misbehaving.net

Japanese video panty game

Yes, a Japanese video game in which little girls fight each other and where your opponent's damage wears off, unless you are able to take a photograph of her panties. The Japanese have an obsession with panties as you can see from this review of anime with a storyline centered around it, the vending machines selling used panties, where upskirt photography keeps women -- girls! -- in a condition of perpetual passive-aggressive rape.

PMS Clan gets sponsorship

On Joystiq today, an article telling us PMS Clan gets WITI sponsorship. This is kind of cool:

All-girl gaming clan PMS has landed a sponsorship deal with WITI (Women in Technology International)... and will be acting as “gaming ambassadors” to further WITI’s mission of encouraging women in technology. This sort of clan sponsorship is in a different league to professional gamers winning huge pots of money at prize tournaments, and may encourage gaming groups to seek out partnerships of their own.

supermarit

supermarit is a new Nordic network supporting women in game development:

Project SuperMarit aims to support and empower women’s position in the game industry and to encourage girls participation in the technoculture.

SuperMarit is for women in business, researchers, students, prospective developers and players to stimulate new encounters, co-operation and inspiration between the groups. By enabling this dialogue we create a synergy that encourages new games and business ideas to market. In this way we belive that SuperMarit can challenge the male domination in the field of games and technology.

(Thanks Satu!)

no women applicants

Josie Fraser notes the degree in game design at the University of Derby that received 102 applications - every last one from a man. She writes:

[I]t's a national issue that needs to be addressed nationally, as well as consistently, starting with 5 year old kids. And we also need to address this constant type-casting of girls and women as interested in fundamentally different types of games than boys. The insistence that women only like nurturing, co-operative non-violent titles is an old chestnut that turns up again and again in these kind of articles and is probably more about reinforcing gender stereotypes than who actually plays what and when and why.

Hear hear.

Plenty of women gamers

A report from Nielson Entertainment today offers fresh evidence that the games industry is missing a trick by focusing so heavily on the young male gamer. The benchmark study on interactive entertainment found that 39% of gamers are female and that nearly 24% of all gamers are over the age of 40. (Nearly one-quarter of female gamers are aged 13-17, with almost 20 percent aged 25-34 and an additional 19 percent ranging from 35-44.)

The report also confirms that women are more social players:

Overall, active gamers typically spend approximately 5.2 hours playing by themselves with a large proportion also being spent playing socially (3.07 hours per week with friends and family or online). Among females, the split between solo and social game play is even more equitable with younger females 13-17 tending to play more with friends or family (54% of the time) and women 25-34 playing almost as much socially as alone. Males and females 45 and older are markedly different, spending almost all their time (79%) playing alone.

Via IGDA's Women in Games Development list.

USC and EA offer female scholarship to game design camp

The USC Interactive Entertainment Summer Camp is a 4-week program designed to help students pursue their dream of working in the video game industry. The single scholarship in the 2005 summer seasons will represent the first female registered student in the program, as the 2004 inaugural year featured an exclusively male student body...

The USC Interactive Entertainment Summer Camp runs from July 3rd to July 30th. Deadline to apply for the scholarship is May 15th. It is open to any female high school junior or senior with a GPA of at least 3.5 and who submits both a written recommendation from a teacher and a 250-word essay on “Why I want to grow up and make games.” Applications should be sent to: ea-usc-scholarship@ea.com.

“We hope this scholarship not only provides an exciting opportunity for an inspired girl, but sends a broader message. EA wants to encourage girls to aspire for a career building games…and we hope the best and brightest continue their studies and find a future home in the industry,” said Steve Seabolt, Vice President at EA.

See: USC Viterbi School of Engineering: EA Gamerships (via IGDA's Women in Games Development list).

Nice move, EA.

IGDA honours Sheri Graner Ray

^ Photo from the Women in Games 2004 conference site

Sheri Graner Ray, a Senior Designer with Sony Online Entertainment, is among the winners of this year's Game Developers Choice Awards. From the press release:

Community Contribution Award

Sheri Graner Ray, the world's leading expert on the topic of gender equality in the games industry, has the spirit of community building and improvement ingrained in her life's work. Her dedication to propagating women's issues in the game industry made her a natural pick for the Community Contribution award.

"I hope we can actually increase the number of women in the industry as well as their visibility so they are taken into consideration during game design," Sheri Graner Ray said. "That way we'll start seeing more games that appeal to women which will increase the number of women playing which should finally encourage more women to enter technical computer industries."

