The Queen of XBOX: Girl-On-Girl Relations in Multiplayer

    I’ve been gaming since I was three. Some of my fondest childhood memories involve raccoon Mario, ripping out someone’s heart as Kano, exploring tombs with Lara Croft, and shooting people in the knees as Oddjob in “Goldeneye.” I’m also a female. While my experiences are typical, they’re labeled by most as atypical simply by association of my gender - something I’ve always found odd. With the modern age of gaming and the introduction of multiplayer gaming, the fact I was a minority was pointed out to me further by the several aghast males I run into daily who either try to cut me down with sexist remarks or try to jump onto my friends list simply because I have a vagina.
    But, I won’t say all men act like this towards me. That’d be completely unfair and just as sexist as some have acted towards me. I’ve made incredible friends in gaming and hope to continue to do so. Nightly, I get together with groups of friends to play rousing games of whichever title has captured my interest at the moment. It’s fun, lighthearted, and an escape from the drudgery of everyday life. -- Then, another female enters the game. By the reaction, you’d think it was like Clint Eastwood walking into a town in the Old West at high noon with pistols drawn! Something about two females in one game can turn very ugly very quickly with seemingly no provocation. The tension can be so thick that you can cut it with the Master Sword.
    Take this example: I was playing a game of Monday Night Combat with three male friends of mine. We were having a blast! I was playing as Support and I was on fire. Then, another female entered the game and things took a turn for the passively-aggressive awkward. Despite the fact we were winning and that I was second on my team, the woman insisted on sniping at me through her mic, choosing to give me the pet name “Hon’” when she did. It was only when I called her out on it that she stopped and retreated into silence -- promptly leaving at the end of the match. 
    Why is this incident important? Because it’s just an example of a common occurrence. This is not isolated. It seems that, all too often, female gamers are attacking one another simply for the sake of doing it. But why? In a community that’s already a minority in the gaming world, why would we want to make playing unpleasant for others like us?
    After this latest incident, I went to other female gamers that I’ve known for a while. I should stress that not all women in multiplayer lash out at one another. In fact, I have quite a few fellow female gamers whom I play with. However, they also reported to me that they’ve had incidents similar to mine where women were aggressive and rude for seemingly no reason.
    We joked that there was a competition for ‘The Queen of XBOX’ going on that we hadn’t been informed of - that we were all in the running and the only way to win was to be mean to each other. Biggest bitch takes it all. Thus, the ‘Queen of XBOX Theorem’ emerged to explain the odd behavior we’d been encountering.
    Joking aside, the issue bothered me. I thought and thought about it. Finally, I believe I reached some understanding behind the whole matter - why these women were acting the way they were.
    Gaming wasn’t just an escape for these girls. Being a ‘gaming girl’ was the escape itself. It was something that made them feel unique and special. Being the flirty or badass chick on the other end of the mic gave them a boost to their ego. However, entering another game and finding another girl already there suddenly made them feel devalued. Thus, the answer to the problem was simply to drive off the ‘rival’ female.
    This insight made me feel saddened. As female gamers, we should be proud; but not simply because we ARE female gamers. We should be flaunting our kill counts, our levels, and our achievements. Not our tits and ass. When we stop focusing so much on our sex and seeking validation through it, only then will men stop doing the same.
    More importantly, female gamers should treat each other with respect. We’re a minority in online gaming and for us to be at each other’s throats over pettiness and jealousy is the true tragedy out of all this. It’s time for us all to put on our big girl panties and show the boys how true women conduct themselves -- with classiness and dignity. We’re better than this, girls.

The Cost of Gaming

    ``Dead Rising: Case Zero.`` It's a little game that's caused a huge buzz in the gaming industry. When released on the XBOX Live Arcade for $5.00, bucking the $15.00 trend, it blew up. It smashed the first-week sales record of any game previously released. Not only that, but the game introduced the world and mechanics of 'Dead Rising' to a new subset, causing more interest in a game that many had previously been unsure of. Something as simple as a $5.00 pricetag has suddenly become one of the most brilliant marketing strategies we've seen in gaming for a long, long time.

   On the outside, it may be easy to see why a $5 pricetag would make such a big impact; but the roots to this phenomenom go deeper. When news of ``Case Zero's`` success hit, I compiled a questionnaire. I sought out gamers of all varieties --- young, old, hardcore, noob, rich, and poor. I asked questions ranging from their interest in the series itself to their opinion on the X-Box Live Arcare to, finally, their opinion on pricing in gaming.

    It was when the little matter of money came up that my interviewees suddenly became passionate. In most of the questionnaires, the answers prior to this would be given in the routine neutral manner; but when asked about how fair they thought current retail prices are, they became aggitated, in most cases.

    Yet, what was surprising was that, when asked about what the capped retail price for new games should be, I got one answer back repeatedly. "Not $60. Fifty dollars."

    Fifty dollars! It's a ten dollar difference! This is what gamer's are angry about. "I used to buy games every week, but now I don't. Sixty dollars is too much," said one gamer. When pointed out that the difference was only ten dollars, they replied, "But it's ten dollars I could be spending on something else."

    Other gamers expressed similar sentiments. Yet, we gamers suddenly start to look like cheap bastards, I need to stress the other collective line of thinking that appeared amongst my interviewees --- we will pay for quality.

    A few subjects said that, while ecstatic that ``Case Zero`` was priced so low, they felt as if they had cheated the developers and would have paid $10 for it, but not $15. It also came to light that, in general, gamers were happy to pay $60 for certain games, such as ``Red Dead Redemption``, ``Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition``, and ``Mass Effect 2.`` They felt as if they got their money worth, as oppposed to other games priced at $60 that are four hours long with a tacked on multiplayer --- we're all looking at you, Kane and Lynch!

    So, considering this, what is it that gamers want to spend their money on? Well-made arcade games such as ``Case Zero`` and games with quality and quantity as mentioned in the prior paragraph. When we're denied these things and still asked to put out the dollars we've struggled all weeks to make - we get pissed. We become less likely to buy from those developers again. Not to mention we take to our twitters, facebooks, and blogs to bash the offending game with a fury that hasn't been witnessed since the Spanish Inquisition.

    So, I'll just say it ouright incase someone didn't get it - gamers don't want to be gouged. GAMERS DON'T WANT TO BE GOUGED. The standard of $60 shouldn't be a standard whatsoever. It should fluctuate with the product. As ``Dead Rising: Case Zero`` demonstrated, when you honestly price what you're offering, you're going to get people actually buying your game rather than having the thing sitting on store shelves untouched and, eventually, ending up in the bin for a quarter of its original price. ``Case Zero`` also showed that, if you love your gamers, your gamers will love you. And there's no better love than the love of a gamer. We're devoted to our cores.
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THANK YOU to everyone who helped me with this article!
Thank you to http://www.geekgirldiva.com/ and http://twitter.com/Nellachronism for helping me find subjects! Couldn't have done it without you two! You're the best.
Thank you to the gamers for allowing me to ask my questions. You are all fantastic!