Stand Out Game Store - Gametraders

As female gamers the act of going into a game store can be a good, or bad experience. More often than not we've found it's the latter "is it a gift for your boyfriend?", no moron, it's a gift for myself, I like to frag! Anyway, we've come across a little Aussie gem, no we're not being paid, this is a selfless act of bigging up a game store with a difference.

We'd never heard of 'GameTraders', having moved to Queensland from bonny Scotland, but always having to walk into a game store, in we wandered, bracing for the worst. One of the guys working behind the counter looked pretty young -- here's part one of the gem bit. Never judge a book by its cover, this guy was a gent, chatty, knowledgable and an asset to the store, so was the guy working wth him.

More to this, every staff member we've dealt with in the Hypderdome Gametraders at Logan has been polite, never assuming that we're not gamers ourselves, that we're purchasing for someone else or most annoyingly that we know nothing about gaming because we're women. They're as passionate about games as we are and we think they deserve a big w00t! If you happen to be in the area, pop into the store and make a purchase, you won't be sorry you did.

Stranglehold - John Woo on 360

Every now and again a game comes out at really the wrong time and we think maybe Stranglehold is one such game. It managed to keep us engrossed enough to play it all the way through in a few days. Some great graphical touches, nice voice work and beautiful environments. Still no one on the Aus girl gamer teams friends lists are playing this title, they're all on Halo 3 (everyone yawn together lol).

Not that it will matter in a few weeks I suppose, when the friends list changes from Halo 3 to Mass Effect, at least for the non die-hards who will be playing Halo 3 until Halo 4 comes out! Anyway back to Stranglehold, cool game, not brilliant, but a lot of fun to play and some really cool gameplay moves and effects. Definitely one to look at when it hits the sales bins.

Where Are The Girl Gamers?

A little thought hit us here at Girl Gamers Aus and it was 'where are the girl gamers?'. We know you're out there, we know this because we play with you online. Where are you when launch events, like the recent Halo 3 launch went ahead. Were you getting your beauty sleep and opted to pick it up the next day? Did you send your husband / boyfriend / girlfriend / parent / other to pick it up for you? We ask this because we're girl gamers and at the Halo 3 launch we went to South of Brisbane we were two of only three women there, the third being a loyal young woman draped over her boyfriend, with about as much interest in Halo 3 as she did in cleaning sewers.

So what does this sort of female gamer turn out tell the big companies. Should we be alarmed that we are stand out customers at our local games store because we're women? Statistically speaking almost half (around 47% allegedly) of all gamers are female, so where the hell are they? In a straight relationship sense we would surmise that more often than not the 'husband' / 'boyfriend' of the pair will be the person in the game store, with their other half, whilst still a gamer, remaining pretty much invisible. Any thoughts?