Virtual Femme

Many, many people call themselves gamers including tons of women. Housewives and college girls put in serious time on MMOs, “coffee break games”, and games like the Sims. (An estimated 55% of Sims players are female.) Mini-games such as those sold by PopCap and BigFish are a gigantic hit for women. We’re definitely out there in force, but in the overall industry, women make up only 12% of the population according to a study done in 2004.

Seriously, though, one’s sex shouldn’t matter that much when it comes to gaming anonymously online with thousands of other players, yet it often does. Men pretend to be women because they say that they get more help that way. Serious women gamers pretend to be men in order to get into serious groups. Then, there are the EPCs of the world, and they just reduce women gamers as a whole to nothing more than online sex bunnies.

EPC - Evil Pussy Cat - is what I’ve dubbed a specific type of women gamer. (Sometimes you run into men pretending to be women who also deserve the title of EPC.) Every guild and every game has this type of player, and I feel for any guild who has more than one. EPC is a tribute to someone I watched in morbid fascination as I was playing City of Heroes/City of Villains. I never had a direct run-in with her, but I’d watch her have drama after drama on the guild alliance channel. She’d gathered a group of “white knights” who simply hung on her every word, and she enjoyed that attention greatly. In fact, if she was online and other people weren’t talking to her or about her, it wouldn’t be long before she had some sort of fit. One time, there was an animated games mechanics discussion going on guild chat. Several people were involved, and EPC threw in a few random sentences about her day or her life here or there. No one really picked up on it, and it wasn’t before long before EPC got “offended” by a statement a random guildie had made and spazzed all over everyone. A few of her “white knights” also jumped on the guy, and of course, chaos ensued. This happened on the forums a few times as well. Honestly, I’d love to be more specific about the issue, but I can’t for the life of me remember the issue over which she was totally losing it.

A totally different player that I dubbed an EPC on the same game in the same guild alliance as the original EPC logged on one day basically asking for encouragement to cheat on her husband who had recently been shipped to Iraq. When someone in the guild spoke up putting down the idea, she absolutely went bonkers and had some emotional fit that I can only describe as epic. She could have soloed a raid boss with the emo that was spewing forth.

Another key characteristic of the EPC is the fact that she/he gives out random tidbits about his/her state of undress, hardness of various body parts, and latest crazy sexual escapade. If these tales are met with silence, EPC will then resort to sweeping declarations of unreasonableness - “I hate men!” Obviously, the only correct answer to this statement is a resounding, “Why?”

Ultimately, EPCs ruin the gaming experience for many people. They’re not really there to game. They’re there to call attention to themselves and hoard it. They’re there to be over-dramatic, hyper emotional, and hyper sexed. They think to find a rapt audience for their craziness in the perceived socially inadequate atmosphere that is online gaming. Unfortunately for them, online games are often populated by successful women and men who are well-adapted socially and uninterested in the EPC game. So, ultimately, EPCs are doomed to clash with people who are really there to game, and they plop all their misery on the few knights who hover around them.

I’m hoping the EPC is a dying breed. That kind of behavior is unhealthy for the perpetrator, the community, and the people who fall for it. So, I leave you with these words of wisdom: Beware the evil pussy cat, and please, do not feed it.

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