It's time to get past the sexist notion that women do not play 'real' games
I often remind my non-gaming friends that gaming now has a good claim to be ? financially at least ? the biggest entertainment industry in the world. It causes raised eyebrows when I explain this statistic includes entertainment which many people don't really think of as "games", such as casual or social games including Farmville and Solitaire. But, say my friends, those aren't games. Games are the multimillion-pound titles you play on a console.
This attitude is prevalent across our culture: when news media or TV dramas discuss gaming we know they're not talking about people playing Hearts or Peggle. "Real" gamers play Halo or Call of Duty, not The Sims and Bejewelled.
Because those "real" games have one thing in common: they're games played more by men than by women. Time-poor women tend to play shorter games, which require less commitment. As Margaret Robertson, development director of Hide and Seek and a games journalist, pithily remarks: "How do you get women to play your game? Tell them it'll only take 20 minutes." She says many women enjoy longer games, but "swear off them after losing four hours to them one night unexpectedly".
Our culture tends to denigrate things that are associated with women. It's OK for women to wear trousers, for example, but not OK for men to wear skirts. Transmedia writer Andrea Philips has pointed out this carries over into gaming ? because our society tends to think "girl stuff sucks", so "games that girls or women play more are less valid. Maybe even . . . inferior."
But of course this is sexist nonsense. All games are "real" games. And all gamers are "real" gamers.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/dec/01/women-can-be-real-gamers
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