Play like a girl: Why women gamers must own “casual” gaming

"Look closely at your typical girl gamer, however, and you’ll see that our expression is almost… haunted. A disquieting spectre seems trapped behind our eyes, a terrible, latent force primed to burst from our bodies like so much alien out of Kane. We are repressing, burying deep down, an unspoken, monstrous side of ourselves. A dark side – or rather, a light side.

Casual gaming".

[thorstein]

I'm a man and I have no problem playing casual games as well as hardcore. It is like music. I just ask myself what I am in the mood for. Same with books.

I don't think what is betwixt one's legs matters a whit when it comes to enjoying games, be they casual or non(?) casual.

[Mutant-Spud]

Some days I like to play Plants vs Zombies while listening to Dark Fortress or Immortal, other days it's Endless Space and Five Seconds Of Summer ;)

[VJGenova]

I'm a proponent of the argument thay a gamer can make any game "hardcore" and the game, and the player are not necessarily "hardcore" or "casual". For instance, a gamer may "casually" beat supet mario 64 with getting "just" 70 stars or that same gamer may do a speed run and get all 120 in record time, in true "hardcore" fashion.

As thorstein said, it will depend on the mood, and potentially experience of the gamer.

[PoSTedUP]

im with ya. i can go from MGS extreme/european extreme or playing with a great disadvantage in an online shooter, to the casual benevolence of taking care of a farm animal in harvest moon. its really about how you play, not always what you play. because harvest moon could be hardcore as well as COD.

[PoSTedUP]

i dont like my books hardcore, they use words ive never heard of in my life that i have no interest in making a part of my vocabulary. an E-reader is like a gameshark for books with big words, i want one.

[Sharingan_no_Kakashi]

This is just more social justice warrior bs ruining everything it touches.

[Blues Cowboy]

So a gamer writing about their personal experiences in an opinion piece is... social justice?

Come on. Let's try to speak out the bigger problems ruining our hobby (broken games, crazy RRP, deceptive marketing, pre-order cons) before worrying about stuff like that.

[Sharingan_no_Kakashi]

Sounds like a plan...

[360ICE]

Please elaborate. No, really. What exactly is social justice warrior bs about this and what does it ruin?

Should girls be ashamed when they occasionally play casual games?
Is every gaming choice not valid?

[Sharingan_no_Kakashi]

I will when you elaborate on the correlation of gender and casual gaming....

[360ICE]

@Sharingan_no_Kakashi

That's a dodge and has nothing to do with what I said, but ok: The correlation is that women tend to play more casual games and less hardcore games.

http://developers.magmic.co...

Now, elaborate.

[Sharingan_no_Kakashi]

Your reply had nothing to do with what I was talking about either. No one has to feel ashamed about playing casual games they're great. But the practice of categorizing peoples hobby's by gender is ridiculous.

i.e.

"You're a girl so you must mainly play casual games."

[TheTimeDoctor]

Wow, that's a dumb article

[IcicleTrepan]

whenever you say 'x group of people should do y', you have become an idiot.

[360ICE]

Parents should refrain from murdering their children.

Oh, damn. Saying that made me an idiot.

[DragonKnight]

Why do women gamers have to "own" casual gaming? Why limit themselves just to fit an ideological agenda based in no actual facts and wholly based in opinion?

Gamers, male or female, do not have to "own" any kind of genre to make a place for themselves in a community that has been open to everyone for 40+ years. Play what you want if you enjoy it, let others do the same.

[Christopher]

I agree with this, but must say that the other side of people who keep trying to put all women into the category of "non gamers" or "casual" just because some attention whores who want attention give off a bad image (example: some hot woman in a picture with a XBO controller saying she's enjoying playing The Last of Us).

I see a lot of comments, on N4G alone, of people saying that women are casual gamers and that the statistics of them as "hardcore" gamers doesn't matter because they're placed into the casual crowd so quickly. It seems weird to tell women to enjoy gaming how they want, and then see others (and sometimes the same people, but not at you on that DK) lump them all into a group so as to deflect their place alongside what those people believe are "hardcore" gamers.

[Roccetarius]

''I see a lot of comments, on N4G alone, of people saying that women are casual gamers and that the statistics of them as "hardcore" gamers doesn't matter because they're placed into the casual crowd so quickly. It seems weird to tell women to enjoy gaming how they want, and then see others (and sometimes the same people, but not at you on that DK) lump them all into a group so as to deflect their place alongside what those people believe are "hardcore" gamers.''

