Why are males better at competitive gaming?

[Rigamarole]

I've been gaming a long time. I'm glad that the numbers of female gamers have been steadily increasing over the years, but one thing that the female gamers I know seem to be almost categorically bad at is PvP/competitive style games. One theory I have is that maybe males have just grown up playing these kinds of games way more often, so of course we're going to be better at them than someone who is a much more casual gamer, male or female.

But then, when I played WoW, I knew a lot of female players who played just as much as me - i.e., all the friggin' time, so they were hardly "casual" players. Yet almost all of them sucked at PvP, with a few rare exceptions. Same thing with FPSes. Yes, there are definitely a few females who can hold their own in a Halo match full of General-ranked players but they are exceedingly rare.

So do males tend to have faster reaction times on average, or are we just more competitively driven, or what?

[Covered_In_Bees!]

You're a guy? Woah.

I think it's the latter part of your last sentence. Whenever I talk to a girl that's into any nonathletic competitive stuff, her bigger answer is still usually the social aspect of the game and not the "I must win!" factor.

EDIT: I used to know a girl that was in the competitive Soul Calibur and Tekken scene and would challenge guys and beat them as her very nerdy method of flirting and striking up conversation. With me, I had to break the ice and strike up conversation because she could never really get the better of me. ;)

[Rigamarole]

You're a guy? Woah.

Yeah - you were under the impression otherwise? I'm curious as to where you got that idea. :p

[Snarky_Kong]

Testosterone treatment for trans people can/will decrease reaction time. I'm not sure how this relates to genders as a whole.

[tr0psn4j]

Yeah - you were under the impression otherwise? I'm curious as to where you got that idea. :p

From your feminine physique obviously! ;)

I just assumed it was because there weren't as many girls playing video games. You might be on to something about the competitiveness though. All the females I've ever played with always seem to have fun playing, no matter how well or poorly they do. Some guys, on the other hand, can get pretty pissed off when they're doing bad.

[Rigamarole]

I just assumed it was because there weren't as many girls playing video games. You might be on to something about the competitiveness though. All the females I've ever played with always seem to have fun playing, no matter how well or poorly they do. Some guys, on the other hand, can get pretty pissed off when they're doing bad.

Heh, that's always my retort to people who say "I just play for fun". I play for fun too - but to me, winning is fun. Ergo, I play to win.

[Shalmanese]

Males are better at competitive everything. Even in sports which are 90% female and don't rely on brute strength or skill like equestrian, men are still better.

[Geek Mecha]

I liked PvP, just in a different way.

I played WoW for 4 years and my absolute favorite thing to do was shred the healing leaderboard in battlegrounds. I was very competitive-- I constantly checked it and I'd get pissed if a druid or shaman got close and would do everything I could to put distance between us. Pop trinkets, tweak my gear, heal trees and passing wildlife in AV, whatever.

I played DPS classes in battlegrounds too, and I didn't care so much about killing other players or my overall DPS. I preferred to be the sneaky rogue taking the mines, or the distraction so that others could take the flag in WSG. It was group PvP, sure, but it was always about me versus the other guy in that moment. Didn't care so much about the overall team objective, though I did try to make my efforts beneficial to our side.

[Fake Tales of San Francisco]

Hmm, I don't know. Of all the games I've played, none of them have had any obvious way to find out for certain what the gender of my opponent is. Of those that extensively use microphones, I rarely actually hear female voices. On the odd occasion that I do, they are harassed constantly by the male gamers.

The world of the LAN party is a whole different ball game. I've met and played against some really skilled female Tekken players and back when we'd play UT, I'd often find female gamers who are quite skilled.

Though the top calibre of game players I've met are exclusively male, so who knows.

[Least Original User Name Ever]

I don't think there are, necessarily. I'd venture to say that there are more females playing video games on a competitive scale, but I've got nothing at all to back it up.

Women DO have to go through a special kind of hell with regards to video gaming. If the other team finds out you're female, there's usually heck to pay. Heck, I tell ya.

[fluiddruid]

So do males tend to have faster reaction times on average, or are we just more competitively driven, or what?I could see this being the case if women were just being out-competed at the top level, but that's not so. Certain kinds of games are male-dominated in general, so there's clearly not as much interest from women.

There is a certain amount of confirmation bias, though. There's already a stigma against women playing FPS-type games (even video games in general), I've found. And it's not the most welcoming environment, either. I tend to leave my mic off when playing most games since I don't find it adds to the experience. I loves me some Team Fortress 2, and have played countless hours -- but I don't really talk, and my screenname isn't exactly oozing femininity.

[msmith537]

Wait, you know girls who actually play videogames?

[RickJay]

Wait, you know girls who actually play videogames?
Hot ones, too. Seriously. They just don't want to be swamped by hordes of nerds, so you have to know how to signal to them that it's safe to admit their love of gaming.

I'm being a hundred percent serious.

[AClockworkMelon]

Confirmation bias mixed with there being more male gamers than females.

If you were to set some arbitrary skill bar I think the same percentage of male and female gamers would reach that bar. There would be more individuals on the male side, of course, because there are more male gamers to begin with. The percentage would be the same, though, I think.

[Rigamarole]

Confirmation bias mixed with there being more male gamers than females.

If you were to set some arbitrary skill bar I think the same percentage of male and female gamers would reach that bar. There would be more individuals on the male side, of course, because there are more male gamers to begin with. The percentage would be the same, though, I think.

Nah, I don't buy it.

[AClockworkMelon]

Nah, I don't buy it.:rolleyes:

[Rigamarole]

:rolleyes:

You're rolling your eyes at me for being skeptical at your rather bold claim? The reason I can't buy it is because while the gender gap is fairly large in say, FPS games, it's not that large for WoW (there are a ton of female players on there). Yet they still virtually all sucked at high-end arena PvP.

[AClockworkMelon]

You're rolling your eyes at me for being skeptical at your rather bold claim? The reason I can't buy it is because while the gender gap is fairly large in say, FPS games, it's not that large for WoW (there are a ton of female players on there). Yet they still virtually all sucked at high-end arena PvP.I'd say that it's because many of those male players are "hardcore" gamers while fewer of the female players are. And among the hardcore gamers I think the percentages of skilled players are the same among both genders.

I beat the crap out of most of my female friends at video games. But most of them don't play regularly or even have a system at their house. Nearly all of my male friends do.

[Freudian Slit]

Maybe lack of interest? I'm a hugely competitive person about games, but I hate video games. When it comes to online, Scrabble, though I must win at all costs!

[Rigamarole]

I'd say that it's because many of those male players are "hardcore" gamers while fewer of the female players are. And among the hardcore gamers I think the percentages of skilled players are the same among both genders.

Did you read my OP? I knew a lot of females who played WoW constantly but were still bad at PvP, although I'm willing to acknowledge that if you break it down into "male vs. female players" and then "male 'hardcore' players vs. female 'hardcore' players" you are going to get an even bigger gap.

But I still don't accept the fact that the percentages of skilled players are the same. It's just not true. I don't have hard data to back it up (but neither do you), but my experience encompasses a pretty damn large sample size. And if you want to say "but how do you know the genders of people playing?" well - when you play all day every day you get to know the people you are playing with. You talk about the key players on not just your server but in your battlegroup (servers you compete with), you talk to them on the forums, and you learn things about these people. Most people have mics, and if they don't, their genders still become known at some point. And among our battlegroup there was exactly one female player who was competitive in the upper echelon of the arena circuit (and she happened to be my 2v2 partner. A little Asian chick who was an awesome druid), despite the countless female players who just couldn't hack it.

[AClockworkMelon]

Did you read my OP? I knew a lot of females who played WoW constantly but were still bad at PvP, although I'm willing to acknowledge that if you break it down into "male vs. female players" and then "male 'hardcore' players vs. female 'hardcore' players" you are going to get an even bigger gap.I don't play WoW at all, so I have no insight here. The competitive games I play are mostly FPSs.

But I still don't accept the fact that the percentages of skilled players are the same. It's just not true. I don't have hard data to back it up (but neither do you), but my experience encompasses a pretty damn large sample size. And if you want to say "but how do you know the genders of people playing?" well - when you play all day every day you get to know the people you are playing with. You talk about the key players on not just your server but in your battlegroup (servers you compete with), you talk to them on the forums, and you learn things about these people. Most people have mics, and if they don't, their genders still become known at some point. And among our battlegroup there was exactly one female player who was competitive in the upper echelon of the arena circuit (and she happened to be my 2v2 partner. A little Asian chick who was an awesome druid), despite the countless female players who just couldn't hack it.When I used to play Halo online, whenever I heard a chick on the mic, it was typically moments before I had an energy sword stuck up my ass. No, I don't suck at games. Maybe the only chicks who were willing to wade into the hell that is Xbox LIVE were the ones who were good enough to kick ass? I don't know. But I certainly saw more competitive play from females than you seem to be seeing.

