Introduction To My Blog
Pebble's Gaming Diaries
16/10/2022
Today's blog post will be a short introduction to me and what my aims are with this blog.
I'm a 'gamer' like many of you reading may be too. However, I'm also a girl... why does that matter? I honestly don't understand it either, but in this community, it does.
When I was younger I used to play Call of Duty Black Ops 2 (COD), on my friend's Play Station 3 (PS3), but as we got older we focused more on school than on games. It wasn’t until lockdown 2020 that I was introduced to PC gaming and installed games such as Counter Strike Global Offensive (CSGO), Overwatch, Final Fantasy 14, and then eventually Valorant.
To explain to you how much of a '*noob' I was, the first game I started playing
on PC was CSGO I use a laptop, not a gaming laptop, and back then I didn’t
have a mouse because I had never needed one, so I would run around the map
trying to k*ll enemies with my touchpad. Thinking back on it, it's so
embarrassing.
2 years on, I've now focused my attention on Valorant, a product of Riot Games.
I've spent these 2 years simply trying to build my '*game sense' and improve
factors that affect my ability to play well.
I'm no world-class gamer, but I wouldn't say I'm terrible, although I've been
fighting Riot's ranking system profusely to escape and remain out of *Iron.
As I mentioned previously, I'm a woman, and being a woman in the gaming
community isn’t always received positively. When I started out, I had my fair
share of rude and inappropriate interactions, however, since I stopped speaking
in-game, I haven’t noticed any positive or negative changes, gamers are just
very unpredictable.
Therefore
I have decided to test it out and explore the difference in how the gaming
community reacts and interacts with players when they don't know their gender
vs when they know it is a girl.
Since
I have spent the majority of the 2 years saying the bare minimum in Valorant voice
chat, I will now do the complete opposite and see how and if the interactions
change.
As a
disclaimer, I would like to address pre-emptively that having already experienced
negative comments from male gamers and also some female gamers (surprisingly), any
remarks made and shared during this “experiment” will be either censored or adapted
to limit triggers. Furthermore, I do not wish to ruin the image of Riot Games’
Valorant, nor do I want this blog to become a feminist narrative. Therefore,
opinions will remain as unbiased as possible and all stories/events will be
told objectively, looking at both the good and the bad of being a female gamer.
Pebbles
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Blog Post Glossary:
*Iron: No, not the metal, in this context "Iron" refers to the lowest rank a player can achieve in Valorant. Valorant's ranking system is as shown in the following image:
*Noob: In this context, a noob is a person who is inexperienced in playing video games, particularly on PC.
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