Q: As a woman gamer, do you feel as though games today are satisfying the female market? Or do you find yourself having to ignore male-marketed aspects of games just to play?

A: I am not sure how well defined the female market is or if there have been studies. I believe there is a big difference between online gaming and single player PC gaming. Companies are not marketing games specifically to women. They may develop and market to young girls, but adult women become part of what "sells" to the gaming population in general. And we all know that the general gaming population is young males.

I can't say that I ignore male-marketed aspects of the game. We didn't preview Kingpin because of the unnecessary profanity. It was offensive and totally unnecessary. I believe it had nothing to do with the storyline and more to do with marketing the game to young males.

There are times though when I have to ignore parts of a game because I really want to play the game or enjoy the game. For example, I have yet to play a female character that was flat chested. Most of the female characters in games seem to belong to the Playboy Bunny of the Month Club. If your breasts are smaller than 36 DD, then you won't make the cut for a top female character.

Q: Do you think marketing efforts towards women are getting better or worse?

A: Overall, marketing towards women is better in just about every area on the internet, except in the traditional male dominated areas such as computer hardware and gaming. Women take a backseat in these areas.

Q: What is the gender ratio of Beta Bites visitors?

A: Well, I hate to say this, but I believe we have less than 10% women visiting our website. Why is this? Traditionally, women are not as tech savvy as men. However, I believe there are just as many women out there who like to get under the hood of the car or open up their towers and start installing hardware. Women need to start participating and learning their computers more. There is nothing worse than having your PC go haywire, and having to call a tech support and wait on hold forever, possibly, even paying for the call. This can be eliminated by learning about your computer. The more that women become involved in the workings of their operating systems and their computer hardware, the more they move into an area dominated by men and the marketing towards those men. If we can get more women "geeks," we can get more women involved in the technical aspects of development. Which in the end, I believe will influence the overall development of products such as games.

Q: Seeing as how your site has over 400 betas, you must have a pretty good idea of what is out there. Are there any current betas available that you would suggest to our viewers?

A: I spend so much time working on the website and keeping it up-to-date that I have little time to test. There are some really good products in Beta right now. I think it is more what an individual is interested in to test. What I like to test may not be what someone else would want to test. I suggest if you are wanted to learn to design websites, you look at the multimedia betas. If you are into email or FTP's, then check one of them out. Basically, if you are unhappy with a program you are using now, I can guarantee you there is some sort of beta out there for you to try in that area free.

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