say what?

While I wouldn't say I'm a "fan" of Razer (the company, their image, or even most of their hardware) they make some damn fine mice and I remain devoted to my Copperhead. However, a recent blog entry has me disappointed - and remember, I bat for both teams, so I'm all for hot girls losing articles of clothing.

Yeah, it was at a show (in Germany, which supposedly makes a difference), booth girls are the norm, and all that shit - but as a a) female competitive gamer and b) female professional in the gaming industry, I'm disappointed in Razer (a major player in the competitive gaming scene, at least in my eyes) and appalled that to them, it was OK for some chick to strip for free shit; this is assuming they didn't actually encourage it, which unfortunately I'm inclined to believe is the case.

For those of you with dicks, understand that it can be really fucking uncomfortable enough being a female gamer. Bill Fulton has an article up on Gamasutra called Fixing Online Gaming Idiocy that you may find worth reading, if you find this kind of stuff interesting. As usual I may not agree with all points made, but he has a pretty good analysis of why some people just don't game online, and a lot of it pertains to us of the fairer, supposedly gentler sex. For girls, aside from the usual flood of retards hitting on you, giving you preferential treatment (I can get my own AWP, thanks) and so forth - there's also the direct negative feedback; girls don't game, girls can't be good at FPS, and so on. Or you're playing it for your boyfriend. You certainly couldn't have gotten those epics on your own, so either you slept with someone or you're dating the guild leader. And your accuracy, that you can bhop backwards through dust with your eyes closed, your K:D ratio, that you lead in flag caps, your perfectly balanced raid gear, none of that shit matters, to them you're a girl and therefore you have no idea what the fuck you're doing and you either need to be coddled or put in your place. There's a reason a lot of us won't use our usual handles and mute our mics - it's because a lot of guys are idiots or just plain douchebags. Anyway, I didn't mean to go into that rant - I think it's more important to go over the moebius strip of fail we're stuck in.

Booth babes and scantily-clad avatars are the more publicized issues, but really - that's just not it. We're surrounded by guys, the industry caters to them - makes sense and from my position I'm part of the problem, so to speak, because part of me is totally down with this shit. It's a rough place to be, particularly because I'm a dyke; there's a lot of conflicting interests and I hope that I can expand upon them once this blog actually gains a sense of coherency. Anyway, my point is - and I know some other, probably more eloquent ladies in the industry have written about it from a studio standpoint - it's not a welcoming environment. People say "well if more girls were in, they could turn this shit around" - but the environment isn't friendly to them, so what the fuck, right? Dev studios are much better these days, but the actual gaming scene is pretty gamer-girl unfriendly. It's not so bad in MMOs, but in FPS, and particularly the competitive gaming scene (thanks a lot for encouraging this shit, Razer) it's even worse.

Oh, and might I direct you once again to this fantastic read.