Topic: Lots of Editorials...

[Famicom]

Quite a few editorials recently. Will this be a growing trend, or does the staff have a burning passion to get some writing out right now? Personally I'm all for them; makes for some good debating. Thanks for the opinions.

[KDR_11k]

Might be caused by a lack of news.

[Bloodworth]

It's mostly because of Bonnie coming on and David Trammell returning to staff.  The main reason that editorials lightened up is that the people who wrote them had left the staff for one reason or another.  Jonny's trying to fire up some of the other staff writers too, so yeah, expect to see more.

[UncleBob]

I don't mean to sound rude or anything, but I'd like to see Ms. Ruberg write something not about being a "Girl Gamer"...  I don't know about anyone else, but to me it's painfully obvious that a company is going to use women to advertise to a target demographic of men ages 18-25, and I'm still not quite sure the point of writing about women gamers picking women characters... (I like Peach in SSBM...)

There's so many things to gripe about or explore in the gaming world and I'd like to see a woman's point of view on some things... I really hope Ms. Ruberg doesn't get stuck in a slump where she only writes on topics that focus on the fact that she has boobies... err.. that she's a girl.

[Hostile Creation]

I wouldn't have ended my post as ungracefully as UncleBob did, but I basically agree.  While it makes sense that she writes about girl gamers, a site that is predominately male gamers doesn't want to see just that.  It's all good and well that she does, but I don't think she should really focus on that aspect of gaming too much more than any other aspect of it.  Just a suggestion.

[Ms.Pikmin]

I agree with UncleBob in the sense that while it's good to hear a female perspective on gaming, the topics chosen have not been the best.  But I have to disagree with Hostile Creation in that just because this forum is male dominated that Bonnie shouldn't focus so much on that perspective.  There are over 7,000 registered users on this site and, even taking into consideration duplicate accounts, I will bet there are still many girls who lurk around here.  As I suggested at the beginning of this post, I do think more thought needs to go into topics chosen.  The first article regarding whether girls should play girl characters left me confused as to what the relevance was.

I'm glad PGC is posting more editorials, but let's just not go overboard where there's a million of them and the topics are weak.  

[Jonnyboy117]

7,000 forum users maybe...our actual readership is much, much larger than that.

It is true that I have pushed for more editorials this year, and it's going extremely well so far.  I love the format but was tired of being the only person who ever used it.  So I am encouraging all of our staff members to consider doing editorials, and I have hired (or re-hired) some people I think will also contribute.

Bonnie approached us specifically with the idea to do a series of articles focusing on issues that are important to girl gamers.  We thought it was an interesting idea and decided to give her a shot.  I think she has done a fine job so far, and she has a lot of other ideas for articles that range from silly to very serious.  Just having a "female perspective" and reporting as normal is something PGC has had for a long time.  We've had female staff members as long as I've been around.  But they work on the same content the rest of us do, and I don't think the "female perspective" is nearly as prominent as some of you might think.  Girl gamers are just gamers like the rest of us, and they see most things pretty much the same way.  So without spotlighting issues specific to being female, there is no distinct "female perspective".  In this respect, Bonnie is working in a very different capacity than Zosha and Karlie.  And that's what we hired her to do.  I hope she'll become interested in doing other types of content as well as the editorials, but that's up to her really.

As for David's sequel to "The Click!", it is something I've wanted him to write for quite a while.  I finally convinced him to do it, and he's already thinking of his next topic.

And don't worry about editorial overloading.  You may not always care about the topics we discuss or agree with our viewpoints, but I am committed to only publishing unique, well researched editorials.  We are not interested in "I Can't Wait for Revolution" or "RE4 is Awesome" or "Nintendo is for Kids".  Anyone can write those articles and contribute absolutely nothing to the collective knowledge.  

[UncleBob]

Quote
Originally posted by: Hostile Creation
I wouldn't have ended my post as ungracefully as UncleBob did, but I basically agree.  

I apologize... I didn't mean for my ending comment to sound... rude?

I meant it to make light of the fact that the majority of us here are males and that males don't necessarly see women gamers as gamer, etc...

It honestly doesn't matter to me if Ms. Ruberg has boobies or not, because I'm married.

[vudu]

Quote
the majority of us here are males and that males don't necessarly see women gamers as gamer

Translation:  Women belong in the kitchen and not playing video games?

What I think UncleBob is trying to say (and I don't mean to put words into his mouth) is that some men can't relate to Bonnie's editorials because it's a viewpoint that's foreign to them.

To that I say, tough.  If it doesn't interest you, don't read it.  There's plenty of other things on that Internet.

[Hostile Creation]

I'm saying that editorials focused on girls are fine, but to write exclusively for such a small percent of the audience isn't advisable.  Writing about girl gamers more often isn't going to bring more girls to the site (how do they know you're writing them?), but you will eventually lose the attention of the guys.  It's fine to write about girls in gaming, but there are plenty of things to talk about (many of them non-gender specific) other than that, too.

[UncleBob]

Quote
Originally posted by: kingvudu

What I think UncleBob is trying to say (and I don't mean to put words into his mouth) is that some men can't relate to Bonnie's editorials because it's a viewpoint that's foreign to them.

'eh... well, that's not really my Point of View... Just sayin'....