Confessions of a Gamestop Girl

I was looking for more about Women in Gaming because for some reason this topic has caught my imagination.  When I did a search on Google, I came up with several articles, one from Escapist Magazine.  In the article above, the girl that the author interviewed talked about how working in Gamestop, sometimes female gamers came in and assumed that she didn’t know anything about gaming. 

She talked about how sometimes gamers call themselves elite because they play a certain game, or in some cases played a certain game.  Like finishing Final Fantasy II with no errors on the game save.  Like thinking that they’re hard core because they play World of Warcraft.

That got me to thinking, do I think I’m a hard core gamer because I MUD?  I mean MU*ing (playing either MUDs or MUSHs) doesn’t attract the attention of the younger generation any more.  Why play text based games when you can play visual games like WoW or Everquest?  Yet my feeling is why pay for gaming when you can get the same result using your imagination?

Which of us is the game snob?  Or are both of us?  Someone who plays WoW and thinks that text based games are stupid?  Or the one who plays text based games because that’s what she used to play, and it uses her imagination more?

I’ve been trying to remember why I didn’t like EQ as much.  Granted, I didn’t play a long time because I got involved in some stuff in my personal life at the time.  BUT, I think I realized why I played Asheron’s Call more than I played Everquest.  With Asheron’s Call, I could practice making stuff, food or arrows.  Oh, and a really close friend and his wife used to play.  I think I was all about the social aspect even then.  Trying new things and exploring are both fun, but it’s more fun to socialize. 

In the article it also talks about how mothers would come in to get video games for their girls and would choose Bratz games over anything else.  So are we directed toward what others think we would like for games?  If I hadn’t had 3 older brothers, would I have even had an Atari?  I’m pretty sure I would have gotten into Sci-Fi/Fantasy still.  Though I would read all of the books my mother got for my brother, I picked up Caves of Steel on my own.  Oh yea, and the book that truly freaked me out Z is for Zachariah. 

So am I a game snob?  Does someone have to play RPG’s to get my respect?  I’d have to say the answer to both of those questions is probably closer to yes.  I may want to say no, I may want to see the best of myself, but I don’t see that someone playing the Sims is anywhere close to someone who plays World of Warcraft.  Maybe it’s the percieved level of skill involed.  I don’t know.