If you’ve been wondering about my silence for the past couple of weeks, I have a deep, dark secret to confess: Along with Revena I’ve been building and launching The IRIS Network, a new gaming site focused on helping to give women in the community a bigger voice. Two weeks from zero to launch is a pain in the butt, I tell you, and the layouts for everything but the forum are slapped together from default templates. But it’s done, it’s launched, and the next person who bleats about there not being enough women in gaming who are “out” there will get hit over the head with this site repeatedly.
From the site news:
After yet another bout of the “where are all the women gamers?†on the internet gaming communities, The IRIS Network (TIN) was finally born. Though there are many individual women gamers who write about their experiences, and many sites for women who game to connect and play with each other, none of these sites are there for the express purpose of highlighting gamers (both in the industry and outside of it) and bringing women’s perspectives into the mainstream. Though it may be a lofty goal, that’s exactly what we here at The IRIS Network aim to do.
So, if you are a gamer, or just like games, and want to be part of it, go sign up for the forums. If you are a woman gamer who wants more exposure for her blog, go to the directory and check if your site is listed (if so, please flesh it out, if not please list it). If you’re a writer (female or male) and are interested in submitting works for our gaming magazine, please visit Cerise and check out our submission guidelines.
A community is only as good as its members, and so I look forward to forging a strong voice for gender-inclusive game design with you all.
A feminist-friendly gaming forum? OMG YES *joins*
The forum looks great
As the younger generation of gamers is fond of saying, w00t. Nice that both electronic and dead-tree gaming is present.
You might be surprised to hear me say this, since on a mutual friend’s blog I tend to be the token conservative, but there is a very nasty anti-female streak in many male gamers- especially in the community I’m involved with (2d fighting games) Be glad you’ve never been on Kaillera- no one believes anyone is female there. If you really wanted to do a case study, find some girl who knows 2d fighters and get them on there. Just a suggested article idea.
Some things though:
Another friend of mine is currently doing a book publishing company called Iris print. I don’t know if there will be any confusion, and she is nice and won’t bite, but that could be a potential problem. I hope it isn’t.
Secondly, a site for you to look at and perhaps try to recruit- look for a group called Flare Gamer http://www.rinoa.nu
It is someone I go way back with- I’ve flamed her since 1998 ^_^, and she’s flamed back, but it’s all good. She is a good writer, and has some resources.
Never knew you were a gamer though. I apologize if you do not appreciate the unsolicited advice- but I’d like to see you succeed.
Arstal: Which blog is our mutual friend? I have to confess that I’m typically very awful at reading comments (not just on others’ blogs, but on my own as well……..)
I can believe it. I used to love fighting games… until I started playing them with boys. Actually that remained one of the biggest issues I had with my co-ed gaming groups; the way that guys would play just struck me as mean-spirited (and this is coming from the woman who screams obscenities at her TV if something goes wrong in her game) so even when I had a group that didn’t actively exclude me from the games, I still would always feel edgy and angry when I tried to join in on some Smash Bros. or Marvel vs. Capcom.
Thanks for the heads up. I want our directory to be as comprehensive as possible, and that’s a site I’ve never seen before. If you know of more women gamers who aren’t listed, feel free to let me know or add them to the directory yourself.
I’m a huge gamer! One with all the fanbrat airs and a good background in feminism to back up my analysis haha
No way, friendly advice is always appreciated. And well wishing, especially from someone who is openly an ideological opponent, is awesome too. I hope you do some lurking around the forums. And keep in mind that, while we’re a feminist-oriented site, we do hope for a well-rounded membership, which means that if you think you can contribute to the conversation while staying within the spirit of the community then you’re more than welcome to join up.
Don’t worry, Rags hasn’t killed me yet.
generally, the SNK community is more accepting of females, then the Capcom one. The MvC community (not surprised it’s a comic book game) is known to be particularly dumb. Someone on LJ to check out as well possibly is someone called zerochan.
Ah! That’s why I haven’t seen you around. I generally avoid Ragnell’s comments section unless she points out one of the resident trolls on her LJ. Then I go to go boggle at the stupid. And, well, it should go without saying that she doesn’t consider you a resident troll, or I would have known your name right away.
And for someone who touts himself (herself?) as the “token conservative” my impression of you so far is that you have your finger on the pulse of the issue pretty darn well. Makes me wonder what kind of conservative you are, because I have a hard time imagining you as a hardcore Bush-supporting neo-con. 😛
Knowing some hardcore MvC fans, I think I have an idea of what you’re talking about. ._.
You’re just full of helpful suggestions, aren’t you! I haven’t heard of zerochan before, so she’s a new one to go in the directory. Any chance I can get you to stick around these parts? I dunno how active it’ll be until I get TIN under control, but there’s always the archives to read while you’re waiting for new posts 😀
Trust me, I’m not a neo-con. I’m not even a conservative, but her place does skew liberal. Most people who know me well say I’m a Christian Democrat(based on the German political party) , or Moderate.
Zerochan is a female fighting game player- of VF, using who I think is the most difficult character to learn to boot (Vanessa). She also does reviews for game magazines.