I think you became confused somewhere along this thought. People don't believe statistics that are trying to favor women for a more 50/50 balance. It's putting false statistics out there, because the reality is maybe somewhere about 20% or less. And no, personally i and many others don't count toilet / train wasters like Candy Crush valid. It all boils down to a lot of people trying to be gamers, but they really don't belong in the group.

[Christopher]

***I think you became confused somewhere along this thought.***

Reread it and I don't think so.

***People don't believe statistics that are trying to favor women for a more 50/50 balance. It's putting false statistics out there, because the reality is maybe somewhere about 20% or less.***

1. No one has said things should "favor women for a more 50/50 balance" other than extremists. Those who cite the percentage increase in female gamers don't make any presumptions on the data presented. They just share the data collected.

2. They're not false statistics. More women are playing video games. It's just not clarifying the type. A false statistic would be one that utilized made up numbers. That isn't what is happening here.

But, even light that the majority of these women play mobile games and the like, and as I said above, people tend to ignore the small percentage of women who do play "hardcore" games because of the much larger percentage of women who play "casual" games. Rather than recognizing the one, they lump them into the greater in order to exaggerate their claim that "girls only play casual games."

***And no, personally i and many others don't count toilet / train wasters like Candy Crush valid.***

They are video games. They are valid in determining the market make up of the industry as it relates to developing video games. Maybe they're not "hardcore" video games, but they are video games.

So, while you don't count them, the massive increase in them is a result of the increase market share of potential gamers.

***It all boils down to a lot of people trying to be gamers, but they really don't belong in the group.***

No, it all boils down to people finding and playing what they like as well as the evolution of video games into mainstream media. Go back 20 years and you'd be hard pressed to find a super hero movie in the theaters. But, now we have a plethora of TV shows and movies because of the mainstream acceptance of the genre as a whole. Similar thing with games. What was once a niche hobby is now just as mainstream as professional football and basketball.

[DragonKnight]

Agreed with you as well. Personally speaking, I only have ever used the "groups" argument when discussing disingenuous studies that are purposely vague in their end results. It's all part of the unfortunate reality that gamers have unwittingly been put into the Gamer vs. Player identity argument and involves what people define a gamer as being and the same thing with a player. Personally, I define a gamer as someone who loves the entire culture of video games. From reading up on announcements and development, playing games as more than just a passing interest you do in off time, and interacting with people of like minds and like interests.

I define a player as someone who will play Candy Crush on the bus trip to work but never really get into games much more than that. It seems that I'm not alone in that kind of thinking as I can see how these two sides relate to the agendas being pushed where people in favour of lumping women into casual gamers need the term Player to be acknowledged more than Gamer, and people trying to defend gaming culture call out these attempts and need the term Gamer to remain as the norm.

Preferences exist no matter your sex/gender. Neither male nor female need to "own" a particular demographic because that's never been what gaming is about. Not to sound like a broken record but, play what you enjoy whether it's considered to be casual or core, that's what it's always been about. I personally feel that culture involves more than performing a simple act, it's actually being a part of something and taking part. But at the same time, trying to create market behaviours based on vague or faulty studies doesn't do anyone any good.

[F0XHOUND]

Really? Didn't even click this garbage.

Just a quick browse through YouTube last night for final fantasy xiv on ps4, I came across "Liz Play". She was awesome, I watched her play the game and she was funny, good at the game and generally very easy to watch. That's casual? An mmorpg lol. I strongly suggest you check her out!

[DragonKnight]

Look up Dante and Holly on youtube and watch their playthroughs of the Souls series of games. Holly would never fit into the casual group. She's also frickin' hilarious.

[Christopher]

Just watched one of their videos. I love how much of a hard time she gives to Dante.

[DragonKnight]

She does that every video. You should watch their episode on The Four Kings and see how many times she trolls Dante. Someone got so mad at her for that too. Lol.

https://www.youtube.com/wat...

[Summons75]

I see more girls playing Demon's Souls, Destiny, Dragon Age then I have seen playing Candy Crush. I hate this stupid stereotype, girls play just as good if not better than guys and the ones I know/met have all been super awesome and fun to have a conversation with, without them trying to make it into a competition.

