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Camilla of Popgadget responds to Wired magazine's simplistic classification of women gamers:
Wired published an article about women and games, reporting how once again women who like playing games tend to be placed into two distinct categories, the casual gamers and the "rough" gamers. I still have quite a hard time trying to understand why someone even bothers to analyze the women's gamer market so scrupulously if the end result is so utterly lame.
As no generalization can be made for the male game consumer, so none can be made for the female one. Being a woman doesn't make you like a game genre more or less than another, though you as an individual might favor a genre over another.
Camilla doesn't agree with the Microsoftie quoted in the article who says that violence keeps women from playing certain games. Maybe some women don't go for shoot-em-ups not because of the violence but because they're just not designed to be played from a female perspective. From Guilded Lilies:
I like shooting stuff. The problem is that real guns make me a bit nervous, and I seem to lack the kind of enthusiasm needed to overcome my general dislike for loud noises, the smell of gunpowder, and the exaggerated masculine company that I find at the shooting range. Plus, it's expensive. On the other hand, for less than the price of 100 rounds I can get a First Person Shooter computer game and have all the fun in the comfort of my own home, PLUS the added experience of a consequence free environment. The problem with that is, even in the privacy of my own computer game environment I can't seem to get away from the exaggerated masculinity. What's a woman to do?
Guilded Lily has some ideas about how to make violent games more attractive to women, and it doesn't have to do with making them less violent. Read the whole thing for some insight from a committed female gamer.
Do you play any computer or video games? Which are your favorites? Does violence turn you on or off?
