If I see one more tweet, video or Facebook post lamenting “if only there were women making games” or “how do we get women in technology”, I think I am going to go all Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Grand Theft Auto and steal a car loaded with weapons I will use to mow all of you people down.
All right, the same Chief Marketing Officer who made me promise not to swear gratuitously on this blog also wants me to note that I am not really coming to your house with a bazooka.
Seriously, though, for the love of God, what do women in tech have to do to get an acknowledgement they even exist? I get so tired of hearing questions like,
“Did you ever wonder what characters in games would look like if women designed them – har de har har? “
No, I never wondered that, you know why? Because we make games and I am, in fact, a woman.
Here is one of the main characters in Spirit Lake.
Here is one of the main characters in Fish Lake 
We have male characters also, like these:
Currently, the only choice of a main character for Fish Lake is female. We are still in beta on that game and we just happened to get the female character finished first.
Our games have males, females, young and old characters because it is supposed to be a virtual world and that’s what you find in the world.
I have written about this before and I will no doubt write about it again. I am also wondering exactly how Maria defines “gratuitous” because I certainly feel like swearing.
Quit talking about “if there were games made by women” as if they don’t exist! Download Spirit Lake: The Game and play it. If you don’t have $9.99 because you are living on the street and reading this on a computer at the public library, that’s no excuse. We have a free demo on the site you can download.
Quit talking about “if there were women in tech as role models for girls” as if they don’t exist either. Instead, maybe you could promote some of those women – link to their sites, buy their games, invest in their companies, tell your friends about their work.
That would change the demographics in the tech landscape a whole lot quicker than one more tweet lamenting the lack of women because we ARE here. You don’t need to buy our games (although our Chief Marketing Officer is telling me that you should), you don’t even have to like them (although I think you should) but what you do need to do is quit acting as if women in game development, or tech in general, are some non-existent group we need to develop starting with teaching small children.
We are here. Don’t make me get my tank.
Since this post was written, we DID add a choice of a male character in the game.