This Just In: Women Exist In The Gaming Industry

Tom Chick at Fidgit justifiably lambasts a clueless blog posting.

Women are being “left on sidelines” in the “video game revolution”, according to the LA Times… But the real question is – assuming it is, indeed a Bad Thing – what can be done about it? And the answer to this, I fear, is not much.

He then goes on to explain that the problem basically is that Math Is Hard. Which is an excuse like any other – there are female engineers, just as much as female producers, female designers, and female artists. There are fewer of them than their male counterparts, but they exist, in every discipline, and an aggressive hiring policy that values diversity can succeed. (Mythic deserves a lot of kudos here, by the way – it was one of the most gender-inclusive workplaces I’ve ever encountered in the industry.)

The real problem, of course, not to put too fine a point on it, is that there just aren’t that many women willing to put up with the game industry’s bullshit. Perhaps that should be addressed before the whole math-is-hard-yo thing.