Girl Gamers Australia

G.I.R.L Scholarship Program from Sony at it again

This press release is from Sony Online Entertainment's website. SONY ONLINE ENTERTAINMENT ISSUES INDUSTRY-WIDE CALL TO ACTION TO EXPAND G.I.R.L. SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM

SAN DIEGO, Calif. – Nov. 13, 2008 – Sony Online Entertainment LLC (SOE), a global leader in online gaming, invited all companies doing business in the video game industry to join SOE’s efforts to educate and recruit more women into the field of video game creation, design and production.

In a lunchtime keynote speech during the International Game Developers Association conference in San Francisco, Torrie Dorrell, senior vice president of Global Sales and Marketing for SOE, challenged companies in the video game industry to each make a $10,000 donation toward the G.I.R.L. – Gamers In Real Life – scholarship, with the goal of creating multiple scholarships and more opportunities for women.

“Today, I am challenging everyone to take action to help level the playing field for women pursuing a career in video games. By donating to the G.I.R.L. scholarship, we can encourage diversity in development and make a difference, hopefully creating more opportunities for women and ultimately making more video games women will want to play,” said Dorrell.

First awarded in 2008, the G.I.R.L. scholarship was created by SOE and encourages female students toward career paths in the creative and applied arts, with the ultimate goal of developing video games that are more interesting for women to play. In 2009, the program will be managed by Scholarship America®, a leading non-profit educational support program. SOE will offer students of undergraduate programs related to video games a chance to compete for the scholarship by submitting original artwork and essays to a panel of judges.

“SOE’s vision is commendable, and we fully endorse the G.I.R.L. scholarship program and look forward to the results of this initiative,” said Joseph Olin, president of The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences. “Expanding the presence of women in video games reflects SOE’s foresight and acknowledges its contributions to the future of our dynamic entertainment medium.”

For more information about the G.I.R.L. scholarship program, please visit, www.girl.soe.com.

Lesbians, bisexuals and straights in Fable II

Lesbian Gamers are reporting they've spotted lesbians in Fable II and we're wondering where the "Hoo harr" is? Where's the bad press, the bigots on their soapboxes, the closed minded christian centric hate? I mean come on, what the hell? Mass Effect gets loads of christian hating because it has "mono-gendered" alien love and Fable II has full on lesbians and not a word is peeped. Maybe the people that love to bitch about such things are busy in a meeting someplace this week, or maybe they just haven't caught on yet because Fable II is so pretty its blinded their eyes.

Odd isn't it how one game can get such huge backlash yet another sneaks swiftly on by without a word uttered. As far as we're aware Fable II got released in Singapore last week lesbians and all.

Via [Lesbian gamers]

Halo 3 Recon and its female playable hero would save Bungie money

We realize it's a long shot and probably wishful thinking, but we've noticed Bungie playing the gender pronoun game when discussing the new "Halo 3: Recon" game. Interviews are rife with the utter avoidance if anything "he" or "him", which is fairly strange we think. Also things like "Instead of playing a super space marine, however, you'll play an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper (ODST), one who's not quite so burly or bad-ass." are popping up, which may be innocent or it may be a hint.

We're not the only female gamers thinking it either. Could Bungie FINALLY repay all their female gaming fans with a little female Shock Trooper love. From a PR perspective alone it would be genius. Think about it, all the little Halo fanboys would get into a tizzy, leading to literally thousands of forums chat about the game. Female gamers would love it, mature guy gamers would probably take it in their stride and many might think it was about time. The fanboys would still buy the game regardless and the media coverage would be so intense it would basically pay for itself ten fold.

Essentially we're thinking if Bungie made the "new hero" a female Halo hero, people would freak out or fall in love, both of which would lead to a hell of a lot of online and other media coverage they couldn't pay for! As far as PR goes it would actually be pretty shrewd.

No boy babysitters thanks!

Remember that babysitting game we mentioned a few days ago. Well we decided to contact the developers and ask a very simple question. "could you confirm whether or not it is possible to play a male babysitter in the title: My Dream Job: Babysitter". We got the response back today, and of course it was just as we'd suspected:

"Unfortunately it is not possible to play as a male babysitter in My Dream Job: Babysitter. Thanks for your interest in our title."

Well no surprise there really is there and for the record I have ZIP interest in this title. God forbid a boy should accidentally load and play a game in which he might be taught some sort of social responsibility for a baby. So it was more sexist gaming drivel. Despite the press release stating 'player' and 'kids' rather than 'she' or 'her', being as how it's looking after babies, you don't even get the option to play a male character, so why not just be friggin honest in your presser! Let's guess what the reason would be shall we "too much development time"... "too many additional costs"... YAWN!! Kind of annoying you don't even get the choice should you actually be a kid of the male variety that likes the idea of sim baby care.

