by Amanda Miller

Created on: November 15, 2008   Last Updated: November 17, 2008

Motivation and first impressions seem to be the two things that seperate males from females when it comes to video games. Who else remembers watching old reruns of Room Raiders on MTV? Whenever a teenage girl entered a boy's room, only to see a video game console laying next to his television, there was a decent chance that she would immediately deem her invisible prince as immature. Somewhere along the line, a decent percent of girls are turned off to video games early in life-whether it be due to lack of technological interest, or whether it be the idea that video games are somewhat of a sub-par means of entertainment. But we're talking about girls versus boys who are already engaged in the gaming community, so let's talk about motivation.

I have a confession to make. I have been an avid video game user since the age ofthirteen, I have always had friends (male and female alike) who have been emerged in the video game culture, and I was a video game tester for THQ for one year. That said, I can safely state that I am terrible at video games. Absolutely horrible. While working as a tester for THQ, I tested a video game title called Frontlines: Fuel of War for approximately four months prior to its public release. The day that game was released to the public, I went home and played the game online. I had never been so confident to play a video game against other people - I knew all of the game mechanics, I knew all of the best weapons and hiding places, I even knew of a few exploits that never got fixed before the game shipped. Long story short, I got my bloody face handed to me by pre-pubescent boys who had about seven hundred less hours of experience playing the game than I did.

What happened next was somewhat enlightening. I was losing. A lot. And, I honestly didn't really care. I wasn't motivated to play until I was good enough to win one hundred percent of all of my multiplayer matches. I didn't feel motivated to be competetive. Playing against a majority of boys, I could tell that motivation to be aggressive and competetive was something that they had, but I sincerely lacked. Testosterone gives people a reason to play the more violent video games. Without that desire to win and succeed over odds, violent video games are merely a series of pixelson a monitor controlled by an awkward-looking handheld plastic thing with buttons on it.

Everyone who plays video games does so for the same reason - to accomplish something that they feel is worth their time. For

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