Hi there. I come in peace from /r/gaming. I didn't even know /r/girlgamers existed until the OP's thread a few moments ago.

If you allow me just a few moments of your time, I hope I can perhaps give you my opinion of a typical "male" gamer. I am stereotyping here but I think it's pretty accurate.

• First and foremost, despite what you may think, most of us guys are not sexist. We're very clumsy with words and say stupidly sexist sounding stuff - such as "you play like a girl" - but that's just because we're idiots, not sexist.
• On top of that, some gamers are socially awkward. So not only are they idiots, but their awkward idiots. They can end up saying really inappropriate stuff.
• I myself have a female cousin who is an electrical and computer engineer who worked her way through real world sexism for decades getting to the upper levels top of a major engineering company, and so I'm very conscious of what sexism is truly like and abhorrent. I say this because I am consciously aware of how hard it can be for you ladies in the "boys club" and I really do appreciate that as a collective we don't often lay out the welcome mat.
• I find it horrible that some girls don't feel safe / happy / comfortable or whatever other word fits to play computer games. This is my favourite past time. The stories I find incredibly engaging. The fact that some girls don't feel comfortable I find sad and heartbreaking.
• I find that there is poor behaivour and generalisations of some extremists of both male and female gamers. Some of the most vocal critics seem to have the worst arguments (in my opinion) and I find myself getting frustrated at some of the issues raised. I don't wish to start a debate on this however, and I acknowledge this is a personal opinion. My point however is that this situation seems to fuel a lot of vitriol and anger quickly. If we are to judge solely based of these debates I think we lose the parts we agree on.

And what are the parts we agree on?

• I hope the part we agree on is that games (video games, as well as board and other) are very fun and awesome.
• I think we agree that girls are friggen great players and "playing like a girl" should be a damn compliment. In WoW in Vanilla we had a Grand Marshall Huntress in our guild.
• I think us guys can probably do a lot more to try and make girls feel more comfortable playing games.
• I think video game companies need to realise that girl gamers exist and they need to target to both audiences.

I'm 33 and a guy gamer. I've been playing games since my parents owned an arcade parlor when I was a kid. I love that my nieces and nephews all play computer games and I hope that my nieces feel just as safe and happy to sit down to kick ass as my nephews do.