Like most developers I play lots of games. In that sense, yes I am a gamer. However, a lot of people associate "gamer" with a particular gamer culture. That culture is heavily male, somewhat younger (mentally if not physically), racially heavily white, etc. These are the people you see active on forums and gaming news sites. I do not consider myself part of that culture and I don't want anything to do with that culture. I consider them to be poisonous and detrimental to the industry as a whole in practically every aspect.

I disagree. Multiple studies indicate that whites actually spend the least time and money on gaming. In the US, there are, obviously, more whites, so you would expect to see more game-centric, English-language videos and posts created by them.

The "culture" I'm referring to is not a majority of the actual games market in total. If you look at spending across racial, socioeconomic, age, and gender groups there's a very interesting and diverse picture. What I'm saying is that the diverse picture does not emerge in the majority of media, forums, reviews, marketing, etc. Thus the perception of "gamers" is out of sync with who are actually gamers. It's more interesting to note that the same diversity by and large doesn't exist amongst mainstream game developers, which has a number of implications. I hope that clarifies my point; we don't disagree.

As far as my "poisonous" comment, I believe the discussion in this thread already justifies my use of the term.

Let me just try to parse this out...

So, you are now stating that people who play games aren't poisonous. The people who are poisonous are...

A minority of developers you have only defined by being white males.

...

Really?

Let me just point out that this is incredibly bigoted and point out that you have only defined that white hales are poisonous and not why or how or defined what are the characteristics which make the group you're talking about as poisonous or harmful other than that they are white male, nor have you explained why you think that white male is the thing that is the appropriate thing to focus on, rather than some other trait.

What makes you think that saying such bigoted things is ok to say?

But you go further and implicate that your bigotry is ok because I've called you out on your bigotry and that doing so is this poisonous element.

So you're argument is expressly it isn't being a bigot that is a problem, but rather that those who call you on your bigotry is the problem.

So your opinion of that GAME_JAM incident where developers after being harassed about whether or not a group was inferior or superior with female developers the developers walked out. The problem is not Matti Leshem being a bigoted and harassing them, but rather the developers calling this guy and the entire production on their BS. Good to know that the solidarity of those developers are unique to those developers and not something that everyone has.

Anyway, I've said my piece about your bigotry. Since it is clear that pointing out where you're in the wrong won't cause you to correct your thinking, like with most bigots, I'll stop commenting on what you're saying. I've got more important, and if not more important, at least more productive, things to do.

Why is it even relevant whether or not a team of developers is mostly male/female, or what kind of people play the games?

Doesn't categorising stuff like that already go against the idea of equality?

Why is it even relevant whether or not a team of developers is mostly male/female, or what kind of people play the games?

Doesn't categorising stuff like that already go against the idea of equality?

Equality doesn't mean people are all the same. Personally I'm a humanist; I believe that humans are inherently precious, deserve a decent standard of living, and have rights that need to be protected, including the right not to be treated with prejudice. But that doesn't mean being willfully blind to the fact that if you take a random sample of humans and survey them about what they like that the average of the male's answers with be the same as the average of the females' answers. It definitely won't. The stereotypes about what men like vs. what women like aren't completely made up and aren't completely a result of girls being raised differently than boys; some of that difference in average female interests and concerns vs. average male interests and concerns is biological.

I believe feminisim is a term parallel to humanism, and that the term's meaning is a concern that females have equal rights with others. I'm a feminist insofar as I think women still count as a biologically disadvantaged cultural minority and could use some help to become more equal. Though certainly there are some areas where men currently have a legal bias against them, such as draft laws and custody laws. I think that kind of inequality needs to be fixed too. And certainly there are some nasty misandrists out there calling themselves feminists, the same way there are extremists out there being reprehensible examples of every cultural, religious, ethnic, philosophical, or whatever kind of group. But it's a fact that the game industry is one of the foremost examples of industries where there is a ridiculous overwhelming percentage of males. And the game industry is part of a self-perpetuating cycle of male development teams creating games which appeal mainly to males, resulting in females being discouraged from considering themselves part of the core gamer community, resulting in the next generation of gamers that mature into game developers being mainly male. (Actually the situation is directly comparable to the porn industry, where the scripts for porn movies are all written by men and the movies are all marketed to men, where the female workers get pretty much zero say in the content of what is being made.)

