Cerise Magazine

I first found Girls Don’t Game several months ago and was immediately drawn in by the depth and variety of posts by the five women who write for it, so I jumped at the chance to interview Monique, founder and administrator of the blog. She offers a unique perspective on video games and the online community, and I hope you enjoy her responses as much as I did.

Alex Raymond: How did Girls Don’t Game get its start?

Monique: Last fall I finally kicked my ass in gear and decided to make a weblog. I really just wanted a place for my rants, like how water levels are annoying and Princess Peach is a bad character. I knew my rants were pretty controversial and laced with swear words, so I wanted an equally tongue in cheek name. I went for Girls Don’t Game to be both memorable and sardonic. I mean, clearly, we don’t game or exist on the internet–that’s why I’m blogging about games and all! Eventually, as we started getting a lot more hits, I realized I couldn’t do it alone so I got more people to help out and the rest is history.

AR: How did you choose new writers?

M: Before March, I basically chose writers based on friendship. If I knew them and knew they were good, they were “hired.” Pretty quickly I’d run out of friends to use, though, so in March, I made a post asking for new writers to email to apply. We’d had two writers bail because of World of Warcraft and one got a salaried job, so we had a huge void to fill. What I didn’t expect was over fifty submissions to be a new author within a month’s span. It was incredibly overwhelming. I read every app and got Gloria, a friend and co-author, to give her two cents when applicable. We ended up choosing Brittany and Jen for their experience and mission statements. They really got what GDG is all about.

AR: When did you first get into gaming?

M: I was in first grade, my dad bought me a NES, and I was addicted to Duck Hunt. It really began there and was carried on by my raising. I grew up on a block with a few boys my age as neighbors, but no girls, and we used to hold Street Fighter 2 contests in the summer after our Lego wars and water balloon fights. In 1997 and onward, my family got our first computer and I spent my middle and high school years competing at Counter-Strike and discovering MMORPGs like Everquest and Asheron’s Call.

AR: Do you consider yourself a feminist, and how does that affect your blog?

M: I’m a feminist–born and raised. At the same time, I don’t want GDG to alienate male gamers, which is something that many feminists do either unintentionally or intentionally. I didn’t want Girls Don’t Game to be a series of rants about gender or “grrl power,” I just wanted it to be gaming. I never want GDG to kiss up to males or hyper sexualize itself for exposure, either. I just want my blog to be true to gaming above and before all else.

I think balancing my feminist side and my gamer side, getting them to co-exist, has been what GDG is all about. Luckily I’ve had some amazing writers who share the same goals and beliefs to work with, making my job significantly easier.

AR: What challenges or conflicts have you had balancing your feminist and gamer sides, if any?

M: I have a tendency to try too hard because I want to prove I–and other females–can be hardcore gamers. In an age where there’s girls who sexy themselves up for recognition and other girls who think the Sims 2 is very hard, as a hardcore female gamer, I have to really prove myself to break stereotypes and prove we [females] are as good as the boys. I always push myself and in the past pushed myself too hard, adapting a cold face and ballsy attitude in lieu of acceptance. A lot of the times I felt like I was a representative of the gender and should play 110% in a match accordingly. I guess a lot of this was because I was the only female in a top guild, the only female on my CS clan, and almost always alone. The pressure was always on. It was always really hard to step back and say it’s just a game. I know some guys hated me because I was always extra competitive, to the point of ridiculousness. You know the type. The person who laughs when you die to a headshot, or stand in the fire on Archimonde. Yeah, I was her. I’m trying not to be anymore.

AR: The title of your blog satirizes the misconception that women don’t play video games. Why do you think this misconception is so prevalent?

M: God, I don’t know. Guys–they’re the problem here! Seriously! All those males who have female avatars and feminine names in video games totally destroyed the image that girls play video games. I mean nearly every “female” you meet in a MMORPG is really a guy. I think that’s how the “girls don’t game” phrase started. A lot of females also feel embarrassed to admit their nerdiness in public forums. I had a friend a few years back who could play Halo with the best of them, but she always introduced me as the gamer in the parties and social events with disdain. She didn’t want to stand out. I think if guys would stop pretending and girls would stop hiding, we might actually break the stereotype.

