How true do you think this statement is of the 1980s? Because I don’t remember gaming being specifically male-centred. I feel like all kids were into games full stop. Yes, they were definitely marketed more toward boys, but I don’t think girls were like ‘ew games.’ Maybe my memory is cloudy.
shareYou didn't see a lot of girls at arcades and I am not sure how many households with just daughters that would buy game systems. I think in the early days it was mostly boys and the girls that did play often only had a system there because of a boy in the home...just what I remember...its the same with girls and comics. For a while there I would hang out at a comic shop almost daily and I rarely saw girls in comic stores. In fact I would say that was the biggest difference a year or so ago when I went back to a comic store..i was like..wow girls, and they arn't just there because their BF or dad dragged them there, well my daughter was there because i dragged her there..but otherwise the others seemed to be interested in the product. But even today comics and video games are still something that more men do than women.
shareWeird. But okay, thanks.
shareIts not really weird. Boys and Girls are different, they have interests that are different that have more to do with biology than social engineering. Even today where its without question ok for girls to like "boy things" like video games and comics..etc... I can guarantee you males still dominate that group and probably always will. Its just something that ticks more interest in men than it does women..its normal.
shareIt was more a "girls don't play video games because video games are for freaks, nerds and losers". It happened a similar thing with roleplaying games (D&D and similar) and chess.
Of course, that was a two-side road. One side saying "we don't want to play rpg games because this is a hobby of freaks and losers" and the other side answering "then we don't want you in our club, because you lack brain and imagination to play a rpg game". Normal human behaviour: if you don't like me then I don't like you.
Nowadays, it only tells one side of the story to build it into the usual narrative of "men oppressing women".
Fair point. I just feel like there has always been a fair amount of girls who were freaks, nerds and losers.
shareMust be true.
It was still a thing in the early 00's, in England anyway. Where gamers were almost always boys, I knew some girls who were tom-boys but back then things were more pure, you could play Guess Who and ask "Is it a boy or girl?" and not be slandered for not including the other genders. Weird thing is that it wasn't all that long ago.
If it was anything like the 90's, it's most definitely true. Girls liking videogames is a pretty new trend. Of course, now video games are a lot more approachable to a wider audience and are more story focused than they were in the 80's and 90's where it was all about beating the hardest difficulty or getting the highest score.
shareMy neighbor was the first person I knew to have an Atari system. I didn't think it was that unusual. Maybe it was just me.
shareNot true at all. All the girls I knew liked Pac Man, Ms Pac Man, Qbert and Frogger in arcades and all the Atari games like Pitfall, River Raid and Breakout.
shareI’m 32 my sister is 35. We had a NES back in the day and she and I would play Super Mario brothers. She lost interest in games I did not.
One difference I notice today is that when I was in highschool playing shooters like goldeneye, counter strike, rainbow six etc no girls played them. Today while playing games like pubg on Xbox, it’s not surprising to come across female players. Where was this when I was in high school!