Girls don’t like games… don’t get me started (although obviously this is one of the topics of my other blog!) … Wonderland’s Alice did a wonderful presentation at Women in Games earlier this year where she talked about what people do in their lesiure time. ‘Most partners play games together’ appears to be some sort of social revelation to people. Having grown up with games, and then lived in various shared houses, I can say that communal games playing is about equal to dvd/tv watching (she had it now pitched at significantly more for the 20-35 age bracket). It isn’t gendered anymore than sharing the ‘television’ space is (please stop playing Super Bass Fishing, we want to watch Lost now). Online gaming is even more social – I can hang out with my friends (who I no longer share a house with) and kill monsters at the same time… and over 9 million people on the various servers of WoW appear to agree with me, at least 35% of which are female. Anyway, preaching to the converted…

I’m also wondering what I meant by “out of date” in that post. I could claim that I just meant “it used to be widely believed that only boys played computer games but we now know that that has always been false”, but I suspect there was a not entirely conscious assumption that computer games used to be only for boys but now there are games for girls too. And that would be very wrong. My primary school had a Spectrum which we were allowed to play games on at playtime, and there was no gender split in evidence. Lots of boys and lots of girls used it, and we played the same games at the same time (usually Atic Atac or Horace Goes Skiing). But when I was at secondary school I didn’t have any female friends. Boys hung around with boys and didn’t talk to girls. That’s probably left me with the impression that computer games in the second half of the 80s were just for boys, but that could be a false impression, because I have no idea what girls my age were doing at that time.

I was also into tabletop gaming in that period, but that was a small sub-culture – most boys were hostile to us and thought we were weirdos, whereas computer games were much more mainstream.

Apparently the easiest way to make valid critical comment on my site often appears to be starting off with the definitive salvo of ‘you’re ugly, female and stupid… and I disagree with you for these very reasons because QED you can’t possibly be clever’. In my case, clearly being insulted about my potential looks by a total stranger is going to make me cry and run away (as all girls do). And quite right too.

Conversely, the simlarity to Shakespeare clearly totally confused George’s reader and they attempted a witty insult in the style of the Bard, but forgot the rules of iamb/sonnet form/blank verse in their confusion…

I think the old rule still applies — never say anything on the internet that you’d be too embarrassed to wear printed on a t-shirt! It’s certainly not a new problem: not long after I started blogging, the Tribble affair erupted (see http://del.icio.us/donutage/ivantribble for some links) and I started to worry whether I’d been foolish to blog under my own name. But I don’t think so now.

Brett: Despite the obvious drawbacks I’d prefer it if photos of academics were more easily available (not all department websites have them). It would help to reduce the awkwardness at conferences and seminars when you feel like you’re supposed to know who everyone is but you don’t.

Gary: I’m thinking more of subject matter than quality, especially in the light of the “theory wars”. Some people are going to think I’m too postmodern, others that I’m not postmodern enough. I’ve seen speakers at seminars being shot by both sides.