Aug 19, 2007

[Gender and Game Design]

A great blog about gender inclusive game design and why it IS important.

The gaming community in general is basically a bastion for homophobic, misogynistic expression, you only have to visit a forum/play an online game for a few days to see it.
But not that surprising, given how in the 'real world' isn't much different. It's just become socially unacceptable to act that way at work or in public, but the internet lets people flaunt their true colors.

What's sad is all the female gamers who are so desperate to retain 'honorary guy' status (and the respect that only being considered a 'guy' can give you) that they lash out and defend that kind of behavior along with the rest of the jerks.

The argument that "90% of all gamers are teen males, deal with it" is not only based on flawed facts, but only seems that way simply because 90% of all online gaming website are run by and for people with those kind of attitudes, at the very least unwilling to care about having a more inclusive community.

The game industry itself even suffers from this attitude. And folks wonder why people consider gaming so juvenile and don't think it's worthwhile?

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