PAX Panel: Girls and Games

I have to laugh so hard Avarre. Considering that based on my experience, maybe even stereotype of men, MMOG's are the male version of soap operas.

You should have seen our guild Less Crying Is Key [kThx]. The amount of drama the nine brave men of that guild caused was ridiculous. We had people on medication, screaming, guild forum flame wars, everything. It was great.

That said, the guild broke up more from contrasting personalities rather than a single person. My guilds that have had drama problems involving girls (oddly... that makes all of them except kThx) have had said single person at the center of the events. I can understand drama being started over gameplay concepts (disagreements in playstyle, organization, etc) as a general fact of team play, but the whole NUKE 'not going to play because you changed the cape' event is one that sticks in my head.

There is a difference between being cautious and calling someone out on something.

I'll cross the street late at night if I'm not comfortable walking past a stranger who is bigger and pressumably stronger than I am. But I'm hardly going to call the police if they haven't done anything wrong.

In everything bar picking up a random in HA to make up numbers, I will give players a chance to prove whether or not they are complete idiots. If they overly aggressive about a bad build that is ass enough for me.

In HA only when picking up a random will I drop a player with a bad bar, wrong bar, or someone who strikes me as though they have no idea what they are doing. It just isn't worth the time or effort to coach a single player.

But for players new to GvG, or a new group of HA players (guildies) taking the time to explain and share and wait for people to prove themselves works for me.

I suppose I'm more relaxed than others and I don't feel that overwhelming need to "win" that others do. I don't let one bad experience ruin things for me and I keep in mind that some things are statistically more likely or less likely to happen - so I don't get overly excited when these things happen.

It's not unrealistic or impractical to take this view. Been working just fine for me for a very long time.

I agree with you. It was a really stupid comment from her.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/User_...irls_and_Games
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/User:...urdock/Journal
or maybe she didnt say it.

Okay, so she did not say it, has she ask kotaku to take down the offending, slandering article?

You should, Ms Murdock. so people, *ahem*, like me, don't think your weird for saying that.

Sorry, Ms Murdock, for not seeing that people might put words to spice up their article if you infact did not say it.

There is a difference, but that difference doesn't have to do with bias. Clearly, if you're uncomfortable walking past that person you've already made certain assumptions about them that may or may not have any merit. That stranger could be the nicest person in the world, but you've already pegged them as potentially dangerous based on inconclusive evidence. Consider: would you act differently if they were female vs. male? Old vs. young? Dressed like a businessman vs. homeless man? Bias exists whether you call the police or not.

If the words "bias" and "stereotype" bother you, try "heuristic" instead.

wow... linsey's pissed

the flikr feed has been updated with alot of pics from PAx

http://www.flickr.com/photos/arenanet/

i wonder if Regina appears in any of them

3-year GW panel, 3 women, 3 men
http://www.flickr.com/photos/arenanet/2816447455/

GG Anet

Wow such huge friggin' radars on their screens. My radar is about 1/4 the size of that which is still plenty visible for me to see everything. Jeez. Charr Statue owns. I want that in my living room.

<3 Katy Hargrove : D

I agree and this is problem. The problem being is that we are told how to represent ourselves with what we wear. You just made that clear, but there is also a double standard in saying that, since I could argue if a women was wearing a short skirt, then she is RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO. She may not be of course, but my point isn't so much that we don't represent ourselves in a fashion sense but we shouldn't try to describe ourselves and others with materialistic means, either its fashion, music or so forth.

Its unbiased because EVERYTHING we see is a sigh or representations. The short skirt example as before, people could see it as skimpy, revealing maybe as far as disgusting, but some can see it as fashionable.

Don't get stuck on the clothing analogy. My point is that people use heuristics to make decisions and produce solutions when formal or statistical solutions are impractical. I may not be able to prove, for instance, that all women suck at games, but if every woman I meet sucks at games it really doesn't matter whether I can prove it or not - my heuristic (i.e., "rule of thumb") will be that all women suck at games.

