ultranos: kino standing, staring ahead (I will slay you if you don't shut up)
ultranos ([personal profile] ultranos) wrote2007-11-20 12:58 am
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I really need to write that essay

The first time I had actually heard of Assassin's Creed was actually from Penny Arcade. And that, that was cute and adorable, and yes, we repeated the comic lots. Because we're like that. And the reason this was the first time I'd heard about the game is because I'm perfectly aware of the world-ending release date of, well, today for Rock Band, Mass Effect, and FFXII: Revenant Wings. (And that I do not have the money to buy any of them. But thankfully, my housemates do. So, um, win?)

And then, I see this, which just makes me froth at the mouth. What? A pretty, intelligent woman can't be a serious game designer/producer without being accused of being a gloryhound or a slut? Gee, thanks. And then people turn around and wonder why the gender ratio between male and female game designers (and players) is so skewed?

What makes this worse is that I'm currently reading From Barbie to Mortal Combat: Gender and Computer Games, edited by Justine Cassell and Henry Jenkins. It's an excellent collection of essays on gender, specifically females, and video games. It was published in 2000, and the essays explore such questions like "how to make games more accessible to girls?", "should we make 'girl' games, or make games that appeal to both genders?", and "how do we get more women and girls involved in the industry?" And it's 7 years later, and I read through these essays and feel like a statistical outlier, and then I read an article like the one above. And it almost breaks my heart.