Female Gamers Ignored, But By Whom?

A third of all gamers and over half playing online are female, reports Abbie Wightwick, writing for UK news site icWales. Regarding that "over half" figure: Aside from being a bit of headline grabber, you can bet she doesn't mean stuff like Command & Conquer 3 or Company of Heroes or Battlefield 2142.

With all the talk about Halo 3 and Lord of the Rings Online, it's easy to forget that online gaming includes so-called "casual games," e.g. puzzlers like Sudoku or Bejeweled, word games like TextTwist, and card games from Hearts to Hold 'Em. It also means games you can play alone online, which while inarguably "online entertainment," probably isn't what you think of first when you hear the words "computer game."

The article goes on to confuse the issue further by quoting industry design vet Emma Westecott, who claims that "most games are written by men for men." Westecott really means most hardcore games, of course, i.e. the games the mainstream gaming press spotlights, which indeed tend to be games dreamed up and slung together by a predominantly male developer demographic. (Westecott cites research claiming women comprise 18% of the computer games industry, but adds many of those are in public relations.)

Which makes me wonder: Is the issue that computer games are written "by men for men"? Or is it an insular loop, where coverage of the gaming industry itself tends to skew dramatically in that direction, perpetuating the stereotype? Should Westecott and others' attention at the upcoming Women in Games conference be focused on events like "How to Acquire The Skills and Get That First Job" and "Resume Construction"? Shouldn't we also be addressing how information about the games industry gets parsed (and by whom) in the first place?

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