We apply similar heuristics to PuGs and wammos. The overwhelming majority of PuGs I've ever played in were terribad; ergo, my assumption is that PuGs are terribad. Sure, I might run into an exception every once in a while - but that's why they're called exceptions. My heuristic remains useful as long as it generally reflects my experience. These sorts of assumptions and snap-judgments are applied willy-nilly all over the place, so I fail to see why their effects on "female gamers" is worth emphasis over any other stereotyped group.

Statistically people are attacked in certain areas/suburbs more than others. Statistically certain types of people are more likely to be petty criminals than others. A lot of bias, even dare I say stereo types, are based on statistics.

You can't tell that a girl is a slut because she is wearing a short skirt - people don't do research on these things. I will agree that a lot of people do use heuristics where statistics are impractical or unavailable, but no doubt much of this is based on hollywood and media portraying girls in short skirts as sluts rather than personal experience.

Why do I believe it MAY be prevalent in the case of girl gamers? PUGS are more common than girl gamers. So you in 3 years of GW, even more of gaming one will have experienced enough PUGS to make a general assessment on the average level of a PUG. However if the rate of girl gamers is as low as 5% then in a similar time period, and given that some characters may be the same players, one is unlikely to have experienced enough girl gamers to make a similar general assessment.

Whether or not you trust statistics more than experience, or experience over statistics doesn't matter. The fact still remains that with a low percentage of girl gamers, it should be unsurprising that there are fewer "top girl gamers".
Yet people seem to see this as conclusive evidence that girls make poor gamers. I'll say once again, if 1% of players are "top" players, and there are 10,000 players, and only 5% of those players are girls, then the total number of "top" players who are likely to be girls is a grand total of 1.

Having fewer top players who are female does not mean the female gender is incapable of playing at top level, it is merely a reflection of the fact that fewer girls play.

Regarding the topic and the panel, more research is needed before people run this topic again. I'm sure there are better things to talk about than how few girls are in games and hypothesising why that is the case.

Remember, "think pink" is not the answer.

You managed to miss the whole point of social heuristics: that people either cannot or do not consider statistical relevance. I'm pretty damn sure that I haven't PuGed enough to have sampled a statistically relevant portion of the total player base - but my opinion of PuGs stands until my experience says otherwise. I've probably played with fewer than 300 different players since GW was released. Maybe 10% of these 300 weren't complete morons. Similarly, maybe a quarter of the people who post on Gurus use more than ten brain cells when posting. Based on this small, unrepresentative sample, I therefore assume that the vast majority of people who play GW are idiots. As long as I don't encounter a significant number of exceptions, this assumption stands - whether my sample is statistically relevant or not. That's the nature of heuristics.

Obviously, any stereotyped group is fighting a battle (often a losing one) against common perception. I think we've all met teenage boys with a better head on their shoulders than some adults - but as long as they're few enough in number to be written off as exceptions, perceptions about teenage boys and their behaviors aren't going to change. And that's the bottom line, really.

Of course, heuristics can be (and should be) improved as more data is available. In particular, you can take into account additional factors. Maybe one day you notice that women over the age of 40 aren't as bad at games as their younger counterparts. Or maybe something about the way they talk correlates with how well they play. Or maybe women that prefer warriors are generally better than women that prefer rangers. Random examples, but I think you get the point. We do the same thing in social interactions too; that young man might be dressed like a hooligan, but if he speaks like a college math professor your assumptions about him probably change pretty quickly. These new assumptions might still be wrong, but either way it's one more piece of data.

@Burst: it's not even the case that a heuristic needs to have high predictive value to be useful. It just needs to predict high-value cases. If your "that guy looks like a mugger" heuristic has a 90% false-positive rate, but still correctly detects all the muggers you encounter, then it's doing its job -- you're not getting mugged -- and you'd be acting rationally to continue its use.

That's pretty much what I was going to say, Cthon. In the case of the potential mugger, he may be the nicest person in the world, but unless you're in the habit of striking up conversations with random people you pass on the footpath, all that matters is that he isn't a mugger.

