10 posts tagged “videogames”
I demand to know!
The gaming companies are hitting up the streets in San Francisco this week. With M16 bringing in the first flux of the gaming types, Tuesday kicked off my first gaming event with a sit-in preview of Fallout 3. Amidst the preview I had the pleasure of partaking in some The Wire humor with the very personable N'Gai Croal. I thought it was pretty great.
Duty eventually called and I fled the scene, sobered up with a
quesadila, and wrote that Fallout 3 preview until 5 in the morning.
This leaves me in a present state of delirium, having only gotten 4
hours of sleep, but hopefully all will be well with a few more cups of joe and a solid nap later today.
Speaking of delirium, isn't it crazy that the blur of green light to the right of Hamza's ecstatic face looks like a toothy, open-mouthed Slimer with a furrowed brow?
Whilst paying a visit to my dear friend Alex Ryan this past weekend not only did we have the pleasure of reveling in our newfound egomania (courtesy of Twitter), but we also had a chance to give his freshly fan-delivered Sega CD a spin. I was dumbfounded by all of the fabulous FMV's I had missed out on with this console as I was only privvy to the likes of the non-fancified Sega Genesis when I was younger. Double Switch starring Corey Haim? How could I have missed something like that!
There was one game that we played however that I was very familiar with. An overwhelming sense of nostalgia cast over me as we guided ourselves through the barely discernible pixelated landscapes, yielding memories of pajama Saturdays sitting alongside my brother at the computer playing the same impossible levels over and over again. I couldn't help but capture a moment in the game to cherish, but can you tell what game it was?
Our features editor over at Destructoid, Reverend Anthony, started issuing a monthly topic for both editors and community members to write about. Last month's topic was a topic regarding the 'Good Idea, Bad Idea' take on various gaming mechanisms which successfully fueled several insightful posts. This month's topic titled "...And the gamers who play them" invited the gaming community to intelligently approach the various subcultures that have spawned from videogame culture. As you might imagine, this was my opportunity to finally voice all that internalized opinion I've had about the 'Girl Gamers' out there.
I fretted. A lot. I spent over a month revising my piece until I felt it stood on its own two feet. The issue of Girl Gamers is often met with a lot of 'Stop beating the dead horse', 'Talking about it makes it worse', and 'STFUAJPG' ( aka "Shut the F*** up and just play games). I wanted to make sure my words had clarity and purpose to them, that even those who didn't entirely agree with me would at least take a moment to think about what I had said. When I set the post live this afternoon my body felt like a Butterfly garden. was terrified to see how people would react.
Fortunately, I think the piece held together and succeeded. The comments were relatively positive and supportive (particularly given the negative nature of our community), and when some disagreed they suggested relatively well thought-out counter arguments. I feel like I did justice, and while there are still a lot of questions unanswered about the topic itself I know I did my best.
For those of you who want to check out the whole article with some NSFW-ish examples of the 'Girl Gamers' I discuss head here. For those of you who want to offer a homie a little Digg-love digg here. But if you just want to take a seat and read a lotta bit of text then here goes nothing:
For this month's musing I chose to digest the sub-culture of 'Girl Gamers' that has managed to quickly surface alongside the increased popularity of gaming in the mass media.
So to avoid any confusion, the term 'Girl Gamers'
is intended to define the populace of female gamers who identify with
said terminology and who particularly rely on the alienation of their
gender as a means of gaining attention from the larger gamer
demographic.
If one attempts to dig deep within the reserves of videogame history, it's unlikely that they'll uncover the instance of the very first woman who graced her femininity upon a console (well, aside from the Computer Space ad, that is). There are several reasons why this moment was never documented -- mostly because videogame history is predominantly about videogames (imagine that!), but partly because members of the opposite sex playing games isn't very noteworthy in the most fundamental scope of things. I play. You play. We all play, with or without va-jay-jays.
