Man, Giant Bomb I really hope you guys aren't all sick of me, anyways just finished up tonights articles and will be sharing with all of you. I did some interviews over the past couple days with women who work at video game stores just to get some better insight on what things are like for them. Only asked each of them a couple questions and most of the answers were the same so i shortened em all up. As always, please comment and share your own thoughts and ideas on the subject.
This is a topic I've wanted to talk about for a long time, Women selling games. Now this isn't out of the ordinary most Gamestop's and Best Buy's employ women as do numerous mom and pop retailers. The real question is what do they go through? Is it bad? Are they mistreated by their co-workers? Would their opinion carry as much weight with a customer as a mans would? Did a few interviews and the results probably won't surprise you.
Talking with several women about their experiences in retail I discovered what I already assumed was true. I won't reveal who they worked for or their names out of respect but here are a few choice questions with some commentary.
Note: All women questioned will have their names replaced by the name Riley (in honor of my soon to be born daughter) To avoid redundancy I just chose a couple responses from each question and thank you to all the women Ive spoken with in preparation.
Question 1. Were you ever mistreated by your male co-workers?
Riley: "Not really no, most of the guys I worked with were really cool, there were a couple times where they would use me being a girl as a joke during a conversation, but it was really all in good fun."
Riley: "I got hit on pretty regularly, but as soon as I complained it stopped."
Not a shocker here folks, in a work setting especially if it's a big company theres really no excuse for any guy to ever mistreat a female coworker. Also, male workers hitting on female coworkers is pretty universal and has happened at every job ive ever had.
Question 2. Did a male customer ever make you feel like your opinion didn't count because youre a woman?
Riley: "I dunno, it seems like most guys were having a hard time trusting my opinion on games and were skeptical like if they had a technical question or something and they wouldn't take my word that something would work."
Riley: "Pretty much whenever I helped someone and showed them that I had the knowledge to talk about games they treated me like anyone else, there were a couple times though where guys wouldn't even talk to me, this one guy waited till a male associate was done helping someone to ask a question. There was also this other guy who just left when everyone else was busy?
Riley: "Yes, daily, like all the time." Me: "So, like they just wouldn't listen or ask someone else?" Riley: "Well most of the time it seems like they are trying to make it seem like they want a second opinion but you can just tell its because im female. Like if I had been a guy they definitely wouldn't ask anyone else."
This seems pretty obvious as well. Here are some women who do their jobs well and have knowledge to share but for some that may not be enough. The third Riley went on to explain several times where she felt really mistreated. This seemed to be a common theme with most of the women i spoke with and I'm not at all surprised by this, on the flip side a lot of these women spoke to me about regular customers they have who trust and defer to them for most game decisions. Progress is clearly being made but some are still having a negative effect on female workers.
Question 3. Have you ever felt like a female customer has treated you differently because you are female?
Riley: "Mostly older women, they will approach me directly because they feel a little overwhelmed when coming in. Makes them feel a little more comfortable talking to a woman. Most of them had never been in our store before" Me: "So youve never had an experience where a younger woman might be a little rude to you because youre a girl at a game store?" Riley: "No, not ever"
Riley: "Yeah, like a lot of moms and stuff would ask me for help picking games for their kids, i think i just made them feel more at ease"
With the gaming market expanding retailers can be an intimidating place for first time customers its fairly obvious that having a female worker on site at all times can be a great advantage. Also, we can see that women can identify with other women just as easily as a man identify with another man. Not to say that they should just ignore women but here we see that its pretty obvious people will stay in what seems more comfortable.
This last question doesn't holds truth for all female workers not just games retail.
Question 4. "Have you ever been asked out or hit on by a male customer"
Riley: "Yeah, a lot, most of its just harmless flirting and it's like that with all my other jobs so its not a big deal." Me: "Ever said yes to anyone?" Riley: "Yeah one time, this guy was pretty good looking so we went out, it was terrible though. All he wanted to talk about was games and then he invited me back to his place to play Halo. I mean I like games but thats not all there is to me ya know?" Me: "So no second date?" Riley: "Haha, no"
Riley: "All day. everyday" Me: "Ever said yes?" Riley: "No"
Riley:"Yeah, but its no big deal, it happened at all my other jobs so I'm used to it." Me: "Ever say yes?" Riley: "Yeah I went out on a couple dates but the conversations were only ever about games, one guy even asked me to help him get a job at my store." Me:"So no second date?" Riley: "No"
Now we all know men will hit on pretty much anything that walks but I find it interesting that the two Riley's that said yes to dates, ended being talked to about games all night. Gaming is not their identifier fellas.
Like I said, none of this is really earth shattering but nonetheless interesting to talk about and think about.
So there we go, thanks again to the women I spoke with over the past couple days to get ready.
also in the middle of writing a new piece about female retail workers who sell games. did some interviews and most of the stuff i found wasnt all that surprising but i was able to draw some pretty good conclusions from it. will be posting it here later
@fearthephins: thank you, glad you enjoyed it. A lot of my friends feel the dialog wheel is really overrated but for me its the only thing close and thats why i love it so much
Hey there giantbomb, I wrote a new article last night taking a look at how choice in games has affected us personally. Id like to share it all with you and have a talk about it. this one definitely has no trolling or controversy attached to it, just a think piece about gaming.
