Fljotsdale wrote:True. As it is, I think this poll is a definite FLOP!
You gave it your best shot. I think RPGers are a bit apolitical, as a group (purely a personal observation), perhaps because so many are quite young. Issues such as these don't tend to interest them.
I interviewed Justine Cassell a few months back--she's the author of From Barbie to Mortal Kombat--and she stated the following about the many developers who launched titles in the mid-90s to sell computer games to girls:
In any case, all of these companies were launched. Some of them thrived, and most of them failed. Ultimately, all of them failed. The game companies adopted what is often called an essentialist discourse about girls. They went around saying, “Girls, girls, what do girls like? They like…pink! And lipstick.” They built games that were about dressing up, and telling secrets, and most of them pretty much bombed. Or as the girls told us, “What made these companies think that just because we don’t like shoot-em-ups, we don’t like action?”
But the games companies are pretty happy; for example, Electronic Arts did well from the get-go with The Sims—and that was never intended to be a game just for girls. Will Wright set about to build a new kind of game. He’s put some effort into gender balancing it. He’s hired a lot of women. He’s made sure they think carefully about stereotypes as they build their games...
