Frankly i think it's more the culture of the comments on this slashdot entry that needs to change. We have a wide diversity of games both good and bad, and yes it is a pity that so much of the marketing drives women away from really brilliant gaming experiences but to assume that women don't find anything in Triple-A titles is nonsense. Sure we may be a minority but I think the real point driven home by the research is that we are less of a minority then people think. Probably because there's no obvious way to tell a gamer's gender nor measure if a girl is buying a game for themselves or someone else with the 'oh it's for her boyfriend assumption'. Societies problem seems to be that girls don't exist unless they're girly? According to most of the replies here it's a big deal for females to be gamers, why else would there be such a polarized reaction? Personally the look of the industry seems very divided atm between 'casual' and quality games. The last decade has been groundbreaking for better storytelling and gameplay that crosses the gender divide. Sure we have 'backwards' titles like Duke Nukem Forever (which having been a fan of Duke I II and 3D I have mixed feelings about certain elements) but the overall growth has been to improve the status of female characters in games which thanks to Chell, Lara Croft etc.etc. there's a lot of hope for more great female leads and a ever growing female market share both in the industry and gamers alike as Gaming grows up and becomes more acceptable.

if you read the story, rather then just the slashdot mention you'd have seen that they did break it down into console use and casual vs non-casual gamers where the rate was still 40% non-casual gamers.

Define ... 'hardcore' games? If you mean games with violence, gore, heavy subject matter, hard hitting plot, fantasy, and lead male characters then please explain why Assassins Creed has fangirls?

When the Sims 2 came out i remember all the boys i lived with being far more excited about it then the girls ^.~ but wow, seriously impressive argument mate, girls like clothes ALL girls like clothes and have the brains of 3 year olds.. thats like saying all men drink beer and play football. Dunno about you guys but I had more fun playing Postal 2 then The Sims 2, and while it is true that as a girl i do prefer games where there is a better story (Assasians Creed II) and clever game play (Portal 2) I just as much enjoy some good slow motion heads going splosh (Fallout 3). It's true whats stated about giving Women better choices with games, I'm sure guys feel a bit weird running around as a female character, so imagine how we feel! It does get boring playing the same old Mr Superman role all the time and have the female characters be nothing but good looking game fodder. That said it does have to be appropriate to the game, and it's certainly not a magic bullet to make a crappy game suddenly 'lady friendly' wtf that means.

Wait a moment... slashdot has ads???

persionally i use adblock+filterset and scriptblock
so i don't get any ads at all.

my logic is that i wouldn't click on the ads even if i could see them. so whats the point?