Facts are facts, however, and despite the occasional news announcement reminding the public that female gamers actually exist (apparently at 38% of gamers strong), we all know that videogames are predominantly enjoyed by a male demographic. That being said, there is also no denying the slender aura of novelty that immediately adheres itself to a woman who plays games, whether she craves the inherent attention or attempts to avoid it.This dichotomy, while not unique, is of interest to the likes of marketing gurus who determinedly pervert this gender-dissonance to their advantage. Thus, what is eventually revealed in the history of gaming media is the attractive (and often scantily clad) female gaming idol embodied by such women as Morgan Webb, Olivia Munn, and Jessica Chobot. All beautiful and consistently visual, these women and others were the few mass-displayed female figures in the gaming industry to be ravenously consumed by gaming's very own male demographic.
Sex sells, and while the rest of the female gamers remained ambivalent to gender differentiation amidst their game playing, the few esteemed faces of the beautiful rooted themselves as the visual representatives of the 'Girl Gamer'. The collective reception and praise of these visual idols by a male-dominant industry garnered an image-heavy notion of the 'Girl Gamer', a notion which to this day has yet to be the equal case for male gamers.
Galleries of E3 booth babes, "hot...naked...and blue" Cortana cosplays, and any number of chicks with joysticks establish a visual narrative for gaming women that heightens gender alienation while simultaneously muffling the significance of the woman gamer's voice. There is no doubt that Ubisoft took advantage of this exact instance by baiting the accomplished, intelligent, and most importantly attractive producer Jade Raymond to the gaming audience to steer public attention to their game Assassin's Creed. In turn, the only surface-level 'heroes' or 'icons' of the female gaming community are the beautifully unattainable likes of Munn or Webb, regarded first and foremost in this industry for their looks.
And so the standard for the 'Girl Gamer' is set and an equation for success is discovered. Take an attractive woman and pair her alongside a gaming device of some sort. Congratulations! You've captured the attention of a massive chunk of the gaming demographic. What better avenue is there to market your gaming products? Hot girls are hot, gaming boys like gaming girls, and most importantly we're all having fun with our irresponsible gender stereotypes. Nothing wrong with fun, guys!
So what, then? Structured by the mass media as a marketing device and fed by a surge of online egoism (thanks to social media sites such as MySpace and the proliferation of digital cameras), the 'Girl Gamer' specimen has, in turn, infected the masses with false promises of niche-specific fame and glory. In the same way people fantasize about becoming a celebrity, these 'Girl Gamers' seek the attention of becoming the next 'it' girl of their respective gaming community through the prolific distribution of sexually charged images and continuously capitalizing on their sex -- both of which, consequently, have relatively little to do with gaming itself.
What's to follow but the Chobot wannabes slathering their tongues across portable consoles for the camera, or the suspiciously excessive amount of 'Girl Gamer' self-portraits involving various game-related paraphernalia (or lack thereof)? Whatever neutral connotations of women gamers existed in the past are overthrown with the photographic barrage of sexually charged images brought to us by the 'Girl Gamers'. They're beautiful, they know which side is their good side, and they're comfortable enough with their sexuality to let us know they're proud of it. If you've got it, flaunt it. Right?
The women who choose to use their body to visually manifest their 'gaming experience' (by way of game-themed suggestive photographs, for example) express themselves via the avenue of the mass marketed 'Girl Gamer', a goal that is altogether vapid and mediocre in its pursuit. If anything, these girls successfully stick out as a glaring instance of the disappointing commercialization of gaming in popular culture, their antics for attention comparatively as bad as a common reality TV show contestant.Furthermore, it's one thing for females to collectively enjoy games together, but it's another for these 'Girl Gamers' to assert themselves as leading figures of the female gaming community when no one has asked them to do so (unless, of course, it's a sponsored gaming company looking for cash money). This ill-founded goal disrupts a gaming community in which gamers can agreeably interact with each other regardless of their sex by disturbing the space with sexually-oriented images that immediately derail neutrality and signify more differences than likenesses.