It's easy, and even logical, to say that women who want to change the fact that most games have content intended to appeal to a male audience should just make games "by women, for women". (And ditto for porn movies) But getting into a developer position high enough up the hierarchy to actually get to make decisions about what kind of game to make is really difficult. This is true whether you are talking about working your way up through the industry or trying to gather up enough funding to create an indie project. As a woman in a predominantly male culture like the gamer/game developer culture, there is pervasive pressure to focus my creative efforts NOT on what I like, which are usually fairly "girly" stories and themes, but on what is "popular" where popular is specifically defined as what appeals to the mostly-male pool of other indie developers, whether it's a situation where I'm trying to recruit volunteer labor or a situation where I'm looking to join someone else's project and donate or sell my art or writing to them. There just isn't a pool of female indie game devs that I can go to instead; I really wish there was. I'd like to at least find out whether other female game devs would like my ideas better than male ones usually do, but I haven't yet found a way to test this theory. I hear women working in the industry saying the same - that they can't get promoted except by creating things their male boss thinks are great and their male producer thinks will sell to their male customers. A culture that says that women can stand on an equal footing to men IF they basically pretend to be men is not a culture of equality.

I believe feminisim is a term parallel to humanism,

It isn't. Humanism existed long before feminism and based on saying all humans have x traits that should be respected.

Feminism is a movement that was created by upper class women, the only class to ever not have to work, and started with trying to get the right to vote as a right for all women. Which sounds all fine until you realize that the whole suffrage thing has been taught to you wrong. No one was restricted from voting. Voting was, and still is for men, a privilege that is given for signing up for military service, and previously only to those who owned land. Men generally cast the vote, but it wasn't their vote when the vote was through land ownership. It's that this time that the most privileged group our species has ever known started petitioning for the right to have the vote.

Or more simply. In a time where everyone had the same legal abilities to vote privileged women petitioned to be given a right to vote, where as with everyone else (ie men), even to this day, it is privilege that can be rejected. Further, this wasn't even a universal for women that these women were trying to get as once such rights were given they petitioned for middle and lower class women to not have these right... Even worse, the whole "fight" for women's suffrage, the main contenders against the issue were women who though they were going to have to suffer the same draft burden men do. And it get's better ^.^ Feminist actively petitioned against bills that were called the Equal Rights Act which would have the removal of the draft burden men as well as making it illegal to discriminate in any way based on sex which would mean a lot of things would have changed for the positive.

So no, feminists are not a parallel group to humanism.

biologically disadvantaged cultural minority

Who are the majority, are seen as victims and thus get more sympathy, are not expected to work, are praised for being a mother even if they're terrible, get lighter jail sentences, get more federal aid in all sorts of places, can use the police as their personal army, have quotas favoring them in business and school, have gender specific scholarships, have had education completely changed to bias females purposefully, and have a higher acceptance and graduation rate into colleges.

more equal

So if equal is 1 = 1... then is more equal 2 = 1? Or wait maybe it's all that stuff I mentioned above and the other terrible stuff I didn't... which you apparently know about but still think that having just about everything in your favor isn't enough.

resulting in females being discouraged from considering themselves part of the core gamer community

I'm sorry, but that's a load of nonsense.

Do you not realize that gaming culture formed around people who were told how stupid it is? How they were losers? etc.

Women might not like the games or the players or the culture, but that is not discouraging them. That is them not liking something.

That is an individual issue that they need to deal with, because most if not all gaming community welcome women, maybe not in the most appropriate ways (largely due to many being ostracized for liking games to begin with..ironic huh), but never the less the communities are as welcoming to women as they are to men, if not more so.

(Actually the situation is directly comparable to the porn industry, where the scripts for porn movies are all written by men and the movies are all marketed to men, where the female workers get pretty much zero say in the content of what is being made.)