Maybe it's the difference between FPSs and MMOs. You could argue that MMOs require more intelligence and obviously men have the advantage there. ;)

[AClockworkMelon]

But basically what I'm saying is, if you were to poll everyone who plays WoW, a much higher number of the male players would also play other games while a significant number of the female players weren't really gamers and were into a more relaxed experience. An ex of mine used to be addicted to WoW- again, I've never played it, but I'm pretty sure maxing out a character's level in a week is good and apparently she did that with a bunch of characters for her guild or whatever. But she sucked at PvP and sucked at most other competitive games. What other games did she play? Surprise surprise. Turn based RPGs.

[fluiddruid]

You're rolling your eyes at me for being skeptical at your rather bold claim? The reason I can't buy it is because while the gender gap is fairly large in say, FPS games, it's not that large for WoW (there are a ton of female players on there). Yet they still virtually all sucked at high-end arena PvP.Virtually all WoW players in general suck at high-end arena PvP. I've played a lot of WoW too, and got into raiding. I generally didn't PvP because it just wasn't as good as cooperative play, in my opinion - after many a try, let me tell you. Very very few WoW players are high level PvPers; should it really be surprising that even fewer of them are women? There are lots of women who play WoW, but it's still nowhere near 50%, especially with hardcore players.

Besides, if reaction time was the issue, how would women be present in raid guilds? Reflexes are an issue in difficult raids.

You seem to be making some really sweeping judgements about women based on your personal experience with WoW PvP. Let me tell you, as a female who plays lots of competitive games, the biggest boundaries to women being interested are social, not physical. I've never had a hard time competing with male players who put in similar time investitures, and I don't know any women who have.

You could just as soon make the assumption that women who play games just do it to care for other people and nurture them because you see a lot of women playing priests and druids, or that men are naturally sneaky and devious because you see that most rogues are men. But it's ignoring the social elements involved.

Anyway, if you doubt my reflexes, come play TF2 with me sometime. I won't say I'm top-tier competition ready, but good enough to hold my own with most classes. (I favor Engineers, Pyros, Snipers, Soldiers, and Medics, and am less skilled at Demomen, Scouts, and Spies; what does that mean about female gamers? Nothing!)

[Rigamarole]

Just to clarify: I play a lot of FPSes and other competitive games as well. It's just that I mentioned WoW because of the relatively high number of female players there, but you make a valid point about how they're attracted to it without necessarily being into other games (like FPSes). Also the community aspect I mentioned meant I was more sure of the genders of people I played against.

In Halo, I still feel like every time I hear a girl with a mic and look at the scoreboard at the end she ends up being terrible - but who knows how many play that don't have mics? I still have my doubts about your claim, but without some sort of scientific study (and I really doubt there is one) I guess we're not going to be able to settle this point.

And fluid, I don't play TF2 but if you play Halo at all I'd love to play you. Or AClockwork, since you did mention Halo. :)

[Palooka]

Males are better at competitive everything. Even in sports which are 90% female and don't rely on brute strength or skill like equestrian, men are still better.Whatever the reason for this is, is your answer.

[Least Original User Name Ever]

Just to clarify: I play a lot of FPSes and other competitive games as well. It's just that I mentioned WoW because of the relatively high number of female players there, but you make a valid point about how they're attracted to it without necessarily being into other games (like FPSes). Also the community aspect I mentioned meant I was more sure of the genders of people I played against.

In Halo, I still feel like every time I hear a girl with a mic and look at the scoreboard at the end she ends up being terrible - but who knows how many play that don't have mics? I still have my doubts about your claim, but without some sort of scientific study (and I really doubt there is one) I guess we're not going to be able to settle this point.

And fluid, I don't play TF2 but if you play Halo at all I'd love to play you. Or AClockwork, since you did mention Halo. :)


Oh? Are you guys on Live anymore? If so, it's time to get your beating. (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=471159&highlight=sdmb+gamertag)

[AClockworkMelon]

In Halo, I still feel like every time I hear a girl with a mic and look at the scoreboard at the end she ends up being terrible - but who knows how many play that don't have mics? I still have my doubts about your claim, but without some sort of scientific study (and I really doubt there is one) I guess we're not going to be able to settle this point.Nothing is stopping you or us from doing a study. Sure, it won't be the most professional and it won't be recognized anywhere but it might settle the issue for us. Make a new thread and come up with some sort of testing criteria.

[AClockworkMelon]

As for you guys who are on Live- I don't have an Xbox anymore, unfortunately. And I won't until I get money. But feel free to add me as a friend: AClockworkMelon.

[Rigamarole]

Oh? Are you guys on Live anymore? If so, it's time to get your beating. (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=471159&highlight=sdmb+gamertag)

Haha, you know what? I friended "aaa SDMB" a while ago but forgot about it and didn't actually check the list. Which one are you? I'm online now as GloriousKZ.

[Least Original User Name Ever]

As for you guys who are on Live- I don't have an Xbox anymore, unfortunately. And I won't until I get money. But feel free to add me as a friend: AClockworkMelon.


Money fail.

[Least Original User Name Ever]

Haha, you know what? I friended "aaa SDMB" a while ago but forgot about it and didn't actually check the list. Which one are you? I'm online now as GloriousKZ.

Phil Addio. I am, however, contemplating changing it back to a derivative of "Dixon Tufar", which it originally was. I've got some brand knowledge to maintain. I've been trying to get my Halo legs back under me in time for the Beta, so if you'll ever have a chance, it's now.

[Covered_In_Bees!]

Anyway, if you doubt my reflexes, come play TF2 with me sometime. I won't say I'm top-tier competition ready, but good enough to hold my own with most classes. (I favor Engineers, Pyros, Snipers, Soldiers, and Medics, and am less skilled at Demomen, Scouts, and Spies; what does that mean about female gamers? Nothing!)

Do you play TF2 on a computer? If so we should get in contact, it's just about the only game I play now-a-days and I suck so badly at it that being in contact with good players won't hurt.

[AClockworkMelon]

Money fail.Yup. Unemployed despite my best efforts.

[Least Original User Name Ever]

Yup. Unemployed despite my best efforts.



Economy-sized fail.

[Nava]

Of all the games I've played, none of them have had any obvious way to find out for certain what the gender of my opponent is. Of those that extensively use microphones, I rarely actually hear female voices. On the odd occasion that I do, they are harassed constantly by the male gamers.


Which is why I never speak on TS: even when they may think it's flirting, or supposed to be flattering, having eight guys go "oooOOOO, speak again, say something!" when I just pointed out a possible tweak to our strategy isn't what I call a desirable result.

[Rigamarole]

Which is why I never speak on TS: even when they may think it's flirting, or supposed to be flattering, having eight guys go "oooOOOO, speak again, say something!" when I just pointed out a possible tweak to our strategy isn't what I call a desirable result.


Meh, I hear females on mics all the time and I've never seen anything like this. I don't doubt it happens but people seem to be exaggerating the degree that it does.

[AClockworkMelon]

Which is why I never speak on TS: even when they may think it's flirting, or supposed to be flattering, having eight guys go "oooOOOO, speak again, say something!" when I just pointed out a possible tweak to our strategy isn't what I call a desirable result.Meh, I hear females on mics all the time and I've never seen anything like this. I don't doubt it happens but people seem to be exaggerating the degree that it does.Yeah, I've never experienced anything that obnoxious, either.

[Nava]

It would have been obnoxious even if it was only one guy (it wasn't), simply because it meant they hadn't listened to a word I'd said.

[AClockworkMelon]

I'm sure it happened to you and that's unfortunate, but I've never personally seen something like that happen.

When a girl's on the mic guys tend to make shameless sexual innuendo before killing her and teabagging her. When a guy's on the mic they call him a fag before killing him and teabagging him. When it comes to discussing strategy within a team I've never heard anyone harassed like that one way or the other.

[Rigamarole]

I'm sure it happened to you and that's unfortunate, but I've never personally seen something like that happen.

When a girl's on the mic guys tend to make shameless sexual innuendo before killing her and teabagging her. When a guy's on the mic they call him a fag before killing him and teabagging him. When it comes to discussing strategy within a team I've never heard anyone harassed like that one way or the other.

Yeah guys, especially gamers (since there are a lot of younger men who game), are just crude to everyone. You shouldn't let one bad experience scare you from ever using a mic again.

[Nava]

Have you read to the end?

This was on guild runs. And several of the players would ignore anything that was said by a female player; if a guy said something, they'd listen, but if any of the "girls" did, our words would be ignored in favor of "flirting". It did lead to a guild split, surprise surprise.

[Rigamarole]

You know Nava, you can be an awfully combative person. I'm sure you would have no troubles fitting in if you gave it a fair shot. :p

[AClockworkMelon]

Have you read to the end?
Nope. You're the one telling us the story in bits and pieces.

