Article: The Myth of Meritocracy
Why Online Gaming is a Hostile New Frontier
It’s been a long day at work and you’re itching for a release. You kick off your shoes, shrug off your coat, and maybe get a hot cup of tea going. You flop down on the couch or pull your chair up to your computer and log into a game, ready to forget the stresses of the day. Of course, it’s not quite that easy…
Online gaming played on the PC or consoles is on the rise. As less and less people crowd into their friends’ mom’s basement to share a couch and shit-talk as they play, more people are flocking to online services to play with other people. While there have always been services like Blizzard’s battle.net, it seems online play has grown in sophistication, depth, and size. More people play for more hours a week, and people connect. They join Steam Groups, guilds, and clans. You learn about people you’ll never meet, their fears, their kids and their jobs. There’s definitely a gaming culture, and it’s at its most vibrant and alive in online communities.
As with all cultures, there must be regulations and rankings. There must be a way to judge people and choose who to spend your time with. Gaming culture likes to pretend that it maintains an objective meritocracy, where skill rules all. “Move out of the fire, this isn’t rocket science!” Of course, there is no culture large or small which is able to hold a purely unbiased view of the people who participate in it. Gamer culture is no exception. Personal characteristics that count against you in the real world and its dominant, mainstream culture carry over into the virtual world. Gender is one of the largest biases which skew the meritocracy most gamers try to abide by, leading to a culture where hard work and practice pay off – but they pay off much less for some people.
World of Warcraft handily provides a perfect example of this. During the Burning Crusade expansion, Nightmares Asylum on Smolderthorn-US Horde made a public announcement that they were recruiting new players to help take down top content. Of course, there was a catch. Only male applicants would be considered. Female players were accused of causing too much drama, distracting male players, and not bringing enough skill to the table to make up for these shortcomings. There was some outrage from players, but the vocal minority of people who felt that this was absolutely not right were mainly ignored. After all, most players weren’t female and so wouldn’t be affected by such a policy. Not to mention the fact that Nightmares Asylum was demolishing difficult content, allowing access to the most treasured of epic loot.
While this policy brought some anger or disdain from players, it is not an unpopular decision from guild leaders and officers. Jake*, 17, is an officer in a ‘hardcore-casual’ World of Warcraft guild, and a former ‘full-time’ FPS tournament player. His methods of weeding out poor players from good players are blunt, but he claims they hold a certain effectiveness.
“In a raid, everyone has a job to do. If you set up a twenty-five man progression raid and one person is failing, they are being selfish. They’re wasting time and energy of twenty-four other people. Sometimes you just need someone with a pulse at the computer and you can piggy-back them through content, but our guild likes to weed out the bads before they have a chance to poison our success.”
“We don’t kick you if you miss a raid or you have kids or you have a date or whatever, but if you come for a raid then you stay for the entire raid and you bring your best.” According to Jake, the players who are most likely to bring their best and justify their slot in the raid are men. Jake is firm with the policy of preserving the time and energy of the other players in the raid. “Girls just aren’t on the same level. Sometimes they’re okay as healers or whatever, and I’d rather have a girl than an empty raid slot, but they lack that primal aggression that a man needs. They don’t need the kill as bad.”
The examples of Jake and Nightmares Asylum show how many modern stereotypes of women filter in and affect the gaming experience. Even dueling stereotypes that would seem to cancel each other out coexist happily. Women are seen as more maternal and caring, and less aggressive – as such, it is seen as ‘girls can’t pvp’. Yet women online are often characterized in a sort of aggressive, loud, ‘Girls Gone Wild’ way. Not only do players have to deal with the forces of the Horde and the minions of the Lich King, but they seemingly must contend with waves of attention whores, drama queens, and loot-sluts.
This reality often begs the question: why reveal your gender at all? This question is asked of many marginalized groups, but women must deal with it most of all. Why use voice chat if you will be harassed? Why bring up the fact that you have a boyfriend? Why mention anything feminine? Be safe, stay anonymous. Of course, in this case, anonymous means male. This well meaning advice not only solidifies the image of male as the default gender in video games, but more than that it is utterly impractical and useless on two fronts.