Heck, let's say 9/10 people who look like muggers aren't, just to pluck a figure out of my head. Those 9/10 times, you lose nothing bar the extra effort required to cross the road - and if it was a road you were going to cross at some time anyway, you lose nothing by engaging in the avoidance strategy. If that means that one out of ten times you don't get mugged - or at least get a warning when the mugger follows you across the street - it's worth it.

On the other hand, this is an example where interaction ranges from "none" to "really bad". Ingame, the range is more along the lines of "bad" to "really good", so engaging in an avoidance strategy can actually prove to cost you - although you may never know the cost.

Increasing the radar size is a common tactic to help players keep an eye on their positioning. However, radars of that size is clearly a form of compensation.

Basically that. If you can clearly see where people are, you can make sure you're in the right place a little easier.

how do you all know that the players you pug-ged with were female players or male palyers ?? did you ask all of them eveytime you get into a pug group?

Radar Size
I think you can resize your radar to any size you want, but it does not make a different, why? because it still only show you the same amount of "content" meaning its an enlarge version of the same small radar without you seeing anything further then your anyone else if the were looking at a radar standing in the same position as yourself. (a bit confusing , sorry)

correction: it does make a different that you can see clearer where everyone within the radar is. it does not make a different in terms of see more things beyond.

PS: whoever you hire to make the charr statue, lol think twice before you use them again, its just wrong. its a statue of something but definitely not a charr.

I was helping a guy through a mission (he then became a real pain after that, but niether here nor there) and he asked a couple of questions about the game and such. After a bit he said "Are you a girl?", I of course replied "Yes, why?". His response was that I'm nice, therefore I must be a girl.

o.O

I personally don't care for finding out a person's gender and usually refer to them by character name and 'they' until they feel like correcting me or something. This doesn't happen often as my play style isn't terribly sociable.

Talk about sexist. First of all, how do you know who is male or female unless they let it be known? Secondly, I would say most of the drama in game is most likely male generated, as they are a majority of the game population.

The marketing question should fall back to whether the game is marketing to girls or to women. Far too often we see the "girl gamers" tag when really what they are talking about is adult females. Pink kittens are not the best way to rope in adult females.

As a strong generalization most women have less time for gaming than men. Women are still more involved with housework, child care (including homework help), food preparation, etc. Taking time out for games is difficult but worth it -- all people need to play. Games like Guild Wars that allow people to play for an hour or two at a time and still be successful should really tout that to women. Keeping in mind the real differences between the lives of adult males and adult females is the only way that marketers will be able to find what actually works in selling to women.

And if designers want to sell specifically to women they need to stop designing crap. We aren't that stupid.

Burst, first of all, I read your whole discussion (not just this post), so I'm basing what I say next upon your recent posts in this thread. I just chose this quote because I'm going to use it to illustrate something. To start off, though, I'd like to say that I agree in large part with the basis of your argument (heuristics).

I'm willing to admit that I believe you are right on a pratical level, but on a moral level, it is something that does disappoint me. I don't mean you in particular, but society as a whole. When you think about it, our judgments, prejudices, stereotypes and sometimes ignorance can do us more harm than good. There are different severities of letting experiences guide your thoughts/actions.

My example comes from the discussion in this thread; girl gamers are bad because a few people who have played with them have had bad experiences. I'd consider that a small "infraction" of tolerance from in a human being; games are not critical to one's life. This opinion that some men have comes from their personal experience, and they use heuristics to generalize. Fine - I do believe everyone does it. I don't have to like it, but I am not innocent either.

