This is pretty clear to anyone who has ever played a game of Counterstrike or whatever and a woman makes the mistake of using voice chat. You'll get the whole gamut from misogynistic nonsense to the most awkward and creepy attempts to hit on them possible, pretty much every time.
this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2025
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I only ever really saw the clsssic toxic gamer behavior flourish once most games switched from having private dedicated servers ran by the players that almost always had an admin present to handle toxicity to unmoderated developer hosted servers no players have any bit of control over. Counter-Strike: Source vs CS:GO/CS2 is quite a leap in the general attitude of players you would encounter.
Wild how removing people who managed the player's behavior makes the bad behavior intensify.
Confirmed. Counterstrike specifically was very inclusive and very open to most players of all ages, demographics, and skill ranges especially compared to other shooters of the 00's. Then matchmaking and eventually premier got introduced and any chance of moderating the community died and here we are today.
I suspect the environment is different depending on the game. I never witnessed any of that in overwatch back when I used to play for instance. Though I pretty much never play multiplayer games without at least one friend so the numbers are skewed a bit by having at least 2 non-weirdos on the team
Alternatively, you had two guaranteed weirdos.
I agree that most competitive games tend to go that way. My ex and I played a lot of League of Legends in a small friend group together (where this did not happen, thank god), and if playing with "externals" it was unbelievable what bullshit she had to deal with. and although most of the time the creeps bit off more than they could chew, it must have felt pretty bad, regardless of what me and our friends did or said.
Anyone with experience in non-competitive game settings to share?
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It's just one joke, over and over again. I'm a guy, but one of the reasons I stopped going to lan parties was hearing this same few jokes again and again whenever a woman showed up. If it wasn't a woman, it would be something else from the limited number of topics and opinions they had. When it wasn't frustrating, it was simply boring.
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I don't doubt this but now I'm really curious about the numbers. Is it the same on PC? How do women's experience compare to other genders in similar surveys?
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Competitive gaming is a cesspool regardless of gender but I feel for women who have to deal with sexism on top of the default toxicity. Hopefully things will improve over time but i don't have high hope for the near future sadly
This study has nothing to do with that. It only surveyed mobile gaming.
I read somewhere that "Dead by Daylight" has a (relatively) high percentage of women, because there's zero voice chat.
It's not a voice chat problem, you can always turn voice/text chat off. That's not the reason some games have a relatively higher percentage of women.
It was the reason I started playing it.
It's one of the first things I bring up when recommending it to other women who aren't playing online multiplayer games usually.
Most women I know who play it don't play any other multiplayer games online, at least none with VC.
Games with VC usually do have the option to turn it off, but doing so you'll have less information than players who use it. You'll be a detriment to your team if they would otherwise have had efficient comms. You are turning off a feature, where the game is built on the expectations that it is turned on. I'd rather not have that option at all and instead have everyone be on the same page, with no expectations of comms with strangers. One less thing to consider, say no to, to disappoint others with.
Nowadays I'd probably use VC if they had it, but I never would have started playing if they did, so I'm glad there are still games where it's not even an option.
So I'd say for a fair percentage that absolutely is the reason. That, and the horror icons.
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"Researchers surveyed 1,000 women of all ages across the UK who play mobile games."
Shows a picture of a woman holding what appears to be a PS4 controller.
Poifect.
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oh dang, women have been telling you for the past like 40 years that video games are an incredibly exclusionary space and turns out they weren't just lying??? crazy, it's almost like we should be listening to people when they have problems in a community. i mean jfc people actually needed a study to prove this? ask any woman who's ever attempted to speak in game chat what happens, just ask.
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Interesting study. Explicitly about mobile gaming, not PC gaming, though ...
Dr Seán Roberts, who researches gaming at Cardiff University, said: “When I ask people if they play video games, women often say no. But if you ask about playing games on a mobile, many of them will suddenly say yes. It’s like they have an idea of what a real gamer is in their heads, and they feel like they don’t meet that ideal.”
TBF I don't really consider myself a gamer anymore... even though I clock a few hours a week on the playstation. But like I used to play competitive FPS/MOBA/RTS 10+ hours a week.
How can you call yourself competitive when you didn't even clock 40+ hours a week? Competitive gaming isn't just a hobby, it's a way of life... Poser.
//This comment was brought to you by Raid: Shadow Legends! Play now!!!//
lmao.
40+??? That's scrub level commitment. Get gud and you'll be on the leaderboards playing 10+ a week. /s
So they aren't actually getting excluded from games they just dont view themselves as gamers probaby because that label is cringe. I wouldn't consider someone who casually plays mobile games to be a gamer either. Gamer isnt just anyone who play a games, it describes someone who embeds themselves in gaming communities and culture and engages gaming as a hobby. Same as going for a walk doesn't make you a hiker.
I play pc games often and wouldnt consider myself a gamer.
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How the fuck are they getting shamed and excluded in mobile games?
We need equality in the gaming space.
We should shame everyone who plays games on phones equally.
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Probably by the common mindset that mobile games don't really count for gaming clout.
If i compare what crap games i've played on my PC sometimes to mobile games, i feel that such boundaries are pretty arbitrary. There are some mobile games that can keep up with PC gaming too - Shattered Pixel Dungeon and Hoplite come to mind.
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just looking at it as a classification of genres, they (men & women) rightly feel shame and exclusion because mobile gaming is to gaming as connect4 is to table top gaming.
-as decreed from the Assistant to the High Stellarch of the PC Master Race 69th Group, Section 420.
In other news: the sky generally appears blue.
Gotta have data to do anything with it. Important to actually be able to show and prove problems exist before trying to deal with them. (Need more data on causes)
i mean of course youre going to have a conclusion like that polling exclusively mobile game players. For example had they polled female MMO players (there are a lot), the results would likely be far different.
Eh, I’m one of those MMO ‘females’. I have to be really cautious when I first join a guild. I’m often seen as a ‘female’ first and gamer second. The amount of times I’ve gotten OnlyFans comments is way too high. I’ve had the best luck in multiplayer FPS games. The downfall of Bungie hits me hard because Destiny in particular was a great place to be a woman gamer. Can you do the mechanic and communicate? That’s all a good team wants.
Absolutely, in a guild with a female GM and we've collected a fair number of female gamers because of it. But we still end up kicking folks occasionally because they lose their shit when they hear a female on discord.
Many men are emotionally unable to accept things like this. I think the reasoning goes like
- i'm a good person
- i like my hobby
- someone is saying bad things about my hobby
- this makes me feel bad, so it must be false
- furthermore, the person bringing it up is attacking me
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belief_perseverance
Facts don't matter. There's really nothing you can do if you're not someone they like.
I also think about this comic a lot: https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1151.html - Some people are too cowardly to grow.
I also think it may be just... sexism... I know people who behave like this towards women, but not other men...
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Given where this is coming from, im waiting for the drop where they blame the tranas community for this. Somehow.
I've been playing a certain well known game for over a decade now. I've developed such skill at never specifying anything that could out my gender I could put it on a resume.
It's actually quite fun. Oh the stuff men talk about when they don't know there's a lass in their raid group lolol
Now that I'm "old", it ain't about guilt, shame, or exclusion, it's about how fun this facade is. Y'all neeeever know. So keep talking.
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Yeah that's definitely not going to be exclusive to mobile games, but I always feel like mobile games are generally more isolating to begin with.
"ackshually mobile games don't count as real games 🤓" - lemmy users
"women avoid me 🤓" - same lemmy users
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