This was on guild runs. And several of the players would ignore anything that was said by a female player; if a guy said something, they'd listen, but if any of the "girls" did, our words would be ignored in favor of "flirting". It did lead to a guild split, surprise surprise.As I said upthread an ex of mine was really heavy into WoW. She used teamspeak and was apparently a major player in her (large) guild. She never mentioned being treated anything like this. At all. In fact, I know a bunch of female gamers who play WoW and none of them have ever complained about this problem.

You weren't playing in a guild of eight year olds, were you?

[fluiddruid]

Do you play TF2 on a computer? If so we should get in contact, it's just about the only game I play now-a-days and I suck so badly at it that being in contact with good players won't hurt.Yep! I'm fluiddruid on Steam, too; I'm in the SDMB group. I'm currently splitting my time right now between a few games but I generally play a few rounds (at least) of TF2 a day. I'm trying to finish the achievement milestones I need for all the weapons. (I stopped playing for awhile due to LOTRO addiction, so I missed the release of several of the class packs. Finishing up Soldier, and then it's... eugh, Demoman, Scout, and Spy left to go.)

[fluiddruid]

As I said upthread an ex of mine was really heavy into WoW. She used teamspeak and was apparently a major player in her (large) guild. She never mentioned being treated anything like this. At all. In fact, I know a bunch of female gamers who play WoW and none of them have ever complained about this problem.

You weren't playing in a guild of eight year olds, were you?It really, really depends on the group you're with.

The easiest time I had was in a raid guild led by a woman who'd been playing MMOs since Everquest came out. If people had a problem with chicks in leadership, of course, they'd never join or would leave soon. Even then, it seemed to take longer to get the trust of the group than others (a real-life friend and I joined at the same time).

Harassment happens, but usually the behavior is more macho than anything. Playing LOTRO was fun but I wanted to do Minstrel, and unfortunately girl + healer means a lot of guys stepping over each other to be your burly protector. It took a lot of doing to really be taken seriously. I had to request to be an officer, in a guild where officerships were given out like candy (someone I recruited, actually, got the nod first). Nobody really listened until I started writing out some detailed strategies and plans on the forums. The assumption is that girls are there to socialize and follow along, and they're not necessarily bad per se, but not assumed to be leaders. We definitely had quite a few 'giggly girls' who got handouts by basically flirting and charming, but I really hate that, and it perpetuates the stereotype. For what it's worth, it seemed worse in this group because the men were in their 40s and 50s more -- the guys around my own age (late 20s, early 30s) seem to be the best for handling female gamers.

[Covered_In_Bees!]

You don't need to do any of the achievements to get the weapons in TF2.

[Odesio]

It isn't just video games. Chess is a good example of a game where women don't seem to do well when competing with men.

[Musky Moon]

It means nothing, on the larger scale of things, but the top PVP player on my old WOW server was female. I don't know if the public at large knew her sex, but she was our guild leader so we all knew.

Outside of mmorpgs I have noticed a serious gender gap, especially with FPS games.

[Covered_In_Bees!]

We're not just talking about a gender gap. The point is why competitive males are supposedly better at any given activity than competitive females of the same activity.

[Snarky_Kong]

We're not just talking about a gender gap. The point is why competitive males are supposedly better at any given activity than competitive females of the same activity.

Sports: This is obvious.

Video games: I'll make the claim that men naturally have faster reaction speeds.

Chess: No idea.

What else is under discussion?

[AClockworkMelon]

Has anyone ever done a study on reaction times in the genders? I'm surprised there aren't a bunch of ladies in this thread arguing the notion that men have better reflexes.

[aruvqan]

Nope. You're the one telling us the story in bits and pieces.

As I said upthread an ex of mine was really heavy into WoW. She used teamspeak and was apparently a major player in her (large) guild. She never mentioned being treated anything like this. At all. In fact, I know a bunch of female gamers who play WoW and none of them have ever complained about this problem.

You weren't playing in a guild of eight year olds, were you?

Actually it takes totally thrashing the guys repeatedly to be accepted as a female gamer [when they know you are female]

I have a friend that I will not name that uses a device to make herself sound male, and only plays the daintiest looking toons and makes crude jokes about needing the girly butt to watch while running and otherwise acting like a 12 year old guy. Any time she played as a known female, they would ignore every suggestion she made, and they marginalized her toon in raids.

I can play aggressively - I have a fairly macho go-to-hell style of playing because I gave up hard core raiding a few years ago and I pretty much solo. I use my warlock [and now death knight] as a tank and rarely die running quests.

In EVE Online I am a hard core industrialist. There is only one industry skill I dont have [drug manufacturing. I have the book Im too lazy to skill it up] and I am specifically waivered from PVP in my 0.0 alliance because I mine a significant amount of the mins that my alliance uses for ship replacement programs. Right now our area in space is having issues with another alliance trying to push Mostly Harmless out of the spot in the Northern Coalition space we are in. I have specialized implants and training to run mining fleets, and frequently play all 4 of the household accounts as a mining fleet, and can chew through 2 asteroid belts in a day [call it 7 or 8 hours of actual mining.] Why yes, I have no life =) actually no job, but as long as the household stuff gets done, mrAru has no problem with a gamer grrl. One of hte hosuehold accounts is his - he jokes about being kept a as mining slave by his Amarr [a slave holding race in EVE] wife =)

[Nava]

Has anyone ever done a study on reaction times in the genders? I'm surprised there aren't a bunch of ladies in this thread arguing the notion that men have better reflexes.

Why would we? Guys do seem to have better reflexes.

[Rigamarole]

I have a friend that I will not name that uses a device to make herself sound male, and only plays the daintiest looking toons and makes crude jokes about needing the girly butt to watch while running and otherwise acting like a 12 year old guy.

That's just weird.

[BigT]

Why would we? Guys do seem to have better reflexes.

Because every other time I've seen gender differences mentioned on the Dope, someone has come in to argue about it. Someone always has to pop in and point out that it's only generally true.

Incidentally, if this really is an accepted difference between the male and female brain, it could be used as evidence for transgenderism being real. An MTF (whether pre- or post-op) should have lower skills than a cisgendered male and an FTM greate than a cisgenedered female. (I'd understand not quite being the same as the cis version of their gender.)

[BigT]

That's just weird.

I just wonder what she uses to make herself sound male. Merely lowering pitch doesn't work. I've tried it both ways. (making myself sound female, or making a female sound male.)

[aruvqan]

That's just weird.

Why? How would you like to try and game while guys are hitting on you? Not being taken seriously? Ever had some guy running around whispering cybers at you? After so many idiots the ignore function fills up...

Makes perfect sense to me. I don't do it because I know GMs and can get the ban hammer dropped on the jackasses pretty quickly.

[aruvqan]

I just wonder what she uses to make herself sound male. Merely lowering pitch doesn't work. I've tried it both ways. (making myself sound female, or making a female sound male.)

Some program she got, works on teamspeak but not ventrillo. I don't bother, people I game with value me no matter what my gender is.

[Mekhazzio]

That's just weird.No, it's not. Even just playing female characters and not being the sort of raging chauvinist that your average dumbass young male expects from other males has me occasionally assumed to be female, and the behavior of said dumbasses towards me is markedly different when they think that. It happens to me fairly rarely and even then I find it disgusting and tiring. I can not only understand why someone would want to masquerade as male online, I hope it becomes easier to do, as well as the opposite. Outmoded social constructs have little place in the egalitarian online world, and if it keeps my teammates from turning on their mic then it impacts the quality of my gaming too.

As towards the topic, I'm not convinced there's really any strong support to be made either way. The data is pretty lacking. Quite a few tournament events wind up with females in the upper brackets, so the potential is obviously there, and yet there is a very large gap in numbers. While competitive gaming is obviously going to be fairly male-dominated for assorted social reasons, you'd expect that to level off more towards the top end as the weight of numbers becomes less relevant in comparison to personal ability.

Using something like WoW to make the case is a weak argument, though. It seems like a clear choice since it's up there as one of the most gender-balanced major games, but WoW is aimed primarily at a casual market. By far the very large bulk of its huge player base is terrible at the game - that's the whole point of a casual game, it's easy to pick up. Only very, very tiny portions of it can be considered competitive, and in both the arena tournaments and the races to world-first raiding goals, females are not hard to find.

[Rigamarole]

No, it's not. Even just playing female characters and not being the sort of raging chauvinist that your average dumbass young male expects from other males has me occasionally assumed to be female, and the behavior of said dumbasses towards me is markedly different when they think that.

Bullshit. I've played plenty of female characters and never had a problem. The occasional idiot who tries to hit on me without knowing my RL gender is easily told off.

It's fucking weird when you feel like you have to hide who you really are though because you don't have the balls to stand up for yourself (uh, metaphorically of course).

[Beware of Doug]

Males are better at competitive everything. Even in sports which are 90% female and don't rely on brute strength or skill like equestrian, men are still better.We have to be. You don't compete, you soon find yourself not much of a man.

