These short-handed, off-base remarks are near insufferable. Your(swift coder, hodgman, braindigitalis) response to others comments are merely cheap shots with out providing something tangible to retaliate with. You are not debating with substance, but the lack of.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_notable_women_in_the_video_game_industry

The fact that there are only 14 people on that list, doesn't give you pause for thought?

Note that there is no matching list of "notable men in the video game industry", likely because (a) it would be hellishly long, and (b) no one considers it surprising for men to be notable in the video game industry...

FableFox presented something substantive. Your retaliation can be summed up as "Sure their are SOME women, but not enough and their is something wrong with that." And then you go on to implicitly demonize men because their are too many and no body would be surprised if a man were successful in the gaming industry. Why should they be surprised if a women is in the industry? By your logic, it should be a surprise if a women is successful. You have just lowered the social expectations of women around the world.

And besides, why is it wrong that their is not the same number of women in the industry? Maybe not as many women want to be software engineers. Is that the fault of the imaginary white-male patriarchy dominated society? Are women wrong for not all wanting to be software engineers? Why should their be the same number of women in the field if not the same number of them are interested? This is not right-wing propaganda, this is fact.

Meanwhile, on YouTube, the moon landings didn't happen, there's. Nazi south Pole ufo base and the twin towers were demolished by Jewish supremacists?

The conspiracy theories are strong with this one... :lol:

No one will argue that these things don't exist on YouTube. However there are also many reputable sources on YouTube, because they provide sources for their facts after which they form an opinion off of. Not everybody on YouTube is teenager pushing superficial opinions about the next upcoming season of the jersey shore. YouTube has been out of its state of infancy for many years now. It is no longer just a place to post home videos of your cats. It provides an outlet for many serious topics including world news. Your trite remarks are not productive.

So.... It's pretty much undeniable that crazy leftist conspiracy theory is true

Meanwhile, far right wing politics are taking over most countries in the western world and pushing more and more fascism upon us.

I think once in a while someone need to walk out of an echo chamber.

Indeed.

As stated already, since when did nationalism become confused with fascism? Please, tell me what the left version of fascism is and why that is an acceptable form of society? Because that is exactly what is happening. I am actually tugging for a conversation on this one with you Hodg, because trust me, I truly respect your technical skills and your reputation on the forums is well deserved. You are obviously very learned in the field of software, but I disagree with your politics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_notable_women_in_the_video_game_industry

The fact that there are only 14 people on that list, doesn't give you pause for thought?

Note that there is no matching list of "notable men in the video game industry", likely because (a) it would be hellishly long, and (b) no one considers it surprising for men to be notable in the video game industry...

Yes. It give me a pause for thought.

Why in the age where steam is available and the market is there (imagine creating your own e-commerce site and accepting credit card in 1998-2000, and download bandwidth, etc) and creating your own game engine (and supporting all kind of hardware) and unity 3d and unreal engine is free, and pc / laptop is cheap, and art software are cheap and have indie version (remember 3d max price in 2000?) (thank god my prayer was answered when Ton get enough money to buy blender source code and made it open source) and so on and so forth - and yet the number is small.

Why notch was notch and not someone else of different gender was notch? Was JAVA in accessible to women? I thought it was free download back in 1999?

Again, repost.

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~cfrieze/courses/malaysia.pdf

You know how women solve the problem of number women in IT courses back in my country solve this problem?

1) apply for the course.

Done.

Actually, to be frank, its not step 1. But only few people in this thread can accept the truth.

--edit--

but if someone want a hint, watch this documentary:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hjernevask

Not everyone lives in Malaysia. You can't just point at one place where a problem appears solved and then claim that it's solved everywhere. That's a fallacy.

Quotes from your own link:

The dwindling number of women pursuing a degree in CS is a growing frustration for many countries around the globe, but in Malaysia female CS/IT students outnumber the males.

Our study attempts to determine if there is indeed a difference in the way Malaysian males and females perceive CS. Our hypothesis is that CS/IT is not viewed as a masculine field by young Malaysians; a key reason why this nation does not encounter the problem of too few young females interested in pursuing a degree in CS or IT. Previous studies have identified the following as the reasons why CS is not attractive to young females:
• Traditional socialization and traditional roles of the sexes [4];
• Classification of CS as a science [3];
• Computer games and educational software are designed predominantly with boys in mind [3]; thus, boys become more familiar with computers and gain better computer skills than girls, which is an advantage when they attend college;
• Gender discrimination and low self-esteem [3]; and
• Lack of mentoring and role models [6]

While the lack of female role models or mentors in the field has been cited as a demotivating factor for female students in the U.S. and Europe, this is not a problem for Malaysian females... We conclude that young Malaysians have a different perception of CS/IT compared to the Western world. Young women perceive CS as a technical and difficult subject because that view has been ingrained in them since childhood. If steps are taken to remedy this, it is possible to overcome the shortage of women in CS and IT programs that ultimately lead to the shortage of women pursuing a career in this field.

This seems to match what a lot of people in this thread have been saying. Bringing this up does make the additional point that culture matters when we're discussing this - and it also suggests that the forces keeping women out of the industry are cultural - CS/IT is seen as a "masculine" field - and not innate characteristics, which means this should be a solvable problem.

