The gaming world has always had a problem with women. It's not really the other way around. I've known dozens of women who could have been into videogames, or board games, or role-playing games, but they were turned off by the culture. I remember bringing my girlfriend/now-wife into a comic/game store in NYC once, and she couldn't take more than a minute in the place. She just didn't feel welcome. But unless videogames want to walk the same path as comic books (how many copies does X-Men sell these days? 200,000?) the industry better start trying harder to grab the chicks. Along these lines, the first Women's Game Conference is being held in Austin, Texas on September 9-10. The goal of the conference is to get everyone talking about what role women can play in making the super-successful game business super-duper successful. Every business has its down cycle, but that down cycle could be blunted by factoring in the tastes of the other 49% of the world.
