Cabal Girl Gamers' Code of Conduct

Sometimes girls are told that they can't or shouldn't play RPGs or video games. But more often, I think, they are told that they don't. The cultural message is sometimes wrapped in hand-wringing and good intentions, but the underlying assumption beneath "Why don't girls play video games?" is still "Girls don't play video games." Technology in general, but game technology in particular, is viewed as a masculine domain. Girls use computers to word process, send instant messages, make a MySpace profile—but they don't use them to slay dragons. They just don't. And it's a lot harder to see what's wrong with that argument than a straightforward claim that slaying dragons is not ladylike.

Obviously, some girls do. Me, for instance. This is not a new development. My family never had a console system, but we got our first PC when I was six years old, and I played a lot of the old Sierra adventure games, particularly King's Quest. I played text adventures like Zork, and I was playing text-based multi-user dungeons (MUDs) avidly by the 7th grade. In college, I spent my freshman year so addicted to the PC version of Gex: Enter the Gecko that my then-boyfriend complained at great length about neglect. These days, I play City of Heroes (CoH), a superhero-themed massively multiplayer online game (MMOG); my main character is a level 37 electric/electric blaster. (That means I like to zap things dead.)

I'm not trying to argue that my experience is the norm. I'm well aware that it's not, and video games are hardly the most noticeable culturally gender inappropriate aspect of my personality or childhood. It is the case that boys and men make up the majority of the market for console video games and MMOGs, although women make up the majority for "casual" games like Tetris and Solitaire and pretty much anything you can play on your phone. The question of why this gets pigeonholed and largely ignored as "casual" gaming when it's mostly women doing it is one that I'm going to set aside for the moment, although I think it's an important one; I just want to make it clear that I'm not denying that the majority of the market for certain kinds of video games, although I and other women also play them, is male players.

The video game companies would like to sell these games to women, too. The video game companies would like to sell more games, period. They're not picky. Some people, of course, think that no one should be playing video games, but there are plenty of people wondering frantically how to get women and girls in on them. The girls are really the important market: get girls to play video games and eventually you will have women playing them. Learning basic game skills early is important if you're going to play and enjoy them later; most games will assume a certain amount of familiarity with the platform even from players new to the particular game. Much as kids learn the basics of computers early and then have a knowledge base from which to figure out unknown applications later, learning to play one game means that you'll probably have a basic idea of how to figure out other games like it later. The basics of City of Heroes were quickly apparent to me at age 24 largely from having played Ancient Anguish, a MUD, at age 11. Without that kind of background experience, games can be mostly mysterious and frustrating, rather than fun; too steep a learning curve will turn off most new players.

So assuming that you want women and girls to play games, the latter are the really important group to reach. But as I noted above, even when they're not being told that they can't or shouldn't play games, girls are still being told that they don't. The girl who does play games, therefore, is just weird, and if there's one thing that most kids don't want to be (again, I am an exception here), it's weird.

It's interesting to me that most discussions of why women don't play games focus on the content: women don't play games because the games are sexist. They are generally sexist. On the other hand, if you want to see some incredible levels of sexism, you can read a romance novel, and no one seems to be having any problems selling those to women. In fact, the covers of romance novels seem to bear a pretty strong resemblance to the art from video game ads. Men are strong and hulking and frequently wielding weapons; women are scantily clad and positioned subserviently. Men have the obvious physical agency. Studies of video game ads have found that men significantly outnumber women; this is actually probably true of romance novel covers as well, which tend to feature either a couple or a lone, bare-chested man. It's worth noting here that the content of romance novels is not usually experienced by female readers as denying the agency of the female protagonist (cf. Radway 1984), although this is the usual argument made about video game ads: women see no possibility for female agency in them, plus all the girls are wearing chainmail bikinis, so they don't play them.

• REAL GIRLS DO NOT BRAG at Online Games that THEY ARE A GIRL (e.g.: Hi! Lala here! Female.. or Hello po! Babae po me...) duh! This means: Sana wala naman yung sapilitan or lantaran para masabing babae ka tlga... Ang panget po kasi tingnan..
  
• AVOID USING (FONT SIZE=16-24 COLOR=DARKPINK) to attract GUYS that you're a GIRL then suddenly, make flirty things. This typical girl (kung babae talaga) are so-called "Papansin".
  
• GIRLS please BE FINESSE,...
  
• Act MATURELY! Dont Act like a child dumping on the playground.
  
• DO NOT ASK OR PLEASE OTHER PLAYERS TO GIVE YOU IN-GAME ITEMS. Let other players offer it to you first.
  
• DON'T BE GREEDY!
  
• DON'T MAKE YOURSELF FEEL LIKE A PRINCESS.
  
• BE OPEN-MINDED.
  

rnight wrote:Hello! Good day!

First of all im not a girl, i just love posting at forums.
and reading blogs and stuff.
This is my first time to check this site. Anyways, i hope i am welcome here. ^^

Peace! have a great day everyone!