real games, and this is because when he reffers to games he is thinking of the FPS, RPG, Strategy and tactical, the adventure, horror etc. not the usual puzzle games of cell phones (which are played predominantley by women, in fact they make up over 50% of the "gamer" girls out their) so its not an attack on women or female gamers its an issue of definition. Kind of like saying you play a sport, chess. Is it a sport? Technicly yes, is that what people think of when they think sports? Absolutely not. This is the issue, symantics, not some consipracy that all (or even most or half) of all men who play games are misoginstic pigs trying to keep women out of gaming. As I said ask any gamer guy and they would be thrilled to have more female gamers, its just that when a woman claims to be a gamer and then lists off all the games that the guy does not associate with gaming he feels let down, he expected one thing and got another.

[M_A_X]

Girls have a slower reaction time than boys do, but they have a better ability for judging color.

To be honest, I find that girls stick to social games (not facebook games, but rather, mainstream BS games like CoD, WoW, L4D, etc.)

I don't hear about a lot of girls who retrogame.

Now, you are wrong to say people are sexist for pointing these things out, because that's not what makes them sexist. What makes them sexist is the way they present their arguments and NOT, that they make observations about the world around them.

[Berethor]

And there is also the fact that even if girls are generally weaker gamers, it's still don't mean that they can't play at all, just as the fact that girls generally weaker in basketball still don't stop some girls from playing basketball, and girls who are not arrogant should not have an problem to admit that guys are generally better players. The fact that gamer girls can win against guys who didn't play at all, didn't means much, as players should be compared to other players, first and foremost, and not to some random people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGzudKBHR2w

[mrf284212]

That's a very interesting video. I'm curious to know the research done for it. Truthfully, this explanation makes the most sense. People typically claim gender differences to be the culprit, but that never made sense to me.

In Nintendo's defense, they seem to be trying to include men and women in their commercials now.

[Crazyced]

"It seems like no matter where you are online, there is always some sexist guys who act like girls shouldn't play video games or that they aren't good at them because they don't have a stick between their legs"

Really? I have a couple of decades of living around my belt and I've NEVER heard this seriously being said by anyone. This is your typical completely fabricated straw man.

Video games are 'considered' a boys thing because mostly boys play them. Most girls and women don't care about most of them. With few exceptions of course. The SIMS probably one of the most blatant one.

[M_A_X]

Thank you for addressing the strawman. Girls also tend to play other mainstream games, like Call of Duty, Left 4 Dead, and etc, but I've never seen a girl in a Street Fighter tournament, a Smash Bros tournament, or really any tournaments. I'd like to.

[Anonymous]

I think the one thing that is stupid is people are saying that it's a hostile environment for girls to play online.

What they don't understand is that it's hostile to literally everyone. I used to play call of duty when I was younger and I've had 12 year old kids just saying the worst things imaginable to me. And it's not just to me it happens to literally everyone but when it happens to a girl suddenly it becomes all about gender and sexism. It's not people who claim this are beyond full of themselves and just love being portrayed as a victim (I'm not sure why they try to become victims I'll never allow myself to be a victim)

[M_A_X]

Those are Xbone owners mostly. That's where all the homophobes, racists, and wannabe gangsters tend to gather. I've played a lot of games online where I haven't been called a "faggot", but none of those were ever for the Xbone, and definitely weren't as mainstream as Call of Duty.

Now I'm going to explain a phenomena that men do in gaming that makes me sick. The men who think everything HAS to be violent and hardcore for them to even play it. These are manchildren who don't feel manly unless they're getting headshots and trolling. I have nothing against violent games, or First Person Shooters, but I do have something against any man who thinks his dick will fall off if the game doesn't let him make a head explode every 5 minutes. These are usually the same manchildren who will call other men faggots, and women any number of names in online chat... because you've threatened their shallow masculinity

[redeyemindtricks]

Most people seriously underestimate how many girl gamers there already are. Something like 40-45 percent of video game consumers are female.

