Acid for Blood

Avatar Pics: PlayStation Home Open Beta

I popped into the Home open beta for a bit. It took absolutely ages to connect.

I liked the avatar customisation. It was a lot easier than Second Life. The options are really good. You can make different body types and sizes and there are many skin colours, though you don't get sliders for the skin colours as you do with all the other body appearance options.

Here are pictures of my avatar at her Harbour Studio flat:

It's a corner balcony, which I am sure she is pleased by. See how she surveys her kingdom so smugly:

This little harbour would be why it's called the Harbour Studio:

See how she enjoys the fresh sea air!

These screen shots don't do it justice, because it's really very pretty. I do like my little corner of the PlayStation Network, even if it's a little sparse.

I briefly visited the Uncharted bar or tavern or whatever it was. It was all right. It reminded me of Second Life, but a little prettier and easier to move around in because of the control pad. However, because I don't have a keyboard, I would find it hard to communicate with others if that's what I chose to do so. Most of the people in the room were having uninteresting text conversations and really annoying voice conversations. If I do hang out in Home more, I'm going to turn voice chat off, because I really don't want to deal with any of the anonymous online bullshit ("OMG R U A GIRL???"). I kind of just want to decorate my home, which I guess may be the whole point.

Vexation

After I started my new job a couple of months ago, I was going to respond immediately to the bigoted, ignorant, and narrow-minded views of several people in various gaming communities. Since then I've been busy at work and at home, and frankly I haven't been in much of a mood to blog, nor have I been able to gather the mental focus to sit down and organise my thoughts on this topic until now.

When I introduced myself to the Guild Wars community, I did not discuss my personal life or my personal worldviews at all. However, after some Google searching, some people decided to take it upon themselves to bring up issues related to my personal life and ideological beliefs.  Hearsay being what it is, a few even accused me of starting these discussions about my personal life in the first place.

It made me angry that people, who know nothing about be apart from what they found through Google, targeted me with sexist, misogynistic, anti-feminist, racist, and homophobic comments.

It made me angry that people made sexist and objectifying comments about my appearance. Apparently I am supposed to welcome comments from people (I assume they are males) saying that they'd "hit it" or "tap that" because they found me attractive. Comments that reduce me to an object without agency or will are compliments, right?

It also made me angry that people made racist comments. Oh wait, fetishising me because of my race is supposed to be a positive thing as well? Get a clue, people -- it's not acceptable. It's racist and ignorant.

It made me angry that people who don't have any clue about feminism believe that feminists are a threat to their "fun". Following that line of logic, apparently sexism is fun? Eh, not so much. I find it depressing that the most basic tenet of feminism -- equality between the sexes -- should be viewed as a threat to the existing (un)acceptable behaviours in gaming communities.

While I am on the subject of feminism -- I am a feminist. So what? There are games industry women, more famous, more high-profile, and with more widespread influence, than I who identify as feminist. Feminists are out there.

It's irritating to read comments from people who mindlessly swallow all the stereotypes they've heard about feminism. Moreover, the idea that all feminists are ideologically identical is both stupid and ignorant. The main belief that all feminists hold is simply equality between the sexes. That's it. Anything beyond that depends upon the individual.

It made me angry that at least one person did not welcome the fact that I am female. It's a surprising attitude to find in 2008, but it exists. What was almost as surprising as this attitude is the fact that before and after I joined the game, the ratio of female and male Community Managers was identical. Why one would oppose maintaining the same female/male ratio is beyond me; god forbid the ratio ever be equalised at some point in the future.

It made me angry to have people speculate on and make assumptions about my sexual orientation, too. It was not acceptable for people to make the assumption that I am a lesbian, assume that I am out to everyone in my life (including work), and parade these assumptions around as fact -- publicly to the internet. News flash: being a feminist does not mean that one is a lesbian and conducting an interview with a founder of LesbianGamers.com doesn't necessarily mean that one is a lesbian either. One a sidenote, it irritates me that people continue to cling so desperately to their narrow, black and white views of sexuality and sexual orientation, assuming that if someone isn't heterosexual, they must surely be homosexual because nuances in the human condition apparently do not exist.

Furthermore, the homophobia that some people showed, after they assumed that I was a lesbian, was absolutely repulsive and apalling. There was even a comment from a homophobic "concerned parent" who was convinced that I was personally responsible for corrupting their child because some random members of the Guild Wars community decided to speculate on and discuss my sexual orientation.

Another thing that these people didn't think about or probably even care about is: what if I was a lesbian and wasn't out to everyone at work and at home? Did they even care that their comments and discussions could have an impact on my career and personal life? Not everyone in the world is equally tolerant, as evidenced by the "concerned parent" above, and unfortunately gay people often have to choose the terms under which they come out. To rob someone of that choice, regardless of the correctness of the facts, is wrong and thoughtless.

