Indian Girls at Gaming is a Deadly Combination

A couple had twin brother and sister, and they decided that they will change the way society treats girls and boys. On their fourth birthday they gave three trucks to their daughter and a Barbie doll to their son and left them to play. After an hour they came in the kids’ room. Their daughter had her trucks all lined up together and spoke, “Hey Mamma see… this is Mamma Truck, this is Papa Truck and this is Brother Truck!!”. And now they turn to their son who had Barbie’s hair bob cut, one arm gone and wearing black makeup, shouting, “Here comes the Commando Barb…!!”

Is this myth really true? Is there a difference in girls and boys’ psychology? Are girls always so “girly”? Are boys always so “boyish”? Can we blame the disappearance of girls in GI forums and their absence in gaming cafes on this stereotypical belief? I tried to look for the answers and tried to find some logical explanation to my queries. In the process I met many girls, some good, some bad and some … whatever! Well it was an experience for sure coz it also helped me in finding my own place in the gaming scene and in understanding the enigma called “girls”.

I must make it clear that this article refers to the Indian scenario. Things are different in Occident countries where ‘guys and gals are nuts about games in almost equal ratios’. This statement itself proves the point that games are not just for guys but are targeted at male and females alike. I must also make my stance clear before I go into the details. Before writing this article I believed (and somehow, still believe) that it’s just our social setup which responds to games as a male object. Just like the cars, bikes, guns and outdoor activities have been related with guys, the games have also been attached with the male image in Indian setup. It all starts with computers.
It’s a stereotypical faith that girls are not good at computers and are not really interested in them. Somehow you can see it around you but maybe it’s just a lack of opportunity. I strictly believed that girls and games were good combination and girls certainly had a love for them, it’s just that they needed to explore it further.

“I like to play games in which I’m sure to win, the games which make me feel invincible and give a great feeling”, says Amisha from Chandigarh (M.Sc. I Mathematics). She explains further that in the games where she finds herself stuck, she simply refuses to play them further. “I was stuck at this tentacle mission in half-Life for two days. On the third day I asked my brother to un-install the stupid game”, saying this she starts giggling while looking at me in a sheepish way and says, “I know it’s a great game man, but that’s a tough mission, which makes it stupid” and starts laughing again. If it had happened to a boy (well it must have happened to a thousand), he would have gone to the internet, would have downloaded the walkthrough and wouldn’t have slept until he had finished the game. But, if it was a boy!! So why don’t girls do the same. “Doing that would be cheating”, says Amisha with a grim look, “What’s the use of doing that… naah even if that makes me finish the game in half the time, I wouldn’t do it. That’s not winning”. Seriously I couldn’t understand this point. It’s all in the game I say, but even after half an hour I couldn’t convince her.

There are variables that develop our interests I guess. Abhita from Patiala (M.Phil. Eng) says, “I like to play games in which I get to develop everything from scratch. The games where I get to create things, buildings, humans and stuff.” Saying that she names the forever green game Age of Empires as one of her most favourite games, but she is ignorant of the fact that Age of Empires III has also been launched. What would you call that? If guys love a game they make it sure that they get to play every single sequel to that game. Why don’t girls do that? “Well I didn’t know it that’s all, ill sure like to play it one day”, she says. Then she says, “If I start playing a game, I never leave until I’m satisfied to my heart’s content and if I have to leave in between, I feel bad… real bad”. Well something common in girls and guys after all.

Maybe it’s because girls don’t get to interact with computers and games. So I tried to find someone from the field. Mandeep from Delhi who is a graphic designer, puts it forth that she doesn’t love games at all. Why I ask and she responds, “Why! They are all so violent. Mindless killing and shoot-outs… Do you think it’s possible at all? They are so illogical”. So here she attacks at the FPS games (she doesn’t know what FPS stands for by the way). I retort back that the same happens in Bollywood movies and after all they are games, not reality and besides there are non-violent games like various Tycoon numbers. She shows ignorance of such games and looks in wonder. “Really? They have games like that? Still I’m all grown up to play such games”. I wonder if we guys are ever grown up enough to grow over games.

“Oh don’t ask me, many a times I go to market for buying games and then I always end up shopping for cosmetics”, Pretti from Mumbai laughs at her own statement. “I love them though, especially racing games. NFS will always be my hot fave. I also like the sports games by EA like Cricket and stuff, but I really liked this game called F1 Grand Prix Manager, wow… just a wonderful game and this was the game which cultivated my interest into F1 racing. When I started playing it I didn’t know anything about it, but now I follow the whole season of F1.” Well games finally helped someone in liking F1! It’s strange how passionate girls can be about games. While we guys talk about games we are very casual, but all the girls (those who are interested) talk about games just the way other girls talk about Hritikh… okay bad example, put down your tomatoes.

I met and had conversations with many other girls who play games at various levels. Some of them play for fun, some for time pass and some are seriously into them. Those who are seriously into games mostly have one type of liking. Some of them like strategy games, some FPS, some like Tycoon games and some like Mystery and puzzle solving games. These are mixed views of various girls: “I love Sims, I just love being in a family and I love to make them morally justified. My Sims never flirts and they live perfect lives”, says Jyoti (BA II ) from Lucknow

Loveleen (BCA II) from Delhi says, “I love Nancy Drew games. The games have such lovely locales and puzzles are all awesome. I cant sleep before I finish her games. I also loved Syberia. WOW!!!”

