Female Gamers Unite

Being a female gamer, I sometimes find it hard to be accepted as a gamer for my abilities alone. I have played many MMORPG's and can somewhat understand the reasoning behind part of it; we will get to that in a moment. Before I get there however let me give you some background of myself and my gaming experiences.

I started off playing Pong. It was one of my favorite games at the time being one of the only ones. I watched gaming evolve and owned many of the systems that came out on the market. While I still played Dungeons and Dragons (the paper version) as a girl most guys would look down on me. Most of the time it was like, yeah well I bet you only play girly games. While I did play my fair share of girly games I also enjoyed playing the more "hardcore" games. Currently one of my favorite games would have to be Assassins Creed.

I was introduced to my first MMORPG, Dark Age of Camelot a few years ago. I was more than just a casual gamer. I loved being in the battlegrounds tearing up the opposing factions. I met a lot of other female gamers there, but also quite a few male players that stated they were playing female players because male players were more willing to give them stuff if they thought they were female.

The next MMORPG I played was Second life. I started to lose interest when noticing the trend of the "female" (not all were) players running around in skimpy attire or nothing at all to receive items and in game currency from male players. Most would openly flirt or even talk sexual to gain attention. This is when I started to realize what a lot of the male gamers had formed as a stereotypical opinion of female gamers was coming to life. These "female" gamers would act empty headed and seem as if the gaming community to them was nothing they were seriously interested in. To top it off most seemed inept at playing any type of game.

So then I tried to play Entropia Universe. Again great concept, however the same trend followed along. You would see more and more of the "female" characters stripping down to just bra and underwear type of clothing and ask around for male players to give them items and in game currency.

It is really sad when I go into a game store to either ask about a new game coming out or try to talk about a game I am currently playing and get the "look", if you are a female player you know the one I mean, the one that says oh great I get to talk about girly games. A lot of guys seem (and this is only opinion) to think that either you are just trying to get attention, or you are going to ask something that to them would be obvious.

Now there is only one place I go to get games. Since I first walked in the door of the place I know I can talk games with the employees there and I don't get the look. I surprised one guy who was game shopping when I was talking with the owner of the store and telling him about some of the games I was playing. The guy seemed surprised that I not only seemed to know what I was talking about but gave him an honest opinion of a game he was looking at.

Female gamers have come a long way, but when there are those that still want to try to use their "femininity" to get what they want from male players it just makes us all look bad. I tend now to stay away from MMORPG's. As much as I enjoyed playing them it is hard to see Female players just getting by and not really doing much actual playing. As opinionated as I am its hard to keep my mouth shut. I was always taught if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all.

So I say female gamers unite, lets prove to those guys that think we can only get by using sex, that we can get by on our skills alone. Think of it this way just as in real life, would you rather be respected for what you can do, or be looked down upon for the way you present yourself?