reality bytes, 8 myths about videogames debunked Options

[Alisha]

http://www.pbs.org/kcts/videogamerevolutio...pact/myths.html
i found this part particularly interesting
4. Almost no girls play computer games.

Historically, the video game market has been predominantly male. However, the percentage of women playing games has steadily increased over the past decade. Women now slightly outnumber men playing Web-based games. Spurred by the belief that games were an important gateway into other kinds of digital literacy, efforts were made in the mid-90s to build games that appealed to girls. More recent games such as The Sims were huge crossover successes that attracted many women who had never played games before. Given the historic imbalance in the game market (and among people working inside the game industry), the presence of sexist stereotyping in games is hardly surprising. Yet it's also important to note that female game characters are often portrayed as powerful and independent. In his book Killing Monsters, Gerard Jones argues that young girls often build upon these representations of strong women warriors as a means of building up their self confidence in confronting challenges in their everyday lives

discuss

[Wiryu]

I'm really not so surprised. Video gaming hasn't been big very long, 20-30 years? Where as it's just getting it's jolt of technology now. There are still plenty of people who think video games are just action and killing with an occasional puzzle, They don't realize that games can hold stories as big as any book you may read. They managed to pull each crowd in, the male populous by it's early roots, where truth be it told, a lot of games were action and violence, which guys liked. Stories were weak but they kept men interested. But as they got more capable, the stories got stronger, giving guys a completely different perspective on the story aspect of video games.

I think the same goes for female gamers, which by the way it doesn't surprise me even the slightest that girls are becoming more into gaming. They give out some of the biggest names in the gaming world which leak out into the real world, about a strong, vibrant, and independant woman who's able to battle off armies. For example the tombraider or bloodrayne series. I would go as far to say that even resident evil applies for some. For the other female gamers who aren't quite into that as much, I would say the large majority of females read daily. The idea of a story is intruiging, which can sometimes attract them in, but not always enough, hence the sims takes over and acts as a gateway for all games.

Gaming has come a long way, but it's going to hit a peak soon where it's going to have to start taking a different direction to keep the interest of current gamers, and attract new ones as well. We've got a long way to go.

[tanshin]

even my mom plays video games all the time.

[hamstar]

my girlfriend spends significant more time than I do playing video games.
...and she's just plain better than me at them too.

I don't think that it wasn't good stories or interesting play that kept girls away for so long, I think it's that noone ever made a real effort to tap the demographic.
I think because it was an older assumption that girls don't deal with technology, that was a mans job...strangely enough we are still trying to break this stereotype.