Where are our games?

Interesting that I should read an article today that points out that game designers are missing an opportunity by not designing, marketing and positioning games for women, when my previous post was for a games site that I think is just delightful. The article appears on the Georgia Institute of Technology website, and is credited to an article run on AOL games daily website. The article points out that nearly 82% of the gaming developer population are male and the games developed are tested by males, and marketed to males. They contrast this to the Parker brothers who manufactured games, where many women were employed in the manufacturing process and became testers of the games, and hence influenced the development of the games so they became games that were enjoyed by multi-generations.
It points out that women over 40 spend more time playing downloadable games than any other part of the population but this fact has been marginalized by the casual gaming business not being as lucrative as the long adventure 40 hour plus playing games.
Apparently Nintendo have decided to go for this market, by saying the others can have the hard core gamers and they'll take the others. They are the first gaming company to have a booth at an AARP convention!
The article also points out that Microsoft is about to launch a gaming campaign aimed at casual gamers (i.e., women) - it will be interesting to see whether that attracts us to their offering.