It's really heartening to see other websites with similar goals of driving intelligent and mature public discourse without the name-calling and insults typical ascribed to the gaming community.

Interestingly enough, we have a blog called "Boys Club" that's written by a fellow writer of mine on Hellforge that occasionally covers these very topics.

Only through thoughtful observation and civil discussion will we be able to get a better understanding of the gaming environment that we are all now a part of.

Men aren't soldiers, we're people with the same needs as everyone else; but a majority of games overemphasize the combative part of our nature to the exclusion of having anything significant to fight *for*. Just "here's a gun, now go shoot things".

Ladies, there isn't a doubt in my mind – we need you, as men and as gamers, to tell us when things are getting stale and stupid; to grasp us firmly by the collar and shake us out of our habitual ruts, and offer a more balanced perspective. ^_^

Many people who work in the industry have this idea that women play games like Barbie's Horse Adventures so they design games that specifically target that ridiculous niche instead of simply making good games that cater to both men and women.

A good game like Chrono Trigger would be just as appealing to a woman as it would be to a man. The problems only arise when you have games that specifically target the 'adolescent male' audience that alienate just about everyone else.

Anyway, there's nothing wrong with offering incentives for women to work in the industry. We can worry about equalizing it later. We just have to start somewhere, right?