To conclude my example, I want to bring up words like "sexist" or "racist" or "homophobic." Those are all words we are familiar with, and all know what they mean. I will not call you or most other men in this game "sexist." But what if I drew this conclusion based on personal experiences: black males (and women) are annoying, loud, agressive, unintelligent, primitive humans. How many people do you think would jump to the conclusion that I am a racist? I hate to go in this direction, but it is something I am familiar with. In my life I have not a black person that I've even come close to liking, let alone want to befriend. That's not to say that I think all white males are innocent and pleasant - I don't - but people won't make themselves aware that I think this as well. And that's not to say that I'm even racist; I think racism is a terrible thing, and so pitifully ignorant, and I am sad for all sorts of people who had to suffer because of racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.
I would consider this to be a severe example of heuristics.

So where do we draw the line between stereotypes/heuristics and sexism or racism? I believe there is a very slippery slope we need to be careful with, and I think excusing males in gaming is headed in that direction. With how little life experience young males have, and how much time of it is spent with games, they need to be aware, careful and learn from good examples that there is a difference between gaming and reality, and they need to be able to respect women (and men).

IMO many such articles are really just an excuse to show photos of pretty young girls.

Which part? The paragraph that was factual, the paragraph where I talked about common perceptions, or the paragraph where I mentioned examples and responses? Talk about knee-jerk reactions and poor reading.

Vent.

So why don't you give me some examples from the competitive scene, which I'm referencing? Secondly, I'm talking about proportion, not overall quantity.

We are all biased against everything. Even morals and ethics which are based on a persons society and culture. But stereotypes, generalizations are always going to be with us, because from the fact that there is so much descriptive information about people that a single person can't take it all in.

Its easier to get some structure of the huge amount of mass of people into groups so we can understand the large population of 6 billion people as a whole. We love structure, we structure people into groups, we do it everywhere we go and we are even told to structure our thoughts at an early age in school so we can live a structural way of life.

With racism and sexism and all that, its interesting that people actually don't see how much of it is actually around us. Sexism is the most clouded because we take it as a joke or something that doesn't really bother us and why should we? Society loves to chug-along as if everything is okay, and not worry about a thing because worrying means something is wrong and we hate problems. Problems needs to be fixed and if something isn't fixed then its more to worry about and how many people want to worry about more stuff than they have on our ordinary life? My point is that even if people are sexist, they don't see as being like that(men and women). They see it as ordinary conduct.

You're kidding right?

Pretty much every single girl (I say pretty much because I know (as in watch) a lot of them, and since they are in top guilds they are fairly well known but who knows theres always that 1 you miss.) in a top guild plays a support class. Generally Monk, Ritualist, or Mesmer.

If stating facts (he isn't kidding when he says pretty much every good (as in top level) girl is support classes) = sexism, then call me a sexist all you want. Girls have breasts. Am I magically a sexist now, for stating facts about them? It's a pretty well known fact easily 99% of the top skill girls in the competitive side are support classes.

Second off, he is right about the top guilds not allowing girls, because drama can (and does) result more, and Avarre isn't talking about LOL EUROS WON THE MAT or something drama that you get from guys, but girl playing a guy on the team for a fool (joke e-relationship or something equally dumb, basically being a horrible person in general, getting hopes up in some way etc. Lying.), then guy gets back at her and talks about their drab sex life and posts nudes, girl ruins his life to get back at him type of drama. And yes this has happened, I've seen it happen like 4 times already.

And finally, he is right because it is human nature to remember the bad things more than the good because it stands out more. You're more likely to remember a bad player and something that player did a lot more than you will remember a good player or a good play (unless if its famous in the community like a certain Meteor Shower in a certain tournament game.).

What I mean to say is, how dare you state facts about the competitive community and it's female population, Avarre. You rotten sexist. Jeez.

He never once said girls couldn't be a good warrior, or a good dervish, or a good non-support class, nor did he say all women suck. He simply said that there ISN'T any top level good female warriors, etc. Or at least not near as close as the over whelming majority of female support classes. If he had said they can't be good warriors, or that all women suck at the game, then that would be sexism.

Who knows, they might be excellent warriors/dervishes/assassins as well - but perhaps they're even better at Monk/rit/mes or whatevevr. They might have reasons for playing support classes - personal preference, or higher skill, or maybe in rare cases the (male) guild leader forces them into the role.
Guys have breasts too, they're just not as obvious. ^^
Not every girl is like that, and the top guilds not allowing girls is sexist.

