Scuttlebutt Pipeline

Welcome to Scuttlebutt Pipeline! If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed or sign up to receive email notifications of new entries.
Also, don't forget to check out Fifty for the Fall, your chance to win $50 cash - no strings attached!

It’s never ceased to amaze me whenever I walk into a gaming store just how few females I see in the store let alone running it. Most of the time I have this small sense “you don’t belong” but I tend to ignore it and do my own thing regardless. That’s my nature.

“Women are playing games now, in part because computers are much more part of our lives,” says Bradshaw. “Games are redefining themselves.”

So what difference does it make if the people who make those games are overwhelmingly white, male and young?

“Because everyone out there experiences games differently,” says Tracy Rosenthal-Newsom, senior producer at Harmonix Music Systems, the company that created the “Guitar Hero” franchise. “If you have a diverse team, you can create a game that satisfies a much wider audience than if you have a homogeneous team.”

Ten years ago, reaching a wide audience wouldn’t have even made the radar at most game companies. Back then, the industry was content to target the same crowd it always had — males aged 18 to 35. With few exceptions, developers churned out titles that were heavy on gunplay, blood sport and hyper-sexualized female characters. Even Lara Croft, star of the hugely successful “Tomb Raider” franchise, was as well-known for her outsize assets as her ability to kick ass.

(full article)

Do you think the changing game scene is for the better or the worse?

Trackback URI |