First of all, online gaming demands voice chat. As soon as you speak into your headset, it’s over: you’re revealed. The advice not to speak will only hurt your team. Look at the game Left 4 Dead: even at lower levels of difficulty, Left 4 Dead is a complicated, competitive shooter based heavily on teamwork and overcoming hectic challenges. Good luck surviving if you can’t call out when you’ve been snared by a hunter or grabbed by a Smoker!
Secondly, this advice ignores the fact that online gaming has become more of a community. As mentioned before, people join up into clans and guilds and groups. People talk about their lives and kids. The way that gaming ties people together, unites us from around the globe, through different cultures and backgrounds and gives us a common goal (shoot the other guy!) is one of its greatest strengths. To deny this experience to women seems silly.
Furthermore, the fact that this advice is seen as the great antidote to online sexism might explain why the numbers in online gaming are so skewed. When the onus to stop harassment is put on the victim instead of the harasser, its unlikely the victim will keep hanging around.
Let’s face it: there’s a reason why the typical picture of a gamer is a gangly teenage male. Looking at the numbers provides a much different picture. 2 out of 5 gamers are female. Casual games like Peggle are played in disproportionate numbers by women. The Wii is played by a vast majority of women. The numbers are clear: women are open to gaming. Marketing towards women, like the Wii Want To Play campaign works.
What can men do to coax women onto Xbox Live, Steam or Battle.net? The answer is more simple than it seems: When women talk about their experiences with online harassment, don’t roll your eyes. When other men whoop and throw slurs at a woman trying to suggest a good strategy for Lord Marrowgar, throw them a STFU. Definitely don’t be the guy joining in with the peanut gallery. Most importantly of all: just shut up and play with us. You may be surprised at the results.
*names used in this article have been changed
I really enjoyed this post!
It’s not especially surprising to hear, but it definitely needs to be said.
I was completely surprised that people aged 50 and over play games more than those under 18, though.
Good stuff!
[...] at Left Mouse Button writes about the sexual politics of online life in WOW and, as she puts it, the myth of the meritocracy. Hits some regular riffs, but with a lot of local colour. The quote from a 17-year old guild leader [...]
Well written and I must say that the 17 year old punk is an idiot. Playing in a mature guild with roughly 30% female, and they usually bring the same dedication and skill as the male players.
I gather that the dumb ass Jake will eventually grow up, but until then I would say f*k him.
Thanks for this post. We really do need more guys standing up for the girls who venture into “the boy’s club” areas of gaming.
This “Jake” dude seems to have issues with his own masculinity. The most efficient way at downplaying your own insecurities is making others appear less than you are. So you pick something you identify with, act that out a little too much, and disregard everyone who doesn’t do likewise. “Me male, me aggressive, me kill! Hurr… you no aggressive, no good, you… oddly arousing. GO AWAY, ME NO LIKE YOU!”
Yeah, I’m exaggerating. But not as much as you might think.
The “problem” with female gamers is that they are either near god-like or absolute rubbish. I’ve literally NEVER met an average female player. And average male-players make up about 90% of the entire male-gaming demographic.
There might be something to the “more drama” thing though. If your guild is a band of desperate men/boys and you know it, why rock the boat by inserting a girl? Hormones have been a great source of conflict for millions of years.
Consider the old saying: Bros before Hos
It exists because bros often stop being bros, if they start to compete for the attention of ho(s).
Guild leaders are free to use whatever methods they want for recruitment, if you disagree with them or when they are jerks, you don’t have to join their guild. Even if you find their recruitment methods objectional, on the long run it’s really their own problem if they wish to be discriminating.
Guilds and clans with bad attitudes never last long, and gaming communities that take themselves too seriously like that are usually very explosive, and prone to collapse as soon as the results start lacking.
