; Victron

_ gamers already know they aren’t really

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Luke Simcoe
arts@theotherpress.ca

 

 

More women playing video games: study

By Marri Knadle, The Martlet (University of Victoria)

    

(CUP)—Female

an anomaly, but now the Electronic

 

Software Association has completed a
study that confirms it.

Females make up 38 per cent of
gamers, according to the study. Perhaps
more surprising is the statistic that
women aged 18 and older are a greater

portion of the game-
playing demographic
(31 per cent) than the
poster child of video
games, boys aged 17
and younger (20 per
cent).

Developers

have certainly
done something
right recently
to get women’s

attention, because the
Electronic Software
Association’s
statistics revealed
that females play an
- average of two more
hours per week than
they did only a year
ago. Men and women
are about equal in terms of average
weekly play: 7.4 hours per week for
women, and 7.6 hours per week for
men.

It’s long been suggested that women
play differently than men, and enjoy
different aspects of games than men.
Social aspects and the ability to customize
games are generally selling points to the

female market. On massively multiplayer
online (MMO) games, which offer a
high degree of character customization
and plenty of social opportunities, for
example, the male and female population
is closer to equilibrium at 58 per cent
men to 42 per cent women.

But the female market is diverse.
There are women who enjoy light, casual
gaming, both in terms of the games
they play and the hours they’re willing
to spend to advance in a game. Lighter
games such as The Sims and puzzle
games for the Nintendo DS cater to that
niche market. The Nintendo Wii has been
applauded not only for getting women
more involved in video games but also
for increasing the pool of gamers. The
Wii’s titles appeal to those outside of the
hardcore basement nerd coterie.

Although the stereotype of women
disliking or being unskilled at video
games is becoming tired within gaming
circles, there is still evidence that women
gamers are viewed as an anomaly. The
publicity received by The Cavegirls (an
all-girls Halo 3 group) and Assassin’
Creed producer Jade Raymond, to name
but two examples, reflects a persistent
sentiment of amazement that beauty

and social skills (or at least two X-
chromosomes) are compatible with a
gaming lifestyle.

There’s still something wrong when
announcing your gender on an online
game will provoke insults, come-ons, or
floods of chivalric offers of help. Male
gamers are taken for granted because it’s
taken as the model on which the gaming
industry was built. Men on games meet
with indifference, and many female
gamers express frustration that it isn’t
the case for them, too.

There’s still work to be done in
integrating those preferences into titles
in a way that makes them an enjoyable
experience for both genders. It’s
encouraging to see the percentage of
women in the gaming population has
increased, and it’s also encouraging to
see game developers are catching on to
what aspects of games women enjoy.

But only when the need for such

‘studies “asthe *Blectronic Software

Association’s disappears will the girl
gamer be able to come into her own—no >
longer a side-show, but a mainstream
game-lover alongside the boys.

 

 

DISNEY
PIRATES OF THE
CARIBBEAN ONLINE

Gambling, boozing, thievery, black
magic, cop killing, skeletons having
sex with one another—how this game
managed to get a rating of ages 10 and
up (compared to World of Warcraft
being rated Teen) is a testament to the
power of the Walt Disney Corporation.
Similar to World of Warcraft, this is
an online game where you can interact
with players from around the globe in a
virtual world. The game is completely
free to play, though paying players get
to unlock more features and don’t have
to watch any ads. Captaining your own
pirate ship, which only takes about an
hour of playing to access, is definitely
the best part of the game. You can sail all
around the Caribbean, form crews with
other players, and plunder other vessels.
Captain Jack Sparrow would be proud.

- Mark Fisher

16

    

HERCULES & LOVE
AFFAIR (S/T)

Essentially the brainchild of Brooklyn
DJ Andy Butler, Hercules & Love Affair
is being heralded as one of the most
intriguing voices in American dance
music since LCD Soundsystem’s James
Murphy (surprise, surprise, the group is
on Murphy’s DFA label). Anyway, for a
band whose sound is so steeped in the
disco era, Hercules & Love Affair sound
like they owe a bigger debt to heroin than
cocaine. There’s some pretty cool beats
here—Butler has cooked up a unique mix
of new school disco and Coco Cabana
percussion—but the vocals (much of
which are handled by Antony Hegarty
of Antony & the Johnsons) are boring
and lethargic. Hegarty and a couple of
female compatriots generally quiver,
tremble, and yawn their way through
their respective verses and choruses, and
it makes it difficult to imagine anyone on
the dance floor shaking their fists—let
alone their hips—to the music.

- Luke Simcoe

BE YOUR OWN PET
GET AWKWARD

Be Your Own Pet has emerged from
the hype machine as a talented group of
twenty-somethings singing songs about
sex, drugs and rock n’ roll, and fronted by
the always sassy, but no longer jailbait,
Jemina Pearl. Anyway, Get Awkward
is the band’s second LP, and despite its
title, it would seem as if BYOP is finally
over their “awkward” stage. The record
is a far slicker, more polished take on
the group’s riot girl/punk rawk stylings,
and Ms. Pearl’s voice has matured into
a potent weapon; she can coo, snarl,
scream and sing with the best of them.
Anyway, if you pick this record up and
notice that it seems a few songs short, be
alarmed. North American distribution of
the album is being handled by Universal,
and they deemed three songs—“Becky,”
“Black Hole,” and “Blow Yr Mind”=-—
-too violent because of lyrics like “me
and her/we’ll kick you ass/and wait
with knives after class.” Curiously,
other notable Universal artists include
Eminem, 50 Cent, and Rob Zombie.

- Luke Simcoe

  

KATHERINE BARBER
ONLY IN CANADA,
YOU SAY

Do you know what a bunnyhug is?
Do you know how to use a French
safe properly? How about the origin
of Nanaimo Bars (I’ll give you a hint:
they’re not from Vancouver Island)?
The answers to these questions, and
many more, are all contained in Only in
Canada, You Say, a playful compendium
of Canadian English compiled by the
lady behind our country’s version of the
Oxford dictionary. It’s an eye-opening
read for anyone who thinks our language
eccentricities end at “eh?” and it’s a must
for anyone who wants to know how to
spend their pogey on the right kind of
dutchie for the whoop-up.

-Luke Simcoe