|
016 :: Gamer Girl Stereotypes |
filed:10/22/2005 by GM
Part 2 of gamer girl stereotypes.. this time around, we're covering the Otaku.
For those ignorant of the term "otaku", it's primarily used in the United States to describe persons obsessed with anime, manga, or Japanese things in general. There's a long history of the term in Japan, being used for geeks and serial killers. People argue that it's much broader than being used for anime dorks, but I just think those people have too much free time.
Stats:
Trademarks: Poor eye sight and licensed Gainax accessories.
Age: tweens to 30-somethings
Body-type: typically uninteresting
Music: J-pop and Visual Kei
Likes: Cute things, anime, manga, LiveJournal drama, yaoi, Sanrio, Gloomy Bear, going to anime conventions, sketching, bittorrenting fan-subtitled anime, role playing on IRC.
Dislikes: LiveJournal drama, dubbed anime, TokyoPop, waiting in line for T.M. Revolution concerts, overpriced Japanese things.
Games: Final Fantasy titles, RPGs, MMORPGs
Online hangouts: Side7, Deviant Art, LiveJournal
Quote: "Chii!"
Important notes: Otaku (already in plural form) come from all sorts of places in America. They dwell in small towns, large cities, and everywhere in between. Because of this, they tend to come in different shapes, sizes and colours. Mostly they're white. Otaku girls can hang out in packs among themselves or mixed with other otaku boys. They spend their free time watching anime they downloaded at home and reading manga at Borders. Most of them have annoying voices due to the fact they try to emulate female Japanese voice actors/seiyuu. They tend to have messy relationships due to the high occurrence of mental illness with Otaku.
Motive: There is no universal motive when otaku girls play video games. Some play to better fit in with guys, some play because they like the character designs, while others just play to play. They can be found mostly playing World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy XI, and other more obscure RPG titles distributed by Atlus game company. They also love to play rhythm games like Dance Dance Revolution and Parappa the Rapper.
Subtypes: Subtypes for Otaku tend to lean towards the more specifically obsessed. Visual Kei girls, Elegant Gothic Lolita wannabes, Kogal Rejects, and Fan Voice Actors exist within the Otaku world. They all play the same video games in the end, however.
Otaku girls are hard to tolerate unless you yourself watch anime and read manga. Otherwise, their antics become old very quickly and you'll soon want to slap some sense into them.
Next and last to cover: Small town girl
filed under: otaku, Anime Manga
|
|
 
- permalink
|
|
015 :: Short Stuff |
filed:10/21/2005 by GM
A quick round-up of things going on lately.
Kojima is working on a Revolution title. I suppose I would be excited if I even knew when the goddamn console was coming out for sure. Ugh.
Over at Spong, they have an interview with Jack Thompson. If you don't know about the doucheness that is Mr. Thompson.. let's just say that after all the accusations/rash generalizations and after all the crap he's said about "drooling" gamers, he's being investigated by the Florida Bar Association thanks to some persistent kids at Penny Arcade.
Continuing on the topic of violence in video games, over at Game Revolution they have an article about how youth violence has declined these past couple of years regardless of video games. Then again, when was the last time you saw a juvie getting arrested on COPS mid-playing video games.
Honestly, so long as children kill each other, politicians/parents/other officials will always try to find a scapegoat other than the child's ignorance or the parent's negligence. It's just a poor coincidence that consoles have progressed so much in the past couple of years that they can actually make detailed, gory video games. I remember when I was growing up, parents were accusing Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers for the increase of violence amongst children. I've never in my life seen a seven year old do a bicycle kick like the Pink Ranger.
Is the fox really guarding the chicken coop? ESRB is under fire for supposedly neglecting to do what it was suppose to do. Using the PSV system could possibly improve the ratings system by using traffic light colours. Though the system might be better than ESRB's, it would increase the cost of video games.. something that is not needed at all.
GM's theory on SquareEnix's new plot to become even lazier bastards? Confirmed.
To my dismay, Xbox may not have slimmed down everything like I thought. Apparently the power source is a goddamn brick. :[ We have the technology to build Xbox360s, but yet we can not design a nice, decently small power supply?
China, being awesome and backwards, has instated a new law. Maybe they'll stop stealing respawn grounds in FFXI now.
Sony is dumb as usual, releasing a pretty silver version of its PS2 console. Thing is, it isn't compatible with some games? Oh well, at least it looks nice. I guess. But how does Sony expect me to practice my throw commands and play mahjong now? :[
filed under: Sony, SquareEnix, Jack Thompson, violence in video games
|
|
- permalink |
|
014 :: Gamer Girl Stereotypes |
filed:10/21/2005 by GM
This is part one in a series of three posts outlining the most common gamer girl stereotypes. I think that if girls want to be taken seriously in gaming, they must strive to break these stereotypes.
