Do Girls Play Elite?

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Old Duck

Old Duck
A couple of quick disclaimers:

  • I'm happily married, so I'm not looking for a "space date".
  • I'm disgusted by how women were treated during gamergate. I personally welcome women into the gaming community, even when you kick my stern in PvP :)
  • I don't judge men who play female characters. My main in ESO is a female character.

Why do I ask? I'm just curious. A universe with no women would indeed be dead and boring. I've seen some female avatars in the forum, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. I have a couple of female friends who love sci fi & astronomy and might enjoy ED (my wife is not one of them), so I would actually be surprised if there were only a handful playing.
 

IndigoWyrd

IndigoWyrd
MMORPG = Mostly Men Online Role-Playing Girls
GIRL = Guy In Real Life

Actually there are a few. I've bumped into, or been bumped into by at least three.

I also tend to have a preference for female characters, especially in 3rd-person games.
Why? Because if I'm going to look at a screen, and there's going to be a bum in my face, I'm much happier when it is a female bum.

And let's face it, in most 3rd person views, where does the camera focus tend to fall?
 
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DocPossible

DocPossible
I know a couple and about quite a few that play FPSes too. I thought the myth of no girls on t'internet died with voice comms, but apparently not :)
 

Dathayn

Dathayn
My wife and i started gaming together way back in eq1 ruins if kunark, so about 16 years or so. She's flown with me in elite, but is more comfortable with a blade in her hand. Deadly assassin type <shiver> lol! She digs it all tho.
 

xondk

X
Old Duck said:
A couple of quick disclaimers:

  • I'm happily married, so I'm not looking for a "space date".
  • I'm disgusted by how women were treated during gamergate. I personally welcome women into the gaming community, even when you kick my stern in PvP :)
  • I don't judge men who play female characters. My main in ESO is a female character.

Why do I ask? I'm just curious. A universe with no women would indeed be dead and boring. I've seen some female avatars in the forum, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. I have a couple of female friends who love sci fi & astronomy and might enjoy ED (my wife is not one of them), so I would actually be surprised if there were only a handful playing.
Click to expand...
Your second point really sums it up nicely.

Yes, girls/women play online games including Elite, but they do not identify themselves, because of how they are generally treated _everywhere_ online reactions are absolutely insane and disgusting, some people make a joke out of it, but it really is disturbing. But yes, they do play.
 
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STARFIRE REVMEUP

STARFIRE REVMEUP
Old Duck said:
A couple of quick disclaimers:

  • I'm happily married, so I'm not looking for a "space date".
  • I'm disgusted by how women were treated during gamergate. I personally welcome women into the gaming community, even when you kick my stern in PvP :)
  • I don't judge men who play female characters. My main in ESO is a female character.

Why do I ask? I'm just curious. A universe with no women would indeed be dead and boring. I've seen some female avatars in the forum, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. I have a couple of female friends who love sci fi & astronomy and might enjoy ED (my wife is not one of them), so I would actually be surprised if there were only a handful playing.
Click to expand...

My wife plays elite with me. She is currently flying a asp explorer. (I play 10x more though, she plays once a week) She also has played many MMORPGs with me, including, Guild wars 2, Dark age of Camelot, Lord of the rings online. Many strategy games, Civ 5, Empire Earth etc

She actually likes Elite, less button mashing.
 

Herbrand

Herbrand
Not sure how many women would be interested in this game. My wife plays videogames, but mostly Chinese JRPGs (CRPGs?).
It's just not a subject that most women find interesting.
 

Siobhan

Siobhan
Old Duck said:
Considering that every single answer to this question thus far has been made by a male, is it really that surprising I asked? [uhh]
Click to expand...

And the reason for that can be found in xondk's post ...

xondk said:
Your second point really sums it up nicely.

Yes, girls/women play online games including Elite, but they do not identify themselves, because of how they are generally treated _everywhere_ online reactions are absolutely insane and disgusting, some people make a joke out of it, but it really is disturbing. But yes, they do play.
Click to expand...

Fly safe Commander.
 

Alex Brentnall

Alex Brentnall
Naming no names or pointing fingers:

I know quite a few from the Fuel Rats. Oddly enough there were at least 3 that I didn't know were female until somebody else referred to them as "her" or "she". irc chat without images and 100+ people means unless you properly analyse each persons manner of writing it's unlikely you'll spot differences beyond: They use a spellchecker, they use slang etc.

Partly I felt that was incredibly sexist of me as it could be construed as me "assuming that everyone is a man". However, looking back I never really made any assumptions, merely never thought about it as their gender didn't affect my interactions with them. Similarly there's one or two people in there that shared they had a form of disability. Again pondered the above and figured it didn't matter. From what I've seen no matter who you are on the Fuel Rats irc you are just like any other person and treated as such which I think is an excellent thing although the whole topic can be such a minefield of not wanting to put words in anyones mouth I'll leave it here and just say whoever you are, whatever your circumstances if you can type, fly in Elite and have some patience then you will be made welcome in the Fuel Rats :)


As for the ratio, yes the ratio is incredibly high. iirc the male/female ratio in the world is about 50/50 but I'd not be at all shocked to learn that Elite was 95/5 or similar. Probably video games as a whole is a 80/20 split, possibly +10% either way I don't really follow. Who knows the true figures but lets say its skewed one way. On the other side there are female dominated activities with similar ratios.

Should we try to even it up? No, we can't force people to do things or set quotas or target advertisements, positive discrimination is still discrimination in my eyes.
Should we try and make anyone welcome and do everything we can to make it an equal place? Of course.


Bear in mind a lot of the above is my opinion, feel free to disagree.
 
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STARFIRE REVMEUP

STARFIRE REVMEUP
Old Duck said:
Considering that every single answer to this question thus far has been made by a male, is it really that surprising I asked? [uhh]
Click to expand...

When i used to play Dark age of Camolot, (DAoC) I had as many as 3 women in our group at times, I know this because we used Ventrillo a lot. Women do tend toward the period games more then space though.
My wife literally gets scared when fueling near stars LOL
 

Old Duck

Old Duck
Herbrand said:
Not sure how many women would be interested in this game. My wife plays videogames, but mostly Chinese JRPGs (CRPGs?).
It's just not a subject that most women find interesting.
Click to expand...

My wife is the same way. I think some have misread my question as extending to ALL games. I'm not naive, LOL. I just haven't seen much evidence in the forums that females play THIS game. I wouldn't have asked the question if not for the overwhelming male presence here.
 

bitstorm

bitstorm
People of all demographics play Elite.

Maybe the game attracts more of a certain "sort", perhaps people of a more sciencey bent I don't know, but yes of course womenz play.

Let's not perpetuate the myth that it is unusual.
 
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CMDR Heisenberg B. Damned

CMDR Heisenberg B. Damned
Yeah there are some - even a UK journalist who's from a BBC tech program (Click) and wrote one of the Elite books, Kate Russell. Although I'm not sure she's posted any YT Elite videos for a while.

And yes I think there are a few on the forum as well.
 
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