Best tip for women looking to join a guild or clan, is to find a community that is at least a few years old, because you know there have been inevitable setbacks and the people are reasonable enough to work together. This indicates they are not frustrated young teenage boys that want instant competitive results.
Alternatively if women want these instant competitive results, they are free to start their own guilds and keep men out, and get the results. In fact, if women-only guilds regularly outperform male guilds, then they will be truly vindicated.
Now, to be fair, this Jake guy is not completely wrong either. I can’t presume to know at what level they play at, so he might be completely off in his case, but at the highest levels you rarely ever see girls. Certainly they are capable of it, but women just are not as competitive as men, the demographics of what type of games women and men buy are very clear on that. Obviously there are many individual cases where it’s not true, but the statistics are clear.
Being a guild leader myself, I have also unfortunately have had to learn in the past years that women often do cause problems, even with the best intentions. Everyone deserves a fair chance regardless of gender, so it doesn’t make me go as far as to ban women altogether, but yes I have to admit that I too am more sceptic when a women wants to join than when a man does.
In the end amongst female gamers there’s probably just as big a percentage of jerks as there is with male gamers.
But even aside from that, it’s still a truth that women and men have different behavior, especially in group dynamics. Even without active involvement, the mere presence of a girl can mess up group dynamics of an established male group, and by the way, it also works the other way around. Jake’s actions, and reasons for refusing girls in his team are wrong, and so is his crude explanation, but in the end every guild is free to accept and refuse who they want, and a guild leader or clan leader has to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of potentially changing group dynamics of a previously male only group, and discriminating based on gender. It’s not such an obvious choice as often made out to be.
As someone who raided in a cutting edge guild some time ago (server firsts in BWL, top 5 NA kills in AQ40), I can tell you how damaging it is to have “drama” in your guild. I feel you really failed to address why “competitive” guilds like NA would not allow girls.
The fact is that many people in a raid will be aged 16-22. There is usually a diversity of ages, yes. But 16-22 is not an uncommon age for anyone in a raid. At this age, people are not always rational and certainly not fully developed emotionally. Naturally, people start to develop relationships with the people they raid with. With a mixed gender guild, this naturally means some romantic feelings start to develop, even if they’re misplaced or idealized.
Of course, where there’s romance, there’s drama. It’s inevitable, especially in the vast majority of guilds with just a few female raiders and >90% male raiders. I watched one love triangle paralyze my guild’s leadership, and almost destroy the guild. We ended up losing one of our best healers as a result. Later, a different love triangle resulted in one of our best warriors leaving the guild.
The fact is, choosing to have an all-male raiding guild means that these issues mostly disappear. You might be losing out on some really good players, but the balance is a judgment call. It has nothing to do with girls as players one way or the other: they’re no better and no worse than male players. If a guild leader wants an all-male guild, I can totally understand where he is coming from. If he wants to criticize girls as bad players overall, I completely disagree with him. But that is not why NA or other guilds decide to be all-male.
I have been playing games since the 1980s and MMORPGs for many years. I have to say, like all things, there are good and bad male players and good and bad female players. I wish people would get over this “women are like x and men are like y” thing. We’re all different.
Thanks for writing.
The feminist in me says girl gamers don’t need any help from guys; the bitter cynic says that as a minority it’ll be a long hard battle unless the guys who aren’t dicks also join in.
Great article, Cassandra, well-written and to the point. I also agree with Aldezhar that “Jake” is a one-lobed cro-mag and a bad representative of guys.
It’s the anonymity of online socialization that causes harassment. Since we can assume that most dudes aren’t sexist assholes in real life, we have to assume that some otherwise-gentlemen will behave like juveniles when no one can see them. That doesn’t make it okay, of course, and a STFU, as you recommend, is a great idea.
I feel bad for women who’ve been driven away from gaming by jerks, and those who are hesitant to get involved because of them. Games are great and should be there for all of us. Grow up guys.
The kid is 17, cut him a break. The funny thing about guild politics is that the people promoted to leadership positions are often the ones who have free time to farm mats, watch progression training videos, help other people through runs, and usually these will end up being younger people without the time commitments of a job and a family.