Usually there is a guy involved in the drama, it's just shrugged off because "boys will be boys." But when the girl retaliates it's "Oh no! She's causing drama! KICK KICK KICK!"

Most of the time, when interpersonal arguments arise, it is usually the girls who are blamed.
Human nature is a bad thing, it needs to be destroyed.
Both the male and female population of GW have a role in the sexism present on Guild Wars - the males for their "girls should play support roles, girls only bring drama, girls are bad at gaming, etc" mentality, and females for their "can I get into a relationship with my guild leader, did you hear what that guy said about another guy, I think I should only play this class because they're pretty even though I suck at it..."

Basically, if the majority of people bothered to think about the horrible stereotype they give their gender, a lot of stuff would be fixed.
TBH, I find that most of the "good" warriors I meet in PvE are women. I think it's because PvE is generally more relaxing, takes less time, and is less stressful. It's less competitive, and women are naturally more on the cooperative side.

Using only PvP as a database doesn't get good examples, because I think it is fairly true that there are more "Mostly PvE" players than "Mostly PvP" players You will only be getting the opinion/data of a minority.

Monking in PvP is a pain in the neck, though. I fail to see why anyone, not just women, would choose to monk...

It usually doesn't work like that. If said hypothetical female warrior didn't want to monk and was good enough, she shouldn't have a problem finding a guild.
The kind of edrama that girls create is different. As long as there are only males involved, it doesn't get personal.

Might also have the fact that playing melee in pve has absolutely nothing to do with playing melee in pvp.

Edit: someone's evidently taking offense to my sandwich comment. I can identify four females in the top 50; three of them monk while the fourth plays support midline. Does this evidence say anything?

Nein. No (good) top guild forces people into roles because if you have to force someone into a role, they usually suck at it. We're talking about what they actually main and play.

Mammary glands then.

A guild is not a job in a country like the U.S.

Guilds are allowed to allow whoever and whatever they want in their guilds.

Are GLBT only guilds being sexual orientation-ist by not allowed straight non-GLBT into their guild? Answer that one carefully. Guilds don't allow certain people not because of what they are (female/straight non-GLBT), but what happens USUALLY when those people join. In this case, drama with females. Not always, but it DOES happen. In the case of GLBT, homophobic and degrading remarks towards their sexual orientation.

Does that make them sexist or terrible people for not wanting that possible trouble to happen in the first place? I wouldn't say so. The guilds that don't allow women are more of a minority anyways, a good deal of them try the woman out to make sure she isn't a drama type. A lot of good women play the game (Three Pounds rocksssss) at the top level and top level guilds.

In my rather specific example, who would you blame? I'm fairly sure it's the girls fault for playing the guy and messing with his emotions. Is it his fault for wanting revenge? Sure. Can you blame him? Not so much.

Absolutely no one in this thread has said that. We have just said that girls in top competitive guilds, PLAY support roles the most. Which is true.

Absolutely no one in this thread has said that. We have just said that girls USUALLY bring UNWANTED (BIG DIFFERENCE) drama.

Absolutely no one in this thread has said that either.

No one in this thread is saying anything close to that, nor is that the intentions of any top guilds I can think of who have females in them.

Those who do aren't relevant to what Avarre said at all.

In PvE, warriors are generally people who sit there and get beat on and tank all the blows instead of doing anything that they should be doing - damage. In PUGs, all the good warriors stand there and get hit and hit and hit. In PvP, warriors lead groups and do damage. So I don't think this is relevant. (mostly because we're talking about competitive top guilds.)

We're talking about competitive guilds. Nothing else. That's all Avarre was talking about. No one has said that women can't play offensive roles, just that they don't in top end PvP. I'm sure there is a lot of women who play tank Warriors who stand there and get beat on to prevent the party from wiping in PvE, but that wasn't what Avarre was talking about at all.

