Mark

When looking to engage a wide audience, people's perspectives are very important, and a person's background (including but not limited to gender) often plays an important role in the shaping of his/her perspective.

If there are millions of female MMO players playing an MMO I'm developing (which is certainly the case for most MMOs), then I'm going to want to see a significant number of female candidates in order to hire a well-rounded development team (with a good mix of genders, ages, personal interests etc). This used to not be the case, but is improving, and yet could still be better.

So regardless of who buys who dinner, I do see value in encouraging more women to consider a career in games/MMOs. :)

To help keep this thread from just being a criticism of people's growth trajectories into influential roles (which is pretty standard for anyone in the game's industry - start on less prestigious projects, gain valuable experience and shift onto higher calibre projects), I'd like to commend the fact that Massively rounded up a dozen women with fairly diverse roles on their respective games.

I'm very much looking forward to their interviews, and hearing each person's unique take on the the industry, as well as the advice they have to give to current and future female developers. As founding member of a couple game companies, I've been avidly interested in the broadening diversity of game developers (not limited to gender), and their contribution towards the expansion of the industry into new audiences, experiences, and even the overall culture of a company.

This industry is going to evolve significantly over the coming years, and I'm excited to see the continued growth and great new games that these developers end up working on...