"The world is changing, it has already changed, and we have not been doing a very good job of keeping up with it," says Tom Abernathy.

A narrative writer for Microsoft Studios has said that "women are the new core" and that creating more diverse stories, including more female characters and ethnicities, will make for better games.

Speaking as part of a presentation at GDC 2013 (written up by GamesIndustry andPolygon), Tom Abernathy--who has worked on Halo: Reach, The Saboteur, and Destroy All Humans--said the games industry hasn't kept up with today's social culture and that the market for video games is changing at a pace that developers and publishers aren't keeping up with.

"Our audience is leaving us behind," Abernathy said. "The world is changing, it has already changed, and we have not been doing a very good job of keeping up with it."

Abernathy pointed to various studies that show the diverse makeup of modern gamers, including research by the Entertainment Software Association and casual game developer PopCap which states that adult women now make up 30 per cent of US gamers.

"Women are not a small special market on the fringe of the core," Abernathy said. "Women are the new core."

Abernathy also said that more diverse games would be good for the business of the games industry, because more diversity would bring in a wider audience and therefore generate more money. "But you need to persuade people that it's OK, and won't hurt sales but might help them," he said.

"Nobody in the room admits to being against making characters female or nonwhite," he added. "But they're scared because they don't know how to defend that choice to their bosses."

"Our industry, our art, and our business stand to gain in every sense simply by holding a mirror up to our audience and reflecting their diversity in what we produce," Abernathy said.

http://m.gamespot.com/news/women-are-the-new-core-says-microsoft-narrative-designer-6406037

maybe theres more female gamers around....but i doubt their the new "core"

Women are not the "new core." The "new core" is a mix between women and men. People of all ages. And people of all "social class." (Meaning "Nerd" or "Cool person.")

To say that the gaming market is swaying towards a certain gender (again) would be ridiculous.

Wow, that IS a pretty good epitaph.

Booooooooooooo!

Maybe so, but that's not stopping some developers from focusing on specific groups. It's how these businesses conduct their market researches. If succesful, they continue, if not, fire the CEO and try something else!

you need just 3 words to translate"women are new core"=kinect2,kinect2,kinect2

a flood of "move + social" games is coming,hope it is not a tsunami and maybe next gen will be completely different defined than we thought.

but from a corporate perspective legit:Women don't care or complain about graphics,framerate drops,low res ,low metacritik scores etc.games can be produced in a pretty cheap way,just like nintendo did it with games like Wii sports,Wii fit,Wii music or Wii U xD)
that's very attractive for producers,low risk,huge sales

Funny... Women have been accounted as core market in Asian countries since like always. There hasn't been exactly a lack of strong female leads. There could be more but I don't feel there's a lack.
Ubisoft did great with Aveline in ACIII: Liberation, Lara Croft just got "reborn", Lightning is a strong character and there's plenty more.

Is Microsoft just opening up to this? Maybe they have a new IP with a female protagonist. Let's hope its not kinect yoga.

Can't say I'm surprised Microsoft thinks this way. There is a flaw is this logic though. Even IF women are the new core.....what makes you think they like to play Kinect? I've met some "girl gamers" and they play the same games I do.

Can't they just make better games, I feel that there needs to be less focus on female leads, they shouldn't be a thing, there should be games which happen to have females as leads, it shouldn't be such a huge story every time it happens