I just don't want this to turn into QQ AVARRE BEING SEXIST cause that isn't what he was saying at all and people are bringing up stuff completely irrelevant to what he said (LIKE PVE).

Some guilds take Guild Wars so seriously that it seems like their guild is their job.

I would believe that the GLBT-only guild are like that because of the homophobia ever so present in Guild Wars. I doubt they want some 12 year old brat to come in and start spouting insults at them.

The thing is that men jump to the conclusion that every girl will bring about drama.
I would say both of them are to blame - the guy for acting like a jerk or starting the problem, and the girl for expounding on it. It also works in reverse - you can blame the girl for acting like a jerk, and the guy for turning the situation into a huge dramafest.

Absolutely no one in this thread has said that. We have just said that girls in top competitive guilds, PLAY support roles the most. Which is true.
Absolutely no one in this thread has said that, but does it mean that absolutely no one in Guild Wars has said that?

Absolutely no one in this thread has said that. We have just said that girls USUALLY bring UNWANTED (BIG DIFFERENCE) drama.
And guys bring about just as much unwanted drama.
Absolutely no one in this thread has said that either.
But does it mean that absolutely no one in Guild Wars has said that?

I'm not addressing only the guru community - it includes the entire GW community.
It is relevant.

PvE and PvP are both parts of Guild Wars.

I have met female warriors/dervishes who play fully offensive characters, they never offer to set up as tank and I never tell them to play tank. And usually they're mature, friendly people.
It's not what Avarre was talking about, it's what I'm talking about.
Will you stop trying to turn this into a PvP vs PvE flame war? ¬¬

Guilds that don't allow females are like that because of the female drama ever so present in Guild Wars with them. (seriously, you really should check out the competitive female drama sometime) I doubt they want some 19 year old female to come in and cause drama with one of their core team and cause the guild to shut down/lose good members.

Better safe than sorry.

We're not talking about the same kind of drama.

Considering this entire thing is about some guy calling Avarre sexist about a competitive side fact that most women in the top guilds play support classes, no, no it isn't relevant.

But what you're talking about, is what we're talking about and discussing, because of what Avarre & that other guy said!

Um...i'm not! Avarre was talking about PvP only. PvE has no place in that because no shit you can say WELL GOOD FEMALE PVE PLAYERS ARE OFFENSIVE, but his point (that he was called SEXIST for.) was that TOP FEMALE PVP PLAYERS MOSTLY PLAY SUPPORT CLASSES.

i give up. this is hella OT anyways and I'm not getting across what I am trying to say very well. Frustrating.

I also want to note that it's not always the men going "women are drama queens who cause all deh drama" and more "well honestly we just can't handle ourselves." One of my guilds in WoW said the former, wanting women out of their guild not because they didn't like chicks but because they actually cared about their well-being.

Can't say much else besides [email protected] Gogogo!

The above interaction is the kind of thing guilds try to avoid with their restrictions.

Jest aside, you can't really get a proper opinion of this by playing casually and applying armchair psychology. Play in the competitive atmosphere, where it becomes more of a game than a social environment, and tensions cause a lot of problems. It can't really be compared to guild dynamics outside.

*sigh*

Without knowning the exact cause of the drama it is impossible to tell. The incident someone brought up with the cape was stupid, and the girl deserved a smack.

My experience in competitive PvP (and not just from GW), ie our team was actively seeking to achieve a high ranking - so we had the competitive attitude, we had the tantrums, we had the drama, the people yelling across TS/Vent at on another - the source of the drama was men. Men yelling at other men before rage quitting because they couldn't manage to leave their ego at the door. If someone made a mistake there was yelling, retaliation, the blame game, but in general by the next round the team was over it pulled it together and tried again. The only continuous drama, the forced the team to fall apart earlier than the scheduled finish time was caused by men. Never by the girls, who got yelled at just as often as everyone else for bad playing. We even had one girl in tears on a regular basis, but no game breaking drama from her.