Including 58 percent of mobile gamers. Fifty-eight percent. That's, like, 3 out of 5.

[bluenose1872]

Everywhere you go there's a woman whining she should be involved in this or that. Guys can't have fuck all to themselves now. Fuck off and make games for women then. You don't see guys invading pilate classes or yoga or wanting to be Victoria secrets models. We've got the sense to know what's for a girl and what's for a guy. Most women are too stupid to realise the basics any more. Make your own things and play with them as much as you want

[M_A_X]

A lot of guys invade yoga and pilate classes to check out women. A lot of women invade very basic mainstream games like CoD, but never develop a deeper liking for games other than those same mainstream series, mostly for the same reasons the guys go to the pilates classes lol

Now, to be clear, this isn't all women, or all men, just the trends that I've noticed in my lifetime. I know quite a few women who only play a few mainstream series, and quite a few, who, even worse, only play the new Zelda game when it comes out and nothing else.

[bluenose1872]

@M_A_X won't be long before they're moaning that zelda looks too macho and the guns in cod could be pink and the blood should be confetti and flowers to appeal to women. They can't leave fuck all alone now.

[M_A_X]

Guns in Call of Duty can already be pink. They did custom color skins a long time ago

[bluenose1872]

@M_A_X bit of a pedantic answer. The point is they want to feminise everything that man's ever done. It's doing my head in. Can they not go and make their own things to fuck with if they want to be that independent.

[Sami365]

Seriously? Blood be confetti and/ flowers/? Do you even know women? O. o A lot of have no problem with blood. Hell, I watch pretty gore-y anime where there is an excessive amount of blood (like Blood+, Blood C, and Deadman Wonderland). Also, Zelda is very girly. She is the princess after all... you might be thinking of Link, the hero of the games.

Dude, all we want is to be included again, like when video games were first made.

[M_A_X]

Actually, to be honest, I play Team Fortress 2 and use pyrovision so everything looks like what the pyro sees in this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUhOnX8qt3I

[bluenose1872]

I used to play with video games when they were first out. I remember ataris and Nintendo snes nes, master systems, megadrives and things like that. Girls were never interested in them. Me and my ex used to play the wii with the kids all the times. I've no problem them playing games. It's just when woman want to get involved they start moaning about changing things and that's a pain in the arse

[93stepsawayfromhome]

That whole "gaming is for men" thing is ridiculous and needlessly sexist. Obviously girls can be gamers. But when they are, for some reason they're always branded as "girl gamers" or something else denoting their sex or gender to distinguish them from "gamers" (men). I do sometimes say that there are "no girl gamers", but that doesn't mean that gamers who just so happen to be girls don't exist, it means that gamers who just so happen to be girls are just "gamers", not "girl gamers".

[M_A_X]

Girl gamers is a term for the girls I've named off before, who only play mainstream social games and never develop a deeper relationship with anything else. I've only met a few girls in my life that I can call "actual" gamers, who play a wide variety of series and look for new experiences.

Now, to be fair, I wouldn't call half the people who own Xbones real gamers either for those exact same reasons LOL

[BaileyisDarcy]

Adam didn't ruin everything! I must now die from shock.

But are games seriously marketed towards men simply because of the stupid gender split thing stores do? That's bull. Why can't they have put it in both aisles?

[CœurRosé]

Of course girls can play video games. but tbh, I'm getting kinda tired of girls pulling the "I'm a GIRL and I play video games!!!11" card as a reason to feel like a special snowflake.

[Sami365]

I didn't realize girls do that. It's the norm for me and my friends, as well with the people I talk to online so it doesn't make anyone special. To us, playing video games is just a common thing

[Anonymous]

I even hate it when guys are gamers. Such useless I can't even say skills, because they are nothing. Such a waste of our valuable lives and limited time in this world...
I'm sorry they were invented. Hour after hour, days, weeks, years, with nothing to show for it. Very sad.

