Gender Inequality - Female Gamers

Half of the world is populated by women, yet the majority of gamers are men. Everyone has been asking that question and no one knows why. Perhaps its the way they are treated that turns them away from gaming. Maybe its the way that women are portrayed in games. Since I've already talked about it in my previous gender inequality post, I'm going to focus on the female gamer instead.

Most people when playing games are civil to the opposite gender. However there are people who are so insecure that when a women plays a video game they feel like their boy's club of video games is being threatened and needs to attack that person. Whats wrong with a female gamer? Nothing. If no one said anything would you have known? I play with women all the time and I don't notice a different between men or women. They can both suck, they can both be good, they can both be funny or stupid as all hell. Why hate on them? The most common excuse is that they are attention whoring whiny people who won't shut up. Newsflash, just because they are popular does not mean they are attention whoring. Do not be envious of someone who is more popular than you. If a man gets a lot of attention of everyone around him does anyone bat an eyelash? No. He's the cool dude. If a women gets attention its because she has breasts.

Another I get is that women are bad at playing games. As if being a certain gender means you automatically suck at a game. If someone is Asian does that mean they are good at RTS? If they are Brazilian does that mean they are terrible at everything? Fuck no. People often whine that everyone has to help the girl and teach her everything because she sucks. Ever had that friend or guildie who just don't know what to do? Yeah you teach him. Does that mean he's a girl? Fuck no. Everyone is new once and just because you aren't new now doesn't mean weren't before. I know girls who can kick people's ass consistently in games.

Then there are people who attack them just because they are a girl. They rather all the games they play be a huge sausage fest. I've played many games with girls and theres always one or two angry people. I've once played a game of HoN and our team was doing well. But when one random teammate talked into her microphone and revealed that she was a girl, a guy on our team flipped out. Apparently the thought of having to play with the opposite sex infuriated him so much he had to purposely lose the game. For the entirety of the match he did nothing but call her out by calling her a fat pig or stupid cunt because the only girls playing video games are ugly and fat. Why? I know girls who play games that are normal. No one else spoke up about it. Only me and another person did and the guy responded with "you must be dating the fat cunt because you won't stop bitching about it. Hey is it worth it? Was it worth it? Dating this ugly fat bitch so you can get your dick sucked."

Unfortunately thats not uncommon. Revealing you are a girl will get people messaging you telling you "tits or gtfo" and many other comments. The worst part is no one is doing anything about it. ANYTHING. In fact most people believe its innocent and that its part of the community. Reread that last sentence. Remember that shitty thing that happened awhile ago on some shitty Capcom show that no ones ever heard about but the sexual harassment shit that came out of it was bigger than the show itself? According to them, sexual harassment is part of the fighting game community.

In almost every game I've played with I've played with girls at some point. Sometimes they sit on my friend list for months before they reveal to me they were a girl. Sure. Do I assume they are male or female before they reveal anything? No not really. To me everyone online is just a empty husk. Once they share information that gets filled in more and more. I've met with both men and women from online games offline in real life and they are as normal as the next person. If we can get along in real life, why the hate when we meet online? I have been told by many people that they always thought I was a girl when they first meet me online. Somehow its the way I talk and my general niceness that gives off a vibe that I'm a girl. When people ask, I tell them I'm a guy. What would happen if I had answered differently? I actually gave that a test. What I gotten was people hating me for no reason than the fact that they thought I was a girl. One high school kid hated me so much he refused to talk to me or group with me or have anything to do with me.

There are people who go "I'm just trolling man." Why? You don't really hate women you just pretend you hate women? So you think its funny to pretend to hate women? I think at that point deep down you hate women and you are just lying to yourself. Trolling is something I don't get anyways. Why the fuck do you want to purposely go out of your way to mess with someone? Oh look you're a chick I'm going to go out of my way to make your life miserable because it makes me laugh. At this point you're a misogynist. Don't even bother trying to defend yourself.