There is a trinity when it comes to gamer girls. This trinity consists of the main three parts and its lesser, subtypes. The three parts are Hot Topic Reject Girls, Otaku, and Small Town Girls. This entry is about Hot Topic Reject Girls.
Stats:
Trademarks: Drama-mongering and bad dye jobs.
Age: typically underage.
Body-type: Varies from skinny twig to obese.
Music: Green Day and Linkin Park.
Likes: Emily Strange, Hot Topic's insult bunny, Lord of the Rings, Orlando Bloom, sulking alone in her room, yelling at her parents for no reason.
Dislikes: "Labels", people who try to "oppress" her, being underage.
Favourite Games: Whatever guys are playing and maybe Dance Dance Revolution.
Online hangouts: thedilly, Green Day fan sites (talking politics, no doubt), LiveJournal
Quote: "I'm ugly." (They say this so people will disagree with them and make them feel better.)
Important notes: The Hot Topic Reject (HTR) comes in many forms.. from mallrat tween to anti-social 19 year old. These girls tend to be considered poseurs in their respective habitats (usually school) so when going to the arcade their "polished" image is readily accepted by dysfunctional boys. It's not unusual to see these girls show up to the arcade with a posse of boys following them around. These nerdy, typically unattractive boys (only as unattractive as the girl) tend to be much older than the girl and quite possibly only hang out with her for the partial chance of making their lolicon dreams come true.
Motive: HTRs only play games to pick up guys. Due to the unfavourable attitude people have towards them, HTRs surround themselves with fanboys quite similar to the Otaku girls (covered in next post). Constantly feeling supposedly unwanted their whole lives, they go to arcades to pick up a fan club and makes themselves feel better with attention. Typically, they only play games that a majority of guys are playing. Even if they aren't any good, there will still be one or two losers who will pay attention to them. HTRs are hard to tolerate because they're unstable and constantly start drama with everyone around them. Only boys with low self-esteems can tolerate their crap on a daily basis.
Subtypes: Known subtypes of Hot Topic Rejects are as follows: Underage Emo Kid, Goth Reject, and Prepubescent Punk Girl. Their motives are the same usually.
HTRs tend to never hang out with one another. There is no room for girl competition within one group so HTR girls travel by themselves or with their fan club.
Next to cover: Otaku
filed under: Gamer Girls, Hot Topic Rejects
|
|
- permalink |
|
013 :: Girls + Japan |
filed:10/18/2005 by GM
I grew up around comic books. When my older brother moved out of the house when I was three, I inherited all of his comic books. Of course it was no use to me then considering I didn't know how to read but it paved the way for my constant relationship with comic books for years to come.
When I moved to San Francisco from LA, I happened to live around the corner from a comic book store. When things got boring or difficult at home, I'd simply walk around the corner and hang out at the comic book store. Instead of stifling my male traits like at home, I was welcomed there.
I tried to read comics. But mostly none of them interested me because of poor artwork and writing. I still hung out at the comic book store however, because it was like a sanctuary.
Over the years, I've seen the comic book crowd slowly change. Instead of the regulars who would come in for their savers, there were more adolescent girls coming in to buy manga novels. As time went by, more and more girls kept coming in.
I'd go to anime conventions every year. Not because I liked anime or manga, but because I was always curious what these people were buying. The otaku ("obsessed with anime/manga/Japanese things") crowd seemed to be willing to shell out hundreds of dollars in a couple of days on frivolous Japanese things.
Eventually the manga titles and merchandise we were selling at con and at the comic book store ended up also being sold at Borders and other non-typical stores. Quite honestly, the Borders in downtown SF's manga section almost rivals my comic book store's.
It's important to note the popularity that anime/manga has garnered these past couple of years. You can track these things through a timeline of television shows and video games.
Do you think anyone had remembered the poor Final Fantasy franchise when Final Fantasy 7 came out? Or if anyone had even remembered Chrono Cross when Chrono Trigger was released?
The point isn't Japan's new place in American pop culture.
The point is, before Japan, girls (in the majority) didn't care much for video games or comic books.
While sadly, the majority of girl gamers only play RPGs and whatever FPSes their boyfriends play, I see that there is still room to improve. What will this mean for guy gamers?
1) When a coin line is long at an arcade, guys must tolerate girls standing behind them putting on their makeup and/or complaining how they were skipped in line because they had to go to the bathroom.
a) Girls trying to skip in coin lines by using their "feminine wiles."
2) You won't be able to tell wither you're playing against a 12 year old boy whose balls haven't dropped yet or a girl when playing games with voice option.
3) Being embarrassed/teased by your guy friends when losing to a girl at anything.
