Nexus<\/em>).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nBeyea says that there are still troubles at conventions, and a lot of women are afraid to report them. She says she saw it herself when she was doing security at PAX, a convention held in various cities around the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing made me more frustrated, but totally understanding, when, after the convention, you see a post on Reddit or something from a woman who said, \u2018I was at PAX and I got harassed.\u2019 And it makes me want to cry, because my security team, that\u2019s why we were there. Like, come see us, please, we will believe you. This is our job. But I totally understand why these women, and sometimes men, are afraid to report it, and that\u2019s what we need to change. No victim blaming at PAX\u2014if you report it, I\u2019ll believe you. It\u2019s that simple, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
This sense of inclusion that Beyea fights for may explain why women and non-binary folk are more\u2014but not always\u2014prominent in the tabletop or board-games communities. Audrey Greenlees, a student in Camosun\u2019s Comics and Graphic Novels program, has found gamers at conventions to be accepting.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone has always been super happy just to have another person to play with,\u201d says Greenlees. \u201cI\u2019ve never personally perceived it as a gender thing, but I can be a little oblivious to that sometimes. Everyone I\u2019ve ever sat down to play with has always been really accepting, really understanding if I don\u2019t know how to play a game, and helping me figure out the rules. It\u2019s kind of a big thing, because I\u2019m usually very shy with people, but there\u2019s something in conventions that brings out the friendliness in everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
For anyone unfamiliar with tabletop role-playing games (RPGs), game night usually involves a game master (GM) or dungeon master attempting to kill off the players in highly creative and entertaining ways. Death doesn\u2019t come because of a player\u2019s gender or identity; when a player dies, it\u2019s usually because dice rolls failed epically, or because of a player\u2019s stupidity.<\/p>\n
In one of the tabletop games I was in, a player had their plate-clad paladin jump into water to save two other characters\u2014Telkhines\u2014that were born in water. He refused to let go of his shield after he jumped in with it. The Telkhines saved themselves as the GM required the player to make a series of dice rolls to see if he would drown (non-gamers, stay with us here). He almost did\u2014twice\u2014because he was adamant about rescuing his shield.<\/p>\n
Beyea says sharing these types of stories is what makes tabletop so much fun.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you get a good group together,\u201d says Beyea, \u201cthat\u2019s why I love board games and role-playing games. It\u2019s the shared social experience, sitting around a table, or online via hangouts. But I prefer the table\u2014just sharing those kind of stories, I love that. That\u2019s why I get so enthusiastic about my hobby. Find the right group, because it\u2019s amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n
For casual gamers like Greenlees, playing with people online doesn\u2019t have a lot of appeal, but board games do. Greenlees says that when her husband brought home a board game recently, he was worried that she would be upset because he\u2019d been a little frivolous with the budget she sets.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like to be sitting with friends in a room and catching up and laughing,\u201d says Greenlees. \u201cLately I\u2019ve been playing a lot of X-Wing<\/i> Miniatures<\/i>. It\u2019s a tabletop game where you fly ships against an opponent and try and kill them. He thought I would be totally against it, but he didn\u2019t know that I basically watched all of the dogfights on History channel. And so, we proceeded to play five games and I beat him at four of them. It was great.\u201d<\/p>\n
THE POWER OF ANONYMITY<\/strong><\/p>\nAs we\u2019re chatting, second-year Camosun English student Dan Allen-Lompert asks if I\u2019m sure I want to hear the words he uses to describe players online, and he shies away from telling me the most offensive. In terms of harassment, Allen-Lompert says there is a huge difference between video games and tabletop games.<\/p>\n
\u201cVideo gamers are anonymous,\u201d says Allen-Lompert. \u201cThey can troll each other without having to see each others\u2019 faces. Tabletop gamers, it\u2019s a different environment. We\u2019re all together, either being co-operative or competitive, so there\u2019s a different aspect, especially when you\u2019re being co-operative. A friend of mine will say certain things that I won\u2019t say when we\u2019re playing board games, but if we\u2019re playing video games\u2014even to my little lady\u2014I will tell her she\u2019s a bad gamer. I\u2019ll probably use the words \u2018pathetic,\u2019 \u2018stupid.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
I ask Allen-Lompert why he would say things like that. His answer is simple enough: he says it\u2019s because he\u2019s in the mood for games.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not a normal thing, where I just go up to her and go, \u2018You\u2019re pathetic, cook my food, go into the kitchen and make me a sandwich. This is pathetic, you\u2019re pathetic.\u2019 It\u2019s not that,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s just, I\u2019m in the mindset of video games, so it\u2019s win or lose. And if I lose, then everything is pathetic. If I win, she didn\u2019t help, I did all the work. But we still won.\u201d<\/p>\n