AR: How would you suggest girls stop hiding their gamer side?

M: It’s cool to game. No really, it is. I see so many girls blush and admit that they played Super Smash Bros last night in their friend’s dorm–what’s with the blushing! It’s just as cool as taking tequila shots off someone’s stomach, and they surely wouldn’t blush if they recanted that tale! For some reason, many girls think it’s a boy’s club, or at least, being “good” is a boys only thing. It’s not, and the sooner females admit they like gaming and are pretty damn good at it, the sooner more will come out of hiding.

AR: Do you think studios should aim for more gender-inclusive games, and would that have an effect on the number of women gamers and the surrounding misconceptions?

M: No, no, and no. Releasing games aimed for females has always been a disaster and trying to “include” female gamers just makes us stick out more. A gamer is a gamer is a gamer–period. There should be no special categories of gamers and gender should never matter! If a gamer doesn’t like FPS games, then they’re a fan of a different genre. There would be no sense in making the FPS game less action based and sans sniper rifles to appeal to the RPG fan, right? The game shouldn’t be more modified to appeal to the gamer ever, and that’s exactly what trying to be more gender inclusive would entail. Only instead of something classified like RPG and FPS, we’d have labels like female and, well, non-female which would be up to the developers and probably include really ridiculous stereotypes.

AR: What do you think of the current portrayal of female characters in games?

M: I like a lot of female characters and I hate a lot of them. Every game does it differently. I’m a huge fan of the Grand Theft Auto series, but I’ll be the first to admit their female leads are horrible (or simply non-existent). On the flip side, the Resident Evil series has time and time again given leading ladies some damn fine moves and lines. I absolutely love Claire Redfield, Ada Wong, and Jill Valentine. I think gaming has come a long way from its days of making princesses in a castle far away.

AR: What do you think about the gaming blogsphere? Do you feel like your blog is a part of it, or its own separate community?

M: I love the concept of blogs. The problem is I’m not good at the comment game or popularity game that the blogsphere propagates. I don’t link back because I’m lazy and, I mean, the whole thing of exchanging links is superficial to me unless you really read them daily which I basically never do. What’s real is gaming–and writing about gaming. Not blogrolls, ping backs, and comments. That said I definitely do love the community as a whole. I’ve seen some incredible gamers, and I think GDG is a part of it albiet sort of halfway into that community and halfway into its own little realm. Sometimes I get really frustrated when I see how many great blogs link to us, and how I just haven’t had time to update the links list yet (or fully read them). I feel guilty. And then I go play Xbox 360.

AR: Girls Don’t Game has a World of Warcraft motif. Do you still play? What is or was your character like?

M: Oh man, you really don’t want to get me started about WoW. I was majorly addicted for over a year of my life. I was in the top US guild pre-expansion (Death and Taxes) as a Paladin. I had full tier 3, and I was featured on WoW Radio. I came back in January this year to see how The Burning Crusade had changed things, around the time I made GDG’s layout, and after getting full tier 6 and seeing Sunwell with another awesome guild, Forgotten Heroes, I quit again. I love World of Warcraft, and I truly loved my time spent playing with the best of the best. I’ve made great friends and enemies alike. But for some reason, I can’t play casually. I can’t have a life and WoW. I always have to be the best healer, the best raider, the most geared, the top PvP healer–it brings out a really ugly side to my personality. Trust me, if you think my GDG rants are foul, you don’t want to know what I was like after wiping to the Eredar Twins fifty times straight or losing a match to Shadow Priest and Rogue comp.

AR: Is there anything you’d like to add?

M: Oh, now for the awkward part. I want to thank you for the chance at this interview, and I want to let everyone know to visit Girls Don’t Game, see what we’re about, and add us to your RSS readers. The blog has five different writers, five different styles, and five different types of gamers; it’s truly a melting pot of gaming weblogging, and there’s something for everyone. Thanks again!