There’s a widely held opinion in gaming that women generally suck at gamimg.
My two cents is that there’s simply not many women into video games due to lack of interest and the few who do get either sexist attacks or obscure enough to go unnoticed. This creates a cycle where elitism combines with existing lack of interest to scare off any potential newcomers which means there’s less of an incentive to be skilled which feeds into elitism.
Video games were marked as boy’s toys at least in the US, so up until the smartphone women’s only point of entry was like through having older brothers. And yeah sexism.
Obviously there is nothing inherent in video games that would make women magically suck at playing them.
It’s mostly the second one you mentioned, that they have to deal with an uphill battle against sexism. Ask any woman what happens if they play an online MP game and dare to speak on voice chat. Same goes for things like STEM fields. I will note that in my country it is much more accepted for there to be women gamers and consequently they have to deal with less prejudice/there are more of them (though it isn’t perfect).
Many would understandably not reveal their gender with how toxic or creepy that many online gaming spaces are.
Only from personal experience I know a few who are much better than me at strategy, action adventure or fighting games.
I do suck at skill based games, like shooters and whatnot. A lot of women I know play mobile games or just single player action games, so that’s why you don’t hear much about it maybe.
As a gamer, I disagree. That might have been true back in the 90s and early 2000s, but right now the gamer population is more or less evenly represented gender-wise.
Also, it’s ridiculous to claim there’s a lack of interest, especially in this day and age. The number of gamers has been increasing exponentially, as well as the number of games being released every year.
Your bias might also stem from the types of games you are looking at. Some games are preferred by boys and other games are preferred by girls. That’s not to say that either gender is better at what they prefer. It’s just the content they find interesting.
If you look at something like LoL or DOTA, it’s plain to see that they are played equally by both genders, and both are likely to be toxic to other players regardless of what their gender happens to be.
I am more of a shooter type folk. I barely see any women in it.
I see plenty of women in the types of games I play, which are strategy, city-builders, simulations and RPGs.
In Path of Exile I was by chance part of a guild that was 80% women a few years ago. I’m active in the forums of several games I play and I see plenty of women around.
How do you know in a shooter you are playing with women or men though?
A lot of games are aimed at teen or preteen boys, which can be pretty repellent, both as a group to play with and thematically.
I don’t really think the opinion of mainstream gaming is worth much: most AAA games are bland and simple affairs storywise.
