Cerise Magazine

Aww, sweet, sweet geek love.

The New York Times recently published a piece titled “How to Date a Video Gamer” which revolved around the relationship of Miho Walsh and Roy Prieb. While the piece is almost cloyingly sweet, describing a modern day love story, upon completion I couldn’t help but sigh.

The piece was great for romantics. The piece was not so great for the image of gaming in the mainstream mindset, especially in terms of how female players are perceived in the media.

The article opens:

The first time Miho Walsh visited Roy Prieb’s New York apartment in 2003, she spent three hours watching him and his roommates play the video game Splinter Cell. “I got a good sense of what Roy likes to do in his spare time,” Ms. Walsh said.

We have already established that Roy is a gamer and presumably, Miho is not. Normally, this would not be a problem as there are gamers and non-gamers in the world, both of whom fall equally across gender lines. However, the prevailing assumption is that women do not play games and do not have an interest in them.

Miho, to her credit, lives up to being a good gamer girlfriend and not only adapts to Roy’s hobby, but also gives him the gift of World of Warcraft. Here’s where the stereotyping starts to get deep.

When Miho heads to the counter, WoW in hand:

“The cashier said, ‘You better just say goodbye to your boyfriend for two months,’ ” Ms. Walsh said. Instead, she further surprised Mr. Prieb by also offering to play the game, allowing them to explore the land of Azeroth together.

Now, it is possible that Miho did mention it was a gift, rather than her own purchase, but it is interesting to assume that her boyfriend would be the dominant player.

This is later reinforced within the piece, conveniently mentioning how women are inferior players:

But he quickly left her and her avatar behind. “I couldn’t keep up,” she said, referring to how quickly Mr. Prieb’s avatar advanced to higher levels. “He would have to come back and help me kill off boars.”

Again, this is no reflection on Miho because I am sure that she - having had limited contact with gaming - would have problems understanding the intricacies of Warcraft as quickly as a hobbyist who lives and breathes controller codes. Still, it was one more way to nail home that men are generally better at games than women.

The article also picked up on the following ideas.

Gamers are isolated

But he did it from across the room, he said, describing how each of them sat at separate computers.

“She was staring into her screen, and I was staring into my screen,” Mr. Prieb said.

Because, of course, gamers can’t find the time to work in a regular social life since they are too busy staring at screens.

Girl gives up gaming self for the sake of the relationship:

So they decided to work together to beat their demons, using only his avatar. “It was better for both of us,” he said, “sitting side by side.”

As you can see from the graphic that accompanies this pic, the choice of avatars reflect more gendered gaming stereotypes (man = power, woman = cute). This adorable exchange again reinforces the ideas that women are better helpmates than players in their own right.

Girls are good communicators and healers:

He focused on killing monsters, and she ensured that they maintained good social relationships with other players.

Not even going to comment on this one.

Oh, noes, teh gamez steal your lifes:

“There would be these beautiful spring days, and we’d look up and say, ‘We just wasted a beautiful day inside,’ ” Mr. Prieb said, noting they would sometimes forget to even open the blinds.

This one is an interesting double stereotype - the idea that gamers are allowing “real life” to pass them by instead of gaming enhancing their real lives and the idea that online MMORPGs are so consuming that people turn into cave dwellers. I have yet to read an article that mentions a casual Warcraft or Second Life player - MMO users are all seen as obsessive to the point of destruction.

Heroic man makes relationship saving decision:

After two months he pulled the plug on the game subscription. It was goodbye, Karazhan tower, and hello, Central Park, as they devoted their weekend afternoons outdoors.

Interesting how Roy is seen as the keeper of the game. Screw their bonding - he wants to go outside dammit!

End of girl’s gaming career, because husband said so:

“He decided we needed to go cold turkey,” Ms. Walsh said, sounding a little disappointed.

Because, obviously, Miho couldn’t keep gaming on her own and actually put some work in on her avatar.

Again, I want to reinforce here that this isn’t a value judgement on Miho and Roy’s relationship. Their courtship and resulting love match makes for an interesting story. In addition, Miho’s story does echo that of quite a few women who get into gaming through their boyfriends or husbands.

However, I wonder if the story would have been told in the same cute, dreamy way if Miho had been the girl with the controller, Roy was the supportive but inept-at-gaming boyfriend, and Kookamanga was a level 32 troll priestess and in high demand for raiding partners.

Then again, I am not sure if the editors would have ran that story. A girl gamer running her dating life and her in-game life? Nah, too unrealistic.

(Image taken from the NYT website.)

Article © March 2008 by Latoya Peterson.