Girls and the Gaming Industry

I have a biased view of the gaming industry.  According to “Women and Games: Technologies of the Gendered Self”  there are three different kinds of gamers, power gamers, moderate gamers, and non-gamers.  I would be considered a power gamer according to this.  When I play, I don't know how the industry tries to sell girlhood to girls.  The main objective is to find a game that looks fun to play.  That being said, after reading, “Women and Games: Technologies of the Gendered Self," I have noticed certain ploys from the gaming industry.

I am going to focus wholly on the Xbox 360 console for this.  As I said, I am a power gamer.  I have far too many games for the 360, as it is called.  For the hard core games that power games play, girlhood is a second thought that it thrown in after the complete game play has been developed.  These games are developed for the gamer, boy or girl, that wants to challenge their game ability.  Granted, I myself am shocked when a girl is playing but they seem to take pleasure in beating boys in the multiplayer setting.  There is one exception to this, and that game is called Mass Effect.  This game gives the player the option to be either male or female.  This option in itself is not all that amazing, but what is amazing is how the game lets the player interact with other characters.  It allows the player to flirt with other characters, buy different clothes, food, weapons, ect.  What's interesting about this process is nothing happens unless it is initiated by the player.  This gives the player ultimate control over what happens in the environment.  The games also lets the player decide what kind of hero their character is going to be.  This means that if the gamer chooses to be a attractive yet strong hero, she can.  Or she can pick to be a smart but normal strength hero.  Now the one thing that is main stream about this game is no matter which character you choose to be, all of them are look to be in tip top shape .  All of them are very healthy looking, could be skinny but none of them are over weight.  This game has tried to incorporate to desires of female gamers.  The problem with it, is it incorporated it to the desires of one kind of female gamer.  It doesn't give you the option to pick who you flirt with, only select characters are what I would call "flirtable."  The female characters act a lot like the male characters do.  In fact the designers pick a "neutral gender" last name for the main character, but every time I hear that name, I think of my male character even when I am watching my sister play as a girl.  This suggests that even though she is playing as a woman, the hero should be male.  The game tired but in that attempt, it made a very gender biased game.