In 2004 Ray was recognized by the Hollywood Reporter as one of the Top 100 Most Influential Women in the Computer Game Industry. She recently authored a book, Gender Inclusive Game Design -- Expanding the Market, which ignited conversation about gender biases within the industry. Ray continues advocating for women's issues via the IGDA's Women in Game Development Special Interest Group and the upcoming Austin Women's Game Developers Group.

video game harassment

[Reposted from Utopian Hell]

Stumbled on this one while on my lunch break and searching for patch notes for World of Warcraft. It seems you’ve got a massive pole up your ass if you can’t just take male harassment in MMOs.

The thread is here. I’ll just paraphrase it. A female player logged into her female character and was greeted by a male who told her she had a nice chest. She doesn’t say exactly what he says, but it offended her, so she told him to knock it off and that she was reporting him. He went on to scold her about how her doing that would ruin the game for everyone else, and that it was just good fun.

Now, granted, she over-reacted a little bit (she said she never wanted to play the character again because of the comment), but it wasn’t necessarily the original poster’s upset about the avatar having big tits that got me riled, either. It was the responses of other people in the community. Apparently, if you don’t just roll over and take it, you’re just a big stick in the mud. Oh, and didn’t they tell you that video games are a boy’s world, and you should just deal with it?

Read on, my friend…

Sounds to me like you’re a touchy broad who has a weight problem and spends too much time at home. - Mariousmoo

I’m a woman as well, get over it.
Seeing as the game was created by men, as is evidenced by the female Night Elf avatar and her dance, just deal with it.
- Absalom

/ignore is there. Use it and stop making a big deal out of what some doofus said to your avatar ingame.
Please try to act like an adult (even if you’re not one - it’s good practice.) and just forget that idiots like whoever was bugging you even exist.
Yesterday in Darnassus somebody came up to one of my female alts and said “I’ll give you 10s to strip.” I did the /boggle emote, /ignored him and walked away.
Simple as that.
- Usdachoice

In public, if a perfect stranger walks up, says some remark about your breasts and then walks away, there’s really nothing you can do about it. He didn’t harm you and is not continuing to harrass you so the cops will not do anything.
So what he did is more like my example and nothing like yours…
Get over it. People are jerks…grow a thicker skin.
- Rotaerc

you need some sex and quick…
- Darkseeker

Are you friends with the Kobe Bryant Accuser?
Also, nice butt.
- Kressa

You fail life. What is it that ever single species in the known universe has in common? Reproduction in some way shape or form. If your a lonly overweight woman and you live off of twinkies and icecream and no one loves you is no reason to be all grumpy. Put down the Rocky Road and pick up an apple. Stop stitting around and feeling sorry for yourself and go out and move a little.
- Dozimbar

All women characters should never get any gear to wear, walk around in the nude, should be created as well endowed blondes, and do nothing but bounce around for everyone else because no women play online games.
And every dwarf should get three broads cuz we be that good lassie!
Have I ticked off the feminists yet? Play sims online.
- Jouphan

“Hey, it’s just all in good fun.” has to be the most commonly trotted-out, ridiculously stupid, overblown excuse I’ve ever heard in my entire fucking life, and anyone that uses it should promptly be drug out in the street, shot in the head, and be left as an example to anyone else that thinks it’s the best way to handle these situations. Hey, it was all in good fun! I didn’t hear her say no before I jammed my dick up her cunt. I thought she wanted it! Hey, it was all in good fun! I didn’t realize that there were roofies in her drink. Hey, it was all in good fun! I didn’t think she’d find it insulting when I told her what I wanted to do to her in the backseat of my Nova.

How on earth any of these people can come up with the nerve to say that making degrading sexual remarks to women is ‘fun’, I’ll never understand. If that’s fun, these people need therapists, and a good dose of reality (or maybe just about two days in the pumps of a female secretary in the 60s).

On the Internet, no one knows you’re dick-less.

gamermom and son

Fellow Misbehaver Halley Suit has started a new blog, gamermom, where she thinks aloud about videogames and how she and her son deal with them: "He can't get enough of them at the age of 9. Me ... well, there's lots good about them ... in moderation. As I write this, I hear the booms and bangs and explosions of Halo 2 in the other room."

(Via game girl advance)

Tech mums might also be interested in Popgadget's recent post about Teen gadgets.

Massively multiplayer thought experiment

Richard Bartle has posted a thought experiment over on Terra Nova:

Suppose a disgruntled programmer were to run some code that flipped the sex of every player character in EverQuest. Further suppose that this programmer did such a thorough job that it would take a week before all the characters could be flipped back.

The players would complain, obviously, but would they actually play for that week? Would they learn anything from the experience?

Not many women have commented yet, so if you're a player, why not share your thoughts?