Girl Gamers, Not Such A Rare Breed After All!

My wife has recently started a new blog to kind of vent about her daily life. I suggested she do a guest post on my blog to kind of get the ball rolling and she agreed. If you enjoy her writing style be sure to check out Too Busy To Notice.

"I have heard a lot of talk recently about girl gamers. The comment was posted about girl gamers being a rare breed and the conversation blossomed from there. Are female gamers a rare breed? It all depends on who you ask!

"I being a girl have to admit that certain types of gaming hold quite a bit of interest for me. I've been gaming for a number of years and have played in a variety of table top and live action game settings. My first gaming experience was with a live action Vampire game that I got into in 1996. I had never been exposed to gaming prior to this. Sure I played Monopoly and Scrabble with my parents growing up, but that's not quite the same thing. Board games are a whole different entity. I played in live action game settings for a number of years. The games that I was involved in were so large though it was more like a theater group than a game setting. It was a blast nonetheless.

"Soon after my experience with live action gaming, I was introduced into table top gaming. I started with tabletop vampire and branched out to include D&D. I have to admit when I was 21 D&D made no sense to me because it was a lot of math and attention to details. I wasn't used to that sort of gaming. Life happened continued and I gamed here or there when I got the opportunity. Now that I am married to a very enthusiastic gamer and computer nerd, my horizons have been broadened even more. We've played in a variety of game settings including both live action and tabletop. I have to admit that I am quite partial to tabletop at this point because I don't have to worry about getting dressed up to portray my character. It's a more personal gaming group set in a friendly environment at a house rather than a public area. Not to mention it's a bit more cost efficient to be a tabletop gamer at times, unless you happen to be a collector of every book for that system that comes out!

"I have found now the wonderful world of MMORPG. I have discovered games like World of Warcraft and EverQuest. I have to admit I prefer World of Warcraft. I never thought that I would play the game that has cause so much controversy in the past. People becoming addicted and doing crazy stuff like neglecting their kids and forgetting to eat and ending up in the hospital. It does have a bit of an addictive nature though. Simply because you strive to get that little animated character as high in level as you can so you can reach the next reward tier. (Got to get to level 40, I'll get my mount!) It ensures that players will keep playing and buying the expansions so they have more options available to them. Fantastic marketing in my opinion. So why do people think that women aren't as big into gaming as men? It's typically the woman's job to take care of the kids, hold down a job, clean the house, cook the meals, do the laundry, etc etc. Men make the living and do the yard work for the most part. (Not all men, but in general). When would a woman find time to dedicate hours to grinding through a game to level a character, or go to someone's house for an all night D&D session. Well let me tell you, where there's a will, there's a way.

"I don't have a lot of spare time on my hands and my life is about to get more hectic when I go to work full time. Yet I still find at least an hour or two a night or every other night to sit down with my husband and log into World of Warcraft so we can at least get one quest completed. It's a great way to relax and be able to play a character in a fantasy world that is nothing at all like yourself. It allows you to use your imagination to create this character and choose it's path in "life". D&D is very much the same. Imagination is needed to create that character concept, while dice rolls determine that character's stats. How many people get to say that they get to "play" every weekend? Most adults spend their time being so responsible that they tend to forget the things in life that make them smile. Simple things that don't require a college degree or a corner office. Guys are quicker to admit this than women are most of the time. Women need downtime too, it's not like being female is enough for us. So between whites and darks and thawing out tomorrow night's dinner and the son or daughter's bath time, sit down put your feet up and enter a fantasy world that doesn't require you to be superwoman! It's ok to be a gamer, I am and I have to admit that I think I am closer to my husband and a better person for it. Don't look at it as something silly, think of it as a learning experience from all those hours we spent playing dolls and house when we were younger.

"Women gamers are out there you just have to know where to look. We enjoy a good time as much as the next guy, we just tend to have less time to dedicate to playing. That just means when we do play we get down to business and get the job done, it's our nature! So next time you are putting together a tabletop game or getting some folks together in your favorite MMORPG think of this, cute girls game too, so why not add to the beauty of the game and invite one over? Who knows where it may lead? (If you are married, invite the wife, it could bring the two of you closer together). A couple that plays together stays together because if you can't laugh together is there really a relationship? Have fun and get creative, I know I will!"

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