[Gukumatz]

FWIW, in my experience, competetive women don't go into video games. I had a long chat with an old friend of mine who's majorly into football and kick-boxing and her opinion was that if she needed that competetive thrill, she'd get far more bang for her buck in real-life events. She played games - like the SIMS and some strategy games - to let herself relax.

Also, considering the social stigma around video games, it's mostly been my experience that women who game are the ones who didn't find any interest in competetive activities when they were young. (My girlfriend says that she started playing video games because they had such low treshholds for performance and competition. Interestingly, she played CS - 1.6 and Source - for a while and says she was put off not by the competetive spirit, but by the grave, almost morose, seriousness her male clanmembers treated it with. She also says "Hi!")

If I was to generalize my perception into one big, sweeping rule, it's not that women are worse at competetive activities, but that women are less competetive full stop.

[AClockworkMelon]

I don't think there's a social stigma surrounding video games anymore. Nearly every male my age that I know, whether they're a nerd or not, plays video games.

Edit: In fact, I can't think of one I know who doesn't.

[Palooka]

That's because you're ignoring the difference between these two statements:

"I play Rockband with my buddies every other weekend."

"I don't have the APM to break above C+ on ICCUP."

[BigT]

Bullshit. I've played plenty of female characters and never had a problem. The occasional idiot who tries to hit on me without knowing my RL gender is easily told off.

It's fucking weird when you feel like you have to hide who you really are though because you don't have the balls to stand up for yourself (uh, metaphorically of course).

And it's precisely that having to tell them off that makes the game less fun for female gamers.

And just because your experience differs does not give you the right to impugn the character of those who report problems.

In fact, your attitude is precisely the problem. The idea that it's okay to rag on people because they should have the guts to rag back--that's the behavior of a bully. And a game full of bullies is definitely not fun.

[AClockworkMelon]

And it's precisely that having to tell them off that makes the game less fun for female gamers.

And just because your experience differs does not give you the right to impugn the character of those who report problems.

In fact, your attitude is precisely the problem. The idea that it's okay to rag on people because they should have the guts to rag back--that's the behavior of a bully. And a game full of bullies is definitely not fun.Can I teabag his corpse now?

[Hoopy Frood]

Hot ones, too. Seriously.

I've been dating one for 3.5 years now.

(On an a side-note, she also does tabletop and live-action RPG's (and LARPs frequently have a competitive aspect to them). And she's a comic geek.)

[Airk]

Did you read my OP? I knew a lot of females who played WoW constantly but were still bad at PvP, although I'm willing to acknowledge that if you break it down into "male vs. female players" and then "male 'hardcore' players vs. female 'hardcore' players" you are going to get an even bigger gap.

This is a stupid baseline though, because spending a billion hours playing PvP WoW has exactly zero benefit to learning how to PvP well. You might as well say "I know tons of girls who played through the StarCraft single player campaign 140 times, but they all suck at multiplayer." No freakin' kidding? They might as well be different games.

[Least Original User Name Ever]

This is a stupid baseline though, because spending a billion hours playing PvP WoW has exactly zero benefit to learning how to PvP well. You might as well say "I know tons of girls who played through the StarCraft single player campaign 140 times, but they all suck at multiplayer." No freakin' kidding? They might as well be different games.


Told.

[Rigamarole]

In fact, your attitude is precisely the problem. The idea that it's okay to rag on people because they should have the guts to rag back--that's the behavior of a bully. And a game full of bullies is definitely not fun.

Where did I say it's OK to rag on people? It's just that it is what it is, and either you can handle yourself or you can't. If you can't, and then you proceed to find bizarre coping mechanisms in the realm of intentional deception, it's a little weird. That's all I'm saying.

[Rigamarole]

This is a stupid baseline though, because spending a billion hours playing PvP WoW has exactly zero benefit to learning how to PvP well. You might as well say "I know tons of girls who played through the StarCraft single player campaign 140 times, but they all suck at multiplayer." No freakin' kidding? They might as well be different games.

I assume you mean in your first sentence "PvE WoW"? And that would be a fair enough point - but the thing is a lot of people who say they don't even like PvP end up spending a lot of time doing it for the gear, so it's not like they're not trying to PvP at all. They're just not any good at it.

[Tom Scud]

While competitive gaming is obviously going to be fairly male-dominated for assorted social reasons, you'd expect that to level off more towards the top end as the weight of numbers becomes less relevant in comparison to personal ability.


I actually don't think that's right - (alert: former liberal arts major talking out his ass) - if you assume talent is normally distributed, wouldn't the thin end of the tail where the ultra-competitive hang out be a lot further out for the (much) larger population of male competitive gamers?

Another way of looking at it - if you assume 90% of players are crap compared to the 10% who aren't; and that in that population there are 90% who are crap compared to the top 10%, and so on, then if you started with 100 times as many competitive male as female gamers, you'd expect there to be 10 male gamers who are better than any female gamer just by the weight of numbers.

[Airk]

I assume you mean in your first sentence "PvE WoW"? And that would be a fair enough point - but the thing is a lot of people who say they don't even like PvP end up spending a lot of time doing it for the gear, so it's not like they're not trying to PvP at all. They're just not any good at it.

Whoops, yes, thank you. Typoes that completely change the meaning of a sentance: Story at 11.

Anyway, I submit that people are unlikely to get good at something that they don't enjoy.

[Hoopy Frood]

Never mind. Airk confirmed what he meant so my post doesn't matter. (Should preview.)

[Mekhazzio]

I actually don't think that's right - (alert: former liberal arts major talking out his ass) - if you assume talent is normally distributed, wouldn't the thin end of the tail where the ultra-competitive hang out be a lot further out for the (much) larger population of male competitive gamers?That's just it though, I don't think it would necessarily be a normal distribution on the female side. I figure that a female who's that good at games would be far more likely to be playing them than those on the bell and thus would be overrepresented at the top end. The ability lends encouragement to jump the gender gap, so to speak. But yeah, armchair social psych with no data is about as useful as witnessing :D

[Maggie the Ocelot]

*wave*

Another female gamer piping in. I don't play any PvP video games, at all. Not even Mario Party. And I do think that it has a lot to do with the way I was socialized, as a female in American society.

The way I see it, if I play a PvP game, there are two options: 1) They win 2) I win. If they win, I get upset and feel bad about myself because I have attempted victory and failed at it. If *I* win, on the other hand? I feel bad because I have (in my mind at least) made *them* feel bad because *they* have attempted victory and failed at it.

So really, there's no way to win, when I'm competing against someone else. I'm going to wind up feeling bad either way. The only way to win is not to play.

Now, a lot of this may be attributed to an ex of mine, who while a pretty upright guy in most respects, was both a horrible winner (would crow about any victory of his for hours) and a horrible loser (when I won, he'd pout about it for hours). But ***CAUTION! GENERALIZATIONS COMING UP!! *** I think that it's just an extreme case of a pretty uncontroversial statement about the way girls are socialized in this culture - we are taught to think of other people first, to think about their feelings first at the expense of our own, and so on. This is (I think) to help girls grow up to be better mothers, because when you're a mom you *have* to put the child's needs above your own, especially during the infant years but to at least some degree up until adulthood.

Empathy and competition are pretty oppositional. Boys are taught from childhood to compete, often at the expense of learning empathy; girls are taught empathy, so many of us never learn the "hard edge" of competition.

Anyway, that's MHO.

[Rigamarole]

Makes sense Oni. It's kinda nice not having to worry about the feelings of others. Glad I was born male. :D

In fact maybe I'm a sadist, but I usually take pleasure from the fact that I've made some trash-talking redneck kid feel bad by whipping his ass in a game (not that this is everyone who plays games, but there are far more than enough of them to go around). I feel like a hero for making things just a little more right in the universe.

[AClockworkMelon]

Makes sense Oni. It's kinda nice not having to worry about the feelings of others. Glad I was born male. :D

In fact maybe I'm a sadist, but I usually take pleasure from the fact that I've made some trash-talking redneck kid feel bad by whipping his ass in a game (not that this is everyone who plays games, but there are far more than enough of them to go around). I feel like a hero for making things just a little more right in the universe.I'm a douchebag when I'm in compete mode online. I know the feeling you're talking about, Riggy. It's Heaven on Earth.

[Infovore]

Another female gamer checking in.

I am *highly* competitive, but only in the areas that I consider important. I will work hard to better myself, practice my skills, and generally won't go up against others "in the wild" until I'm reasonably sure I can hold my own.

That said, I despise PvP. Right now, I'm terrible at it, but I'm sure I could be good if I put my mind to it. I choose not to, because in WoW, PvP tends to be dominated by the young male "trash talking" mentality that I find absolutely tiresome. PvE is where I'm at. I'm in one of the top progression raiding guilds on our server, and it's very important to me that my DPS be competitive (I'm a mage). If it's not, I get mad at myself, and try to figure out what I can change to make it that way. The other mage in the guild and I (he's male) have a friendly rivalry going, and are constantly trying to outdo each other.