My conclusion from my experience, and the sentiments voiced in this thread, is that in general there are a lot of sexist bastards playing this game. Sorry. I understand the desire to have less drama in a team, and if you can find a group of players who can manage this (regardless of their gender) then good on you. However perpetuating the myth the girls are the heart of all drama, or are bad players, and delibrately keeping them out of top ranking teams because you believe in this stereo-type so strongly impacts on other players to the point where players who would not have made the connection start to, and start to believe it even when experience may say otherwise.

So girls are kept from doing something they might otherwise enjoy, they finish the game, can't go into PvP (or can't go any further in PvP) because no one wants a girl in the team (as many players are emulating the top teams hoping for success) and then quit the game because there is nothing more to do. So much for getting girls into games, and keeping them there.

Girls don't need special treatment. If they are a bad player, kick them if you want. If they are a drama queen, show them the door. Girls in competitive environments (generally) understand this, and those who don't need a smack and a wake up call. But this should apply to all players.

Going by this topic girls are getting the special treatment of getting the door slammed in their face everytime. I'd have thought by now their faces are so messed up they couldn't possibly be pretty than their male counterparts. Now that we aren't competition in terms of look, can we please get a game or two?

All gw people are 13yo boys until otherwise proven by me. That is the motto I go by, it allows me to 1stly watch my language/manner as well as keep me from saying something that I wouldnt want one of my future children hearing at that age. In the end though, it doesnt matter if the person is male or female. If they can play the game, they can play. I have played pve/pvp on all levels with both guys and girls. Each person is completely different in their way and why they are good at what they do. Each sex and age group has their idiots plain and simple, but lumping all girls, or all teenagers, or all 20+ people have x or y, then all you are doing is throwing around silly stereotypes that have been maintained for far too many years.

Go play the game, stop trying to find reasons to have drama.

i dont think its an old topic. old denotes that it is no longer relevant, which is not true at all. i know girls who hate looking at "perfect" women in a game, so they make male characters. i do not blame them (this idea is different from men making girl characters... if you havent noticed).

personally, i really enjoy the fact that there are people who want to stand up for girl's gaming. however, you must also realize 3 people who come from similar jobs are going to have similar perspectives. i also must say that i doubt most (any) men reacted to this the way women did. i sent this link to a friend of mine who likes to play video games, and she helped me understand more about the topic. its interesting, none the less.

PS - why linsey and not regina? or was this originally planned for linsey because of her role in the GW industry?

edit:
(i couldnt really find anywhere to snip it because it was all pretty true).

that happened to our guild, and generally happens in all teams... however i have not seen many groups made with the majority being women (kind of hard to compare). i 'leave my ego at the door' so to speak, and have learned a great deal more than if i tried to play the blame game. after each match i would ask the other monk if i had not done something properly, or did something wrong. if i get advice, its exactly that: advice. people need to accept help, even if it is critical and might seem harsh, it has made me a much better player.

funny that people mention girls leaving guilds because of the cape, when i've seen a guy leave a guild because of the cape as well
not everything is one side. both genders are capable of being just as silly as the other.

LoL...this response totally cracked me up:

—Obviously a lot of work goes into making female characters sexy. Is there any hope for sexy male characters?

Lo: I want to see a nice ass in a game, someday.

That would be pretty interesting to see, haha. I can't really recall any sexy male characters that have caught my attention [I feel another thread coming on]. Girls gaming shouldn't have to be a big issue anymore, but I really can't say because like what those girls said in the panel, I DO hide my gender in any game - I only say so when asked or when my husband mentions it. I dislike any special attention (I don't think myself a lousy player and I'm quite competitive actually...), and I do recall hearing those "omg, we have a lady in the house" comments when I joined a GW vent once. I like being in the boys club and treated just like any other player - it irritates me to no end when I see other girls screaming for help or acting like drama queens...I would love to slap them, really..plus (I know I'm shooting myself in the foot) - I think some of those drama queens are really guys...