Whilst I agree that social pigeonholing probably has some effect, the reason I didnt mention it is because im not convinced that it really has that significant an impact. For one thing, the subject matter of a lot of games (mostly the FPS and RTS genres, RPG's less so) just doesnt interest your average girl. The emphasis is on shooting things in the face. The why is nearly always less important than the how, presuming that the why is mentioned at all. Take arguably the best FPS ever, Half Life. There are aliens. Shoot them. Shoot them with machine guns. Shoot them with crossbows. Shoot them with railguns and some wierd alien shit. Why? Cos...hell, they are aliens! Shoot them because they are shooting you! This side of things isnt just in games; shooty films with flimsy storylines are almost universally snubbed by the ladys. As are telly programs. And books. I dont think this is down to people bullying the gun-lust out of girls, I just dont think its there.Strawberry Dragon wrote:I agree with everything Joose says, although there is one important thing he missed out, and that's gender stereotyping.
People often assume that because I have a pink website about cute dragons, that I am female. But there's no reason a man can't like things that are pink and cute, it's just that most men learnt from an early age that liking things like that tends to get the crap beaten out of them, so they steer well away from anything that isn't brutishly male and heterosexual.
The same goes for women. A girl who likes cars, guns and fiddling with computers is going to have to put up with being called a lezzer and having cruel rumours spread around about her at school. So often women don't give "male" things a chance.
I'm fairly girly, and I generally prefer buildy, rpg and social games over shooty, fighty ones. I never really enjoyed FPS games to begin with, but because I hung around with a lot of men who constantly roped me into playing, I have come to quite enjoy them. It's a way to be social and have a laugh, and gaming not necessarily any more male or female than going to the pub or watching a film. But if I had been around more women growing up, it's unlikely I would be the gamer I am.
Although there are general differences between men and women, they are made much more pronounced by the social pigeonholing that is tortured into us by playground bullies...and usually it's those in the geek community that suffer from these the most
Again, Im talking about the majority here. Im certain there are girls out there who are major gun nuts. I know of girls who are into things traditionally thought of as "blokey" myself, but I know of a hell of a lot more that would rather chop their hands off than play some generic shooter, even if it looked georgeous and had every gun known to man, accurately modeled. I just dont think the statistics hold up to the suggestion that peer pressure has a significant impact on it.
Besides, like i mentioned above, some of the differences between men and women are physical, not psychological. It would take some pretty intense bullying to alter the internal workings of the visual centers of the brain
) is bang on, and accounts for the majority of female gamers not enjoying FPS.
Some fascinating comments there from everyone. narf, I'm surprised the industry hasn't tried a bit harder to tap into the 50% of the market they're missing out on. Clearly there is potential to develop an appeal to women in games without steering to far from the central theme, or resorting to pathetic, stereotyped attempts such as a 'My Little Pony Simulator'.
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