Cerise Magazine

May 2007 Issue

Features

• From the Editors
• Craft Check: Make Your Own Miniatures

Articles

• 5 Steps to Attract Girl Gamers
  Author: Latoya Peterson

Latoya gives game designers five simple suggestions for tapping into a greater share of the potential female video gamer market.

• Playing With Patriarchy
  Author: Natalie Hill

Is video gaming a "boys' club"? Natalie looks at what casual misogyny can do to girl and women gamers.

• Lagging Behind
  Author: Lindsey Galloway

What games do girls want to play? Lindsey takes a look at the "Girls' Games Movement" and the future of gender in games.

• Girls Don't Play Video Games
  Author: Nick Cummings

Do girls play video games? Nick revisits this myth and talks about why it may be more damaging than it first appears.

Reviews

• Final Fantasy III
  by Ariel Wetzel

 

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Girls Don’t Play Video Games

Well, that’s what they say. And like most self-fulfilling prophecies, it seems to have held true for quite a long time. Since my earliest days I found myself among a crowd of awkward young boys who seemed alone among the sexes with their love for video games. There were no girls copying down Megaman passwords, trading Pokémon or clicking feverishly through Diablo. The gaming world appeared as a perplexing no-woman’s land, and as an adolescent I began to wonder what made video games so restrictive.

Years passed, and I began to realize the old stereotype wasn’t entirely true - there are lots of girls who are into gaming. But even so, their voices aren’t being heard.

With video games growing into a worldwide international phenomenon, it’s a little alarming that so few women have risen to prominence in the industry. People like Alexey Pajitnov, Hironobu Sakaguchi, Dave Perry and Will Wright are household names to the average gamer, and they hail from all over the world - yet to my knowledge, there is not a single female game designer that has ever achieved celebrity status.

Video games are now an established aspect of global cultural, and that makes it all the more unsettling how little recognition women and minorities continue to have in the game development process.

The Glass Level-cap

I read a number of publications to gather game information. After years of reading all sorts of game journalism, it’s clear to see that there are hardly any women whose voices are heard, despite how many of them are writing.

Kotaku recently asked women to “get out there and blog” and “let the industry know what [they] want from games.” Perhaps I’m frustrated in general, but those statements seem ironic coming from a site dominated by men.

I’m an aspiring video game journalist and the last thing I want to do is endorse a discriminatory industry. It’s true that the Internet is a highly effective way to get one’s message out - but what I’m proposing is that perhaps the nature of the industry one writes about affects the journalism surrounding it.

But hey, I’m an optimist. If enough people start talking about something, it’s extremely hard to silence them, right?

After all, it’s not like gamers will ever shut up about the industry they’re so fond of.