A few days ago on twitter (where do you get news?) Some people within the design crew of Borderlands 2 were calling their easier difficulty mode, “Girlfriend Mode.” Since then there has been a lot of articles claiming people are over reacting, backpedaling and clarifications by CEOs. You can find the original article here on Eurogamer, with some updates.
I first noticed the story when @SunriseRobin (Author of Zeus, Inc. and founder/blogger of www.fangirlconfessions.com) was tweeting about it. Now i know many women who are great at video games, and many who suck. We all have our own preferences, just like I know many men who are good and many men who suck. It’s not a gender thing, but for some reason there is a big group of people, or perhaps a loud group of people who seem to want to put down women who game. Not only that, they want to keep women from gaming. (and there is also a backlash where women now are being expected to prove that they are action gamers and not just posers /sigh)
My reaction to this “Girlfriend Mode” was not to flame tweet, was not to call for a boycott of Borderlands 2 (Borderlands the original game is very good and I can’t see one designer being stupid as cause for a boycott) but this image came into my head. I was swamped with work so I asked Robin to remind me to draw it later.
I hope you all enjoy it for the fun it is meant to be.