To make things perfectly clear: I am not a lesbian, but I am not not a lesbian. My sexual orientation, whatever it is, isn't something that I'd even consider discussing with the Guild Wars community at large, much less any other random gaming community.

I did know that people would do Google searches on me. I knew they would find articles I'd written, interviews I'd participted in, and so on. My blog is public, and it's not hard to link my handle to my real name. However, just because I expected some of these responses doesn't mean that sexism, homophobia, racism, or all the rest of that shit are remotely acceptable.

Some gamers really need to grow up.

P.S. -- Before someone tells me that I'm being too sensitive or that I'm too uptight and just need to get laid... News flash: I am sexed quite regularly, and yet sexism, racism, homophobia, and all the other bigoted and ignorant attitudes that fester in gaming culture still piss me off.

EDIT: 31 July 2008: Some kindly person has linked this on the forums, and I'm receiving an influx of comments. I don't know why people feel the need to resurrect discussion on a post that I wrote well over a month ago, about stuff that happened nearly four months ago. I have moved on. You should probably do the same.

Fear not. The response that I received from the bigoted members of the community has decidedly not affected the way that I approach my job. I practice the fine art of keeping my personal life separate from my professional life. This may explain why, ya know, I haven't expressed my displeasure about these bigoted members of the community in the forums.

Positives of Women-Oriented Gaming Communities

The September issue of Cerise Magazine included an article on "the positive aspects of women-oriented gaming communities". I know that many gamers, men and women, are against women-only or women-oriented gaming communities, guilds, and clans on the basis that these communities segregate and that they divide women gamers from the gaming community as a whole. They argue that the only way for women to be accepted by mainstream (e.g. male-dominated) communities is not to go off and form their own communities, but to jump right in with the men. No one's saying we're not already participating in mainstream gaming communities. Most women gamers I know, myself included, participate general communities. However there are discussions that general gaming communities are less receptive to, and this is partly why some women gamers also participate in women-oriented gaming communities. There are many positive aspects of women gamer communities as the article reveals.

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P.S. -- There is also an interview with me in this month's issue.

PAX: Cosplay

Phoenix Wright:

Guild Wars Monks:

These Monks won the Guild Wars costume contest. Their prize pack contained a Logitech gaming keyboard and a Logitech gaming mouse. The male Monk wore his costume in response to a dare from Gaile Gray, ArenaNet Community Relations Manager, yesterday.

Exanimus Forums Down for Reasons Unknown

I've been following the development of the zombie massively-multiplayer online game, Exanimus, for over a year now. They have been in pre-production, so there are few details. The forums, however, had some pretty active hardcore zombie fans speculating on this game. Some of the game design features that have been discussed on the forums included:

• Permadeath: whether it should exist at all, and whether there should be dedicated servers for permadeath
• Clans and guilds
• Safe houses
• Resources and weapons
• PvP and game balance issues between zombies and humans

A couple of months ago, the forums, and indeed the entire Exanimus website, went down. The website displayed the following message:

Sorry, ExanimusTheGame.com is currently unavailable.

We are performing updates and fixes to the website.
Please check back soon for more information.

The site is still down. I checked the Exanimus wiki and found the following cryptic message on the main page:

The website was impaired by something we have not yet determined, not sure if it was a hack, or just a software database failure.

The forums, for the time being... are gone. Hopefully this is only a temporary thing.

The reason for the time taking so long, is, well, a reason I cannot go into as it would violate the privacy we enjoy in our family lives, suffice it to say, that there is a concrete, non-game related reason for the site being down for as long as it has been.

Please feel free to spread this around to any of the fan sites or other community members you speak with.

I will have a dev log on a the main page hopefully by the end of the week.

Odd. I hope the forums are restored soon.

Resident Evil Knife-Only Speedrun

Ghacks.net is a website which focuses on helpful computing hints, tips, and technology news. Martin regularly writes about games as well.

He recently posted his personal top five favourite speedruns, including an impressive Resident Evil knife-only speedrun (72 minutes long). I haven't played Resident Evil, so watching this speedrun was informative as well as entertaining.

The only Resident Evil game I have played a lot of is Resident Evil 2. I've played a bit of Resident Evil 4, too.

Cerise Magazine Launches

The first issue of Cerise, an online magazine dedicated to electronic and non-electronic games, is now up. Cerise is a feminist (Is that still a "bad" word?) publication focused on gender issues in games and games culture. It was created by women gamers, with the intended audience being primarily women gamers. Although the focus is on gender, they have a policy of inclusiveness, so issues that affect other traditionally underrepresented groups in games culture, such as members of the LGBT community, people with disabilities, etc. will likely see discussion as well. They have an open submissions policy, and are accepting articles for the next issue.

