gamergirl

Occasionally I will ask another woman what sort of games she likes to play. The majority of the time I get a fairly expected answer—i.e. Scrabble, Guitar Hero, DDR, the Sims—but a troublingly large proportion of the women I’ve asked this question to reply something along the lines of “I don’t like games” or “I don’t play games.”

I find this boggling. You don’t like games? Any kind of games? The image of the Burgermeister Meisterburger from that old claymation Christmas movie has to leap to mind.

Because it’s an utterly ridiculous statement. In a world where “games” encompasses Viva Pinata, Monopoly, Dance Dance Revolution, Halo and Duke Nukem saying you don’t like “games” is totally unreasonable. But people persist in saying it, and I can only think of a few reasons for them to do so:

• They might not like having fun. o_O This seems like a crazy one, but some people think having fun is for little kids and are utterly disdainful of anyone they see enjoying themselves who is over the age of 14
• They may enjoy games, but don’t want to admit to it because of the reactions of the people who think that fun is for those who are immature.
• They may have never found a game they like.

Whatever their reason, I think that most of us who like having fun would agree that the world would be a better place if more people enjoyed playing games. This may be especially true of women because those of us women who game seriously are often a bit lonely for our own gender, and those guys who game are often frustrated by significant others who don’t share their love of games and aren’t understanding that their guys don’t want to give them up.

Unfortunately, gamers are very factional. People playing MMOs will talk sneeringly of those who enjoy TCGs and tabletop gaming. People with handpainted Warhammer armies will talk disdainfully about “Warcraft nerds with no life.” The same group of people who enjoys a game of Munchkin might make fun of those “playing make-believe” with Guitar Hero. What this means is that people who don’t game much hear from every single group how nerdy/loser/weird the other groups are, and how boring and unfun their chosen activities are.

It’s really no wonder some women are so unwilling to try any of it.

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