How to avoid a nasty fight with a game journalist over the latest news
A game journalist may well be a woman, but she or he is not a man.
This is a fact that should make you cringe when you’re writing an article about video games.
If you’re a man writing about games, you’re either a gamer or you’re not, and neither of these is okay.
If a game developer writes about video game games, it’s a different matter.
You’re not a gamer, you might be a video game journalist, and you’re probably not allowed to discuss video games with a woman.
If someone writes about a game with you in it, it could have a sexist, misogynistic or racist element to it, or it could be about a very specific and unique demographic.
You might not even know what the person is talking about, and your writing might make it seem like the game you’re reviewing is actually about you.
But that’s not how it works.
You need to treat women in gaming as real people, and not just as objects to be toyed with.
That means not treating women like objects or toys to be exploited, not making them feel like a sex object, and never saying anything derogatory about their gender, sexuality or race.
And the best way to do that is not to even talk to them at all.
You should talk to game developers, not journalists, and the only way to make sure that happens is to be more careful about who you talk to, and how you talk about games with them. Read more