Games for Girls and other ridiculous notions

Games girls play are apparently all the same, you see it all the time, in marketing, design and also conversation. We 'girls' as a species - set apart from the boys - have a strange chromosomal freaky thing happening wherein it is only the Y chromosome that allows you free thought and the idea of choice in gaming. Women gamers you see ALL like the same thing, we all love the EXACT same titles and we all loathe the exact same titles. It's a scientific fact, argue as you might this baby is cast in stone and it was handed down to Moses on some mountain someplace.....

 

And if you believe that you're as big a knob as the guy I had the displeasure of conversing with recently about the 'Games Girls Play' topic. For whatever reason the assumption by "Mr X" was that we girl gamers will only play simplistic puzzle titles, sim titles or at a push the odd RPG. Mr X couldn't conceive that a female gamer might like to frag and bag an opponent and held the opinion that a girl using smack talk in the same way guys do online is a "bit of a slag".

Well Mr X... you're a bit of a dick, which is fine, it takes all sorts. Please do be aware however that girls are not restricted to gaming genres based on gender, shocking I know... but just like guys, girls have differing tastes. There is no hard and fast LAW that states all girls like certain genres and not others. To suggest such a thing borders on the ludicrous... do all humans eat meat? Like pumpkin? Enjoy Bungie on the weekend? Weigh the same? Have black hair?

Wake up.

Playing the "C-Word" game

We like to think we have an open readership of all ages and our feedback attests to this fact, so for that reason we'll be using "C-Word" in place of, well... the actual "C" word.. know what we're saying? If not hopefully all will become clear.

The feminist gamers are upset... again... and this time in the firing line is the rarely spoken (lest you get a slap from your mother) "C-Word", a flash game published by Newgrounds. We're not linking to it because frankly, why give them more direct links than they already have, but suffice to say the 'game' revolves around a small penis firing balls at a giant wizened (and rather disturbing) vagina, which gushes blood when hit. If that isn't disturbing enough for you there's also germs you must shoot too.

Feminist gamers take on the game comes down to a fairly simple premise "issues with female sexuality" and that "it represents a very real and tangible culture of hatred of women that exists within the gaming community".

Leigh Alexander looks at women gamers

Leigh Alexander has a nice piece over at Gamasutra titled "Opinion: What Do Women Want From Games?". Unlike some 'journos' out there, Leigh Alexander looks at the issue from the inside out and makes points we've been banging on about for years. Alexander states that she tends "to reject assertions that there must exist a uniquely female palate for video games. " and "the real reason more women don’t get "into" video games is because, from a distance, it doesn’t feel like it’s "for them.""

Again this would seem to touch on the marketing and in game characterizations than some inbuilt anti gaming gene women have the men don't. If it is so obvious to us as female gamers that this is an ongoing issue, why is nothing being done to respond and change it? Nintendo have done a great job of cajoling the older gamer, female gamer into their Wii and DS clique and for the most part they've done this via advertising and not tweaked game development.

It's certainly something publishers need to consider, but then, we've been saying that for about the last decade or so, so really they're either completely dim, or can't be assed.

Mass Effect sexuality in games on MTV

The multiplayer blog over at MTV has an interesting little interview with Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk from BioWare and they pretty much cover just why they think sexuality / romantic relationships are important in games. Needless to say it comes down to common sense, these things are part of life, so why shouldn’t they appear in mature story led games.

Sadly some of you may not be able to see the video (Canada, UK and Japan), but the upshot of it is that games are an art form, just as books, TV and film are. All of which at some point suffered disapproving looks and ‘inappropriate’ commentary.

Oh and they also say the word ‘appropriate’ a whole lot, like maybe the guy doth protest too much. That said they do make a great point with the suggestion it’s better to actually connect to a character than have it just be there for titillation.

Dual Love - Weird girl gaming

Every now and again a game comes along that truly has you scratching your head and say "huh?'. Duel Love is one such game. It's actually targeted at a straight female audience, with the idea being you wipe sweat of lithe young male bodies, you massage them and generally converse / interact with them. It's made by a female producer and falls into the Japanese "dating game" genre.

Now you take a look at the following trailer and see what you think, because we think it's pretty lame on so many levels and we can't really see where the draw would be, well aside from young teen giggly girls maybe...

Mass Effect lesbian furore video

Fans of the upcoming Mass Effect have a couple of news items of interest today. It seems the girl on girl action of Mass Effect is so upsetting, it's bannable. Apparently the game has been banned in Singapore (where homosexuality is illegal!! Strange).

Along with that rather depressing news, the 'lesbian' love scene from Mass Effect hit the net and some were disappointed it wasn't a little more full on. For us here at GirlGamers AU, we actually think it was very classy and tastefully done, so we're not sure what all the fuss is about.

You can check out there video below....

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Warning: Apparently this falls under the MATURE CONTENT banner, so please be aware of that.