Female creators of video games and players have been increasing over the years due to the changing perspective of women in the gaming industry; however mistreatment of women is still fairly common.
Kate Edwards, head of the International Game Developers Association “Gaming culture has been pretty misogynistic for a long time now. There’s ample evidence of that over and over again…what we’re finally seeing is that it became so egregious that now companies are starting to wake up and say, ‘we need to stop this. This has got to change,” according to Game Designing. A study by Gamasutra in 2014 noted the pay gap between male and female video game players, according to Game Designing. There is still a lot of change to be done before the gaming industry treats women equally to men.
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The gaming industry is no longer only known as a male-only entertainment outlet. Female gamers make up 45% of the community and 46% of the purchases are made by women as stated by CNN Business. Unfortunately, male gamers can ruin the gaming experience for women through verbal harassment. Female gamers struggle with harassment when playing online three times more than male gamers.
Yasmin Uddin is a female gamer and YouTuber; she is also known as Yammy xox. Her personal experience of sexism was mostly during games like Call of Duty and Gears of War. “I was ashamed to speak in online game chat as I felt as if I’d be ridiculed for my voice…I’d be told to ‘get back into the kitchen,” she stated to Economy. Despite the negative occurrences while playing video games, Uddin continues to be a part of the growing female gamers community and having their words heard.
Another devoted gamer, Hayley Williams has experienced harassment from male video gamers. “A lot of people try to make [a] flirty conversation whenever they find out I’m a female gamer, and ask for my personal details, like Facebook or Skype. They’re a lot more forgiving to me if I make mistakes. They assume I’m not as good as them and sometimes give me game money in an attempt to flirt.” This type of behavior towards female gamers is undesired and distracts their focus on the game, according to Athena 40.
The inequality between male and female gamers in the United States also occurs in other countries such as China. The women in China form almost half of the gaming population, however don’t spend as much financially compared to men. Even though the amount of female gamers have increased in China, the games are created to focus on the men’s preferences. A WafaGames worker named Kathy Gong believes that it’ll be “a long road, and it won’t progress at a pace that we’re satisfied with.” She does believe the change in the industry will happen because as more female gamers emerge, the more voices requesting change will be heard, according to South China Morning Post.