Gamers who prefer the absence of a gender-biased gaming community ultimately find these 'Girl Gamers' as unnecessary and obnoxious entities desperately seeking attention. For women gamers such as myself who admire the well-spoken gaming female (see Jane Pinckard, Tracey John, Leigh Alexander, and our own Colette Bennett) as opposed to the gaming beauty queens, these 'Girl Gamers' are downright irritating.
It's unlikely that the trendy alliteration of 'Girl Gamer' will fade away anytime soon or that the equivalent 'Guy Gamer' (see Mega64's Sexy64 for more information) will actually be realized. Unfortunately, a similar fate rings true with the 'Girl Gamer' herself as long as the industry continues to cater to its male demographic, and as long as there are women who fashion themselves alongside those same standards.
A more pressing urgency today is the shortage of intelligent women speakers and writers who strongly represent themselves with words as opposed to images. While women such as Jessica Chobot have made certain strides to leave their more exhibitionist pasts behind, as long as there is a constant appraisal of their attractive and more visually accessible adversaries, the battle between the pen and the larger picture continues to rage on.
Thus, the aspirations associated with the 'Girl Gamer' are damaging to both male gamers and female gamers. Gender distinguishment plays little to no part in one's ability to play or enjoy videogames, let alone define them as a gamer to begin with. And finally, let's all remember that "gamer" is an asexual term, a descriptor that belongs to everyone who plays games despite gender, ethnicity, or sexual orientation, and is absolutely lovely in its nascent ambiguity.My twin brother 2 years removed, Harrison (or .harr to some, hehe) is visiting from college for the Zombie-Jesus weekend. Sitting side by side, him with my sister's DS lite and me with my PSP, we began to discuss the variety of hand held games we've been playing over the past few months. Back in the good ol' days, Harrison and I would spend many brain power hours in tandem getting through various puzzle and adventure games on the PC such as The Secret Island of Dr. Quandary, The Castle of Doctor Brain, and Legend of Kyrandia: Hand of Fate. Naturally, our experiences with Professor Layton and the Curious Village surfaced between our discussions.
Harrison mentioned that he had a chance to try a few puzzles at GameStop, remarking that he had a little bit of trouble on a couple of them. I immediately related as I too had run into a bit of a jam on what seemed to be some of the most simple puzzles. Our subconcious sibling connection was revealed when we both brought up issues with the 10 picarats Strange Hats puzzle.
I present to you the exact Strange Hats puzzle below. If there's one thing I hate, it's being told that I'm stupid by a simple mind puzzle on my DS. If there's another thing I hate, it's finding out my super smart electrical engineering brother had the same problem. Here's your chance, faithful reader, to further convince me of my own stupidity by trying to solve the puzzle yourself! If you've played the game already you probably already know the answer, but if you haven't have a go... and don't cheat!
Becoming one with online communities is a truly interesting experience. More than a year ago I would have never believed it worthwhile to meet anyone first through an online avenue, whether it be through a forum, website, or social network. Little did I know however how socially rich the right communities can be given a little time, and to this day some of my best friends I've met through the sites I contribute to and interact with.
I'm so honored you guys, thank you for the visual shout-outs. 3000 x Less than three and moar harts and kittenszz!
When I'm not gaming, I'll litter my free time with impromptu dance parties in my apartment to the tune of Vanished, and if I'm lucky enough, maybe I can convince someone to fix me up with a large Broccoli ocarina so I may do a proper vegetable cover of it:
Only a quick glance for now. I'm sure I'll have more to say about the entire experience when I'm not getting ready to head off to my Grandfather's epic 94th birthday party. In the meantime, here are a few shots I just grabbed while surfing through the ultra packed Wondercon:
Since the chances that I'll be promenading down the block and suddenly trip over someone's castaway PlayStation 3 are very slim, I'm sad to say that my ability to own the upcoming exclusive title Little Big Planet rests on the same probability. This is a grievously missed opportunity for sweet looking game play and horrendously cute overload, as is demonstrated by the following videos:
Note: If anyone needs a loving home for their respective next-gen Sony game console, I'm waiting here with open arms!
