 VIACGA, which you've probably noticed is headed
up by 2004 Ms.QuakeCon winner (and 2005 runner up), as well as
the girlz 0f destruction
website, is enough evidence to suggest that women are just as
keen and capable of mixing it up in the online gaming arena, though
it remains true that the vast majority of active gamers have
physical appendages that their female counterparts don't (I trust
you know what I mean by that). In fact, some 88% of gamers out there
are male. So for that reason it has been a priority for the game
development industry to try and attract girls into the gaming scene
for some time. A part of that inititative is currently being
addressed in the Womens Game
Conference. According to this report at C|Net News.com, part of
the problem is that there just aren't enough women working in game
development companies, and I suspect there's a large degree of truth
to that. Ironically, the best 3D modeller I know is a good female
friend of mine and she did spend some time working in a game dev
group, but sadly enough, was treated like an outsider and thus left
for greener pastures soon after. It's a trend that really should
change, because the ladies are just as creative as the guys and who
knows - they just might help introduce some features that have more
appeal for female gamers. The article is an interesting read, so
grab yourself a cuppa and have
a read.
"It's very hard to get respect," said Katelin Rosenburg, a
student at the University of Advancing Technology, a private college
in Arizona. "I'm the only girl in all my design classes. It's really
hard to get respect from guys because they're like, 'Girls don't
play games.' Guys play (games) with their buddies. They don't play
with their girlfriends."
The good news for women game players is that at least 80
percent of the 200 or so at the conference here were women. But in
the wider video game business, as most industry insiders know,
numbers add up to almost the exact opposite.
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