Interesting Research: "Sexist Games=Sexist Gamers?"

[the7k]

Game. An activity that one engages in for amusement. Competition is neither implied nor necessary.

According to this definition, watching television, reading a book, listening to the radio, going to the movies, taking a jog on a nice day or driving around in the middle of the night are classified as a game.

[pepharytheworm]

Game. An activity that one engages in for amusement. Competition is neither implied nor necessary.

According to this definition, watching television, reading a book, listening to the radio, going to the movies, taking a jog on a nice day or driving around in the middle of the night are classified as a game.

"Structured playing" would be a better definition. Watching TV is not a game but formulating a rule to drink a shot when a character says a certain line would be. Have you never played a game of pretend?

[the7k]

Game. An activity that one engages in for amusement. Competition is neither implied nor necessary.

According to this definition, watching television, reading a book, listening to the radio, going to the movies, taking a jog on a nice day or driving around in the middle of the night are classified as a game.

"Structured playing" would be a better definition. Watching TV is not a game but formulating a rule to drink a shot when a character says a certain line would be. Have you never played a game of pretend?

Yes, that's what I was getting at. A game requires a rule set. It's not just ANYTHING that you engage in for amusement.

A drinking game is a game because it has a rule set. Drink x number of shots when event y happens. As simple as it is, there are rules governing it.

"Playing pretend" does not constitute as a game unless rules are established and everyone respects and plays by those rules. As soon as "pretend" becomes "I got you!" "Nuh-uh!" "Yeah-huh! I'm invincible to that!" it has ceased to be a game.

[pepharytheworm]

"Structured playing" would be a better definition. Watching TV is not a game but formulating a rule to drink a shot when a character says a certain line would be. Have you never played a game of pretend?

Yes, that's what I was getting at. A game requires a rule set. It's not just ANYTHING that you engage in for amusement.

A drinking game is a game because it has a rule set. Drink x number of shots when event y happens. As simple as it is, there are rules governing it.

"Playing pretend" does not constitute as a game unless rules are established and everyone respects and plays by those rules. As soon as "pretend" becomes "I got you!" "Nuh-uh!" "Yeah-huh! I'm invincible to that!" it has ceased to be a game.

You can have fluid and loose rules and it still be considered a game. "Who's Line is it Anyway?" is an example of rules being fluid the same for D&D and a lot of other RPGs.

[the7k]

I never really considered "Who's Line" to be a game, just an improvisational comedy routine. I also never really saw people who didn't adhere to the rules of D&D or at least some enforced house rules. Sure, most people take the game about as seriously as Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but there's usually some sort of rules that are followed.

Clearly I'm not going to convince you and clearly you aren't going to convince me. I see no point in continuing this argument, or maybe I should say I see no point in continuing to play this game.

[Key-Glyph]

Still, I don't think that men are discouraged from non-violent games, I think that's confirmation bias talking. Men are well-represented across all kinds of games and dominate many if not most "non-violent" genres including, say, music games.

Men are represented across most game genres, sure, but that doesn't mean that men aren't discouraged from playing nonviolent games. When I was wondering aloud about that, I was thinking of a few male friends who have told me stories from their childhoods where they mocked out of playing games that were deemed too sissy/easy or cutesy/girly, similar to what the7k saw on the job. It might not be as common as I think, but for these friends it was a definite (and palpable) shaping force in their young lives, so I was going on that knowledge.

That being said, you bring up a good point that "nonviolent" is an incredibly broad category. Men do not seem to be discouraged from playing Guitar Hero or Tetris. Something like Guitar Hero gets a lot of cool points for being built on the fantasy of being a rock star (which is predominantly male-focused) -- yet I get the impression that Tetris is sometimes considered the quintessential game for girls and moms, and boys obviously still play it. So here's a question for all you dudes, because hearing other people's experiences are interesting: were there ever games in a certain non-violent genre you enjoyed (puzzle, music, etc.) that you avoided because you thought that they were perceived as lame, or would make you perceived as lame? And what was the critical lameness factor -- the aesthetics, the difficulty, and so on?

Secondly, there is a lot of line-drawing over casual games, and the only people I've ever heard say "Those aren't real games" or "I don't play casual games" are boys and men.

I have heard plenty of women say those things, it's not a gaming or male thing, it's just how fandom works. You can find plenty of women arguing that the new season isn't "real Dr Who" or that Sherlock is so much more refined than Elementary.

