Gamer girls

lostforever

SasqWatch
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I was born in late 70s and I didn't know a single girl/woman of my generation who were into PC/console games. Actually I don't know any girl/woman of any generation in real life who actually has passion for games. My wife played WoW and enjoyed it but if you ask her to list top 50 things in her life and I am pretty sure games won't come in at all. For me it will be in top 10.

Why am I posting this? I was in a retail shop called GAME (only chain in UK which specialise in selling games) over the weekend and I saw a father and daughter (aged about 10 or 12 years) old buying the new xbox one console with Gears of War game. I saw the joy and excitement in that little girl's eyes. It was real passion and she seems to know lot of Gears of War and she couldn't stop talking about it to her father at all! She reminded me of myself when my dad took me to buy SNES back in the day! Its safe to say that I have met the first real life gamer girl. I am now looking forward to the day I will take my own daughter (1 year old now) to a game shop and buying her a console for the first time and seeing her reaction! I hope she grow up to enjoying computer games like I did.

I looked around the shop and I saw quite number of teenage girls buying console games. Playing computer games weren't cool during my teenage years even for guys, we were called nerds and geeks. This is one of the main reason why girls didn't play and the "popular/pretty" ones didn't even want to associate themselves with guys who did. The teenage girls I saw over the weekend were pretty (if you are FBI, I say that in very platonic manner) so it look like times have really changed now and its cools for both guys and girls to play computer games these day!
 
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Well there's definitely more now than there used to be. However my first intro to the NES was a girl in 3rd grade.

My 3 daughters, ages 4 to 10 are obsessed with Minecraft. We've had some great gamer bonding moments with them. My youngest is experienced enough now to keep up with everyone and build her own buildings. The older 2 have recently discovered Torchlight and Stardew Valley, and can kick my ass at Mario Kart.
 
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I might be old, but I've never been that old, mentally speaking, lol, to think that girls are not potential gamers, though I do agree that in the early days of gaming it was certainly a male dominated hobby and games were considered toys for boys, from a dedication perspective, and I don't recall any girls talking about any latest games. If I went into GAME and saw the same thing you did I wouldn't bat an eyelid though as the existence of gamergirls has long since been a life norm. I can see how it might bring up a sense of nostalgia of yourself at that age, but I don't see why it would move you to make a thread, per-se. Yes, gaming is a 'legit' hobby nowadays, but then it has been for about a decade now?

Edit@Caddy, yes, the SNES was already quite universal in its appeal, another of the many reasons it flew off the shelves.
 
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When I was younger the girls would game just as often as the guys. They did seem to get bored with it quicker though, but that might have been because the guys weren't very good at sharing.:biggrin:

As for now Just about every girl/woman I know games but almost exclusively mobile games. 1 plays console very rarely and I don't know a single female pc gamer personally.:-/
 
Sorry guys but I knew and still know loadsa Sims obsessed females.

Beside them I know plenty of facebook cow clickers female addicts. Oh sorry, I ment to say, I knew. I cut every ties with those as soon as I can.

I never knew a single female who wanted or has a gameboy, boystation or xboy.
 
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I have several Playstations, an old warship grey Gameboy and two XBoxes (although those two, to be fair, do in fact belong to hubby).

More later.
 
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I played muds in the early/mid 90's which (at least at the start was exclusively college/grads (as oppose to the general population); and believe me you never knew which chick was backstabbing you because there was more than one.
 
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My current gf doesn't care about rpg's, MMO and the like, but is complete nut about Mortal Kombat and any fighting game.
Turns into totally different person while playing it… I think video games do something to woman brain. :p
 
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I know there are lot girl console players these days but I personally never met one, all gamer girls I know are exclusively PC players. Most of them are MMO players all nearly all of them love Mass effect. Mass effect and Dragon age are very popular with ladies, at least sample size that I know.
 
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My wife games all the time. She plays on laptop-casino games/facebook and also on the kindle and her android phone. I think the kindle wins for most time. She is 52, so maybe not a gamer "girl".
 
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My parents had an Atari around the time I was born, so that got *me* started. I got an NES as a little girl, and then a PC when I was about 10, and went from there. :)

It was all too fun to care whether it was "cool" or not.
 
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I find it especially cute that my son of 12 is totally into Team Fortress 2 (the castrated version) and asks me to tell the same old wartime stories of my QW Team Fortress exploits over and over again.