Nope. You're not even close to being accurate with that statement. Those are mainly lies spread by Gail Dines and the SPC, who will deny that they don't want anyone to have sex anywhere, but reading her books will reveal that it is the case that she wants no one to have sex anywhere. If you go talk to porn stars (where if I recall correctly, women make about 60 times what men makes and work about a thousandth of what men work) you'll find that not only are a great number of pornos made by women and for women (another side note, ever heard of feminist porn? lol it's a thing really) and porn, as odd as it sounds, is highly classless (in terms of employee/employer classes) and more of a cooperative than anything else.

they can't get promoted except by creating things their male boss thinks are great and their male producer thinks will sell to their male customers.

Think about that sentence for a second.

Do you think they should be promoted if their boss thinks what they are creating won't sell?

Fun facts:

It is illegal to have an all male staff, not so with women.

Government quotas allow women with less qualifications to advance higher up quicker.

Women bosses actually are more biased against women than men.

Women are the target demographic for any business. If a business can figure out how to sell to women they will drop selling to men in an instant, because women control most of the money and are willing spend more of the money.

Personally, I'd love to pretend to be a woman and promote a lie that I'm putting together an all female dev studio and go to kickstarter or indiegogo. More than likely even with a bad game idea I'd get tons more money than I would as a male with a diverse dev studio with a great idea, given how much is given for similar things. Thousands of dollars were given to a crowd funded thing where a filthy rich mother promoted sending her daughter to a game dev camp which cost a couple hundred dollars. So if we scale up it wouldn't be too hard to not imagine a similar and bigger reaction.

A culture that says that women can stand on an equal footing to men IF they basically pretend to be men is not a culture of equality.

There are so many responses to this I could make, but largely the only ones that want women to act like men are feminists.

That all being said I don't doubt "girly" games are harder to get made than others, largely because it's not a proven market. If you want to make those games you have to take risk and prove the market just like in any other venture. What you said boils down to for me is that you are unwilling to prove the market and if we read into that more it means that you no more believe that your "girly" ideas will sell than your boss does. What you want is someone else to take the risk and you to take the reward. If you have a game idea that you think will sell then you have the burden to prove it will sell, especially in media industries which are bad copy machines that are quickly losing relevancy in our world of ever progressing technology.

Maybe this discussion should be diverted to a new thread? It's definitely an interesting topic of discussion, but it's way off topic for this thread.

I used to play a lot of games when I was younger. To the point actually where it'd be fair to say it was my primary form of entertainment. However I don't think I'd call myself a "gamer". The word to me implies a greater level of dedication and fandom to games. Possibly one of the most defining characteristics of which is queuing up early to get a game or console system upon the moment of its release. I don't make every effort to ensure my system is continuously up to date with the most powerful technology to reap the greatest frame rate for the latest release of eye candy. Concepts such as "dps" or ensuring that I have a "glass cannon" or a "tank" at my disposal make me cringe. I won't buy a game simply because I don't want to feel like I'm the only person in the world who hasn't played it. And I do not obsess about completing "achievements". I certainly have played a game for more than 24 hours straight (though not since I've gotten married) and taken a few modest steps to make sure I'm comfortable while playing. But I just don't think I carry things to the point of obsession that seems to come with the "gamer" tag these days.

It seems to me that a "gamer" takes his hobby to the point of an almost zealous obsession. And when you take anything to the point of zealotry, you create a destructive force where there was once something enriching.

And when you take anything to the point of zealotry, you create a destructive force where there was once something enriching.

Like programming.

Well, I believe I can call myself "gamer", as I still play games and sometimes for multiple hours straight. It's my primary point of entertainment and it has been since I was 4 years old.

However, I've found out that in recent time, my will for playing games is diminishing and I'm replacing it more with other stuff - college stuff (studying etc), programming and playing piano. I still have games I'm playing, but that's usually not more than hour or a two daily and usually restricted to one or two games at a time (Star Trek Online atm) which are then rotated based on my mood. Also, I basically stopped looking at newer games and usually play the games in my collection - for some reason, newer games simply don't interest me enough (modern FPS games are prime example, I prefer FPS' like first Unreal and Half-Life). When I want to take a rest, I still hit like 6-10 hours of playing in a day, but that's becoming more and more rare as I've imposed work on myself I gladly do (making video games).