Now recently, a woman tried make a series of Youtube videos talking about the common tropes of video game women. I'm actually interested because I've been talking about that for the longest time. However instead of being welcomed by the rest of the gaming community she is attacked verbally with hateful comments of sexual violence. Her youtube and wikipedia page was vandalized as well. More information can be found on the link below.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/06/13/tropes-vs-women-in-video-games-vs-the-internet/

Why did the hate start anyways? From what I gathered. There was a group of people on 4chan who thought what she was planning to do was so stupid they had to rally up a bunch of people and attack her. Their reasoning? Men are also portrayed in certain roles. The difference is its a power fantasy. Men are portrayed as powerful while women are portrayed in less than ideal roles. Though thats not always the case thats often the case though. These people were so enraged at the thought of a woman challenging this they attacked her BEFORE she even made a video. What? Why don't you wait for her side of the argument before you attack her. Their argument is "lol this bitch should shut up men are sexualized too." Then they decided to make a kickstarter to gather up money to make a tropes vs men on video games and then donate all the money to charity (or use it for beer money) and make a video about it because they want to "show women they don't need to get money to make videos."

However, during the whole attack the person who was making the videos handled everything extremely well. She didn't run away and let the mob silence her. She didn't attack them back. She talked to the admins to get stuff back to normal. Left the comments on to prove her point of sexism in video games. And because of all that she got a huge amount of media attention and completely broke her goal of $6000. The funniest part is if they didn't attack her openly like that she probably would never had gotten that much raised. Some people are just stupid.

MechWarrior Online (formerly MechWarrior 5, or MechWarrior 3015, or MechWarrior, PayToWin)

Remember this post I made 3 years ago on the upcoming MechWarrior game?
 
It has been announced officially as MechWarrior Online, a free to play game, launching sometime this year, and with no singleplayer campaign at all. They're aiming at an action oriented online arena feel, ala MechAssault.
 
I should have added another criteria to that wishlist: that it wouldn't be a whored out f2p game with tons of cash shopping to win. In my inbox today, I received an email offer from MWO for their upcoming cash shop packages. There are $30, $60, and $120 packages, giving you 1, 2 or 3 months of exp boost respectively. You also get some exclusive founders-only mech variants with a reskin. It's not clear from the wording whether or not the variants will be exclusive too, or if it's just a reskin/remodel of an existing variant available to all players. You also get a bit of in-game cash shop currency and some prestige crap.
 
Holy damn, that is a massive amount of money to pay, especially before a game launch. $120 is beyond what I'd even expect for a collector's edition, so why would anyone pay that except to get massive advantages? I'm not against all F2P games, but the setup here gives me the wrong vibe. I was expecting players would pay maybe $10 and be able to buy/unlock 3-4 items which could be obtained over a period of 1-2 weeks. But 60 USD for a 2 month buff, 1 reskin and $80 of cash shop? Just how pricey are the items going to be??
 
Next, it really seems these guys are copying the Tribes: Ascend formula. Fast-paced, jump-into-action game with unlockable items per class in an online arena. It worked pretty well for Tribes, but I'm not so sure it will for MWO. It's going to be just like MechAssault if it does that, and that's not how Mechwarrior is supposed to play at all. MechWarrior isn't about arena-deathmatches (although Solaris Arena is), instead, you play a battlefield with objectives and smart tactics and coordinated strategy with a full arsenal of Air, Infantry, Vehicles and Mechs.
 
Worse, MW has an incredibly rich history of lore that's just going to be abandoned for F2Ping. No doubt they'll add more and more items as the game goes on to milk it, but the rich backstory that MW is built upon is going to be unimportant. Who cares what's happening in Tribes? Who even knows the lore for that? You just go in and FRAG. That's not a mold MW fits into, no matter how hard MWO is jammed into that role.
 
Last thing, it seems rather likely now that mechs cannot be customized, and players will be limited to variants. This is probably the best way the devs can continue to milk players harder and harder. It also means things will be a little more bland, and less freeform as MW is supposed to be.
 
Well... At least there's MechWarrior Tactics coming out soon.
 
Wait, that's F2P too. Shit.