I'm sure you're quite right that there are far more comp sci grads today than in the mid-80s, but I still think it signifies a problem that it mainstreamed so much more effectively with men than with women. It's acknowledged in that wikipedia link that the "geek factor" seems to be a bigger barrier for women than for men.

It's also a fair point that there are a lot of opportunities in the game industry outside comp sci degrees and programming. Good thing, since it seems women only represent 3% of game programmers, and representation elsewhere is a little less horrible.

And I have stumbled across some evidence that things actually aren't getting worse anymore, at least not in some regards. A recent survey shows female involvment in game development has doubled since 2009. I suspect the mobile boom is to thank for that by generally lowering everybody's barrier for participation.

I suppose I'm different from most posters here in that I don't view mobile and social gaming as being somehow apart from the rest of the industry. I think it's deceitful to think otherwise.

Deceitful is the wrong word. It's just two sides of the same industry. Just so happends these forums are about the side of the industry that is heavily male dominated.

This post is more of a tag, actually - I want to read right through before posting any more, but it's a bit late here.

Someone who spends a few minutes of their day playing some Angry Birds or Farmville probably isn't going to be the type of person who would then go into in depth discussions about game mechanics or fantasize in depth about what game they would make if given the resources. There is a massive divide, especially when putting things in the context of industry jobs. When talking about the kind of gamer who would want a job in the industry, you would most likely be focusing on the more dedicated gamers, instead of the mobile-type gamers.

Also, as I've previously stated, societal stigmas and expectations are likely a large part of the reason why women don't go into game industry positions as much as men, but I don't really think that is a "problem" within the video game industry. In fact, I'm not really sure it is a problem at all. As a man, there are certain expectations that steer me away from getting a career in fashion, however I can still do that if I really want to. I think we should focus on not ostracizing the women that are here and making sure they stand on equal ground and not attempting to recruit women into the industry.

I feel like you are talking about problems well outside our scope of influence, and I think we should reel it back to the smaller scale of what those within the industry are doing wrong, and that largely focuses on how we treat females within the industry and how we treat female game characters. Being over protective of women isn't going to help anyone, and it may make them feel more ostracized than they would if they were treated as just another community member. Being overly sensitive of women's costume design isn't going to help anyone, it may just make some of the people who realize how ridiculous those claims are snap back a little too hard.

I think the way not to do things, is by following what Bioware is doing with homosexual characters. They advertise it as some marketing point and yell it from the rooftops like "hey guys! look how inclusive we are! we have gay people in our games!" and it just comes off as a phony marketing tactic.

PS: That was largely a tangent, only partially related to your original post. Don't feel like I'm attacking you in any way, I just wanted to try and open up the discussion a little bit more.

I didn't mean respecting women on here because they're women. I meant being more sensitive and not posting disrespectful things like this. 

The OP's wording and tone came off as sexist (at least it did to me), and when things like that go unchecked, it doesn't look good on the site. SqueakySamurai was banned for another sexist post, but still, the OP. 

Yeah gaf shit the bed on this topic, damn shame too cause gaf is like a beacon for the industry when i comes to discussions but they dropped the ball on this one. Same goes for reddit. This is like CNN levels of censorsip.

There is nothing wrong with that post by Galaki...it was just a harmless joke based on the funny wording of the thread title. This is the internet. I am certainly not going to excuse everybody's behavior, but if you are participating in a public online forum and you are offended or feel disrespected by something like that, you probably shouldn't be on the internet. The world isn't designed to make everyone feel warm and fuzzy all of the time...in fact it is practically designed to do the opposite. Whether you are male or female, you will see things that offend you, and most of us just deal with it like reasonable adults and move on. We don't have to be overly sensitive about everything in the fear of offending some easily offended person, that is what Tumblr is for...

There is a line, but it is quite far from where you are drawing it.

Agreed, personally I find it an insulting misuse of the word disrespectful.

The thing I find hardest to believe in and that makes me wonder whether this isn't just a hardcore ad campaign for her game is that she found 6 men to have sex with. I mean, look at her.

Now I know that according to MS officials gamers are so fat and ugly that they'd never want to look at us through Kinect but seriously men, keep some standards! She is fugly!! So fat and fugly! My goodness, if she just as suggested having sex with me, I'd point her to the nearest gym and get her a membership. And probably puke afterwards. Ugh!

Funny but you might get in truoble for that. Le white Knights are about.