GameSkinny Round Table Podcast Episode 11: Women in Gaming

The GameSkinny Roundtable Podcast decided in lieu of the usual news heavy discussion, we would talk about something much more meaningful to the gaming community. An issue that polarizes each side, and is becoming more and more relevant in the gaming world: Women in gaming.

Something so simple, yet so important, has caused a massive controversy in the industry, but what is really getting solved with all the arguing? This week Gary, Reilly Jay, Brian, Lui, Stephanie, are joined by Catrina Dennis as we  alldiscuss the impact of not only women in gaming, but also gamers who happen to be women.

We start with Anita Sarkeesian’s latest entry in her infamous series, Damsel in Distress: Part 3 – Tropes vs Women in Video Games, and tackle the issue from all sides. We attempt to dissect the presentation as a whole, and really try to see why these tropes exist in the first place.

With women gamers making up over 40% of the gaming community, why aren’t game writers/ developers making their female characters more relatable or realistic? Overlooking the obvious sexualization, why are a majority of female characters either useless, or overcompensating with bravado? Why is it easy to find a well created male lead, but heroines like Samus or Chell are so few and far in between?

In the real world, does this same weak characterization translate into how many guys treat girl gamers? Some might deny there is a problem, but when a girl hears “kitchen” joke for the 100th time, it hard to prove otherwise. Many feel like they are being mistreated and are working to bring awareness to the issue to make everyone feel welcome in the gaming community.

The debate was pretty heated this week. There were great points brought up all around, but it shows how passionate each side feels about this issue. We end the discussion with each of our top Female characters. Sound off in the comment section which girl kicks the most ass in a video game.

We’d like to thank Catrina again, and her wonderful contribution to the conversation! We hope she’ll join us again soon. If you like to see more of her, and her awesome projects, you can find her work on WordPress, Nerd Reactor, Twitter, and Youtube (which will soon be featuring her own Women in Gaming series!)

As an added Podcast Bonus…

Our awesome Podcast team has a few newbies joining our ranks. They are working on an addition to the Podcast which focuses on console gaming. If you want to catch up on all the breaking news of the week, they are the team for you!

In fact, their aweome new episode is sitting on the front page right now!

Free Guacamelee! Steam Code Giveaway!

Last week, Drinkbox graced us with 6 free Steam keys for the Guacamelee! Gold Edition to give away which also includesTales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack! This is a $14.99 game deal we are going to give away for some of our lucky viewers!

We are still giving these bad boys out, and the competition is not too stiff!  If you are feeling lucky, go to our Facebook or Twitter page and follow us, then share or retweet last week’s episode article to be entered for chance to win! More shares give you a greater chance to win! We will give away 3 per week until the end of this month, so start sharing!

 (This week’s summary written by Lui)