Sadie G, in her most recent blog, talked about some of the stereotypes of girl gamers and one hit me that I wanted to explore in a little bit more depth. In her blog, one of her stereotypes of girl gamers is that they just generally suck at video games. This is the point I would like to discuss and share with you, the Dtoid community, my theories on why this is. So without further ado and no more delay, my theories on female gaming suckiness.

Just keep in mind that these are theories, with no actual data to back them up. When I was growing up my best friend had two sisters, both of whom enjoyed video games. Since then I've known very few so a lot of my observations might be a little outdated. Bear with me and try to keep an open mind ok?


Theory #1: Hand-eye coordination.

On the whole, guy are much better at this than girls, not just in gaming but in everyday life. When I was a kid growing up, my dad and I would often go outside and play ball, nothing serious but just throw around a baseball or football. Now I have no clue how many male gamers did this with your father, but in school boys are expected to play physical games. This helps to develop that coordination at an early age. We, as boys, learn to see things and react to them quicker in different way. As gamers, this translates to using the controller to react to things on screen.

Girls, on the other hand, are raised, generally speaking, to not play physical games and so do not develop the reaction time needed to play complicated, fast paced games. My sister could not catch a baseball to save her life. When she does play video games, it's usually something that doesn't require a lot of quick reaction times such as an RPG. She has been known to pick up a fighting game like Smash Brothers when me and my friends are playing but even then it's just button mashing to her with no real strategy or thinking involved. My mom was the one who introduced me to games but even her skill is severely limited to simple internet games like Diner Dash, and she's been playing games for years.

Theory #2: Gaming Competition.




Most guys are naturally drawn to games, even if they suck at them. Why is this? I believe it's because video games is another form of competition and for the average geek/nerd who can't compete in physical sports, this is their outlet. The old 'Alpha Dog' mentality. We use it to prove ourselves better than the next guy. Especially if you, as a geek, were picked on by the atheletic crowd and then kick their ass at some sports game.

As a kid, I saw it as a competition with my friends. When I could kick my friend's ass 10 times in a row at Tekken 3 or Mario Kart I felt better about myself. My female friends, including my sister, who joined us didn't really care and just button mashed most of the time. Most average girls I have seen will pick up a game, ask their guy friend to tell them the controls and then promptly forget everything that friend just told them as soon as the game starts and they start pressing buttons.

Girls find competition in a different way. To them, it isn't about who can run the fastest, throw the farthest or how many rounds of Mario Kart you win, but about which guy they are dating, the latest article of clothing they purchased, the newest gossip that's going around etc. Competition from girls stem from their own attractiveness to boys and if you don't believe me, go to a party and watch the girls as a cheerleader-type enters the room and begins to draw attention. You will see quickly that girls play a very different game than guys and in many ways, are much more ruthless than guys ever could be.


Theory #3: Genre of Choice.



This to me is the biggest reason why guys have this stereotype. For all the guy gamers out there, here's a revelation: most girls don't like FPS's!!. Shocking I know. I mean, who could hate mowing down enemy after enemy with a machine gun or watching a head explode from a well-placed sniper shot? Well, girls for one. They are not drawn to the violent games because, well, they are girls. The female of our species are not normally a violent one unless the protection of children is involved or an insult to their man has been given or another female just pisses them off (or it's that time of the month, and then it's best to just stay away). But actually going and killing someone? Not really. Thank goodness that's the way it is, otherwise I don't think half of us would have made it through puberty if women were more prone to violence. Our mothers would have smothered us in our sleep.

The girls I have observed playing games prefer games like Harvest Moon, Viva Pinata, Animal Crossing, Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy (insert number here), The Sims etc. Call of Duty, Rainbow Six, Gears of War, Uncharted, Warhawks, Bioshock and similar games do not appeal to them. So when a rare FPS-playing girl gamer gets on to COD, like atheistium, we, as guys, automatically thinks she sucks and then learn very quickly that she can actually kick our ass anytime she wants to.

Theory #4: Difficulty of the game.




This point goes along with the Genre of Choice. A game that has many buttons will not be attractive to girls. Especially one where there are a lot of buttons and she has to remember which ones do what very quickly. I remember telling a girl how to play this snowboarding game on the Xbox. I very simply explained the direction stick, the jump button and the speed up button. I didn't even show her how to do tricks, just how to land when she goes off of a ramp. Within 10 seconds of running down the slope she was yelling, "How do I turn?" This my friends, in a nutshell, is why the average girl will pick up a Wii controller and play Bowling, Tennis, baseball, WarioWare and Mario Party for hours at a time. It's easy. All of those games are intuitive and require little or no actual thought to playing them, thus the popularity of the Wii as a console to girls.




Theory #5 Patience. The last point I'm going to make on this but one that ties into my third and fourth points. Men and women have very different types of patience. Guys are perfectly willing to run through a single level over and over again, just to see how fast he can get through it. Women do not have the patience to memorize complicated controls just so she can throw a pass in Madden but she'll sit there for hours, cultivating her little virtual garden.

Well those are some of my theories on this subject. Keep in mind that this is just referring to the legions of girls that we, as guy gamers, see play a game for 10 minutes and then leave it alone forever and it does not refer to the actual girl gamers like Sadie G, Colette, .Tiff, atheistium, VG or Phoenix. This blog was not attacking any of our female members here at Dtoid. I have had my ass kicked by atheistium more times than I can count at CoD. Collette has probably completed FF7 more times than I want to know about. I have a lot of respect for them as not only female gamers, but as strong people. Because, let's face it guys, we are brutal to these girls when we should just be happy that there are girls out there to enjoy these things with.

And they have boobs. :=)


What do you guys think? My theories have any merit or am I just full of shit?