Cerise is a publication of Iris, a gaming community for people interested in discussing and exploring gender and other issues. Since its launch in March, the Iris forums have seen discussion on a variety of topics related not only to gender, but also sexuality, sexual orientation, race, class, disabilities, and more. If you're interested in discussing these issues or learning more about issues important to underrepresented members of the gaming community, check out the forums. I'm a moderator there. Please play nicely. :)

There are many communities around that have been created as welcoming spaces for women gamers, free of the immature and (frankly) alienating bullshit that tends to pop up with alarming (and disappointing) regularity in many gaming communities. Why do we need another community for women gamers? One could ask the same question of gaming communities as a whole. Why do we need so many of those? Why not just have a few large gaming communities on the internet. Where's the fun in that? Women gamers, like men gamers, have diverse interests. There is enough room on the internet for all.

Web 2.0 Overdose

A real post to come later tonight after work, honest.

For now, I have several oh-so cutting-edge Web 2.0 things to share.

1) I am on Twitter. Updated with the minutiae of my life, when I remember. Not that anyone cares, but in case you're bored.

2) I have a tumblelog on Tumblr. There isn't anything there yet. Whatever random stuff I find, which doesn't go on my del.icio.us links, may find its way to Tumblr.

3) Yes, I am on MySpace. There is nothing on my page except me voicing distaste for MySpace. There are also links to my blogs and profiles on Last.fm, Twitter, and Xfire. Two guesses as to what the URL is.

4) I have been avoiding Facebook for two years. I'm hoping to continue that for now. So far, I've only received three friend requests in that time, so I think I'm doing pretty well.

5) I also have a Vox blog. I don't know what to use it for, apart from checking out the themes that might be available for LiveJournal Paid Users in the future, and flashing my Vox beta tester Web 2.0 street cred.

EDIT -- 6th April 2007: Um... So I couldn't hold out any longer. I'm on Facebook. A former flatmate of mine attempted to add me to her friends list. I haven't heard from her in four or five years. I thought, "No harm in that". Right? And so it begins. :?

The IRIS Network is Live

Friday, 23rd March marked the launch of The IRIS Network. "The IRIS Network? What's that?" you say? The IRIS Network is a new website that brings women, other underrepresented gamers, and their friends together to discuss, network, and share perspectives in an inclusive, safe (zero tolerance for harassment, etc.) environment. People who enjoy electronic and/or non-electronic games are welcome to participate.

The mission of The IRIS Network is as follows:

After yet another bout of the "where are all the women gamers" on the internet gaming communities, The IRIS Network (TIN) was finally born. Though there are many individual women gamers who write about their experiences, and many sites for women who game to connect and play with each other, none of these sites are there for the express purpose of highlighting gamers (both in the industry and outside of it) and bringing women's perspectives into the mainstream. Though it may be a lofty goal, that's exactly what we here at The IRIS Network aim to do.

The IRIS Network Forums

The forums are for women of all walks of life who count gaming among their passions, men interested in networking with women gamers and perhaps learning more about inclusive game design in the process, and, really, anyone who has ever felt that they have been excluded from most games and/or gaming communities at large.

The IRIS Network Directory

The IRIS Network's Directory is a directory of websites of women who discuss gaming. This is both to help foster a sense of connectedness with each other "we're told so often that women just don't game/talk about gaming that we begin to believe we're the only ones out there" and also to help bring awareness to the community about the women who are in it, but for various reasons are overlooked by many big-name community sites. We have everything from blogs, to organizations, to LiveJournal users and communities listed there. If you're a woman and you have a corner on the internet where you talk about games, please consider adding your site!

Cerise

Cerise is The IRIS Network's monthly magazine. In it we highlight women gamers, publish interviews with industry professionals, and discuss gaming related issues. We also take submissions for articles, art, and more. ... Although gender is the foremost focus of Cerise, we are dedicated to creating an inclusive space for individuals of all identities traditionally underrepresented in the mainstream, and for our allies who support our movement to increase our presence and representation in the game industry. We are a feminist publication and oppose all forms of oppression and the ways in which that oppression manifests itself in game communities in ways that hurt women, transgender individuals, queer-identified people, people of color, people with disabilities, and other marginalized individuals. We hope that our inclusive philosophy will propagate to help the game industry and culture at large become an environment welcoming to people of all identities.

Cerise is now accepting submissions for Issue 1. The theme is "Getting Women 'Out There' In Gaming Journalism." I'm fairly sure that this theme was a response to Kotaku blogger Brian Crecente's wonderment that there aren't more well-known women game bloggers. The deadline is 15th April. For more information about the issue and about the submissions policy, please go to the Cerise homepage.

Ruptured

So, I'm on Rupture. What now?

Oh wait. I guess I have to play WOW to network on this thing. I'll get back to it. Eventually. Maybe.

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