He's also playing Final Fantasy X (the HD version) ... a game I played 14 years ago. I still remember enough to serve as his living walkthrough, though.

And, well, 'twas I who introduced him to Minecraft.

We are both gaming junkies, I'm afraid ... no matter if PC, console or mobile, cRPG, shooter, farming or strategy. He prefers PvP over PvE, he's not that much into fighting games, but other than that he's just as addicted to gaming.
Hubby, on the other hand, plays the occasional FIFA or racing game nowadays, but generally speaking his gaming days are over.

And, well ... should I feel honored that my son named the pathogen he created in Plague, Inc. 'My Momma'? As in ... "'My Momma' infected 98% of Canada."
 
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My daughter (age 4) recently confessed to me that she thought Xbox was only for boys until she saw my sister playing it. Now she plays minecraft on it every single day. Now what am I supposed to game on? :p

It's taken over my daughters' lives, but they play it on xbox 360, ps3, their schoolwork laptops, iPads and iPhones. So at least one device SHOULD be free, should we need it :lol:
Now that I write this they sound spoiled, which isn't the case (maybe a little) but we are a gamer family and we regulate it well. My wife (x-wife? separated so... s-wife?) was always a big PC and NES gamer as a kid and has a big collection of DosBox nostalgia on her PC (Dune 2, Rise of the Dragon, and pretty much all the Maxis games are on there right now), as well as a big Mario fan (she could probably do speedruns on youtube). She also played a lot of Halo and CoD and Wow. The most recent laptop she bought a couple years back was specifically for Diablo 3. But now she just plays the Sims sometimes, not much spare time these days.
 
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My wife (x-wife? separated so… s-wife?) was always a big PC and NES gamer as a kid and has a big collection of DosBox nostalgia on her PC (Dune 2, Rise of the Dragon, and pretty much all the Maxis games are on there right now)

I feel this, definitely.
 
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I was born in the early 70s and when I was a kid the games weren't "just for boys" or "just for girls". We had the Atari games - space invaders, breakout, pong. Then Game and Watch handhelds, Pac Man and Donkey Kong. My brothers and I played them together, as did my friends and cousins. Maybe "games for boys" became a thing when they invented shooters?
 
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Violent games are automatically assumed to be a boy thing. You might have a point.
 
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It's taken over my daughters' lives, but they play it on xbox 360, ps3, their schoolwork laptops, iPads and iPhones. So at least one device SHOULD be free, should we need it :lol:
Now that I write this they sound spoiled, which isn't the case (maybe a little) but we are a gamer family and we regulate it well. My wife (x-wife? separated so… s-wife?) was always a big PC and NES gamer as a kid and has a big collection of DosBox nostalgia on her PC (Dune 2, Rise of the Dragon, and pretty much all the Maxis games are on there right now), as well as a big Mario fan (she could probably do speedruns on youtube). She also played a lot of Halo and CoD and Wow. The most recent laptop she bought a couple years back was specifically for Diablo 3. But now she just plays the Sims sometimes, not much spare time these days.

My daughter also has minecraft on her own personal iPad. So I know what you mean about sounding spoiled. If I didn't know anything about my daughter I'd say having an iPad alone qualifies as spoiled. But she is actually very well behaved, which is why we feel comfortable indulging her.

A few months ago she really wanted to wear a Princess Anna (from Frozen) costume to the restaurant for dinner. And she was watching youtube videos on her iPad while we waited. I couldn't help but hear some people nearby talking about how spoiled she is. But, whatever. She's a good kid.
 
Joined
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Pearl Harbor, HI
The women under thirty that I've been out with have all been interested in games. Generally, they've preferred console gaming, I suspect simply because most people can't be bothered with the expense and added hassle of PC gaming.

I went out with one woman who was the most polite and civilised person you could imagine, but when she was frustrated by tough moments at the controls, she would run her mouth in a way that would make a sailor blush. It was hilarious.

Also, I do agree that Bioware games have been a favourite.
 
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@Korplem - Meh, don't listen to them, both my boys have an "i" device. Every single other kid at school has one too.

My friend's girls both love Minecraft too apparently. Gaming is far more 'mainstream' now. It used to be a nerd/geek hobby but with a generation of people growing up with easy to use consoles and now ubiquitous touch screens just about everyone games, at least to some degree. Except my wife, she's a bit of a Luddite when it comes to digital gaming unfortunately.
 
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