GamerBunny Speaks

I was reading an excellent article about Shigeru Miyamoto on NYTimes.com and there was one particular line that really stuck out, and kind of annoyed me. While I loved what the rest of the article was saying, this line seemed off-key to me:

Their [Miyamoto & Iwata] idea was revolutionary in its simplicity: rather than create a new generation of games that would titillate hard-core players, they developed the Wii as an easy-to-use, inexpensive diversion for families (with a particular appeal to women, an audience generally immune to the pull of traditional video games).

So are video games a virus that women have been vaccinated for, so now we are all “immune” to them? All sarcasm aside, the general tone of the video gaming world toward women is starting to become borderline politically incorrect. Not only are women generally associated as being anti-video game, but the ones that do play video games are usually grouped with casual gamers, as opposed to the core gaming audience. Like in this article, the Wii is basically described as an ideal system for the casual gamer, and because of that reason, it has been able to grab the attention of women.

Now, as a gamer who has been a gamer before I was even a grade school student, and as a gamer who also happens to be a woman, I wish I could dispel this myth that female gamers only take up a very small sliver of that gamer pie and that most of the women in that tiny sliver are only casual gamers. The truth is, there are a lot of women who play video games. I know several of them. And while, yes, sometimes we are more susceptible to the cute, cuddly, family-friendly games like Nintendogs and Mario Party, we are also drawn to the more “hardcore” games, such as The Legend of Zelda, Halo, Grand Theft Auto, and such. We even play the fighting games and gory, zombie games and sports games occasionally.

You see, the difference between male gamers and female gamers is that males actually consciously think about the distinction, while women tend to just think of themselves as plain old gamers. We don’t just go towards the “girly” games; we look for the same quality that male gamers seek after. We actually do think about how amazing a game’s graphics will be or if it’ll be an RPG with a wonderful storyline or if the next fighting game sequel will live up to its predecessor. And just like the men who play the new Grand Theft Auto IV, sometimes we enjoy shooting people for no reason and running over pedestrians and having sex with a skanky hooker and shooting her in the back of the head afterwards. Yeah, we have that sick side, too.

Which is why I don’t understand why some game developers feel the need to “target” women when they create games. Like, put in a few kittens or make it more casual or something ridiculous like that. Targeting women has almost become synonymous to dumbing down certain games completely. It’s really baffling because we don’t want to be “targeted;” we just want the same great games that other, opposite-gendered gamers are guaranteed. In fact, targeting women is more of a detriment to the whole gaming universe. Why create more barriers in a world that is already full of them? The video game world, to me, has been a world I can go to when I want to escape the ridiculousness of the real world. Do I have to be held back because I’m a female?

I’m hoping that more female gamers will speak up, not really to try and separate us or create some kind of twisted feminist movement in the video game world, but more just to let it be known that we exist and that we really are true gamers, just like men. Sure, in the end, the numbers show that there are more male gamers out there, but the number of female gamers isn’t quite as small as the statistics show, I think. And despite the fact that games were never really “targeted” towards us in the past, we still existed and we even grew in numbers. That goes to show that we don’t want a “women-friendly” video gaming environment, but just the same old good fun we’ve always had in the past, before this whole focus on casual gamers and female gamers and all that ridiculousness.

I don’t believe in barriers, so I don’t believe in separating any gamers from each other as well. I’m hoping video game developers and male gamers alike will stop pushing this weird stereotype onto us and just develop great games for us to enjoy. We are not “special” and we aren’t “immune” to video games, so stop treating us so differently. We exist and we have the same needs as other gamers. Don’t disappoint us!

GamerBunny