Seven years ago there was a scramble for developers to try to include women in gaming, while gaming itself tried to find its’ footing and identity as a viable form of entertainment.   In the midst of a flurry of controversy from Hot Coffee mods to presidential hopefuls trying to ban games, to the ECA stepping forward and gathering gamers and teaching those who didn’t know they had a voice or a say about their games, to E3 and the Booth Babe backlash, women tried to fit themselves into games and communities around the globe.  More and more of us donned the mantle of proud, kick your ass, girl gamers and we pushed forward, not really thinking about tomorrow.  We all, no matter what generation we fall into according to our age, behaved as the newer generation does currently. We lived in the present.  While this made for some passionate outbursts that resulted in some really great changes around the community and birthed organizations like the Fight like a Girl tournament and Gamer Outreach Foundation; these outbursts didn’t help create a longevity that is sorely needed when undertaking something as large as a movement.

The guff that I often spoke of in the early days of Gameinatrix, between women developers and women gamers, has not slimmed but gotten wider.  I fault a lot of our gaming media for this, this site included. The job of a gaming site is always to inform, and hopefully inspire our readers to want to know more or to simply inspire. Obviously developers are going to make what they think sells.  They’ve been long informed that males are their primary audience and because they themselves are male, they tend to go to the “pink” side when trying to develop for women.  Ironically if you look back at our history this is the same thing that happened in almost every era when trying to sell to women.  In the early 1900s, things like vacuum cleaners and cleaning products were marketed solely to women.  It’s not because women did all the cleaning always (I’m sure there were a few Dads even then that did more than their share of cooking and cleaning) it’s because sometimes when you’re on one side of the fence, it’s just simply HARD to imagine what’s REALLY happening on the other side.  In other words, to quote an old Good Times episode “How you gone know where I’m at, when you haven’t been where I’ve been? Understand where I’m coming from?”  A lot of men really have no concept of what a female gamer deals with on a daily basis if she’s really hardcore and plays games as her main form of entertainment.  It’s even more intricate than knowing what a woman goes through as a gamer, it’s simply being female and understanding what’s considered insulting and what makes for a brilliant product or game in this case, that women will love.  Truly there is no way to please EVERY woman but there is a blatant way to offend a large part of the population and I think a lot of our male counterparts are still very clueless in this arena.

I must say I feel as though those of us who were around at the beginning of movement have failed those that have come after.  A lot of up and coming clans and websites have left nothing to pick up and run with.  Clans who are just beginning to start their journey are thinking their jobs are to be pretty in front of a camera and Twitter, and maybe they’ll play a few games, and maybe they’ll win a few tourneys. Newer websites that start are repeating our mistakes of old or simply not knowing that most game developer companies simply won’t advertise with us and YES because we’re female. The few women who are getting into development aren’t really at their respective companies thinking of ways to possibly help the female gamer community at large.  Because the way wasn’t made clear, a lot of them will still waste their time walking the same path that we didn’t quite clear for them.  This same concept is mirrored in society as a whole. No one has been thinking about the future OR the past.

The quote listed at the top of the GGR show this week goes, ‘Once again women have to fight for their place in history, this time from behind a controller,’  came from a very brilliant gamer on Xbox’s Gamer ChiX forums.  This quote is so very accurate and profound, but sadly our new generations of gamers are ignorant of the fight that many of us undertook even further back than 7 years ago.  Though it may seem like an unworthy cause, more women in all avenues in gaming would be a great benefit to us all.  It would lend more diversity to an industry that is starting to grow stale and repetitive.  How many more Halos’ can they make, really?  Several of our next gen girl gamers may look back at other “women’s movements” such as the Suffrage Movement, and feel like trying to get into gaming in any capacity doesn’t compare to that in the smallest.  I’m willing to bet there were several young women then who didn’t realize just how important that movement would be to future generations.  Just like now we may not realize that what we do now will affect women for generations long after we’re gone.  For that reason alone, if you’re really passionate about whatever you do in the industry, it’s not acceptable to stand by and just watch.  If you’re going to complain about it, then be ready to do something about it.  If you’re a clan, your job is not to be a pretty picture on the net, it’s to go to tournaments and if not the best, be so outstanding you’re not forgotten, your job as a website if you’re a ‘girl gamer’ website, is to not exclude guys, but uplift your girls, not snipe with each other. Your job, if you’re woman developer is not to get in and forget about the rest of us out here, your job is to speak up when something is blatantly sexist and give back to the community that would so gladly support any game you made.   There are too few Sheri Graner Ray’s, Brenda Bradwaithes, Kat Hunters and Morgan Romaine’s in the world.  I know there are too few because I can count them on one hand.  This does not change until we stop killing a movement WE started and think about the future.

/end rant

Gameinatrix