Girls and Games

The Original 'Girls and Games' essay

In 2004 NOBODY in the video games industry was interested in making a game which would appeal to women. It was like talking to a wall. In frustration I penned an inflammatory tirade in the spirit of "The Gamers' Manifesto" just to slap my peers in the face and say "Wake TF up!"

It was published in entirety on the web by "Gamasutra.com" 11/15/2004

In an edited version by "PC Gamer" UK August 2005 Issue 151 as an eight-page feature

and it has been cited and quoted from on dozens of websites across the industry.

I no longer post it on my site because...well, it was an inflammatory tirade and the necessity for that is past.
Not only have I had my own mind changed on a number of points, but the Industry has changed drastically since that time. Today many of the points which I raised are now commonplace. Things have come a long way in just a few short years.

The month that 'Girls and Games' was published on Gamasutra I received close to 100 e-mails. And thank you, whoever that was who posted my address on the Singapore dating site. That was funny, although my husband was not amused.

For those of you who might be interested here are the results I received from the essay:

• Most of the respondents were people who had been in the industry a long time (more than a decade).
• Most of the respondents were programmers or company heads, both of whom had strong personal interests in what possibilities remain out there for gameplay. Company heads felt that they were unable to effect change on a lot of levels, including not just publishers, but the narrow vision of their own teams. Programmers felt that they were unable to speak up about the issues in their workplace, but the topics in the essay were very much on their minds (different kinds of games, different kinds of game players).
• The average letter I received was three pages long.
• All but six of the respondents were male.
• Consensus was that many of my points were less about gender but more applicable to maturing gamers (and I have to agree).
• My website logged over 700 hits the week the article was published (that sheer volume shows just how interested people are in the issue).
• Most younger developers (unless they were outsiders in some way) wanted things to stay just the way they are.
• Everybody else felt something between chastised and deeply embarrassed.
• Outsiders and Alternative game developers were all highly frustrated that there was so little outside interest from the mainstream industry in innovation.