A single event, even a series, does not sexism make. And it's important because it would be intriguing to see the results. Might be disappointing, might not be. But as long as it remains a vague mystery, it will be shrouded in accusations of sexism from both sides. If it's not important to you, just ignore it. Like I've done with virtually every Ludum Dare. Or Amnesia Fortnight. Or... most of these, actually. Some good stuff came out of them, though.

As Jack Thompson was often fond of saying.

hahahaha

Which public reaction would only one single "men only" gamedev event/competition of this kind lead to?
Honestly: Would people ignore it if they don't like it or would it lead to a big outrage you'll never see with this equally sexist one?

Actually, the correct term was, 'oh, good lord!' But when spun with usual southern baptist twang, it would come out sounding like, 'oh good lor'd' with the r silent... making it sound like, 'oh, good load!' which of course had its own disturbing context.

nothing wrong with a good load mate.

I don't know, I might make an exception with Mr. Thompson. I do not really wish to experience seeing a sweaty Christian lunatic spray Jesus juice all over a bathroom wall.

I don't care. Why would I care? Am I that peanut-brained that my interest in an event be strictly guided by "public reaction"? Let people watch, ignore, be outraged, do handstands, it's nothing to me! If there's the will, let them organise a dog-only jam, and then be outraged over it. I just don't want it to be organised by a pack of self-serving hyenas who claim to speak for all dogs.

Just on the issue of the humble weekly, and I know its a little off topic. I can't recall which of Anita's videos it was, but one of the points brought up was female characters in games whose sole roll was to be a female character. So not a pirate, commando or racing driver say, just be a token woman in essence whose traits were those of associated with womanhood. I think its slightly ironic that in an attempt to highlight female leads in games, they've at least partly tokenised them.

yep

At least the "Girls Make Games" doesn't "come out of the blue", I already noticed this project a few months ago and honestly the summer camps in itself shoudn't be pointed out, it would be like "throwing the baby with the water", it's somehow a legit project...

But if you want to investigate look more into the connections of the humble bundle because 1 or 2 weeks ago they did a Rock Paper Shotgun weekly bundle when shit was hitting the fan (I pointed that out but nobody cared)

I dont think this is a "conspiracy" I dont believe in BIG conspiracies, but I believe in particular or medium to kinda of big interests. I think in this case gaming industry seen a TREND that is happening in other scenaries as a path to follow, with an economic interest, of course.

I think from the very beginning, as I repeat several times before, that some people in the industry is trying to open the market to women, more, and it is not just a company. The number of women playing has increased in the last years, as the market share, they dont play massively any kind of game, in general, some women more than others, could be considered "hardcore" players, but not the most part of their gender, in men in general is totally different. Just check the numbers out there.

There is something important here, and it is perfect to talk about Humble Bundle and all this massive cheap sales, videogame market is reaching a boiling point there are, too many developers, too many games, prizes are going down, some platforms have problems, classic console market is having problems, and the supossed to be "profitable mobile market" has actually some non afordable cost per install situation. The market is having problems, big problems. Things look good because of course some publishers or developers have big products that work very good, but in general even people like EA, Nintendo, etc. are losing money with some software or hardware products, if not both. Companies like Zynga, with a BIG number or women playing their products had also many problems recently.

So and here it comes the past example, cigarrete industry had many problems too, it was a moment that it was considered "manly" and even "healthy" to smoke some cigarretes, but that started to change, I have a great article about this in Spanish, but can´t find now one in english, but maybe this one could bring some light to this http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=131153

The case is that in the past "smoking" was SOLD as a SYMBOL of women´s liberation. So my question is, you dont realize that "maybe" is the same story? Check the facts: "Hey men, you gamers are DEAD" plus all the news about women as players that bomb the press these days (There is no conspiracy controlling the media, but there are GOOD PR departments...) and there is a "message" constantly repeated by some of the most influent gaming industry people close to me. It is even annoying, because I agree in many things, but they repeat it constantly in the moment you disagree in the smallest thing, and curiously, more if you talk about it in social networks, personally in other chattings they dont even mencion it. I worked as PR and I know how corporative people can be in big companies.

So in my opinion the market is "stuck", this is the reason, you know one of the most stupid things of capitalism, and I consider myself liberal, but I need to point it... is that industries and companies need to GROW EVERY YEAR, frankly speaking is a non f... sense thing, as stupid as hell, considering this expansionism, is the same reason some of this companies go later to bankrupt, maybe I am bad in economics to understand this thing, but what I know well is they want to grow, every year... that is a fact.So Market is stuck, this yearly "grow" thing is stuck or even in negative numbers for some of them, so what to do? Search new markets... and what to do if you already tried almost most of them? Try to reach OTHER customers, a new target. And BEHOLD we are not talking here about most part of the actual femenine players, we are talking about the latent, sleeping, BIG, femenine market that is barely not buying games, and they are mostly "casuals" or non players. THIS is the BIG piece of the cake.

How to reach them? In this particular case the examples are already there. Smoking as symbol of liberation, new clothes, like mini-skirt, as a symbol of sexual freedom, etc, etc.

All this is the same thing, IMHO, that already happened with this, here it comes "videogame liberation", that it just means, "hey girls come here, this is your new symbol of progress and liberation, please buy!"

All mixed with casual pushes from the trend wave of course, there is never a big "evil plan", this is more like a domino castle, push one piece and all them, even not planning it, will go down later. Much more in this actual social network era.

Just my two cents.

Very interesting insight, I think you are close to the mark there especially with the over saturating of the video game market.

I forgot also to add the important "free games every month" with Playstation and Xbox, thisis a fight vs the "platform" to make their users happy, but definitively in the other side is "giving games for free that will stop some gamers to buy new products" , all the symptons are out there. Looks like we are living a "golden videogame era", maybe for customers, but not for companies. :/ (of course not in "general", in some cases they are making tons of money)

I think all this can also been seen to have some parallels with the comic book industry, with all this criticism from both sides of this particular issue, really showing that the industry has really matured and how is considered in some way as "art" with reviews moving from "this game is awesome, 16 bit!" of yesteryear, to reviewing the game's place it society.

But I agree that the moving force does appear to be money, with companies seeing the un-tapped potential, we are moving from the endless sequel producing style of film making into, the more copy cat-ing of the tv industry.