Kim Rom 2: Monkey with a typewriter
I realize I'm coming in to this game late. Kim Rom wrote his ill-conceived “Female Gaming My Ass” post on March 8, and I only noticed it about 3 weeks later. I'm only now getting around to noticing he wrote a follow-up a week later. I read it, I shook my head, and I almost moved on. But I decided to write about it because Kim's outlook, skewed though it is, is representative of a larger problem in the electronic entertainment industry. This is an industry that does not hold a high opinion of women or what women want out of their gaming experience. Instead of marketing to women, the industry markets women as a a byproduct. (It's why the same armor in many online games looks like a bikini on a female, and an impenetrable fortress of metal on a male.) His inability to form a coherent argument aside, Kim is yet another drone in an army of decision-makers who either don't know or don't care that they are excluding, alienating, and ignoring 50% of the potential consumer base. So I think his “In Defense of Why I am an Asshole” rebuttal is worth analyzing.
Rebuttal 101 teaches us to take 1 of 3 tacts: apologize, clarify, or defend. There is a lesser-known tact, which Kim chooses to implement, called weasel words. Kim wants us to know that it was all just a big joke that apparently only he got.
add anything new whatsoever - nor does it add anything constructive to
the “competitive female gamers are attention-whores” debate.”
…
“Childish, yes. Pointless, yes. Funny? To me it is. We all view humour
differently, I find stuff like that funny. Both to read and to write.”
“Childish”? “Funny.”? How about weaselly.
I went back to the original post, trying to see what childish humor escaped me and everyone else. Perhaps it is this:
have the same ambitions as men – but they lack the dedication and the
drive to fulfil those ambitions. They want to travel the world, they
want to compete for the big Dollars, but (more often than not) they
don’t want to work for it. (emphasis mine)
In his rebuttal, even though he just got done telling us it was all just a big joke, he goes on to say:
on the numbers I am talking about. Granted 99% is a lot, but that is
honestly the numbers I have witnessed in eSport since women began
playing.
So make up your fucking mind Kim. Was it all just a big joke, or do you really believe 99 in 100 female gamers are lazy camera whores? Oh, and thanks for clarifying the numbers. For a second there I thought you were making sweeping generalizations.
Moving right along, Kim realizes at about this point that he really has no defense, states that he doesn't really “give a fuck,” what anyone thinks, (why write the rebuttal then Kim?) and then proceeds to whine about how one blogger called him an “asshat.”
any names at all. Go for the ball, not for the player. And I stand by
my observation on male superiority when it comes to competitive gaming. (emphasis mine)
So if I understand correctly, you can call female gamers inferior camera whores, and–pshaw!–that's just your journalistic right. But call you an asshat, and why sir that is just unsporting.
Kim ends with:
gamer has received a top placement in a unisex competition. Fact.
Here's a little lesson in debate Kim: Arguments are corroborated by facts, not the other way around. This does not in any way prove your original thesis that “female gamers…lack the dedication and the
drive to fulfill those ambitions.” Or was that the joke? And if that was the joke, then, again, why the rebuttal? Can you understand why someone would call you an asshat? (that's rhetorical, of course you can't)
Fortunately Kim's post was short, because I'm not sure how much more I could have read. Not because I was so nauseated with his caveman mentality that I couldn't handle any more, but because the man simply cannot write a cohesive argument. If I could ask Kim anything– anything at all–it would be this: how the fuck did you ever manage to land a job as an editor? You can't write a cohesive thesis, you can't support your thesis, you can't even decide what your thesis is, and you sure as hell can't even be bothered to defend it with any kind of standards of reason.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of Kim Roms in the industry. Most of them aren't going to run their mouth like Kim, but they're out there. Kim, in his own twisted way, takes a stand against corporate sponsored female gaming teams, and yet it's his mentality that has lead to their creation and popularity. It's people like Kim Rom that think women only want to play social games, or anything that doesn't require manual dexterity. It's people like Kim that run the industry, thus ensuring that a very large portion of the consumer market will continue to remain untapped and either ignored or exploited.
March 30th, 2006 at 10:04 am
Never underestimate the dedication, drive, or ambition of a woman. Whatever weaknesses they may have, these are not among them.
March 31st, 2006 at 2:12 am
Don't lose faith. There are a lot of people like Kim in the industry now but their population will quickly dwindle as the industry moves forward. Call me an optimist, but as our industry grows, the old ways of thinking will either be naturally selected to extinction or find a small swampy niche to occupy.
I do have bad news for you though. This process is not going to happen because of the reasons we want it to, that is, because it is the intelligent and morally sound way to grow an industry. This is going to happen because there is a lot more money beyond the 18-35 male market. The market is incredibly intolerant of narrow-mindedness when opportunities are available.
This industry is reaching a turning point, just hang on a little longer.
March 31st, 2006 at 1:34 pm
Dear Amber,
I simply had to comment on some of the stuff you wrote, at least to clarify a bit.
Yeah, that works.
I don't say it's a joke anywhere, sorry. Could you please point me to that sentence, because I just can't find it. I stand by the 99%. You got the “of all female gamers” part wrong. I am talking about eSport, competitive gaming. A “sport” that is heavy on hero-worship and idols, where you make a name and where you get a lot of attention very easy. I am not talking about Xbox Live, MMO's or anything else. Just eSport.
You might not like the numbers, but that is what I have witnessed. I don't like them either btw, incase you also missed that.
Sorry Amber, you again completely missed the point. I was commenting on a poster that wanted me mention names of the woman I was directing my remarks against. I'm ignoring the whole asshat part. With this in mind, please read the reply again.
Furthermore - I even explained why I wrote it, and gave you and everyone else examples of other similar stuff. If you want to copy/paste, why not include the parts that actually answers you own questions?
You dont understand correctly, so that pretty much answers the rest of the question? I am talking about eSport, competitive gaming, and specifically Counter-Strike teams. Look at the categories in my first post, if you missed that part. For the record anyone can call me an asshat, or use the equally flattering expressions you use in this post, it really doesn't get to me. Altho I do believe dialogue is more productive if you don't.
Again, no joke. I stand by everything I said, altho I do admit (as I posted) that it came off both sexist and childish). And I will, once again, point out that I am speaking about eSport - where any woman has yet to reach a top placement in a unisex competition. That is a fact, sorry about that.
No, I am all for corporate sponsorships. Of both female and male teams, I just want sponsorships based on skill and dedication. I don't want them to based on cleavage.
I don't want women to play social games either, I want them to play whatever they have fun playing. It's the attention-whores I could do without. Why do you take so much offense at that?
Beats me. The really scary part is that all the sites I have run, have been number one in their areas in terms of visitors and user-interactivity.