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The real problem with 'Girl Gamers'

destructoid.com — Regardless of how "hardcore" they may be when it comes to videogames, their incessant need to post sexy pictures of themselves for attention creates a gender rift, and is incredibly harmful to gamers of either gender.

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crisisaverted, on 03/28/2008, -0/+4"Take an attractive woman and pair her alongside a gaming device of some sort. Congratulations! You've captured the attention of a massive chunk of the gaming demographic"

This is the nature of (cheap, non-creative) product marketing to males in general. You can replace "gaming console" with a beer, car, pack of smokes, etc etc and boom -- you've got something to catch a guy's attention. I don't like it, but if everyone's been doing it for decades I have to assume it's effective.
DiggityDugged, on 03/28/2008, -1/+2Jurassic Park, a completely unrelated movie, yet it somehow seems very relevant when you compare Aktrez (the problem in the article) to a dinosaur:

Dr. Ian Malcolm: "I'll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you're using here: it didn't require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don't take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could and before you even knew what you had you patented it and packaged it and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now you're selling it, you want to sell it!"
[Malcolm walks up to a huge mound of dino-droppings]
Dr. Ian Malcolm: "That is one big pile of *****. "

Muldoon: " Shoooot her! Shooooot herrrrrr!"
- MewTwo, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1"Clever girl..."
Elliottx, on 03/28/2008, -10/+3Girl Gamers don't exists and everyone knows that. They're just scantily clad super models in front of an Xbox pretending to play it (You can tell because it's not even plugged in..yes..there is a picture out there exactly like that) The funny thing is though, that "Gamers" are so desperate to know that they don't live in a sausage factory that they're willing to accept the fact that they can actually SEE that the Xbox isn't plugged in. Analogies...hooray.
And on the odd occasion that you DO meet a "Girl Gamer" there are a few key features they all have. Too skinny, too fat, too ugly, too much of an attention whore (See 4Chan for that) .....End
- bigbadgoat, on 03/28/2008, -6/+5Who wants to bet this guy is some greasy overweight douche-bag that hasn't been laid in years, possibly ever (he's 18)?
  
  Buck up pal, there's plenty of girls out there that will touch your penis for the right price, no matter how bitter you are!
  - Elliottx, on 03/28/2008, -6/+1Lol...click my picture captain oblivious. Do I look fat...noooo..do I look greasy...maybe a little...am I 18? .....nooooo....
    I would like to see a genuine picture of a "Gamer Girl", until then-Like God, Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad, and any other "deity" ...they do not exist.
    It's also funny that you immediately go to the stereotypical insult, not realising that insult was drawn form real life experience...wasn't it tubsy wubsy? ^.^
    - bigbadgoat, on 03/28/2008, -1/+3Your profile says you're 18, douche.
      
      Female gamers?
      
      Here's the leader of an all female gaming clan, PMS clan
      http://2007.sxsw.com/interactive/programming/panel ...
      
      Here's another all-female clan called "Frag Dolls"
      http://www.fragdolls.com/
      
      Here's another team called "Girlz of Destruction"
      http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=5024
      
      Ohh, by the way, these girls are professionals, as in they make their living playing video games.
      
      That enough for you, *****?
      - Elliottx, on 03/28/2008, -5/+1Wow...first off. My profile says I'm 18 because I didn't want the ***** age restriction interfering with my "Digging" I'm 17.
        First link - 404'd
        Second link - OBVIOUSLY fake (Also proves my "Attention Whore" theory)
        Third link - Proves what I wrote above. Too skinny, too ugly, too hairy, too fat.
        
