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Female attendance?
Bionic Monkey
Registered User, ClubPA regular
Registered User, ClubPA regular
A few months ago, Khoo told us that PAX '05 had approximatly a 3:1 ration of men to women attending. I was curious if that ratio held this year.
Edit: Good lord, I thought I used English.
Edit: Good lord, I thought I used English.
Bionic Monkey on
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I'm curious too.
I think it would be safe to say a good 80% of the girls there were with boyfriends/husbands, and probably 40% of those same girls were just tagging along with no real interest in gaming.
Personally, I'm fine with the ratios the way they are, if it continues to mean a con of thousands of people and yet no lines ever at the women's restroom.
I agree.
The fewer girls who go, the less time I spend waiting to pee.
@sylvan - Also agreed. It's great when you're talking to another girl at PAX and she knows what you're talking about. It's kind of sad when you're given a forlorn look of misunderstanding and bordom.
Yes, all women at PAX should be gamers, either single or attatched at the hip to other gamers.
I personally wouldn't have minded if the Fury girls from E3 were there.
But I know that's not what PAX is about.
I did enjoy a number of random conversations with other gamer girls, but I don't really get this whole "we're the mythical creature of gaming" attitude that kept popping up, especially from the younger, teenage girls. We're not common, but we're not all that uncommon either.
Having a girl wearing fish-net tights and a cat-ear headband tell me that it's "so great to finally see other girl gamers!" kind of makes me think she lives under a rock. :?
Yeah, but, like, seriously, I, like, like games and stuff! Not to mention, like, how many boys, like, totally, dig on us gamer chicks! It's, like, totally tight! Also, like, I am, like, a real, like, sweet girl, like, and I, like, can't help, like, being so, like, good at, like, games! Keke ^^, la, laio, rofl!
I would like to believe that many gamer girls are gamers because they like games. But I fear you may be right, however if that's the case, it'll only last a few years before they stop trying to force themselves to enjoy something they don't. However, if that is their reasoning to begin with and they stick with it because they enjoy it, who are we to say how they got into gaming is wrong. Perhaps their original motives may not have been right, but who are we to judge if they stick by it because they enjoy it.
I love that game developers are finally taking a look at the female demograph and are designing games that are more female friendly.
What I don't like is the "If it's pink, they'll buy it" mentality.
Sadly... I agree.
It's suddenly seem to become the "Look! I'm an individual just like all these people over here!" trend of the moment. Because anything Hot Topic decides to put on a shirt instantly becomes cool and trendy, and suddenly it's quite common to see "old school" gaming shirts on every 14 year old mallrat who has never seen a console in her life but her brothers Xbox.
Then, there are the even worse "take advantage of the gamer cliche" girls.... They usually end up as very scantily clad cosplayer girls to get attention because they think we all are lonely horny teenage males that will drool over them and make them feel better about themselves. They have no interest in gaming other than which characters outfit will show off more panty shots.
Now the problem is, sometimes real gamer girls can be mistaken for either of these, or vice versa. (I mean really, I think most girls get an occassional twinge and feel like pretending to be Tifa for a day) But luckily this confusion can easily be avoided by a simple 5 second conversation in most cases. Ask about games, if they answer coherently give them a hug, they deserve it!
Well not the 14 year old ones... that might get you in trouble...
Baby... I'm so very afraid of you right now o.O
Now if only i could get her to cosplay as Baroness...
-A
"Oh what a day, what a LOVELY DAY!"
Think about the games females like: Tetris, SMB, Kirby, and Zelda (maybe) are ususally the most common 'favorite games' among women. Women are into intellectual challenges and (dare I say it?) 'cute' stuff. Guys? All about the simulation of having more power than they actually do. It's why the demographics of games so closely match those of comic books. Men are all about fantasizing about power. Men, at their most primal, don't enjoy the intellectual challenge of a game so much as the idea that sooner or later they will recieve a power-up that will lessen the challenge. Let's call it the BFG 9000 syndrome. As a man, I will shamelessly admit that the most glorious moment of Doom was receiving the BFG and suddenly being able to clear whole rooms at a time with my giant, pulsing-with-energy, shiny metal phallus-shaped gun, ejaculating enormous green bolts of destruction all over the level.
Hmm...kinda got off on a rant there. Well at least I got a chance to say 'ejaculate'.
I think I'm not the only woman on these forums who will respond with an emphatic "hey!" at this. Yeah, we're the minority among the minority, but we're visible.
Also, hehe... you said "ejaculate." *snicker*
I concur! I love my semi-automatic phallic symbols as much as the next guy. Us girls just have to position it to rest comfortably and not recoil into our breasts.
I'll run around shooting stuff all day if it means I get to spend time with Gordon Freeman. He's so dreamy!
But it's true. I miss the really good adventure games of the 80s and 90s. And I'm not talking Perils of Rosella, although that was my favorite game when it came out... I mean come on... I was an eight year old girl at the time! What I mean is stuff like Full Throttle and Sam and Max Hit the Road... remember when Lucas Arts made GOOD games that had NOTHING to do with Star Wars??
I think the well-written adventure game lends itself more to female gamers than FPS games do... however every now and then, a girl does indeed like to grab a BFG and go nuts.
But this whole girl gamer debate is getting old. I say just let the girl game if she wants to. If she wants to play Dig Dug or Bubble Bobble, fine. If she wants to play DoD, sure. They don't need to be introduced to gaming (contrary to popular belief, we ARE actually intelligent and know what we like and don't like). Perhaps a game, or a genre, but not the concept. I mean, crap... gaming's popular culture.