Hehe though. I do like “sometimes they’re ok as healers”. Kids say the durndest things.
Man, some guys are just dicks you know? Being a guy here, I can’t say I sympathise with this Jake guy at all. He’s a dick.
I’d be happy to have anyone of any gender join my motley crew (not specifically in WoW – any game in general).
not blaming any of the two genders, it’s a pretty undeniable fact that young(ish) males and females are a better source of drama than exclusive groups of males or females. this might be why hardcore guilds, which tend to be mostly male, would avoid females, not because they’re any less skilled. this tension is just as visible offline as online and since men tend to be more agressive, sadly, females have to work all the much harder for respect. not all teens are whiny and selfish gamers either but all it takes is one bad egg to create doubt.
Quick nitpick: Left 4 Dead 1 and 2 are bad examples of the point you are trying to make above. The *characters* automatically yell out things all the time to compensate for those who don’t have mics and to provide consistency with the single-player mode (in which three of the characters are AI and by definition don’t have mics). If someone gets grabbed by a smoker or pounced by a hunter you KNOW it right away, though you may have to look around if you weren’t paying attention to everyone’s position.
Team Fortress 2 would have been a better example. There’s still some default character-chatter, and some limited options to have your character say prerecorded lines, but it’s much more microphone-dependent. The bigger variety of play modes and proliferation of oddball maps/servers requires more verbal coordination than L4D.
MadTinkerer, you make an interesting point about the Left 4 Dead/Team Fortress 2 example. I’ve played both games for a few months with friends, and I found that L4D was more important to use a mic with – generally warnings like ‘watch out for that car!’, “oh shit, I hear a tank”, “Snared! I’m snared behind you, I’m BEHIND THE TREES OH GOD SNARED!!” – no one I played with made too much use of the prerecorded lines, partially because it’s easier for Zoey’s voice to be drowned out in the chaos than mine and partially because it easier (and more fun) to PTT and say something than toggle the right line. TF2 I played very casually, but I was able to find a medic (I played Heavy) and just run at things and kill them without much coordination.
My L4D experience, I thought, was pretty universal – I can see that I was wrong in that assumption, but it is still pretty common I think!
I totally agree with this article. There is no excuse for men to be dicks, and no reason to exclude either gender from a guild or game. That women cause “drama” is a bullshit generalization.
Hey guys, just to let you know that the comment sheet will no longer ask for moderation for now. Apologies about that.
Unbelievable. Comments like “women always cause drama” or “women don’t have a competitive drive” make me wonder which planet these people are living on, because it’s clearly not this one.
Women are people. As such, some are drama queens, and some are extremely level-headed. Some use their gender (and its relative rarity in some gaming communities) for their own benefit, others are scrupulous not to do this, and others still won’t even ‘out’ themselves as female for fear of hitting these pre-conceptions. Some are highly competitive players, and some are more laid-back. Whatever the trend may be, there are still enough exceptions to any rule you care to pull out of your ass to make it a really bad rule to work by. Does this still really need to be said in the 21st Century?
Added to which, any romance drama in a group is just as much the ‘fault’ of the guys involved. It’s rather naive (I’d say sweetly naive, but for the fact it’s so blind to a decent chunk of the population) to think that you *need* women around to get romance drama at all.
What I think this boils down to is that when someone leaves because of a love triangle, some people are tempted to blame it on the presence of women. Using WoW as an example, this is like, when someone ragequits because they disagree with a looting decision or the drafting policy, or leaves with a couple of others because one of their friends invited them to their more-progressed guild, blaming a) the presence of loot in the game b) the limit on numbers in a raid or c) people having friends outside their guild. The bias is in the eyes of the beholder.
Actually, all the recent studies seem to show that women are the majority in the more popular MMOs, like WoW. They just don’t necessarily go around broadcasting their gender. This whole “oppressed minority” thing is really a line of BS. Just form your own girls only guild, and if the female players are so awesome, you’ll have guys wanting to join. Then you can tell them “no boyz allowed!”.
