Girls & RPGs/anime

When did girls start getting into RPG's and video games? No, I'm serious. Back in the day, the kids who were into it were all dudes and, well -- it was a freakshow.

I couldn't have been that into anime, rpg, et al: Music took precedent with me. And thank God! (or so i thought at that moment) I wanted to meet girls and feel on a level that was more visceral. But i'm deviating here.

Every SG that catches my eye is this super/ultra/fantastic anime and rpg video gaming fanatic. And i'm, secretly, like, "Darn, where were you when i was a teenager?"

It started around 1998 or 1999, at least judging from AX and ComiCon attendees. Prior to that the cons were grungy sword fights, then the female attendance slowly began to increase, causing the average diameter of Sailor Moon cosplayers to slowly decrease (I suspect a major factor here is that most of the cosplayers playing female characters are female now ). I'm also shocked by the female attendance at E3 and Siggraph; There's so many presentable females in and around the comic and gaming industries that one can only assume the other shoe is about to drop...

Nick

[Edited on Jul 31, 2005 by The_Incubator]

A couple things:

1) The availability of games and anime has increased across the board, as distributors got fat and happy off the gaping wallets of the fanatical collectors. More exposure = a more varied customer base. The fact that you can now find anime titles by the hundreds at Suncoast, and titles by the dozen at your average big box store means it's no longer a hobby relegated to the obsessive collector, but something that anyone can share in - without needing to go on all night, Mountain Dew fueled, Gopher/FTP benders.

2) The first generation of rpg nerds grew up, and some of them stumbled across enough social skills to learn that vagina dentata is just a myth. This led to the second generation of gamers/anime fans, the ones who grew up with it, and don't necessarily consider liking it something to be ashamed of.

By my reckoning, it was about three seconds after God decided that he loves me and wants me to be happy.

As far back as I can remember I've known girls that are into those things.

You guys rule.

How many SG video gamers can you think of?

When it became cool and trendy.

This is why I love you MrDipietro. Well, this and the awesome baklava.

Well, at the risk of being misogynistic, RPGs aren't as twitchy and violent as a lot of other genres. And the games tend to feature lots of pretty boys with cool anime hair and big swords. Square definitely knows how to appeal to women with both their male and female characters; hence, girls cos-playing as Rikku and drooling over Squall.

But the major shift is that the stigma about video games is slowly melting, and girls and the normals have started to join the fun.

1984.

My baklava brings all the girls to the yard.

And some of you are as good or better than the gamer boys.

Rikku

whenever I find a girl who plays any of the Final Fantasy games, I'm like "OMG new best friend" because then we can talk about our gaming experiences and trade tips on how to beat bosses and stuff.

Sadly though, I've only met like 3 or 4 of these types

I'm doing a beta test for Sony right now, a Jak Combat Racing game, and I got into a deathmatch faceoff with a couple of females. Morgan is right about girls liking more than RPGs (a lot of times I think it is the first step into the world of video games; hell, I've been fragged by a clan of females). She's also right about the gamer dork comment. There has always been a group of girls that would play. They had an all male household or male friends who played and they played along. A few pioneers just took it up on their own. They were the girls who, for whatever reason, found social acceptance daunting (come to think of it, one of the cornerstones of SG). They enjoyed it and society be damned! Companies began to bank on this, insulting the girls by making games like Rhapsody and other cutesy games. It's groups such as SG, who let girls be themselves giving them acceptance, a place to be and be themselves that caused girls, these closet gamers to feel it wasn't stupid to play videogames. Ten years ago an adult wouldn't religiously play a console game. It evolved from a toy to a part of your entertainment center. They next obvious step was to cross the gender line. Companies stopped insulting girl-kind by stopping the girlie games and integrated strong, independent women into mainstream games (Some call Lara Croft gratuitous T&A but she revitalized the video game heroine, hell, defined it, and showed a female character could kick as much ass as a man). Girls then went mainstream with this, boys started seeing them as gaming equals (usually after several ass kickings from them) and we see that in the future (go see The Island) girls like Scarlett Johanssen look forward to their next round or fragfest.

All that said, I do not understand the allure of anime, for either gender, in America. I'm not against it, but it's funny to see people go gaga (and spend &50 a pop) to watch animation that is usually unintelligible and sexist (or maybe that's just the anime porn ). But, hey, perhaps that's the next evolution of entertainment: anime in america

Just keep hitting 'next.'

Amen.

Very true. The last girl I dated wouldn't play RPGs. She was more into Halo deathmatch (PC version), racing games, Tekken, Tony Hawk style games, GTA and Resident Evil. In fact, we hung out in arcades together.

I've always been a gamer nerd, I got into RPG's around 11yo though. I was too stuck on Street Fighter and side scrollers abound. :p (Almost all my cosplaying has been VG related)

a girl that can kick my butt in street fighter, killer instinct, etc type game instantly has my heart

Hmm....when did the Atari 2600 come out?

One of these days I'll beat that fuckin ET game!


And while I may be a gamer dork, I am one of those girls who doesn't dig RPG's either. Whats the deal with, like 25 minute cut scenes? If I wanted to watch 25 minutes of story and dialogue I'd turn on the TV.


Love,
BlueValentine, who's not going to leave her house for a week once the new Hitman comes out

Don't forget the RTSs. I kicked ass at Starcraft and Warcraft III.

I will kill you all at Tekken Tag.

I have to agree....this is a good trend, heh. Although...it sucks, since up here...we are always a few years behind the trends...

Growing up as a nerd, the only female geeks I knew were either

a) "lesbians" (goddamn highschool)

or

b) might as well have been boys...*shudder*

But...someday! some beautiful woman will ask me to hang my dice bag with hers.