I have never encountered any of the anti-female gamer thing that others have talked about. I'm sure it exists--I think it might be my personality and the way I present myself that discourages it. Online, I'm a guy. I play male characters, I express myself in a very "male" way (not crude at all--simply direct, without a lot of extraneous socialization). I tend not to reveal my gender until I get to know my guildmates--my previous guild was floored to discover I was female when I finally talked on Vent after about a year (I never said I was male--I just didn't say at all. Since my character is male, they just assumed.)

My current guild is great--it's primarily a gay guild, which means the guys are too busy flirting with each other to bother me, and it's very refreshing. I can be friends with them without having to worry that they're reading too much into what I'm saying.

But getting back to the original topic--yeah, I'm competitive and proud of it. I don't care about making the other person feel bad, if I've won fair and square. I like to win. But PvP holds no interest for me at all.

[AClockworkMelon]

Another female gamer checking in.

I am *highly* competitive ... I despise PvP. ... I'm terrible at itTheory confirmed!

[Least Original User Name Ever]

I'm a douchebag when I'm in compete mode online. I know the feeling you're talking about, Riggy. It's Heaven on Earth.

I completely agree.

[Infovore]

Theory confirmed!

Yes, but I'm only terrible at it because I've never given it any attention. I'm generally good at video games, and I have very good reaction time. So I don't think it's fair to use me to confirm your view the women are bad at PvP until you've given me a chance to actually see if I still suck at it when I care to be good. :)

[rogerbox]

I don't play WoW or any MMOs, because I only play videogames for the competition, which is how I derive enjoyment from games-I almost NEVER play 1 player videogames.

I enter fighting game tournaments weekly, and play a wide variety of fighting games. It takes either an obscene natural talent, or obscene amounts of practice/research/hardwork or both to reach the top levels of the fighting game community.

Even among the huge amount of males (I know maybe...2-3 females that enter fighting game tournaments), there are definitely attitude differences that seperate the winners from the losers. Winners tend to want to win harder than the losers, IMO. It's very rare in my opinion to find girls that have the competitive mindset, of wanting to be better than others at something, instead of just deriving enjoyment from the activity itself.

You can find fighting games fun as hell, but unless you are trying to be better than the pack, you probably won't be. Whether it is nature or nurture that girls tend to not compete as seriously as men I don't know. But men in general tend to be more obsessive anyways, and obsession is part of being good.

[Airk]

I'm a douchebag when I'm in compete mode online. I know the feeling you're talking about, Riggy. It's Heaven on Earth.

Basically, it's people like you (and Riggy) who are the reason many people -don't- like the experience. The absence of anything that really resembles sportsmanship in PvP gaming is, frankly, disgusting to me.

How do you differentiate someone who is "just" a "douchebag in compete mode" from "some trash-talking redneck kid"? By the way they sound over the headset? You're the very type of person you feel deserves to get your ass kicked by you.

I dunno. If professional sports teams and players who get paid huge amounts of money can do this without insulting their opponents' mothers, why the heck can't you guys manage it?

[Palooka]

The vast majority of competitive gamers are extremely polite, friendly, and sportsmanlike.

Douchebags are douchebags, and terrible.

To add a bit more, in order to be at the top, you need to interact with and learn from others in the community. If you're a raging anti-social douche, that isn't going to happen.

[AClockworkMelon]

Basically, it's people like you (and Riggy) who are the reason many people -don't- like the experience. The absence of anything that really resembles sportsmanship in PvP gaming is, frankly, disgusting to me.

How do you differentiate someone who is "just" a "douchebag in compete mode" from "some trash-talking redneck kid"? By the way they sound over the headset? You're the very type of person you feel deserves to get your ass kicked by you.

I dunno. If professional sports teams and players who get paid huge amounts of money can do this without insulting their opponents' mothers, why the heck can't you guys manage it?I teabag and insult the trash-talkers I kill. Riggy described the glorious feeling of killing obnoxious snots online. I said that I know the feeling and it is Heaven on Earth.

[Enright3]

From your feminine physique obviously! ;)

I just assumed it was because there weren't as many girls playing video games. You might be on to something about the competitiveness though. All the females I've ever played with always seem to have fun playing, no matter how well or poorly they do. Some guys, on the other hand, can get pretty pissed off when they're doing bad.

This would have been my guess too. For sake of this conversation let's say that males & female ratio is 50/50. What would you guess the ratio of male/female game players are? 80/20 at best? I'd speculate it's really more like 95/5 or even more than that.

[Rigamarole]

Basically, it's people like you (and Riggy) who are the reason many people -don't- like the experience. The absence of anything that really resembles sportsmanship in PvP gaming is, frankly, disgusting to me.

How do you differentiate someone who is "just" a "douchebag in compete mode" from "some trash-talking redneck kid"? By the way they sound over the headset? You're the very type of person you feel deserves to get your ass kicked by you.

I dunno. If professional sports teams and players who get paid huge amounts of money can do this without insulting their opponents' mothers, why the heck can't you guys manage it?

Wow, you really read a lot into that comment. I say I take pleasure from killing trash-talkers and from that you attribute to me "the abscence of anything that really resembles sportsmanship in PvP gaming", the responsibility for many people not enjoying it, and decide that I must insult my opponents' mothers, all from that? Really? Bravo.

You have a gift for spinning a tale, I'll give you that. But frankly that's slanderous and insulting.

[AClockworkMelon]

Wow, you really read a lot into that comment. I say I take pleasure from killing trash-talkers and from that you attribute to me "the abscence of anything that really resembles sportsmanship in PvP gaming", the responsibility for many people not enjoying it, and decide that I must insult my opponents' mothers, all from that? Really? Bravo.

You have a gift for spinning a tale, I'll give you that. But frankly that's slanderous and insulting.Now teabag him!

[Evil Economist]

Not sure if the original topic is still being discussed, but males have significantly faster reaction times than females. Cite (http://biology.clemson.edu/bpc/bp/Lab/110/reaction.htm):

in almost every age group, males have faster reaction times than females, and female disadvantage is not reduced by practice (Noble et al., 1964; Welford, 1980; Adam et al., 1999; Dane and Erzurumlugoglu, 2003; Der and Deary, 2006). The last study is remarkable because it included over 7400 subjects. Bellis (1933) reported that mean time to press a key in response to a light was 220 msec for males and 260 msec for females; for sound the difference was 190 msec (males) to 200 msec (females). In comparison, Engel (1972) reported a reaction time to sound of 227 msec (male) to 242 msec (female).

[AClockworkMelon]

Not sure if the original topic is still being discussed, but males have significantly faster reaction times than females. Cite (http://biology.clemson.edu/bpc/bp/Lab/110/reaction.htm):

in almost every age group, males have faster reaction times than females, and female disadvantage is not reduced by practice (Noble et al., 1964; Welford, 1980; Adam et al., 1999; Dane and Erzurumlugoglu, 2003; Der and Deary, 2006). The last study is remarkable because it included over 7400 subjects. Bellis (1933) reported that mean time to press a key in response to a light was 220 msec for males and 260 msec for females; for sound the difference was 190 msec (males) to 200 msec (females). In comparison, Engel (1972) reported a reaction time to sound of 227 msec (male) to 242 msec (female).Thanks for this.

Evidence of male superiority. ;)

[fluiddruid]

This would have been my guess too. For sake of this conversation let's say that males & female ratio is 50/50. What would you guess the ratio of male/female game players are? 80/20 at best? I'd speculate it's really more like 95/5 or even more than that."Game players" is a huge spectrum, though. I'd say it's more like 60/40 if you include all video games, because of things like casual gaming or The Sims. In WoW, female players are becoming a lot more common - I was stunned, stunned, to find out that my sister's friends play (with their boyfriends).

But in the PvP world, or even the FPS world, I'd say 95/5 (or higher) is about right. Of course it's hard to say, but I just don't know a lot of women who play these sorts of games (or aspects of games). Maybe that'll change as more and more women take up video games as an interest. Even I, the relentless gaming addict, pretty much only play a very small number; pretty much the only examples that I enjoyed were TF2, Counter-Strike, and monster play in LOTRO. I have absolutely zero interest in playing Halo with frat boys, using a mic or not.

[Palooka]

I've never seen a group as shunned as the Halo players at the last WCG event I was at. Everyone hates those guys and with good reason.

[Least Original User Name Ever]

I've never seen a group as shunned as the Halo players at the last WCG event I was at. Everyone hates those guys and with good reason.

Yeah, we're pretty sweet.


I don't know if the WCG folks were the top peeps. That's the MLG crowd.

[Palooka]

Yeah, at least some of the problem is that WCG is a PC event with these console games creeping in and there is probably a bit of resentment that Halo is getting so much thrown behind it in the face of better competition games.