This article is a prime example of the “drama queen” thing. Do you think a guy would write something like this if he felt excluded from a female dominated game?
I’m not trying to be sexist, but when you get straight down to it, it is disgusting the amount of women who play WoW so that ‘gangly teenage males’ as the article calls them, will go “OMG A GIRL” and drool over them all day. Most of the girls who AREN’T like that, usually pretend to be male in online games to AVOID people drooling over them all day, because they seriously just want to play the game like everyone else, on the same level playing field.
The facts are this:
Most girls who play video games play them mostly if not entirely for the attention.
Most guys are oblivious to the fact that these girls will never meet them in real life, and jump at the chance of some kind of sexual contact with these girls, and will ignore it if they suck (not saying all girls suck) or give them free stuff or be more lenient with them.
In a top notch raiding guild trying to get stuff done as fast as possible with nothing slowing them down, 5 guys going “WE CAN’T RAID, MAN, WE GOTTA WAIT FOR ASHLEY” when they would normally go “Oh, dave’s not here, let’s go.” is not exactly optimal.
When you get into the “elitist” aspect of an online game, people start to get really picky about who they play with. Anybody who is not “pro” enough is excluded. Excluding girls like this is playing the odds because, quite frankly, most girls are scrubs.
There are of course (many) exceptions, but if you’re operating on a pure statistics basis they just…are. Would that it were not so, because gangly teenage boys would much rather be playing with / talking to girls, all other things being equal.
The thing is that it’s usually the guys causing the drama around the girl not the girl at all, if there is drama, half the guilds I’ve been in it’s been only the guys acting up because OMG 111!! there’s a girl. They the guys, really need to learn how to behave themselves.My main’s guild kicked the drama causing guys and went on just fine.
@Forch: “The facts are this: Most girls who play video games play them mostly if not entirely for the attention.”
Facts must be backed up. Based on what statistics do you claim this? You may not be trying to be a sexist, but you certainly sound like you are one.
Forch, re: “ Most girls who play video games play them mostly if not entirely for the attention.”
You wish. I know of exactly 0 girls who play just for male attention. What an infantile assumption – you obviously don’t know any girls, so you just assume they’re all doing everything they do in their lives just to entertain men. How entitled of you! The vast majority of women actually are forced go way out of their way to avoid getting the attention of the teenage male masses.
And re: Melf_Himself, most guys are scrubs too. Get over yourself.
More than anything I hate feminists and people who blindly stand up for “equality”, and I am a female.
Their are many differences between men and women. Without these differences the world would be a very boring place.
Men have a chemical -testosterone- that makes slightle more agressive, dominant, and competitive than females. No, not all men act this way in every aspect of their lives, they are allowed to differ as much as women, but in an age where their is no longer an imediate need to protect and hunt for your family videogames give males a way to “conqure” over something and fill their need for competition. Therefor, male gamers may tend to take missions more seriously than a female might.
This is not to say that females are any less skilled than males, but as in any feild you are always going to want same minded passionate people around you. Now, I do not mean to say that a woman “Cannot think like a man” although.. if your so passionate about being female I dont understand why you would want to in the first place… Just that you are required to prove your self the same as anyone else playing the game. If, you can prove that you are like minded, skilled, and ready to co-operate without playing the gender card, you will be respected in which ever game you are playing.
The problem with most female gamers who are having issues is that you feelings are hurt to easily, you can not put up with the harassment male gamers constantly throw at each other and you let if affect your game play, you also hold resentment towards all male gamers after a few have made sexualy inapropriate comments, I gaurntee you that not all male gamers are sexist pigs, but by acting like they are is no way to win over their favor.
Let me sum this up by saying you cant have your cake and eat it too, you cannot be a “beautiful sensitive flower” of a lady while trying to kick ass. You cant talk about how its hard to move the joy stick because of your new manicure and expect men to take you seriously. From experience I can tell you the best way to get rid of these stereotypes is to prove you fit into the gaming social structure, you dont get a free invite because of your sex, and the rules dont change for you.