Any online player can tell you how much of a pain other players can be. They stand in the fire and expect to live through it, they don\u2019t help at all, or they do something really, really stupid, and everybody dies. When that happens, tempers flare, screaming happens, and someone usually ends up rage-quitting. Lorysa Fernandez, a student in the Comics and Graphic Novels program, says that she has been called some pretty strong words\u2014including \u201cfucking cunt\u201d\u2014and sometimes the other player didn\u2019t even know she was female.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was playing Overwatch<\/i>,\u201d says Fernandez, \u201ca three-on-three elimination, and someone didn\u2019t like my playing style. It\u2019s not like I was sitting back or coasting and letting other people play. I was just playing in a way this person didn\u2019t view as being perfect, and they started typing into the message box, \u2018This person\u2019s trolling us, let\u2019s report them.\u2019 They called me a f-ing c-word. First and foremost, you don\u2019t know I\u2019m actually female, because I was playing on my boyfriend\u2019s account at the time. That was one of the ones that really bothered me because it felt more like, how could you possibly know I\u2019m female? If they\u2019re going to call you something, you find the exact reason that you get to throw that word in their face, but in a way that makes them respect you, not want to tear you down.\u201d<\/p>\n
Comics and Graphic Novels student Jessica Ruffolo\u2014who recently won the TECTORIA Video Game Industry Award for Artists\u2014says most gamers she knows are fine with her being a gamer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI usually try to talk to people who aren\u2019t misogynists, so most of the boys I\u2019ve talked to are just fine with it and it\u2019s chill,\u201d says Ruffolo. \u201cBut if I do meet strangers, I am a little bit cautious, you know? You don\u2019t really know who they are yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Camosun College Student Society First Nations director Draco Recalma\u2014a two-spirit second-year Indigenous Studies student\u2014laughs when I ask if he\u2019d been harassed online before.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s all the time. All the time,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen I go out to play games, I have to put on a certain fa\u00e7ade<\/i>, I guess, and be more masculine, and then they\u2019ll harass me less. But if I show any kind of sign of femininity, they basically try to kick me out a lot of the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Online players target others in the more notoriously violent video games; Fernandez says that a female gamer is almost guaranteed to get gunned down on the Grand Theft Auto<\/i> (GTA<\/i>) network if they\u2019re spotted.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be fair, if you\u2019re on GTA<\/i>, you know the world you\u2019re stepping into beforehand,\u201d says Fernandez. \u201cBut I was on there with my significant other, so I knew I at least I had someone to back me up if someone did come target me. But I didn\u2019t realize, until this first time I was starting to play the GTA<\/i> online features, how male gamers target female gamers in that game. There are people who, if they see another online player, they\u2019re just going to gun them down anyway. But from what I\u2019ve been told, if you\u2019re a female gamer on the network, you\u2019re almost guaranteed to get gunned down if you get spotted.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve often wondered what someone gets out of deliberately being mean to another player. Allen-Lompert says there\u2019s a certain feeling of catharsis in being a troll.<\/p>\n
\u201cEspecially if you\u2019re an angry person like me and you dislike people,\u201d says Allen-Lompert, \u201cand you\u2019re very competitive when you want to play games. If I lose, I feel a lot better when I just let it out, instead of just holding it in. And everybody tells us, \u2018You should let it out anyway.\u2019 It\u2019s mostly a catharsis. But if they\u2019re stupid, once again, they deserve what they get. Most of the time, it\u2019s not intentional. Probably about 80 percent of the time, it\u2019s not intentional. But there\u2019s a good 10 percent there when that person just deserves a good reaming.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jordan Abrey, a Digital Production, Writing and Design student at Camosun, says that the world of gamers is a world of poorly socialized people who aren\u2019t very good at communicating with each other.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s why they\u2019re there, playing video games,\u201d says Abrey. \u201cIt\u2019s easy; it\u2019s comfortable for them. They don\u2019t have to worry about embarrassing themselves or saying the wrong thing. And when they\u2019re in a situation when they\u2019re playing with a girl\u2014there\u2019s probably like two girls in a server, or whatever\u2014they find themselves in this position where they actually try. And they try and they fail. They have elementary-school capabilities of getting along with the opposite sex. Because they\u2019ve been so suppressed\u00a0that they try, and they\u2019re failing, and they\u2019re hurting\u2026 they\u2019re offending the girls, and a lot of the time they feel really bad. But I don\u2019t really feel bad for the guys. I mean, I don\u2019t think that they\u2019re the villains. They\u2019re saying the things, they\u2019re doing the things, and they\u2019re really wrong, obviously, but they\u2019re just trying.\u201d<\/p>\n
While more of a console gamer, Olivia Roberts, also in the Comics and Graphic Novels program, says that she hasn\u2019t really experienced harassment.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut back in high school, I did feel like I was one of those very rare girls who admitted to being a total geek and playing games,\u201d says Roberts. \u201cIf you think about it in an isolated way, to me it\u2019s not considered a bad thing. It actually made me feel more unique, in a way.\u201d<\/p>\n
