On Women and Gaming

Blogging would be awesome! Now, if only I had something interesting to say...

Raising the flag would be a good thing, but my opinions on women in gaming (despite being one) aren't very strong as I find that I find myself agreeing with men a lot more, rather than defending my gender.

In an ideal world, this shouldn't matter, but there is a definite attitude to woman in gaming put out my the men and women with can often strongly oppose each other (even though that could be a sweeping generalisation) and I often finding myself feeling that a lot of women pick out the less important things and targetting them saying it is against us. I also find some women to completely deny that gaming is generally a man's field and isn't focused at women and even games which are ("Nintendo Dogs", "Wii Sports") are rare and often don't last as long or leave a girl wanting to play more.

One thing I have noticed is the generation below us is attracting a lot of girl (I know a niece or two who own PS2s although no-one at my high school in my year plays computer games). Maybe the market will be more open in the future.

Even so, women can be too picky and sensitive on the matter, which usually leads me to get angry. :C Not cool. D:

Nintendo Exploiting Student Labor!

Caption: Darth Vader dejected that Japanese schoolgirls, like Princess Leah, are resistent to his "mind probes".

Kotaku Feature: Will Wright's SXSW Keynote

But Will... I don't WANT to make my own stories. I don't want to make my own characters, i don't want to make my own villains. I don't want to make my own drama, and i certainly don't want to be able to "skip to level 3" because i suck at the game.

He is approaching game design like a toymaker through and through and i'm certain that's truly valid for a large segment of the population, but i really do go to games as an alternative to literature, and i expect the literature of a game to at least be the hook to drive me through the experience.

This literature doesn't have to be spectacular, but dumping me in a universe to play with evolution? In terms of story, Spore is like the world's biggest tetris.

I can understand this angle to a certain extent, but i am in no way at all sold on this game. Is it crazy of me to say i absolutely loathe almost every Sim* game ever made, excluding SimAnt(wtf)? I simply don't feel like a toy box is incentive enough to bother. At least with legos you are creating an object. With the Sims or any other Maxis/EA toybox title, you're honestly not making shit.

To me, the incentive is an interesting story that will inspire me to play through and maybe even make me think a little on its implications. Games with narratives as primitive as Ninja Gaiden did this, hell, back in the dizzy even Double Dragon did. Megaman had me fascinated as hell when i was a kid. In more recent times, Planescape Torment, System shock/2 and the Thief trilogy stand as the strongest examples of western storytelling in games that i can think of.

Spore strikes me as unbelievably cool technology, but there is literally zero urge on my part to even consider playing it. All i can think of is how badass it'd be if Will Wright actually got together with, say, Warren Spector or Ken Levine and made a story driven game built on his brilliant engineering. Until he manages to tick that interest in me, all i'll think about when i hear his name is an enormous missed opportunity.

Will Wright: Care Bears vs Klingons

But the Klingons are actually just two Romulans duct-taped together.

Games Radar Still Doesn't Get Gay

The other day I was kind of getting nostalgic for RPG's that defined my adolescence, most notably the bard's tale series. I spent an inordinate amount of time with Bard's Tale III, thief of fate... the part with doing battle with nazi's in hell gets me misty eyed to this day.

Anyway, I went on a sort of "where are they now" trip and went to look for what those specific developers were doing now... Rebecca Heineman, formerly Bill "Burger" Heineman, was diagnosed with gender identity disorder and followed a process to become a woman. I also found out that she was involved in Tass Times in Tonetown (I don't remember the gameplay but I remember the story being eff'ing odd.)

Where I work its a little hard for any person to be homophobic. I was raised pretty liberal at that. In the end, what matters is the work people do. In the gaming industry, thats got to be good content and good games. Rebecca made one of my favorite gameplay experiences (sans the damned codewheel) and thats pretty much all that matters when it comes down to it.

I'd imagine its hard for anyone that isn't straight to maintain an open identity to their consumers. Alot of gaming has a hostile contingent of players that aren't very cultural open-minded. I assume its a don't ask, don't tell policy. I'd even imagine there are a good amount of people out there who wouldn't even purchase a game from a gay developer (regardless if the content had nothing to do with homosexuality) simply out of fear. Yet they're totally fine with the latent homoeroticism present in most male oriented action games.

On the flipside of it, I'm not sure that I personally would actively seek out a game that revolved around openly gay content. I did purchase Enchanted Arms knowing full well that there was a gay character in it. Beyond being somewhat generic, I didn't find that it made me question my heterosexuality. I actually found it kind of endearing in a very comic booky way. If Gears of War was a great eff'ing game but had a tender moment in the basement of a collapsed house... would I still want to play it? Thats the million dollar question...

There is probably a marked difference between the argument of gay content and gay identity in the industry. Its kind of fascinating that there was a panel at GDC on it. I'd be interested to hear more what was discussed without hearing some people claiming that I've caught 'teh gay.'

The LAST Cake Post. That's It. No More.

Last cake post? That's a goddamn lie and you know it!

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