[olivesmarch4th]

I find this thread fascinating, because it addresses a major hangup I have in gaming. I have yet to join WoW or any other MMO despite my absolute love of RPGs due to the fact that too many of those players are jerks. I'm not a trash-talking kind of person, I don't like rude people in general. And I certainly don't want to deal with rudeness when I'm first learning how to play a game. If I'm good at something, I can get into the spirit of competitiveness, but I need someone to cut me a break long enough to learn how to get good.

And that alludes to a major factor in why I believe women may not be as good as men at this kind of thing... pure experience. Growing up, I had the original NES in my life for all of two years (lost it in Mom's divorce) and then we had a Sega Genesis, and that is the sum total of my gaming experience prior to college. It wasn't until I had regular, sustained contact with male gaming peers that I began to really get into gaming, and it wasn't until I bought my husband a PS2 that I discovered Champions of Norrath and the world of RPGs.

I finally got my first gaming computer last year (at age 26!) and my own game system (Nintendo Wii.) And what am I doing with all my new toys?

Catching the fuck up with the boys.

I am currently playing the face-rocking Super Mario Bros. RPG for SNES Virtual Console. That's going to be followed by all the other good Virtual games, Final Fantasy I and II and the Zelda Series, at least. But I'm not doing it for a trip down memory lane. I'm going to be playing this classic shit for the first time.

Why? Because I'm a girl. And no matter how many hours I pour into gaming, I'm never going to make up for not being a serious gamer during the first 22 years of my life. My husband can pick up any controller and any game and figure out how to play it within about 30 seconds. It takes me a long time to get the hang of it, and then, woe be unto me if I don't pick it up for two weeks or two months, because I'm going to have to learn the controls all over again.

To use a metaphor, gaming is my husband's native language, whereas I am just a student. I might be fluent in RPG, but I'm never going to think in gaming.

PvP is just an example of this phenemonon, but I do believe it permeates the gaming world. A bored housewife might become a bad-ass Guild Leader, but she lacks the cultural background necessary for her skills to apply broadly to all areas of gaming.

Obviously I am speaking very generally here. But my overall inexperience is a major handicap when entering the competitive gaming world, enough to put me off of it. Once I get my computer fixed I am going to pull out the ol' Orange Box and try my very first FPS. If I like that, and if I'm good at it, I might join the club.

[Least Original User Name Ever]

Yeah, at least some of the problem is that WCG is a PC event with these console games creeping in and there is probably a bit of resentment that Halo is getting so much thrown behind it in the face of better competition games.

Ride the wave of the future, brah.

[Rigamarole]

Once I get my computer fixed I am going to pull out the ol' Orange Box and try my very first FPS. If I like that, and if I'm good at it, I might join the club.

It's getting a little aged (originally released late 2001), but Return to Castle Wolfenstein is a fun FPS if you're just getting into them. I don't know how many people still play on its multiplayer servers (or if they're even still up), but I used to play that one all the time.

[peekercpa]

i think that males are typically better at this kind of stuff because the females are out earning, cooking, cleaning, taking care of the kids and generally making sure that their male companion can sit around on his ass and do derelict stuff all day.

just my two cents.

[AClockworkMelon]

i think that males are typically better at this kind of stuff because the females are out earning, cooking, cleaning, taking care of the kids and generally making sure that their male companion can sit around on his ass and do derelict stuff all day.

just my two cents.Yeah, all those females sitting around on their asses and sinking hours into WoW are too busy earning, cooking, cleaning, taking care of the kids and generally making sure that their male companions can sit around on their asses to be good at PvP!

[peekercpa]

Yeah, all those females sitting around on their asses and sinking hours into WoW are too busy earning, cooking, cleaning, taking care of the kids and generally making sure that their male companions can sit around on their asses to be good at PvP!

first i have no clue what PvP means. i was merely trying to convey that in my household i will go screw around on the computer and stuff after work while my wife seems to be more focused on other stuff. and even when i tell her take a night off she seems to be more interested in rearanging the closet cabinet than in engaging in some sort of computer fantasy.

[MichaelEmouse]

Hot ones, too. Seriously. They just don't want to be swamped by hordes of nerds, so you have to know how to signal to them that it's safe to admit their love of gaming.

I'm being a hundred percent serious.



How do you signal that to them?




As for the thread:
Seems the main reason more men than women are found at the top of competitive entreprises is because, whether you're talking about sports, videogames, chess or business, if you want to be at the top of anything very competitive, you need a mix of wanting to be top dog and having something to prove while being willing to sacrifice other parts of your life to dedicate yourself to a single project. An obsession with increasing performance also helps. Men are much more likely to have those traits.

There are some areas that require those traits where women can be at the top. E.g.: Some musical instruments are now perceived as girly (flute) while others are still acceptable to men (piano). You could find a good portion of women at the top for flute but not for piano.

[AClockworkMelon]

first i have no clue what PvP means. i was merely trying to convey that in my household i will go screw around on the computer and stuff after work while my wife seems to be more focused on other stuff. and even when i tell her take a night off she seems to be more interested in rearanging the closet cabinet than in engaging in some sort of computer fantasy.Seeing as you no nothing about gaming, you might not belong in this thread.

[Sitnam]

Women aren't as good at competitive gaming because they don't care. There is something inherently male about wanting to be better than anyone else at something even if it's insignificant. Look at your local bars trivia night, you will never see woman as proud of knowing more useless shit as men.

[RandMcnally]

From what my biology teacher told me in 10th grade: men do not have as many connectors between the left and right hemispheres of the brain, women have more, that's why they are better able to focus on multiple things at once.

Because men aren't able to focus on multiple things, they're able to focus completely on one thing at a time. That's why the top chef/video game person/whatever are always men.

[marshmallow]

The best girl clan I've ever seen was in CS 1.6 back in '06-'09 -- SK girls. We scrimmed them a couple times, even had a match against them. They were actually decent. Their best player was easily better than the bottom 2-3 people on my team. She had enough reaction time to get flick kills, or insta-hses around a corner. We game planned on not going to the site she guarded, or trying to draw her away with a fake. She also owned my face with an insane shot during a critical pistol round in the match which left quite an impression.

They were also sponsored and girlfriends to a lot of pro-dudes. They were at a cal-im+ / cal-m- level. So not coL material or anything, but surprisingly good for girls. Like, I couldn't expect to win unless I played our best lineup. Otherwise things would be really interesting.

Every other girl gamer I've ever seen in StarCraft, Diablo, CS 1.6 -- pretty meh. But it's still always fun to play with them just for the sheer novelty.

One strange thing though. It may just be luck, but I swear L4D1 and 2 have an insane amount of girl gamers compared to any other game I've ever played. They're very common just in random pubbing. On the one hand it's one of the more violent games around. On the other it's centered around cooperation and teamwork more than almost any other FPS. That just plays into the stereotype too much for me. I try not to accept that. But damn if not every other 10 pubs there's a girl on our team.

But yeah, the entire true competitive thing is very male. Take CS 1.6. So you're gonna get 5 girls (plus some backups unless it's like a pro team) who all have good reaction time and movement skills and teamwork and know all the good nades and have tons of experience and they've watched hundreds of hours of demos and they've played for years practicing on like 10 maps? And continue to practice? Good luck with that. You have to be a bunch of hardcore nerd losers like my friends and me to do that. Most nerds in general are guys.

Winning a big CS match, especially if you've practiced the map a lot in preparation, is a huge fucking rush. The euphoria afterwards lasts for at least a day or two. And that's kinda embarrassing to say, but it's true. I don't think most girls can even relate to that.

[Evil Captor]

I play Gor in Second Life (SL Gor) a roleplaying game based on the works of John Norman. It has also sorts of fascinating elements wrt male vs. female game players.

For example, Gor is widely considered to not only have a sizable component of female players, but to have a MAJORITY of female players ... one of the Lindens blogged that the names on credit card applications among those who played Gor was about 60 percent female, 40 percent male. And there are other indications as well.

But the interesting point WRT this thread is, SL Gor is divided into two camps, "By the Book" (BtB) Gor and "Gor Evolved" the difference being that Gor Evolved allows women to be warriors, BtB does not. And the interesting aspect there is, there is a LOT more fighting going on in Gor Evolved, in fact, raiding is RARE in BtB Gor but commonplace in Gor Evolved. And the leaders in Gor Evolved tend to be female, though be best fighters may not be the leaders, as role playing is an important element of the game in both groups. However, there are many "best bows" and "first swords" in Gor Evolved who are female ... for example, the best bow of the group I roleplay with.

So in SL Gor, the women lead in the subgroup that does the most fighting (Gor Evolved). Interestingly, Gor Evolved, by anecdotal evidence only, but pretty strong anecdotal evidence, has more male players than BtB Gor, and it's widely agreed that that is because there is so much more actual fighting in Gor Evolved. Yes, even in a game replete with naked sex slaves who are PROBABLY being played by women, men would rather be fighting!