An irate Liz (MCA III) from Delhi says, “I hate games. My boyfriend has nothing else to do but play games. That’s all he can talk about. I hate them.”

“My brother plays lots of games; I like to see him playing. Even I want to play but I just can’t figure out the controls of mouse and keyboard simultaneously,” says Shipra 9Research Scholar, Biology) from Kolkatta.

Hina (M.Sc. II Chemistry) from Chandigarh exclaims, “I have a PS2 in my room and in my car. I feel sad that there are so many games, I won’t be able to play most of them”

Amy (MBA)from Mumbai praises games by stating, “They are definitely better then the “Saas- Bahu” soaps that we are supposed to watch.”

So I learnt along the way that some of them love them, some of them don’t, some may have a chance of liking them in distant future and some are just too reluctant to follow this line of course. For most of them it’s more of time and schedule I guess. Girls, as I have been told, have a lot to do at their homes and mostly there is only one system in every house which mostly comes under our jurisdiction. “Why don’t you play games?” I ask my younger sister, she replies, “You know there is only one computer system we have and you sleep on it.” Now that’s a good point I believe, but “Why don’t you play them when I let you use it for an hour or so everyday.” Dear readers don’t ever ask that stupid question to your sisters coz I had an enraged answer to it straight at my face that you definitely don’t want on yours, “I happen to have a mail account and I happen to get mails and you want me to play those stupid games in that little hour you give me as if you do “big favour” on me and especially when you keep poking your nose ten times every minute asking me to leave?” Okay I choose not to listen to the rest of her weekly sermon, but the fact measures up: all those girls who are sisters to serious gamers will never get to play games ever..!! It may sound stupid and irrelevant, but it’s true in a way. Just think about it. Do you share your PC or console for that matter with your sister?

I kept looking for more girls who could enlighten me with their gaming experience. I was looking for some girl who was nuts about gaming. Finally I found a real player. I was told that there is a girl in Chandigarh who loves games and that it was a must for me to meet her if I wanted to do an article on such an issue. So I arranged a meeting with her in her college and I really loved that day coz for the first time I met a terribly beautiful girl who knew more about games then an average guy knows or even a so called gamer does. Till now I met girls who played games of yesteryears, but she plays the recent and the newest of games. She has finished FEAR, Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones (I must tell you that I borrowed this one from her), Half Life2, GTA SA, NFS Most Wanted, Age of Empires III etc. Her name is Sherri and she is doing M.A . II in English. We conversed for about four hours and not for a single minute I felt that I was talking to a girl. Her rig is of higher configuration then mine and she knows all the cheats, walkthroughs and guides for all different games. Sherri in a way defies all the concept of girls and games. I asked her why is it that only a very few girls play games? “They just don’t know about them, that’s all. Wait for another five years and you will see girls ruling games”. Maybe she is right. I told her that she is an exception and is more like a “boy”. To this she responded negatively, “Oh no I’m very much a girl, you must have been thinking that Ill be having those Doom posters in my room, well no, I have Barbie dolls and teddy bears in my room and its all pink. I’m very close to my feminine side and believe it or not, games are also a part of it.” Well I was left with nothing much to say so I talked about the gaming forums at GI and that its just us guys here and invited her to join. This is what she said, “Oh don’t tell me Bobby, I joined other gaming communities earlier and everyone tried to impress me in the beginning, but later when I displayed my knowledge they got envious. It becomes a male-female ego issue after sometime and I hate that. Trust me when I say that you guys enjoy the fact that girls don’t play games”. This statement got me thinking that somehow there was some truth in what she said. We guys always like to say that girls are dumb when it comes to computers and somehow we enjoy saying that, don’t we? Imagine if they start ruling us in this field and we face a major competition in gaming from girls. It will definitely become an ego issue for a major fraction of us. “I don’t go to gaming parlours anymore, know why? Cause no one plays against me. I’m a hard opponent and I mostly win and the ones who get defeated by me feel ashamed. It’s a different thing to be defeated by a boy for the. It’s the male ego that hinders them. So now I play single player games”. She is right, wonder how a boy would feel if he loses to a girl in front of dozen bystanders. “Well I’m ready to lose to you”, I said and we went to a gaming café and played Counter Strike, and needless to say ‘my team lost to hers’.

After meeting Sherri I found answers to many of my questions and many complexes were resolved. Male and female psychology differs not in terms of games, but in terms of social individual discourses. In our setup we males have given females a definite variable status of homely image, and we always criticise their being too homely, and if some individual female tries to break that image we start weaning that she is a non-conformist. This rabbit hole goes deep into our collective consciousness and I found a psychological and philosophical approach to it. What I took just as a fun issue came out to be a serious key to unlock many of my stereotypical beliefs. No more will I believe my stupid ego (or must I say my “id” in Freudian terms). We need to understand that it’s we guys only who are trying to undermine the growth of girls in games by telling them that they are not good enough and are dumb at computers. A fear of being left with no belonging and no area of superiority lies in our unconsciousness. Girls are to triumph this field of games one day, and I have a feeling that it’s coming sooner then we expect. Either we can welcome them, or we can be our typical male images with ego projecting at our faces. We have already lost education to girls and now we are losing jobs to them and very soon we are going to lose our favourite area of command and fun to them. It’s our choice if we want to lose it to them or offer a truce and welcome them in this field to be our better halves. Whatever may be the case its best we compete amicably, rather than displaying our individual egos…coz at the end of it all ‘let the best man win’ , oops… I’d go ahead and say the ‘let the best female win’.

Bobby Sandhu