[360ICE]

Hey, guys and gals!

What I got from reading this article (as opposed to the title) was that the women who play casual games should own their choice of playing casual games and not be embarrassed by it. I'll imagine they'd extend the same courtesy to guys.

What the article didn't say was that women should take the genre as their property, Russian-annexation style. Yet, that's somehow what everyone took away from it?

[DragonKnight]

Well can you blame people when the title is called "Play like a girl" and correlates that with casual gaming? It's already making a distinction between men and women when saying that playing like a girl means playing casual games.

And then there's this.

"Look closely at your typical girl gamer, however, and you’ll see that our expression is almost… haunted. A disquieting spectre seems trapped behind our eyes, a terrible, latent force primed to burst from our bodies like so much alien out of Kane. We are repressing, burying deep down, an unspoken, monstrous side of ourselves. A dark side – or rather, a light side."

So now the article is implying the typical girl gamer can't enjoy or really participate in gaming discussions of a more core based nature. It's a gross generalization and completely wrong. It's making a claim likely based solely on the author's own personal life experience and nothing more. Which is affirmed in the very next paragraph.

And then this...

"This is largely because of mainstream media’s recent predilections for broadcasting headlines like “More women play games than men” and “Female PC gamers outnumber males”. Of course, self-titled “hardcore” gamers everywhere are flocking to the comment sections of these articles like flies on shit in order to invalidate such lofty claims with the consummate power of their WERDZ."

Here the author is mocking the core gamers. We are to trust that the author doesn't want women to be grouped into the casual audience when she makes fun of the core audience now?

She even continues labeling the core audience as such things as "butthurt neckbeards" and basically the entire article is her trying to justify her enjoyment of games like Candy Crush and trying to make other women do the same. The article is just bad through and through, but the opinions expressed in the comments here are definitely valid because the author spends enough time insulting the core gamers that she may as well be telling women to claim ownership of the casual market if only to stay away from the "butthurt neckbeards" of the core market.

[360ICE]

No. We should blame people with no processing skills. And btw, girls play more casual games. That's a fact. Really the only thing the article says is that it's not a fact to be ashamed of.

I literally have no idea how you got what you got that from the first quote.

You also seem incredibly ready to be offended, if that's what you got from the second quote you provided.

It's not mocking hardcore gamers. Is it mocking self-proclaimed hardcore gamers who rush to articles to defend how games are still technically dominated by guys (however, this includes reading full sentences). You could say that, but isn't that notion worth mocking? However, mockery is generally reserved for more people who go a little further than taking a quick jab at something.

The article specifically quotes a guy saying "And this is why I can't take these articles seriously. Some woman who only plays on an airplane or some girl playing shitty Facebook games in class doesn't qualify as gamers. That's if like the only thing I watched from Japan was Naruto and I called myself a fan of anime"

That's the type of person the author refers to. Tons of hardcore gamers don't say these things.

You also took the "butthurt neckbeard" sentence completely out of context. Again, she's talking about people who act as arbiters and decide who are gamers and who aren't. And who wouldn't call those people butthurt neckbeards? I would, and I'm very careless about my shaving.

So no, the opinions of people who didn't get what the article is about shouldn't be considered valid. That goes for your initial comment as well.

I'd consider myself a fairly hardcore gamer, so how is it that I'm so much less offended than the rest of us that are apparently being shamed all the time? It's like with Anita Sarkeesian. I disagree with a lot of what she says, but at the end of the day her core message seems to be "women should be represented in video games" and "sex and violence is not always the best way to build a credible character". Well, I agree with those things. So I don't see why she has to be Satan to hardcores.

Take things for what they are.

[DragonKnight]

If you knew anything about me, you'd know that being offended is not something I do. There is very little that can possibly offend me because I understand that offense is a choice. I can choose to take offense, or choose not to.

"And btw, girls play more casual games. That's a fact."

That's not a fact. That's a bullet point of an ESA study that was poorly done and misleading.

"It's not mocking hardcore gamers..."

Sounds completely like the SJW platform that's been going on everywhere. You're trying to make a distinction between hardcore and "so-called hardcore" gamers? What kind of B.S. reasoning is that? You don't get to create multiple sub-categories so you can insult, or agree with an insult, multiple people. She clearly mocked what she thinks are the people who comprise the core audience and you're defending her on it. That alone would be reason enough to stop discussing anything with you, but let's continue because I guess I'm sadistic that way.