4) A tougher time preordering certain games, depending on how long it takes girls to spread out their interests.
5) Putting up with girls who don't play games to play games, but simply play them to try and pick up guys.
The good things about the whole situation is that it won't be such a sausage party when you go to arcades or hold a LAN party. Maybe you might be able to get a girlfriend who actually understands.
My only warning to guys everywhere is.. don't give your girlfriend your WoW/Lineage II/Everquest II account information. If you break up, you'll regret it when you sign in and realise you have no character anymore. Just remember not to freak out like the Asians do and kill some fool.
filed under: girl gamers are dumb, anime manga
|
|
- permalink |
|
012 :: Stubbs the Zombie |
filed:10/18/2005 by GM
I actually checked EP's email today and found an email from someone on behalf of M80 & Ignited Minds, about a little game called Stubbs the Zombie. While normally I don't humour street teamish promotion, this game just seemed bad enough for me to reply.
Stubbs the Zombie made by a bunch of ex-Bungie people. It runs on the HALO engine amongst other things that're similar to HALO. Automatically, between me and Roy, we have something against the game. I love zombies but feel that lately the topic has been overdone.
In the game, you play a zombie attacking people. That's about it. There's co-op.. and it plays like HALO co-op. Oh well.
They're trying to shove the soundtrack down everyone's throats. Just because they have faggoty groups like Deathcab, Phantom Planet and the Walkmen, they think they have some sort of cred. When searching for Stubbs the Zombie video game, I got more results for the soundtrack than the actual game website itself. Because we all know that all the kids who love zombies are apparently indie emo rejects. Boo-hoo, my girlfriend ate me!
The community for this game would be the same if it were about pirates. It seems now a days developers can make weird video games about certain topics and then all of a sudden have street teams promoting them.
The only thing I have to say about this game that's good is that their analog artwork is nice. That doesn't count for much.
If this review hurts anyone, go listen to some Deathcab.
filed under: Stubbs the Zombie
|
|
- permalink |
|
011 :: In the News |
filed:10/18/2005 by GM
Craigslist asks Oodle to stop using their classified ads. What some people consider "helping", most just consider siphoning information to be used as content since whomever is too lazy to create any content themselves.
LeapFrog, quite possibly the only company directed towards young children that has impressed me in recent years, has been advertising for their Fly pentop computer for weeks on Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon. I'd get one if it weren't expensive.
read::
CNET
Every single Xbox360 event that's been held since HALO 2 fever has died down, the question has been asked.. When is HALO 3 coming out? While I don't care, I'm growing dreadfully tired of hearing about it. Bungie is working on something. Is Bungie trying to pull a Rockstar by keeping quiet and working on something completely different in the meanwhile? At this rate, it could be years for another HALO if indeed they aren't working on it currently. We'll have another Gran Turismo situation on our hands.
read:
Kikizo - Microsoft Tiptoes Around HALO
Something Roy might like to hear. SNK Playmore is releasing a dating sim for i-mode-supporting cellphones in Japan. GM's picks for who to romance? Mai (she's fucked all of Japan already) and Kula (even though she might have a penis). You even have a rival guy in the game. The artwork is pretty skanky. Good going SNK. Other cute things for your cellphone thanks to SNK? Tennis, Samurai Spirits and Metal Slug. Playing fighting games on your cellphone will hurt your fingers..
If you've been watching Adult Swim lately and been wondering about what the hell is Gametap yet always forget to check, I suggest heading over to Gaming Age. They have a two part introduction to the service. And even after reading, I still haven't been to the website. I just like their Mexican village PacMan commercial.
filed under: Xbox360, Gametap, SNK, HALO 3
|
|
- permalink |
|
010 :: New Phone |
filed:10/18/2005 by GM
I did some research on this a couple weeks ago when thinking about getting a new phone. My current phone (z500a) isn't that old yet nor has it turned out like my last phone (T306) where a year and a half after I got it everyone had one since they were so cheap. Actually when I got my z500a, a lot of the promised software accessories they said would be located online weren't even uploaded onto the website yet. Regardless, I'm looking for a new phone to look forward to getting once the price drops.
My requirements? 2 megapixel camera and MP3 support. Oh yeah, and not ugly.
What I ended up with? Sony Ericsson's new W800 cellphone. It's attractive, will null my need for a Hi-MD player somewhat, and memory can be upgraded with memory cards that I have lying around the house gathering dust because I at one point in time owned an MP3 player..
Reason why I buy Sony Ericsson phones over Motorola? Because I'm too lazy to buy new accessories if I bought a different brand of phone.
filed under: Sony Ericsson, mobile phones
|
|
- permalink |
all original content copyright EP
|
|