In any event, SL Gor is clearly filled with highly combative women who like to fight and also like to roleplay, but since most of them are culled from the subset of people who like BDSM, I am not sure if this is indicative of anything about gamers in general. Just thought I'd throw it out there.

[even sven]

I think experience should not be discounted.

Young males generally grow up in a video-game heavy culture. Their parents are probably more likely to see game consoles as a necessity. Their peers are more likely to be interested in sitting around for hours playing games. Most young men have grown up with video games as a primary social activity, which is not generally the same for young women. Even if hours logged on WoW are similar, I bet the male players generally have a vastly higher lifetime total, and a lot more when they are younger and building up basic skills.

[Infovore]

Women aren't as good at competitive gaming because they don't care. There is something inherently male about wanting to be better than anyone else at something even if it's insignificant. Look at your local bars trivia night, you will never see woman as proud of knowing more useless shit as men.

Heh. Now this is an area where, if I liked to go to bars, I'd probably excel (I've always been tops in trivia, ever since I was a kid). I sometimes regret that I don't like to drink or go to bars, because I think I'd enjoy the trivia scene immensely (and especially pwning guys!) :) The only thing I'm typical to my sex about is that I know next to no sports trivia. If it's hockey I *might* get it--if it's anything else, no way.

[BlinkingDuck]

I could see this being the case if women were just being out-competed at the top level, but that's not so. Certain kinds of games are male-dominated in general, so there's clearly not as much interest from women.

There is a certain amount of confirmation bias, though. There's already a stigma against women playing FPS-type games (even video games in general), I've found. And it's not the most welcoming environment, either. I tend to leave my mic off when playing most games since I don't find it adds to the experience. I loves me some Team Fortress 2, and have played countless hours -- but I don't really talk, and my screenname isn't exactly oozing femininity.

Try Battleground Europe. While male dominated we have our share of females. One was even OIC! One leads a major Allied squad.

[BlinkingDuck]

I have to call some bollocks about females here...

On games like WOW then many females will be attracted to the social element. However, A game like Battleground Europe...while still male dominated...have some tough females.

One was Allied OIC for a campaign. One was once Axis OIC.

A female (Quizno) leads a major Allied squad called the Dogs :)

There is an Axis sniper type...who I didn't know was female for a long time. She was one tough cookie with very high kill/death ratios. I once hunted her for an extended period finding her favorite killing spots and learned much from hunting her.

We had a DEAF female bomber pilot...who was PHENOMINAL. She could nail anything on the ground...it was erie.

[Zeriel]

In my experience with gamer women, it's the "killer instinct" that seems to be the difference (this hearkens back to some of the discussions earlier). I play both WoW (raiding DPS Shaman) and EVE Online (hardcore pirate/war pvper) and the majority of female gamers I know tend to fall into the WoW PvE camp--many are at the top of their game, and none of them are the slightest bit interested in PvP because they don't care. Most of the males, on the other hand, PvP at least part of the time "to have some real competition" or "to see how good I really am".

In EVE, all bets are off--both of the women I know who play it are atypically combative and have that edge to them (and it's not a negative observation, I married one of 'em :D), and both PvP pretty much in proportion to their relative aggressiveness--my wife ONLY PvPs, she won't do PvE or industrial stuff, and my other friend will do both as her fancy is struck.

Of console gamer females I know, none do any kind of competitive gaming except very indirectly--even the one who is driven to unlock everything in games she plays, write authoritative GameFaqs stuff, and posts YouTube vids of completing things, etc. will not play competitively. She's also fairly unaggressive in other aspects of her life.

So I would argue that in my experience, the primary differentiator seems to be aggregate tendency toward aggression/"killer instinct", since that seems to be the primary driver among people I know as to who's a competitive gamer and who's not, male or female.

So from my observations,

[Dave Hartwick]

I was thinking Scrabble would be a game women dominate because in my experience, they do. I know a few female players who play often-- my mom enjoys it enough to own computer versions and special dictionaries. My wife plays online with friends. I don't know any men who play, or at least none who told me.

But when I googled "world scrabble championship" I found a Wiki article listing the champs and as far as I can tell, they're almost all men.

I used to play trivia a lot online, and while there were many good female players (one was awesome with American sports trivia in particular), the top ones were male-- again, as far as I could tell. There was some gender misrepresentation going on. When one pretty-good player turned out to be a guy, a friend of mine said she should've known, because he rocked at some browser game where you threw cows or something.

[olivesmarch4th]

I think experience should not be discounted.

Young males generally grow up in a video-game heavy culture. Their parents are probably more likely to see game consoles as a necessity. Their peers are more likely to be interested in sitting around for hours playing games. Most young men have grown up with video games as a primary social activity, which is not generally the same for young women. Even if hours logged on WoW are similar, I bet the male players generally have a vastly higher lifetime total, and a lot more when they are younger and building up basic skills.
I was discussing this with my husband last night. He is absolutely convinced there is a window of opportunity during the brain's development for acquiring video game skills, and that women more often than men miss this window as children, thus creating a real disadvantage for us when we do enter the world of serious gamers.

What I want to know for the men vs. women reaction-time study LOUNE posted is whether it controlled for childhood experience with reaction-time tasks. You can't just attribute a disparity to biological difference without taking factors like childhood development into consideration.

[aruvqan]

In EVE, all bets are off--both of the women I know who play it are atypically combative and have that edge to them (and it's not a negative observation, I married one of 'em :D), and both PvP pretty much in proportion to their relative aggressiveness--my wife ONLY PvPs, she won't do PvE or industrial stuff, and my other friend will do both as her fancy is struck.



I am her reverse, I only PVP when I am caught in lowsec or 0.0 and have no option. I actually fly an amazingly tanky hulk - I can sit in 0.0 and let a pair of vice admirals in the ore belt pound on my hulk until someone wanders past ratting. If I catch the admirals at the begining of getting to the belt and my hulk is empty Ill kick my drones out to kill them. It takes them a while [I usually pack hammer 2s, though I really love ogre 2s.]

I just spent 6 hours today on sisi [test server] playing with the new planetary mining toys, making screen caps of the different screens to make a corp tutorial for when it goes live. Ill go back periodically until it actually goes live to see what changes are made so I can tweak the instructions.

[Sitnam]

Heh. Now this is an area where, if I liked to go to bars, I'd probably excel (I've always been tops in trivia, ever since I was a kid). I sometimes regret that I don't like to drink or go to bars, because I think I'd enjoy the trivia scene immensely (and especially pwning guys!) :) The only thing I'm typical to my sex about is that I know next to no sports trivia. If it's hockey I *might* get it--if it's anything else, no way.
Yeah, we play in groups and sports are a total blind spot for me also. History, geography, political science and a massive assortment of odds and ends are my contribution. We do alright. The guys used to get alpha male and pipe in with answers they weren't really sure of until we instituted the stamp system. If you're absolutely sure you know the answer against consensus opinion thats ok, but you have to put you initials near it. After it's all over it's incredibly humbling to see you initial next to wrong answers.

[Snarky_Kong]

What I want to know for the men vs. women reaction-time study LOUNE posted is whether it controlled for childhood experience with reaction-time tasks. You can't just attribute a disparity to biological difference without taking factors like childhood development into consideration.

I was watching some documentary about a trans person (female to male). His reaction speed was drastically higher after he started taking hormones. Anecdote, not data and all that.

[lizardling]

AClockworkMelon (at least I think it was you), while I'm a female WoW gamer, I'm somewhat different from winterhawk.

I'm a PVE raider (hunter), yes, but I also PVP. So does my GL (enh shaman), who's also female. Hell, she got me into PVP when I was ready to climb the walls after a raid one night, which was all it took.

Personally, I fell in love with PVP because it lets me really stretch my skills, and I can see the improvement in my PVE performance too as a result. My hunter has a decent set of Furious/Wrathful Glad gear, and runs a tweaked BM PVP spec with a corehound for extra dps/cc. And while downing a raid boss is great, there is a special joy in killing someone who thinks that because I'm a hunter I'm going to be an easy kill, oh yes.

[Zeriel]

I am her reverse, I only PVP when I am caught in lowsec or 0.0 and have no option. I actually fly an amazingly tanky hulk - I can sit in 0.0 and let a pair of vice admirals in the ore belt pound on my hulk until someone wanders past ratting. If I catch the admirals at the begining of getting to the belt and my hulk is empty Ill kick my drones out to kill them. It takes them a while [I usually pack hammer 2s, though I really love ogre 2s.]

I just spent 6 hours today on sisi [test server] playing with the new planetary mining toys, making screen caps of the different screens to make a corp tutorial for when it goes live. Ill go back periodically until it actually goes live to see what changes are made so I can tweak the instructions.

Heh, if you're recruiting, I have a nearly all Vs/IVs Hulk/Orca/Obelisk pilot who's currently wasting time mining 0.5s for lack of top cover (and money to tank a hulk "correctly" after buying and fitting the Orca to run mining gangs that died when the economy did and 90% of my little indy corp quit the game.)