I wasn't implying that line-drawing was an exclusively video game-related phenomenon, and I did acknowledge that there must be women gamers who do it. What I was speaking to was simply my lived experience of seeing games like Candy Crush, Bejeweled, and Farmville derided as "not real video games" for reasons like "they're not challenging enough" or "they're mobile games" or something of the like, and I myself have only heard men doing that. There are a lot of people who immediately categorize cell phone games as illegitimate because, as far as I can tell, they're miffed that folks spend zero effort acquiring them, or that players aren't really invested in those games for reasons other than passing time in a waiting room, or something.

What interests me is why folks feel the need to draw that line at all.

For that reason, I see the insistence on categorizing some video games as "not really video games" as being a product of men and boys trying to prove their affiliation with masculinity through what they won't play, which is a need generated by society's aforementioned hostile attitude toward feminine men.

People were just baffled that a title like Gone Home that has no meaningful player input got such rave reviews by the press. The reason why people say it's not a "real game" is not because they are afraid to be outed as femenine, but because all you do while playing it is walk around an empty house and read notes of text.

I must have missed a specific mention to "Gone Home," because I had a lot of other casual games in mind when I was making my post.

[BoringSupreez]

Secondly, there is a lot of line-drawing over casual games, and the only people I've ever heard say "Those aren't real games" or "I don't play casual games" are boys and men.

I have heard plenty of women say those things, it's not a gaming or male thing, it's just how fandom works. You can find plenty of women arguing that the new season isn't "real Dr Who" or that Sherlock is so much more refined than Elementary.

I wasn't implying that line-drawing was an exclusively video game-related phenomenon, and I did acknowledge that there must be women gamers who do it. What I was speaking to was simply my lived experience of seeing games like Candy Crush, Bejeweled, and Farmville derided as "not real video games" for reasons like "they're not challenging enough" or "they're mobile games" or something of the like, and I myself have only heard men doing that. There are a lot of people who immediately categorize cell phone games as illegitimate because, as far as I can tell, they're miffed that folks spend zero effort acquiring them, or that players aren't really invested in those games for reasons other than passing time in a waiting room, or something.

What interests me is why folks feel the need to draw that line at all.

We draw lines for the sake of categorizing like things. We draw lines between cheap beers and craft beers, between vehicles such as tricycles and race cars, and between newspaper comics and weekly/monthly comic books. The differences are real and readily apparent, even if all beer can be called beer, all vehicles can be called vehicles, and all comics can be called comics.

Yet you wouldn't consider someone who only reads today's Garfield on his Facebook feed to be a comic enthusiast the same way you would someone who owns 15 years worth of Spiderman comics. You wouldn't call someone who likes the two newest Star Trek movies but has watched nothing else Star Trek-related a Trekkie. You could call them both the same thing, but those who put a large amount of time and effort into their hobby will find a specific term to describe themselves differently than what we would call "casuals."

That's why so many hardcore gamers consider themselves to be "real" gamers, as opposed to people who didn't start playing games until they were $0.99 on the App store. People who find a little pride in their hobbies like to call themselves something, whether it's Trekkie, Comic Geek, or Gamer.

[the7k]

@BoringSupreez
Wish I could like that post.

I will add that another reason we have to draw the line is so that people don't spend money on a product they don't want. Bloodborne is a Japanese-made Role Playing Game, but if you go around calling Bloodborne a JRPG, you can't be surprised when people get angry that you sold them on the promise of something that didn't fit their expectations.

[pepharytheworm]

Using the words real video game is pretty elitist.

[alienjesus]

But we weren't on about people saying that a person is or isn't a gamer, but whether those games are 'real' games. There's nothing about Bejeweled or Candy Crush that make them less 'real' than other puzzle games like Tetris, Puzzle Bobble or Columns.

And with the Garfield example, yes I wouldn't call someone who reads Garfield every day and nothing else a comics enthusiast, but that is because the word 'enthusiast' implies something more, whereas the words gamer simply implies that the person plays games. The comic book equivalent would be something akin to reader. And a Garfield fan would absolute be a comic reader. In the same vein, a Candy Crush player is a gamer to me, but not a games enthusiast

The problem aswell is that people draw the line between what is a 'real' video game and what isn't when they are in fact all real video games because they exist. Your point about categorizing like thing is perfectly valid, but not when you say 'these things are legitimate and these things aren't really video games and are just for the mobile plebs'.

I would consider myself to be a comic book fan. Here are some of my favourite comic books. They're not you're typical superhero stuff and there's no graphic novels or the likes here. They're probably rarely if ever mentioned on comic book forums or fansites. Are they not real comic books?: