Madness Factor

Given that a lot of my time has been spent in the gaming world recently, I figured I might as well blog about it. One thing I can’t ignore—and this is true of the pro audio world as well—is that women seem to be an afterthought when it comes to product design and marketing. Even though there have been some positive steps forward in the marketing and design of pro audio gear in the 10+ years I’ve been recording, women are still underrepresented in the industry. Even in the wake of the home-recording boom, there remains a striking shortage of women designing—and using—audio gear. It’s worse in gaming. It seems to be a chicken and egg sort of thing—there aren’t enough women in game development therefore women aren’t being catered to as an audience, and because women aren’t catered to as an audience there aren’t many who take an interest in game development.

I’ve read a few interesting things about this over the last few weeks.
The Escapist web magazine covered the issue—from several different perspectives—in November. Read that here. Also, there’s a whole web site devoted to women gamers called, surprisingly enough, WomenGamers.com.

I’ll have more to say on all this, but it’s late and I have to get up early to go play video games tomorrow. G’night!