[Martini Enfield]

first i have no clue what PvP means. i was merely trying to convey that in my household i will go screw around on the computer and stuff after work while my wife seems to be more focused on other stuff. and even when i tell her take a night off she seems to be more interested in rearanging the closet cabinet than in engaging in some sort of computer fantasy.

Does you computer also lack a Shift key? :p PvP is "Player Versus Player", in case you were wondering.

Personally, I think that a lot of the "Women Aren't As Good At Games" thing is a 70/30 mixture of "Most women aren't hardwired to want to blow stuff up and take over the world" and "Society says women shouldn't be wanting to blow stuff up and taking over the world in the first place".

Besides The Sims, most of the "Girly" games I've seen tend to either be of the "Care for cute animals" variety, Sudoku puzzles, or things like Bejewelled and Diner Dash (both of which are more properly termed "Casual" games, but most of the people I see playing them are women).

[aruvqan]

Heh, if you're recruiting, I have a nearly all Vs/IVs Hulk/Orca/Obelisk pilot who's currently wasting time mining 0.5s for lack of top cover (and money to tank a hulk "correctly" after buying and fitting the Orca to run mining gangs that died when the economy did and 90% of my little indy corp quit the game.)

I am not personally recruiting, but I will mine with you and introduce you to the powers that be in my corp, and if you are a fit we can see how it shakes out =)

I won't lie, right now there is a war raging in our 0.0 system which is why I am currently mining in hi sec for our ship replacement program [so pretty much everything i mine goes to the alliance instead of me selling it for obscene profit]

I am pretty much always in "Bam's Spot", in game I go by Aruvqan just like here =)

And Babydoll's fit is:
whichever miners you want, i use it both ore and ice in low sec, screw the mack it isnt tanky enough.

1 caldari navy heat dissipation amplifier
1 caldari navy kinetic deflection amplifier
1 gistii b-type small shield booster
1 invulnerability field 2

2 expanded cargohold 2

1 medium capacitor control circuit 1
1 medium cargohold optimization 1

drones - i hate mining drones and tend to run hammerhead 2s

[fluiddruid]

You know, a lot of the arguments in this thread are a bit disturbing. The same sort of sweeping "logic" could just as easily apply to questions like "Why are women unsuccessful at business?" or "Why don't women make good scientists?"

Women have competitive urges. Guys have cooperative urges. Guys can play Sudoku and Bejeweled; girls can play WoW and FPS games.

I'm a female; I like competitive gameplay with cooperative elements (e.g. TF2, L4D, Counter-Strike, etc.). The person I game with most likes competitive gameplay with cooperative elements, too. Guess what? He's male.

I think a lot of you folks are making some pretty broad assumptions about women and their innate motivations. Culturally, there has been a divide between women and men when it comes to gaming; can't we accept this is more likely than 'women just don't like to compete'-type arguments?

Take a step back from video games and look at other gaming behaviors. Can you say that women in general are not competitive with, say, cards or board games? I haven't found that to be the case, and I've played games with a lot of people. For people equally familiar and skilled with the game, there's not a huge aggression/competition gap.

[Zeriel]

Take a step back from video games and look at other gaming behaviors. Can you say that women in general are not competitive with, say, cards or board games? I haven't found that to be the case, and I've played games with a lot of people. For people equally familiar and skilled with the game, there's not a huge aggression/competition gap.

What might help with this is a demographic study of younger vs. older gamers, as younger cohorts are more likely to have less cultural conditioning away from girls-playing-video-games.

Also, my experience is pretty much opposite of yours--males are FAR more competitive, in general and in my social group, at card and board games as well. The sole exception, so far that I've found, is cooperative/competitive mergers--so much so that, as an example, my brother's wife and her cousins will only play Scattergories or other trivia games with us if they can play on teams (and this is despite the fact that sis-in-law is a doctor and has more education than he and I put together, so it's not a "ability balancing" thing)--it's no fun for any of them unless they have teammates. It could easily still be differential socialization, but that just changes the OP statement to "why are males better at competitive gaming in this culture?"

[Least Original User Name Ever]

You know, a lot of the arguments in this thread are a bit disturbing. The same sort of sweeping "logic" could just as easily apply to questions like "Why are women unsuccessful at business?" or "Why don't women make good scientists?"

Women have competitive urges. Guys have cooperative urges. Guys can play Sudoku and Bejeweled; girls can play WoW and FPS games.

I'm a female; I like competitive gameplay with cooperative elements (e.g. TF2, L4D, Counter-Strike, etc.). The person I game with most likes competitive gameplay with cooperative elements, too. Guess what? He's male.

I think a lot of you folks are making some pretty broad assumptions about women and their innate motivations. Culturally, there has been a divide between women and men when it comes to gaming; can't we accept this is more likely than 'women just don't like to compete'-type arguments?

Take a step back from video games and look at other gaming behaviors. Can you say that women in general are not competitive with, say, cards or board games? I haven't found that to be the case, and I've played games with a lot of people. For people equally familiar and skilled with the game, there's not a huge aggression/competition gap.

Yep. It smells a lot like anecdotal data in here. Whoever quoted Sturgeon's Law might be onto something, with the male population being that much bigger than the female one.

[aruvqan]

I won't lie, right now there is a war raging in our 0.0 system which is why I am currently mining in hi sec for our ship replacement program [so pretty much everything i mine goes to the alliance instead of me selling it for obscene profit]


This (http://www.eveonline.com/mb/news.asp?nid=3859) is more or less the current situation in our system.

The rough totals for a 300+ ship fleet were 11 titans, 10 supercaps, 40 dreads, assorted carriers, a bunch of BS and assorted tackler frigates, stealthies, Em, reppers and whatever the cat drug in that would fly and could have weapons duct taped on.

I have been working on the test server again sussing out the planetary harvesting. Made up a 26 piccy slideshow of what I have so far =)

[Martini Enfield]

Women have competitive urges. Guys have cooperative urges. Guys can play Sudoku and Bejeweled; girls can play WoW and FPS games.

They can but they generally don't. Yes, there are lots of guys who play Sudoku, but in my years of experience selling electronic Sudoku puzzles to people, over 95% of the people purchasing them are female. Similarly, all those "Take 5" and "Real Life" magazines which have Sudoku puzzles in them are aimed at... women. Everyone knows there are lots of women playing WoW, but I'm not aware of many playing Fallout 3 or Empire: Total War.

Take a step back from video games and look at other gaming behaviors. Can you say that women in general are not competitive with, say, cards or board games?

(Italics mine) Yes, you can in my experience.

[fluiddruid]

(Italics mine) Yes, you can in my experience.I guess I can't jibe with this at all. In my experience, women can be extremely competitive when it comes to games. Maybe it's a generational thing.

[Covered_In_Bees!]

That isn't the issue though, not if we want to stick with the OP. The issue is not "why aren't females more into competitive video games." it's "why aren't the females that are into competitive video games as good as males."

A slight but important difference.

[Critical1]

http://www.amazon.com/No-Contest-Case-Against-Competition/dp/0395631254

I know its not a gaming answer, but this book goes into huge detail about competition on many levels and has hundreds if not thousands of studies to back it up.

it hasnt made me want to stop ganking Fools online but it does go a long way towards explaining the way a lot of people feel about competition in general.

[Dave Hartwick]

I guess I can't jibe with this at all. In my experience, women can be extremely competitive when it comes to games. Maybe it's a generational thing.

It's my experience as well. However, when I looked up the top players for a game that was IME dominated by women (Scrabble), the champs were overwhelmingly male. I'm guessing that with other games listed in this thread that supposedly are mostly played by women, such as Bejeweled, Sudoku, that if there's an online list somewhere with official champs, these champs will mostly be male.

I think the question could be rephrased: "Why are the members of a subset of human males willing to spend time on meaningless accomplishments derived from games?" Good question for the guys who wrote Freakonomics.

[Ellis Dee]

Women have competitive urges. Guys have cooperative urges.This implies a false equivalence. Women do have competitive urges. Guys have more competitive urges. To me the reason is painfully obvious: competitive urges are driven by testosterone. Women have testosterone, but men have more. Same thing with sex drive. Many women like to claim that women have the same sex drive as men, but they just don't; sex drive is driven by testosterone.

For people equally familiar and skilled with the game, there's not a huge aggression/competition gap.Really? If people take issue with my opinion that competitiveness is driven by testosterone, surely we can all agree that aggression is driven by testosterone. And again, men have more. I'm frankly stunned that you think the sexes are equal in terms of aggression.

[Quartz]

Males are better at competitive everything. Even in sports which are 90% female and don't rely on brute strength or skill like equestrian, men are still better.

Hmmm... women came third and fourth at the Badminton Horse Trials. They also seem to compete on even terms in carriage driving.