DIVERSITY DILEMMAS<\/strong><\/p>\nToday, diversity in video games leaves a lot to be desired. Women are shown to be weak, witless, incompetent, and expendable. Fernandez says that the issue has become a lot more transparent over the past few years.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the \u201990s, there was such a definitive boys-versus-girls side to it,\u201d says Fernandez. \u201cBecause I played Assassin\u2019s Creed<\/i> and I never once took a moment to realize there are several times when prostitutes in those games get held at knifepoint or at gunpoint and you never have an opportunity to save them. They\u2019re literally pawns in the game. You can also use them to distract people, by basically walking in front of them and flirting with them. That\u2019s what happens in an industry where we let the other gender dictate how we are depicted.\u201d<\/p>\n
To the ire of the old boys\u2019 club of the online world, gaming companies\u2014board, tabletop, and video\u2014are realizing this need for better representation of non-male characters and are starting to embrace diversity. What the boys\u2019 club doesn\u2019t seem to realize is that a lot of people aren\u2019t actually asking that scantily clad women in video games disappear altogether. Greenlees says there\u2019s nothing wrong with sexualizing some characters.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a niche for that,\u201d she says. \u201cI think the problem is that niche being mainstream. I look forward to it being less mainstream and having more body positivity in all ways. I look forward to having a game sometime where heteronormative characters\u2014male or female\u2014are either equally proportionate to all others or the token characters, for a change. Because it\u2019s not just the women in gaming, it\u2019s the trans women, the trans men, the asexual characters who you basically don\u2019t see.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ruffolo says that she wants to see more diversity in games as well, pointing specifically to the representation of women of colour.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t even necessarily want strong girl characters, just characters that aren\u2019t objectified,\u201d she says. \u201cThey can have their flaws, and maybe they\u2019re sensitive and everything, but they\u2019re not treated so static, as a girl character often is. Just a real character.\u201d<\/p>\n
Roberts hopes that gaming companies will change their representation of women characters in the days to come.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s fine to sexualize a little bit, but too much, and you\u2019re kind of losing the main focus,\u201d she says. \u201cBut in the future, I\u2019m hoping that there will be more fleshed-out characters, as opposed to just, \u2018Oh, hey, you\u2019re a female character, let\u2019s put the bounce simulator on you, and we\u2019re good to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
Allen-Lompert doesn\u2019t see a problem with the way women are portrayed in video games now, but he also says he wouldn\u2019t be upset if women got better representation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think women are in a huge position of power, because men just want to be with them,\u201d he says. \u201cThat alone, you can bend us to whatever way you want to bend us. I don\u2019t have a problem with the way it is now. If I want to play a video game where there\u2019s a smart lady, who\u2019s dressed up in a formal uniform, like an office uniform, fine. I\u2019ll play that game. If it\u2019s a good game, I\u2019ll play it. But if it\u2019s sexy ladies, sure, I might lean a little more toward the sexy ladies.\u201d<\/p>\n
And Beyea says that sometimes you just have to call guys out on their behaviour, and make them think about it.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the guys I\u2019ve ever dealt with, once you tell them, they\u2019re like, \u2018Oh, okay. That\u2019s a thing, let\u2019s start doing that,\u2019\u201d says Beyea. \u201cOr often, they just don\u2019t realize. Like, \u2018Okay, what you just said there, that\u2019s not cool, and here\u2019s why,\u2019 and they\u2019re like, \u2018Oh, okay.\u2019 So, personally, I\u2019ve had to learn to stop doing the puff-up, because that doesn\u2019t work, because then they\u2019ll get hostile to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Male gamers took something I love\u2014gaming and nerd culture\u2014and turned it into something I refuse to do with others. Which takes some of the fun out of it. Part of being a nerd is getting really excited about the super-cool thing\u2014board game, tabletop RPG, video game, console game, whatever\u2014and sharing it with as many people as possible.<\/p>\n
But nerds\u2014like myself\u2014are generally antisocial misfits with little to no points in charisma or social skills. We get passionate about a thing and don\u2019t like to see other people tear it down.<\/p>\n
So it\u2019s time to rebuild.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The battle of the sexes within the gaming industry sometimes resembles a playground free-for-all. Words are flung like mud, more than one person is bleeding, and everyone is screaming. Off to the side, a gaggle of kids are scratching their heads and wondering if they hear a noise. Sometimes, this behaviour draws some attention, an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13336,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13335"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13337,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13335\/revisions\/13337"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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