But yeah, I'd say 3:1 or 4:1 for the ratio. I wonder if that will grow or shrink next year...
I've played several PC games starting with Knights Quest and Forgotten Realms and jumping to Need for Speed, Dungeon Siege, Sims, Alice, Halo and Black and White. I have played a few console games but never owned a system (although I’m getting a Playstation to play Guitar Hero this fall). I also play Pen and Paper games (Shadow Run, Cyberpunk, Gurps, etc) and table top games (Magic, Munchkin, Zombies, etc).
Due to the fact that I have dabbled in every form of gaming I love PAX. It has something for everyone who is interested in gaming. I was not prepared for that. I was interested in everything on the schedule. If marketers want to read the pulse of their consumers they need to may attention to what the trends are at these types of events. I would appreciate if the marketers focused on the demographic “gamer†as a whole and not as male or female. We might see totally different games in the future.
I know it’s not realistic but one can dream.
I'm a casual gamer too, and as such I was a little disappointed at the choice of games for the Omegathon, but there were some ameliorating choices, such as Guitar Hero. I usually can't stand FPSs (though I got some time in the PC Free Play room and found that Counter Strike is the only one that doesn't get me nauseous), so a lot of what my gamer friends play simply doesn't interest me.
I wish gender could be ignored, maybe then it'd end up balancing more, who knows.
It's not so much the goings on at the Con, it's the time spent alone in a hotel room, I think, that gets them there. An activity they can do with their boyfriend. Also, I think, they do it so that they can have a little leverage over them. Not at the forefront of their minds, mind you, but I think it is an excellent thing to be able to say, "I went to that goddamn expo thingy, and now that I want to go out for a night, you say no? Dick!" Nothing wrong with a little bit o' leverage. Not to mention, I bet it's just nice to get away from home for a while and spend some time with the person you are currently involved with, in an unfamiliar setting, all joking aside.
The Girl-Gamer vs Gendernonspecific-Gamer thing is almost exclusively done by girl-gamers. The worst is when you hear "I'm really good, for a girl".
I don't think the solution is to ignore gender when creating games. Consumers, male and female alike, seem to be fed up with FPS games who's main (only?) sell are their graphics. Everyone is looking for games with more developed characters and intriguing story lines. Girls and boys are just raised differently, and find different things rewarding.
My male-gamer friends are perfectly content to kill an alien because that's the point of the game. My female-gamer friends want to learn about and rehabilitate the alien, killing it only if it ate her (the game characters) dog/child/lover.
As a male gamer, my main goal when I play a game is to just beat it. I love the thrill of confronting the end and telling it I am better than it. Graphics have never been a big deal for me, I've spent the last few months replaying several wonderful PSX titles (Final Fantasy 4/5/6, Chrono Trigger, Legend of Mana, Xenogears) because they really entice my soul and because I can't find anything out there worth playing that I can't deal with in short order. Only a few games a year hook me enough to buy them. After that, I go back to my favorites, which, invariably, are older titles from PSX or SNES or even NES. Games these days, like movies, just seem lesser than the games of yore. I guess it's the "It's Been Done" syndrome. There are a limited number of stories, characters, plots, develeopmental styles and play styles, and once you've seen plenty of them, newer ones, with better graphics never measure up to the way they felt when you first played them. It's kind of sad to be so jaded about the entertainment industries when you're only 20...
For me, the thrill is playing the game. I want to learn about the characters, and find out what their motivation is. I want a great story line. There's no point in playing a game that doesn't entice you. One of the things that struck a chord with me during the Girls in Gaming panel was when one of the panelists said "Girls will play videogames when there's a videogame worth playing". It's why you more frequently see girls playing JRPGs than RTS, FPS, and games like M:tG, or even board games. I, at least, am in it for the story.
Yeah, that's what I get from the games I find replayable. Like when I play a great fighting game, there's no end, really. And playing my favorite RPGs, they are more fun as I get to see more content and find more stuff. I love those games where I always have a different experience every time I hit the "New Game" option. Huzzah for awesome games. Boo on games I beat just for the sake of saying I've finished. Or beat just to move on in the franchise.
Like the later Final Fantasy games?
It seems like the issue here is simply that 'video game' is an outdated term; only the 'video' part remains true, as a 'video game' is now simply any computer-aided simulation whose primary purpose is entertainment. We're living in the fuzzy historical zone between TV culture and some new, fully-interactive existence that we can't even fully conceptualize yet. At some point, the movie, the TV show, all 3rd person passive fiction will be gone. It will all revolve around player interaction.
The porn is gonna totally rule.
Now, I'm not 100% on this, but I'm pretty sure I love you.
Honestly... Once I got through FFVIII, I was so disenchanted with the games, I played the first disc of FFIX and didn't pick of a single one after that.
I've decided I'm not going to bother playing past FFVII. I hear one of the newer ones is worth playing, but I'm not sure which one it is. Apparently the main character is happy. Baffling.
I... really? I guess that's what I get for being a jaded asshole when it comes to playing that series. Once I beat FFVII, the experience was starting it's decline (Peaking at FFVI) and FFVIII just made me hate every one of the characters in that installment, except for Seifer, he was a harsh mo'fo'.
I played FFIX, like I said, through the first disc, and it didn't do a thing for me. The cartooney style characters were tolerable, the gameplay wasn't altogether similar or too different to the other incarnations of The Fantasy, but the characters weren't compelling, the plot was silly, and the main character... a fucking tail? Come on! And you can read my feelings on FFX and FFX-2 in my sig.
Chicks dig dudes who dig graphic adventures where you play as a chick. It's a known fact.
Who doesn't love dr wily? he's my hero! he signed my piggy!