You know how we make a field not seem masculine (or feminine)? Ensuring that women have role models and at least some visible representation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_notable_women_in_the_video_game_industry

The fact that there are only 14 people on that list, doesn't give you pause for thought?

Note that there is no matching list of "notable men in the video game industry", likely because (a) it would be hellishly long, and (b) no one considers it surprising for men to be notable in the video game industry...

That list is pathetic and missing many women, off the top of my head, Sarah Northway (northway games)

If it's missing female founders of game companies that had games (game? Only rebuild 3 was on steam I think) stay in the top 20~ steam games for a while, I don't believe it can be trusted whatsoever.

Not everyone lives in Malaysia. You can't just point at one place where a problem appears solved and then claim that it's solved everywhere. That's a fallacy.

Quotes from your own link:

The dwindling number of women pursuing a degree in CS is a growing frustration for many countries around the globe, but in Malaysia female CS/IT students outnumber the males.

Our study attempts to determine if there is indeed a difference in the way Malaysian males and females perceive CS. Our hypothesis is that CS/IT is not viewed as a masculine field by young Malaysians; a key reason why this nation does not encounter the problem of too few young females interested in pursuing a degree in CS or IT. Previous studies have identified the following as the reasons why CS is not attractive to young females:
• Traditional socialization and traditional roles of the sexes [4];
• Classification of CS as a science [3];
• Computer games and educational software are designed predominantly with boys in mind [3]; thus, boys become more familiar with computers and gain better computer skills than girls, which is an advantage when they attend college;
• Gender discrimination and low self-esteem [3]; and
• Lack of mentoring and role models [6]

While the lack of female role models or mentors in the field has been cited as a demotivating factor for female students in the U.S. and Europe, this is not a problem for Malaysian females... We conclude that young Malaysians have a different perception of CS/IT compared to the Western world. Young women perceive CS as a technical and difficult subject because that view has been ingrained in them since childhood. If steps are taken to remedy this, it is possible to overcome the shortage of women in CS and IT programs that ultimately lead to the shortage of women pursuing a career in this field.

This seems to match what a lot of people in this thread have been saying. Bringing this up does make the additional point that culture matters when we're discussing this - and it also suggests that the forces keeping women out of the industry are cultural - CS/IT is seen as a "masculine" field - and not innate characteristics, which means this should be a solvable problem.

You know how we make a field not seem masculine (or feminine)? Ensuring that women have role models and at least some visible representation.

I'm not saying it solved everywhere. I'm saying that it CAN BE DONE.

Anyway, I'll PM you a secret.

I'm not saying it solved everywhere. I'm saying that it CAN BE DONE.

Okay, but the way your posts are worded makes it seem like you're saying that it is solved, and presenting this as a counter-claim to those (including the link you cited) saying that no, in the US and Western culture in general, it is not solved. You're also coming across as saying that the way to solve the problem is simply for more women to apply - but we (and your link) are saying that it isn't that simple.

You know how women solve the problem of number women in IT courses back in my country solve this problem?

Wasn't like throwing acid on the face of a woman who rejects your advances a national sport over there or something? And you're putting that country as an example? Interesting.

CS/IT is seen as a "masculine" field

Time for something more serious from me that I've been toying with mentioning for a few pages now.

Unfortunately these sorts of cultural biases take many decades if not centuries to dissappear.

For example in the 40s it was normal and expected for a woman to stay at home and raise children and not have a job. It was partially technology but mostly liberation of women culturally in the 60s that helped change this.

Similarly I think it's unfortunate to admit that any cultural change to the demographics of who applies to work in gamedev aren't going to happen ovenight or possibly even during our careers. They will happen over longer time frames as the industry matures and culture sees it as less masculine as a whole and more gender neutral.

To relate this to something in my own past:

When I was 16 we had a choice in school to do physical education (like sports etc) or community placement which is basically an afternoon out of school once a week to help out a local community project or company.

I chose to do this and I chose to work in a nursery with pre school kids. Not only was I the only person in school to choose to do this, when I started there I was told by the staff that I was brave do so. I didn't know it but apparently men are hounded out of the business and actively discriminated against, some assume that any man who wants to work with children must have some ulterior motive as it's "something girls do". This actually happened to men back then (1996) and to my knowledge still happens.

In the end this wasn't a career path I chose. The pay was terrible and let's be honest, working with computers is just more fun than babysitting other people's kids :)

Similarly, you'll see very few male midwives although to my knowledge they are not discriminated against by the education system or hospitals here in the UK, but there are plenty of women that would turn down a male midwife at the birth of their child. Is this really much different?

Meanwhile, far right wing politics are taking over most countries in the western world and pushing more and more fascism upon us.

Nationalism isn't fascism, I can't think of a right wing party that's gaining a majority, and it seems like there's more demand for a nationalist-left party.

So.... It's pretty much undeniable that right wing governments are sweeping into power worldwide and using nationalism and xenophobia to distill fear into hate and push fascist agendas...

Hey, that's fun. I should try proposing my feelings as undeniable facts more often.

P.S. Obama and the Clintons are right wing administrations :P