As a former raider of Nightmares Asylum (from the start of SSC from the time at which we disbanded in Sunwell), we never had a no-female policy. I believe you are thinking of VANQUISH – Cho’gall[A].
Regardless, the drama surrounding female players contributed greatly to NA’s disbanding. We recruited a Paladin faction reroll midway through Tempest Keep, and to keep the story short, she caused an obnoxious amount of drama between officers and long-time members. Don’t get me wrong; all female gamers aren’t trainwrecks, we did have a very skilled female Shaman who kept to herself. Even the Paladin that was center-stage in the drama was a very (and I mean VERY) good healer. Since NA, I’ve played with a handful of talented female players, but the ratio of godawful girl gamers to decent ones is awful.
From my experience — and I’ve been raiding since Scholomance/BRS — females are generally not a good investment for a serious raiding guild. Let’s be honest, you’re throwing a vagina into a pool of greasy, fat, neck-bearded, basement-dwelling virgins. It’s bound to be a clusterfuck.
Just for reference, Vanquish is now on Blood Furnace and I accidentally put a hyphen in my website above. D:
Citgo, I’m on Smolderthorn in Critical Business, and I remember hearing about this a ton, even reading something – I believe it was really shortly repealed because people flipped the fuck out. Sorry your guild exploded, it was pretty funny when you guys fucked Dies Irae.
I lead a 5 year old WoW raiding guild, I’ve been an officer in it for 4 years. I’ve seen a lot of very good players, both male and female. I’ve seen a lot of very bad players, both male and female.
While there may be some exceptions to this in my time in WoW, players over 50 years old are very slow at reacting to fight mechanics and changing targets.
Female players ARE mostly healers, but there are still an appreciable number of DPS and Tank.
If female players appear to generally be worst than male raiders my guess is because people notice the female raiders more. I know a lot of other guilds that almost instantly invite females, no matter how bad they are, and end up kicking them once they can’t take the fail anymore while they would just not invite a male equivalent.
Also, the vast majority of female raiders my guild has had over it’s 4 years have been stay at home moms.
@Cassandra,
I can assure you we never had a no-female policy (though we probably should have :p). After talking to members of NA who were there prior to my joining [in early-BC], they said that there was never a no-female policy. They actually had many female gamers during Vanilla WoW (Cheyenne, Jitzgirl and Nearly to name a few off the top of my head) and as I said above, we had multiple females during BC until our disbanding.
Regardless, great article. Also, http://www.wow.com/2007/07/10/instant-karmas-gonna-get-you/ — NA’s greatest achievement.
This topic has always been and will always be. The battle of the sexes is a constant. There can never be a true equality of the sexes for although we are equal in many ways, we are unequal in as many ways. Viva la différence, I say. Personally, I see no problem in male-only nor female-only clubs. It’s like girls- or boys-only private schools: much the same less the distractions the other sex can cause. (I’ll never understand why the Boy Scouts let girls join. Why couldn’t someone form a separate group based on the model of the Boy Scouts, which any child could join, and leave the boys who don’t want to interact with girls to enjoy the Boy Scouts the way it was intended? You know, a boy’s club, a girl’s club and a mixed club. The Girl Guides is still a girls-only club. How sexist is that?!! Sure, most boys wouldn’t want to join them but it’s the principle of it. Actually, I think a lot of people lost the plot back then.)
I often hear complaints about men’s clubs but rarely about women’s clubs. At the end of the day, most males aren’t bothered if women want a male-free club whereas the if men want a men-only club, it’s deemed to be sexist. I just find that completely ridiculous. What about our rights?!!
P.S. Quote: “Not only do players have to deal with the forces of the Horde and the minions of the Lich King…”
Now, who’s being biased?! Do you play Alliance, by any chance?!
P.S.S. For The Horde!
@Citgo
I’ll concede the point then! Thanks for correcting my mixup.