(no subject)

[sophiaserpentia]

In light of Activision-Blizzard's RealIDFail, it's dawned on me that there is a sizable void.

There are lots of women who play games. There are no developers catering to them.

Gaming has been historically extremely male-centered. The stereotypical gamer is a teen boy in his parents' basement hunched over an XBox or a Nintendo. The stereotypical game designer is a man who, ten years ago, was that boy. Game designers target boys' and men's idea of fun. Game advertisers target the interests of boys and men. And, as RealIDFail demonstrates quite clearly, game developers have little interest in the specific concerns of women online, where those concerns differ from men's, or in the specific ways in which women use social networks differently from men.

I'm cherry-picking my examples here for emphasis, but as anyone in the wide world of woman-gamer blogging can tell you, dealing with misogyny -- as well as racism, homophobia, and transphobia -- in the gamer universe or in game advertising or content is an everyday thing.

So... why should we? Make that trade-off to play games we enjoy, I mean?

If there are any development studios with an anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-'phobic perspective, I want to find out who and where they are. A very cursory google search does not reveal the names of any studios developing from this perspective.

If there aren't... I want to play a role in founding one. Anyone else interested?

Comments

[alobar.livejournal.com]

So the social networking in online games is like social networking on FB or LJ? I can relate to that.

[azaz-al.livejournal.com]

Sort of, except you choose an avatar as a representation of yourself, as how you want to relate, or appear. The choices in a fantasy game are generally limited to the setting of the game, so people play games based on their own personal - preference? Archetypes?
For a long time I played mainly female trolls in Wow. They are tall, oversexed, practice voodoo, and have Jamaican accents.

[alobar.livejournal.com]

This is drifting way off topic from the original post, but I am learning things about my quirks which have irritated many people over the years, but left me bewildered as to why they were irritated at me.

Years ago, you suggested I might have Asperger's syndrome. You got me looking in that direction. No official diagnosis, but Asperger's sure seems to match many of my quirks.

I almost never use a question mark. I tend to ask questions by making statements. Instead of asking someone, "Are you OK?" I write "I hope you are doing OK."

I can see from this thread that I still have a ways to go in taming this quirk.

Let me think more about this. I'll getack to this thread in a day or two.