Gaming Industry Not Meeting Our Needs

 Despite the growing female market, the gaming industry is not meeting women's needs. The ratio of male to female characters appearing in games is abysmal. When females do appear, they are often portrayed in sexist and overtly misogynistic ways. Although video game companies have started to include more female characters in their games, many of these female characters continue to be created according to traditional gender stereotypes. Violent games with hypermasculine themes that are devoid of positive representations of women continue to dominate the market. When we go online searching for game-related fun and information, we find that the majority of gaming websites cater to a young male population, and are just more of the same testosterone-driven environments. There are a few gender-neutral and female-focused gaming sites, which are an important part of the gaming community. However, most existing gaming sites focus on action and role-playing games, thereby leaving a large portion of the female gaming market out of the loop. It is currently very difficult to find information, recommendations, and discussion of all game genres online.

WG's Goals

This is where WomenGamers.com comes in. Our mission is twofold: first, to provide a fun, dynamic online gaming site that is female-friendly and caters to the interests and needs of different types of woman gamer. This means that we will cover all game genres, so if your passion is Blackjack, You Don't Know Jack, blowing Jack away in Quake, or buying a game for your daughter Jackie, we've got something for you-in an environment free of gender-based harassment. Our gaming news, reviews, previews, interviews, discussion forums, chats, contests and giveaways should keep you coming back for more.

Second, we will serve as a platform to both disseminate information about games from an informed, socially-conscious, female-friendly perspective, and to gather information from you about your gaming preferences, opinions, concerns, and ideas for the future. We can not only help you to find the right games for yourself and your loved ones, but we will be actively soliciting your input on the games and the gaming industry. You will be able to rate games and female characters, post your opinions, and review books on the industry.

With your help, we hope to have a blast playing games-- and at the same time, educate and influence the gaming industry itself so that the myriad of female voices is heard.

Articles on WomenGamers.Com solely reflect the experiences and perspectives of the author(s). Feel free to agree or disagree in the accompanying forum thread.