Today lets talk about you, yeah you. How has gaming changed the way you've behaved in real life. For me Bioware has had the most impact on the way i carry myself. Now I'm not talking about an earth shattering difference in how i behave but when choice in my life comes in to play there are times when my subconscious is running its own dialog wheel. I'll be using Bioware as an example but take time to reflect if there are any other games that may have impacted you.
Bioware is an incredible company, been a huge fan of theirs since Baldur's Gate for PC. They are responsible for some of the best RPG's of the past 15 or so years. (KOTOR, Mass effect, Dragon age) but for me it isn't the worlds they build, the combat systems they create or even the hours upon hours of high quality content they deliver.
Its the characters.
I'll never forget Minsc and boo, I'll never forget genuinely wanting to track Saren down, and i'll especially never forget the choice i had to make between granting Loghain redemption or siding with Allister. Not only the characters themselves but they way my character interacted with them. Choice has always been a huge part of Bioware games, giving players the choice on how to approach conversations, often presenting them with options that are completely different than the preconceived notion of how a situation will play out.
Skeptics will say that these games deserve the credit for trying, but still haven't found the sweet spot for treading the gray area. Either do something bad, something worse or save everyone. While at times this argument rings true it would be an understatement to say that these games have had a positive impact on storytelling in games. So how does this apply to us? Where do we come in? It may be impacting you and you don't even know it yet.
In Mass Effect you play as Shepherd a character who exists in this universe that you can modify with some pretty basic back story and personality elements, it all starts out harmless enough but as you progress through the game you are constantly interacting with NPC's and you are presented with the dialog wheel. The dialog wheel controls what you say, how you react and even sometimes will stop the conversation and have you perform an action that is either very obviously good or very obviously (and hilariously) bad. Now this has in some way shape or form always been a part of Bioware games and really adds to the immersion, it seems less like your playing a character and more just like being Shepherd.
There was a CDC study done some years ago with a control group citing the effects of violent video games on the psyche, while this study can only be taken with a grain of salt lets suppose that some of their findings while not widely true may have some merit. One observation specifically, the appearance of anti-social behavior in young children or even young men who can kill thousands of people in a game with no real thought to the consequence, because its a game. This is pretty much common sense and we don't need games to tell us this, if a child misbehaves and there is no consequence than the child has no conception of boundaries. Likewise if a parent sets boundaries and talks to the child about the misdeed they will have a better understanding that all actions have consequence.
Now lets turn this observation over, imagine a gamer who's playing a game where every decision has weight. Do I try to reason with these enemies? Do i shoot first and dam the consequences? Do I let it play out, see what happens and at the very least engage in a fair fight where I tried? Now here is something truly interesting, think back to a time at work, or school or an argument with another person. Have you weighed the full consequences before speaking or acting? Have you ever hit a person in anticipation of them hitting you first? Have you ever been arguing with a loved one and decided that maybe you should "left-trigger paragon" and stop them to sit down and talk it out? Even subtle things like not wanting to be rude and cut off a friend who is rambling and maybe change the subject rather than telling them to shut up. Also, lets consider how youve behaved with this person up until this point, do your past actions and conversations limit how you approach the current situation? Your actions, your behavior and your interaction all have consequence. Many of you have probably done this and have never played Mass Effect, its in our nature to be calculating. But to those who have, have you ever been able to see another resolution through talking? Perhaps this is the impact we are seeing due to games giving us choice. This isn't to say that games have now taken control of how we talk to people, but maybe theres a subtle effect that we don't think to notice.
Maybe.
please feel free to share comments and feedback, giantbomb is one of my favorite sites and i know the commentors here will be honest.
Wow, getting my posts capped in the middle of this really sucked. Anyways thanks to anyone who read the article. The reason i brought it to giantbomb is i knew the commenters here would speak up and call bullshit or put their own two cents in. That being said it was my failure as a writer that it came of as trolling, i apologize for that, the sole intent of the argument was to spark up a conversation about the guy. Someone mentioned that all these things were well known facts, while i agree with that statement, i would call them well known and often disregarded facts. I really didnt wanna change anyones mind about the guy (it says in the article) just wanted to try and put some of the stuff in context. I wanna thank everyone here who read it and commented and honestly i dont take personal offense to anything anyone said about me in particular i treat all of it as feedback.
@Aetheldod: good point about valve, but they have the edge, they dont have to jump through the hoops that activision does. They are the premiere games devlivery system for pc users, they dont have to deal with retailers or worry about resells. i will admit though that theyve built their huge fanbase by doing things the right way.
posting up a new blog tonight, about how our control in gaming affects the way we behave in real life. Internet personas to match our favorite gaming personas or even in day to day situations turning our brains off and just powering through the day. Perhaps even our more overt criticism of things that arent games, stemming from our ability to do so with the medium.
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