"The article specifically quotes a guy saying..."

You and I can sit here and know that not every core gamer acts like a douchebag, but SHE didn't make that distinction. In today's discussions of gaming culture, how many times have you as a core gamer been grouped together with 4Chan trolls claiming to be core gamers? She used the typical insults being thrown at us daily and you're sitting there saying "well I don't talk like that so obviously she's not talking about the core gamers, just the core gamer trolls." She never says anything like that.

"You also took the "butthurt neckbeard" sentence completely out of context."

No, I didn't. I've heard that remark enough times to know what it means and who it's levied at. Notice that you're the only person in this whole thread defending her. You're seeing something completely different in her article than the majority are. Why? I don't really care.

"So no, the opinions of people who didn't get what the article is about shouldn't be considered valid. That goes for your initial comment as well."

Who died and made you arbiter of what is and is not a valid opinion? And since when was your opinion of the article the correct one? I think you need to get over yourself.

"I'd consider myself a fairly hardcore gamer, so how is it that I'm so much less offended than the rest of us that are apparently being shamed all the time? It's like with Anita Sarkeesian. I disagree with a lot of what she says, but at the end of the day her core message seems to be "women should be represented in video games" and "sex and violence is not always the best way to build a credible character". Well, I agree with those things. So I don't see why she has to be Satan to hardcores."

What you don't understand is that women ARE represented in video games and have been for 40+ years. Sex and violence have been successfully used, with the approval of vast millions of people, across every entertainment medium to ever exist and so they will continue to be used until they are no longer successful. Her message is one of quantity and trying to make a specific kind of game be what the majority will get. It's not even because she wants to see it, as it has been plainly established and confirmed by her own words that she doesn't even like games. She doesn't buy her own B.S., she just makes money off it.

That's the way things are. You're the one that should take them as such.

[Nicominoru]

Laughable...so bad it's not even funny. Horrible article clearly driven by so much SJW nonsense it's not even funny. Whoever allowed this to be published should be ashamed of themselves. Got no ethics.

Oh and quit trying to make it seem like Women who play games are sooo helpless and so unable to make their own decisions on what games to play and "Oh, it's so hard! So many button's to press" it's embarrassing.

No real gamer cares what sex is playing, they don't care about ethnicity (ugh don't even get me started) they don't even care what age the person is who they are playing with. I'm glad there are some people in the industry who are starting to wise up though. So tired of this trash being associated with gaming.

[RIPSKATEDESTROY]

I see a lot of these type of articles/opinion pieces and I have a few questions if anyone wants to help me out here:

Why do you feel the need to prove that you are not or are a certain type of gamer? Seriously, why is that?

Do you feel that everyone is judging you because you play a certain type of game or games?

If so then tell me why, and also add why you should care what anyone else thinks about anything you enjoy doing?

Does it ruin the fun for you in any way?

Is it the harassment that does it? Because if so then I got called a C**T last night because I murdered some guy or girl in GTA Online, you know what I did, I did the same thing again and I giggled. No reply, no tears on my part, no reaction, no nothing, you know why? Because I couldn't care less what someone I don't know says to me, or thinks of me at all.

Never have, and probably never will, and why should you?

If you enjoy playing a certain game, then do it. If you enjoy playing a certain genre of games, then do it. If you enjoy playing all the games, JUST. DO IT.

It is that easy.

[PoSTedUP]

your answer lies in the fact that a big portion of this industry contains a lot of young undeveloped minds.

[uth11]

I think the author is too caught up in labels and worried about how she'll be labelled.

The bigger issues at work here is all these reports saying women outnumber men as gamers, which is probably true if you count all gamers. The core gamer who play the AAA games is still mostly male. The problem is these reports are being used as justification to censor the AAA games, under the guise of making them more palpable to women. As if women are going to start playing GTA, Watchdogs, or Hotline Miami in large numbers if only certain aspects are removed. Doubtful.

I see women as a growing demographic in gaming, they start with casual games and will gradually graduate to more in depth games, kind of like how today's core gamers did. As this happens, publishers will create more AAA type games geared towards their tastes.

In the end, it will end up like movies, books, etc. In movies, you have your action movies, romantic comedy, and then you have other genres that more or less appeal accross the board. I think gaming will end up like that, ultimately.