by 
An article in The EyeOpener Online turns to Henry Jenkins for background and context in an article on the growing realization that women constitute a significant percentage of the video-game-playing market:
Henry Jenkins, sociology professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says the industry has always been populated by men.
“The video game industry has always been overwhelmingly populated by men, and there is a dwindling number of women who are actually involved,” he says.
“The video game industry is based on intuitive design space, which means that the game designers will come up with games, develop games that they are interested in playing. This means that since men are dominating the development field regarding video games, the games that are put on the market will cater towards mainly men,” he says.
Jenkins says having more women in the industry will lead to a shift towards the conceptualization of gender-neutral games such as The Sims, rather than igniting a second boom in “girl games” of the ’90s, such as Barbie’s Dream World.
“The more women who are involved in the making of games, the more say and influence women will have in shaping the flow of thought and the flow of ideas for developing new games … Electronic Arts and Maxis (maker of The Sims) are very dominant, and are improving.” Jenkins says.
