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The Gender-Offensive: Female Gaming Cultures Between Shooters and Marketing

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Computer Games and New Media Cultures

Abstract

The game industry is supporting or sometimes even “installing” them; the academic discourse is constantly overlooking them so far: female clans and web portals. Three different examples of current female gaming cultures with their preference of shooters, questions about their basic structures, visual representations, and relation toward the game industry are presented. This short glimpse into the lively female gaming universe explicitly goes beyond concepts of the “average” player and shows that “female gamer” seems to have become a brand for gender offensiveness and marketing conformity at the same time. But this brand can be played with – in different (gender) forms and with different (professional) aims….

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Notes

  1. 1.

     EA magazine 04/2006: Die Spielerin – Frau verspielt.

  2. 2.

     Retro No. 5, 18 September 2007.

  3. 3.

     http://pressetext.de/news/061127006/erstes-weltweites-spielemagazin-fuer-frauen-play-vanilla-von-computec-media/. (Accessed 01 March 2011).

  4. 4.

    http://www.computec.de/common/mediadaten/MD_CM_2009_O_playvanilla.pdf. (Accessed 01 March 2011).

  5. 5.

    The issue of female aggression is also discussed in Carr’s paper (see Chap. 26).

  6. 6.

    For an analysis of LAN parties, see Ackermann (Chap. 29).

  7. 7.

    http://www.casualgaming.biz/news/27480/Kathy-Vrabeck-on-casuals-future. (Accessed 28 February 2011).

  8. 8.

     http://www.zockerweibchen.de/news-artikel,Frauen-in-der-Gamingbranche-Selbstdarstellung-zum-Erfolg,33537,1.html. (Accessed 01 March 2011).

  9. 9.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AMKb-nt0tA. (Accessed 01 March 2011).

  10. 10.

    www.grrlgamer.com/crew.php. (Accessed 16 October 2010).

  11. 11.

    http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/1999/02/18052. (Accessed 01 March 2011).

  12. 12.

    http://www.pmsclan.com/page.php?page=About%20Us. (Accessed 01 March 2011).

  13. 13.

    For a discussion of e-sports as a youth phenomenon, see Adamus (Chap. 30).

  14. 14.

    http://www.esl.eu/de/pro-series/summer_2011/news/15147/GC-2005-Res-mee/. (Accessed 01 March 2011).

  15. 15.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3At3jhdx30. (Accessed 01 March 2011).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Art and Visual Media, University of Flensburg, Flensburg, Germany

    Jutta Zaremba

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  1. Jutta Zaremba
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Correspondence to Jutta Zaremba .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. , Institute for Educational Science, University of Magdeburg, Zschokkestr. 32, Magdeburg, 39104, Germany

    Johannes Fromme

  2. , School of Education, University of Hamburg, Mollerstr 10, Hamburg, 20146, Germany

    Alexander Unger

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Zaremba, J. (2012). The Gender-Offensive: Female Gaming Cultures Between Shooters and Marketing. In: Fromme, J., Unger, A. (eds) Computer Games and New Media Cultures. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2777-9_28

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