        Another matter. We're both too prideful I'm assuming to back down from this "inter-fight" and as much as I would love to argue with some obnoxious, ignorant American on a Friday night...I have stuff to do that involve socialising and using other insults other than "Douche" and "*****" so for the sake of argument let's just say you win, and I'm wrong....how's that? Creamed yourself I suppose...enjoy my big fat tubby friend. ^_^
      - sbader, on 03/28/2008, -0/+3you could say the same thing about all male gamers, too skinny, too ugly, too hairy, too fat.
      - bigbadgoat, on 03/29/2008, -0/+1I'm not American, I'm Canadian, I'm not big, I'm not fat. I'm not your friend. I'm a computer engineer. I develop world class multi-million dollar ship simulators that are world renowned, and I might be taking a developer position at Electronic Arts in the near future depending on their offer. I live in the gaming and simulation industry. The only difference between a simulator and a video game is the controls and the feedback, In fact I'm designing a ship simulator that will be able to realistically model both physically and visually a sheet of ice and how it affects the paths of ice breakers and other vessels. It literally has never been done before. Ever been to E3? TGS? Well, neither have I, but I will this year.
        
        What makes you an authority on the gaming industry and gamers in general in comparison to what I know? Have you even completed high school?
        
        I'm also not naive enough to believe that females can't game. What do you think their ***** get in the way of them seeing the controller or something? That their reactions or intelligence can't possibly rival a man. The population of North America and Europe is about a 50/50 split between males and females, what are the odds that there isn't a portion of females who game? about 1294082340 to 1. You think that since pong was invented in the 1970s, and supposedly all the boys that got their parents to buy them consoles that a girl never picked it up somewhere along the way and became good at it? Its some of the dumbest ***** I ever heard.
        
        And the second link is actually very real. And all of those "too skinny, too ugly, too hairy, too fat" girls? You wouldn't stand a chance at bringing them home. If you did, your parents might hear and you could get grounded.
        
        Then again, why should I bother, You're an ignorant, asinine *****, who has no ***** clue how the world works. How about you get back to me in a few years after your testicles drop?
      - Elliottx, on 03/29/2008, -0/+1Wow..I guess you win...haha...
        Although I didn't need to hear your life story. Have fun reveling in your victory ....friend... ;)
- sbader, on 03/28/2008, -1/+3We do exist.
navster15, on 03/28/2008, -1/+7What's funny about this article is that the author chose to include some of the provocative pictures of girl gamers that he (she?) is railing against. It feels a little disingenuous to condemn these girl gamers but at the same time promote them by publishing their pictures. Not only that, but Destructoid has had a history of publishing girl gamer photos on their website, so I'm not sure that they should even be criticizing the movement.

On a personal note, I find the attention seeking behavior of a subset of girl gamers to be abhorrent. Their actions reflect poorly on girl gamers who entered the hobby due to a love of video games. Until we as a community stop elevating and objectifying every attractive girl gamer, I fear that gaming will continue to be marginalized in the mainstream.
AwesomeMonster, on 03/28/2008, -5/+8Any time a girl spends playing video games is time that could be better spent making me a samwhich.
cassjewelry, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1I agree with this article. To make the fact that women do play games more visible, it doesn't help at all to merely show what seems to be models with controllers. I think acknowledging that when women play video games, they are gamers. Even if they are little girls, even if they do play casual games, even if they only raid in WoW once a week, women gaming are gamers.
debuffplx, on 03/28/2008, -6/+1Absolutely nothing wrong with a woman that can kick ass at Cod 4 and likes showing of her *****. If I had titties, I'd send them to every noob I've pwnt to lessen the pain of how awesome I am at the game.
CerMakAlot, on 03/28/2008, -2/+7Don't blame everything on the men objectifying these women, though. The women themselves, (certainly the ones not being paid to model) who take sexy pictures with game controllers definitely want the attention and know how to get it.
Thayer75, on 03/28/2008, -1/+3These righteous diatribes by outraged girl gamers bemoaning other girl gamers are getting old. Are there girls who are attention whores? Yes. Are there girls who are cute who also genuinely enjoy playing CoD4, Gears, Halo, R6LV for hours? Yeah. This isn't the suffrage movement, it's just video games! The author should calm down and get her panties out of a twist.
AngelsDontBurn, on 03/28/2008, -0/+0*****
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The real problem with 'Girl Gamers'

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