Yay! for reading other people’s blog posts and letting them inspire me. I’ll admit, between an awesome weekend of camping and being very AFK, I fell off the Blaugust wagon. But I knew I would, so I’m not going to beat myself up over it. I’m actually really happy I managed 14 days in a row.
David Gaider, a Bioware writer, posted a blog inspired by a fan comment thanking him for making games that didn’t fall into the trap of treating girl/women gamers as the (my term) “mythical fairy princess gamer girl” (or unicorn, as he called them). I found it very interesting since my gaming experience has been what I consider normal, but what many out there seem to think is really mythical. I have played games my entire life with a clear mix of both men and (gasp!) women players. I responded on Twitter with the comment “My guess is, the ‘unicorns’ won’t play with certain types of people. I wouldn’t put up with ‘dudes with ‘tudes’ in my games.”
I was sitting around a campfire this weekend talking about Dragon Age games with some of my female and male gaming friends. You know what, both genders had the exact same thing to say about past and the upcoming Dragon Age games. The exact…same…thing. They hoped that the upcoming game would allow them to play through the combats on the more casual mode so they could get back to the awesome story and exploration parts of the game. Both the men and the women wanted the story aspects of the game more than the combat aspects of it.
My theory as to why my gaming experience is so (apparently) out of the “norm” is that I find people to play with who aren’t dickheads. Men, or women for that matter, who are closed-minded, arrogant, condescending or dickheads don’t make it onto my list of people with whom I’m willing to spend my fun time. Maybe those people who think women don’t game just aren’t the type of people with whom most women gamers will waste their time. The rest of us will get back to enjoying our diversity, thank you very much.
Reblogged this on Not My Thoughts and commented:
First of (non)engagement with dudes with tudes: avoid participation in genchat especially the pvp channel. Regular genchat personalities apparently have chased away all their real life friends and are truly miserable people. Just saying…