[Opinion Owner]

Definitely demonstrative of some underlying psychological issue. Just like gambling or drinking. The modern-day addiction.
At least those who are constant phone-checkers are texting friends or expanding their social lives. Even though I still prefer human to human interaction. But anyway, it's still tons better than gaming.

[JudgmentDay]

If you find them interesting and you want to try them out for yourself, then you just do.

Gender doesn't even matter and have nothing to do with it.

If they want to play, then just let them play, nothing wrong with that.

[BruceTrails]

I never heard the stick joke before haha. Tbh the girls I know are good in their own way, they master some classes and just steamroll with it but the learning curve is a bit slower that's just from my experience. By all means they can game but if you see some tournaments online you don't see any girls playing in those team.

[The_Advisor]

The reason more serious games are marketed toward males is because the amount of guys that play them are disproportionate to the girls that play the games.

[Sami365]

Did you watch the video? It says that more women play games than teenage boys and some companies are missing out on profits for ignoring women.

[The_Advisor]

Not really, most women play mobile games In which are in there selfs are mostly free to play. The money is mostly made though ad revenue. However guys are more likely to buy pc and console games. These games usually cost 50 to 70 bucks not mentioning dlc. Saying there missing out on a huge market is a over exaggeration. As games such as call of duty , mortal kobat or forza that are marketed towards men are racking in the dough faster than 5-15 candy crush players combined.

[The_Advisor]

The ploblem with this video is the accouting does not add up when adult males included

[koko124]

Right, any statistic can be fudged to convey the right message.

If we look at video games that cost money, or games that require competition (as opposed to sandbox games like Minecraft, which is still probably dominated by boys), they're generally a lot more popular with men. Not a whole lot of girls playing Smash, Halo, CoD, CS, TF2, Battlefront, etc.

[Doofey]

@koko124 yeahhh normally I like his videos but he had some major factual errors. You can look at game sales and the vast majority are bought by men. Girls play as much as men when you have a wide definition of a "gamer" which includes occassionally playing online slots and candy crush versus being a devoted gamer with a large collection. Besides the fact that this is a victimization sterotype that apparently all men say girls don't play videogames. Not only is that not true but guys are more likely to treat you favorably in many games as well. Generally speaking most guys I know would love to meet gurls who enjoyed the games they did, I know I would.

[ArabianPwincess197]

Interesting Take. I agree that video games aren't just for guys, but its just a stereotype. Majority of the guys are into games whereas majority of the girls are in hair, beauty, make up etc. Hence...

[Sami365]

Well most of the girls I know (including myself) couldn't care less about hair or makeup. We love games, whether playing them ourselves or watching them being played on YouTube. The only girl I know who would rather focus on her looks than play video games is my older sister. There are a lot more girls into games than people think.

[ArabianPwincess197]

Yeah but compare that to the majority out there, it ends up being a minority

[Sami365]

Maybe from your perspective. Without real facts and statistics, we are both limited to what our norms are. I need to look into this more.

[DizzyAster]

@ArabianPwincess197 Video games and life isn't mutually exclusive. Near 50% of gamers are girls. I know some really hot gamer girls myself.

[ArabianPwincess197]

@DizzyAster okay they might be, but at the end of the day that 50% (is that in USA only, a state you live or worldwide)? What I'm trying to say is yeah there are girl gamers, there may be plenty of them but I doubt 50% of the women in the world are gamers

[DizzyAster]

True but you can say that about any (not important) activity.

[Sami365]

@DizzyAster Thank you for the back up :) I don't really think girl gamers are a minority and I'm glad someone else agrees that there are plenty of us. Still, I gotta do some looking into on this topic.

[G-Daz]

There are girl "gamers" but comparably guys are more likely to be than girls. Regardless of where you go, guys are just highly competitive when it comes to physically competing whereas girls generally compete in a different way.

[Chief16]

Wanna go on an eight hour run with me on DOTA? I swear I'll be gentle. And then you need to promise you'll stop whining about how gaming is just for guys.

[BruceTrails]

This :p

[lime_rampljuset]

What most male gamers don't know is that most games they play were created by teams with female developers.