[MUD-Dev] "Men are from Quake, Women are from Ultima"

Chris Lloyd crl199 at soton.ac.uk
Mon Jan 15 19:19:06 CET 2001


> -----Original Message-----
> From: mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu [mailto:mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu]On Behalf Of
> Michael Tresca
> Sent: Monday, January 15, 2001 01:56
> To: mud-dev at kanga.nu
> Subject: RE: [MUD-Dev] "Men are from Quake, Women are from Ultima"
>
> Raph Koster posted on Saturday, January 13, 2001 1:34 AM:
>
> > My understanding is that most of the women gamers are in fact playing
> > casual games, card games and the like. And my other understanding is
> > that the conversion rate from those games to subscription based games
> > is abysmal (sub 5%). Has anyone on the list seen a spike in female
> > players over the last five years, and does anyone attribute it to
> > increased gender balance on the Internet?

[reply snipped]

It was only around 1995 that the internet took off at all, and before that
it seems to me that the majority of both game players, internet users and,
come to think of it, computer users, were male. As more and more families
get internet access at home, and people grow up being used to computers and
the "internet generation", more female gamers get online and introduced to
online gaming.

I took a break from online gaming for a year or two, then came back and
started playing more recently. When I found worlds with a fair number of
women on, I suppose I didn't think about it, but its definitely higher than
5 years ago.

[More snipped]

> I've seen enough MUDs to know that they are not generally concerned about
> gender biases.  In some cases, rather than query gender, the gender is
> simply he/his/him by default.  Then there's the quests that defame women
> (rape the maiden to get the quest!), the all-female prostitution houses,
> etc.

I've seen a few "rescue the princess" quests and all-female prostitution
houses, but never a MUD where you don't get a gender choice or have to take
advantage of the nymphs. What kind of seedy worlds do you play on? ;P#

C.

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