Whenever Trav’s brother visits, we haul out a Wii to goof around with. This weekend we stuck to games in Wii Sports.
And now my shoulder is dead from Baseball.
I guess laying in bed with the iPad doesn’t count as exercise.
Remember that time I was whining about our latency? Well, I guess it’s pretty obvious why Trav is lagging in Diablo 3 today.
At least it’s not affecting my Tiny Tower. That would just be blasphemous.
In other news, anyone have any amazing recommendations for strategy titles along the lines of a Tycoon title or something that I could play on the 360 or Windows 7? Ideally any suggestion wouldn’t be browser- or Internet-based for the reasons pointed out in that picture. Sigh.
I have Zoo Tycoon installed on this computer, but that game is, you know, old and stuff.
I tried playing Pocket Planes but it didn’t really speak to me.
I installed Tiny Tower instead, and I’ve been enjoying it much more.
It’s really nice to play while watching a movie or something — mindlessly addicting.
The Bitizens are ridiculously cute too.
It’s true. We girl gamers should just go back to the kitchen.
Well, just for one last mission. We have to set fire to our proverbial sandwich knives. We’ve got to shove our feet into our favorite shoes — the ones that make us feel amazing and empowered — and demand to be treated as equals.
We cannot let the barefoot sandwich jokes continue. We do not deserve to be marginalized.
Let our generation be the one that calls for huge changes in gaming culture. We might not be able to stop people thinking that we female gamers are not equals, but there are enough people on our side of this fight that we can end it being okay to slam women.
We can also end it being okay to make gay or rape jokes. We can make the worlds of our games safe places if that’s something we want.
This won’t be a fast change by any means, and it will probably take much longer for certain sub-cultures of gaming. Game companies also need to be on-board, wanting to provide a safe space for their players.
I’m putting forth a call to action for all those who want this kind of change. It’s a goal that can only be reached through the efforts of the many.
Report offensive behavior if your game of choice offers the ability to. Remind people that you’re human. It can be as simple as a, “Hey, that’s not cool” over Guild chat. You don’t have to throw yourself to the wolves.
More than anything, we need to embrace and support each other.
Let’s stop letting the games that we choose to play divide us. It doesn’t matter if a gamer leans FPS or Solitaire. She is still a gamer. And she deserves, as much as a man does, a safe place to enjoy her game.
No matter whether you choose to call yourself a girl gamer, a woman who games, or just a person with interests just like anybody else, we should be standing together. We should be tearing down the walls that have been and are actively being built to contain us.
Eventually the market may even hear our cries and understand that we are a quickly growing demographic and not a demographic that requires pink, sparkly things to be encouraged to grab a controller.
I demand that this equality takes place during my lifetime. What do you demand?
How Not to Game 