Since I'm new to the Game Positive staff, I wanted to introduce myself via blog. And what better topic to blog about than the world of the female gamer? I spend a lot of time playing with and chatting with other girl gamers. Sometimes I seek them out subconsciously like some kind of strange girl gaming metal detector. A few years ago, I woke up and found that all my gaming friends were men. This was around the same time that I was spending my nights playing Halo online. (And to this day, I can assure you that the Halo crowd is not one that lets women forget their gender.)

Today, women gamers are everywhere I look. Whether it's on XBox Live or waiting in line for Phantom Hourglass. But it's still a sad glance at any end credits when I realize that women are such a minority in the industry - as programmers, designers, artists, producers, or testers. And the review biz is the same way.

There was an interesting article a couple weeks ago in the Sydney Morning Herald reflecting on the growing female gaming demographic and the apparent lack of titles "being made for women." Honestly, there were a lot of good points raised by both the reporter (Jason Hill) and the women he interviewed. But the whole "games made for women" idea just confuses me.

When I think of a game made for women, I think of one of two things: an "adult" game that monopolizes on property already supported by women (like Sex in the City or Desperate Housewives) or a so-called "pink" game that isn't really catering to women - it's catering to little girls (like Barbie or Hello Kitty). I think if a game developer decides to make a game for women, they're already starting off on the wrong foot. But I'll get more into that later.

It's true that a lot of women play casual games: puzzle games, cell phone games, web games. But that should be telling developers something! These women play these games no matter what the subject matter is. They don't restrict themselves to playing with Oprah-themed solitaire decks or Bejeweled with puppies, kittens, and babies. I believe there are certain gameplay elements that appeal to certain women - and that this holds true for male gamers and the largely untapped hardcore female gamer audience too.

So what do women like? Well, in many cases, they like character development and storytelling. They like puzzling and adventuring, discovering something new about a world and using this knowledge to their advantage. And they like cooperation and teamwork. I observe this in all kinds of game genres. When I play with women in an FPS, I find that they're much more likely to strategize, work together, familiarize themselves with a map, and get the most out of whatever assets they have. Men will often turn to improving individual skill before they talk strategy; how to aim better, kill faster, etc.

Now, before I go further, I have to be clear that these generalizations are, like all generalizations, huge stereotypes! There are, of course, many women who couldn't care less about character development in a video game. And lots of men who are incredible team players the day they first pick up a game controller. So, please don't be insulted if you feel I've miscast you, the reader, in some poor light.

A couple weeks ago, Gears of War designer Cliff Bleszinski notoriously announced that Gears of War 2 is going to be more "girlfriend-friendly". The female gaming community didn't take kindly to this statement. Was CliffyB implying that women are in need of lower difficulty settings? I didn't take it as an insult at all. I think that he was appealing to his largely male audience with promises that the sequel might not alienate the casual and non-gamers that most men know. He did, after all, say "girlfriend-friendly" and not "girl-friendly."

Still, it's a shame that Bleszinski's statements are so easily taken out of context. Even in context, he's reinforcing the stereotype that women are casual gamers and, therefore, require some sort of special catering.

Anyway, this is probably a bit more complicated than I can resolve in a blog, but that's my take for the time being. Game Positive hired me as a gamer and as a writer, not as a woman. So I know there are some people who "get it." In the meantime, I'm waiting for the bulk of the game industry to catch up.

If we're talking about "making a game for women," I say to hell with the "pink" subject matter and let's just focus on making a great game and marketing it in a way that ensures the female gaming population knows it's there. Maybe this is because I am female, but I think that a good game has all the elements that supposedly appeal to women anyway. Great games have character development and storytelling. Great multiplayer involves cooperation and problem-solving. And adventure stories feature puzzling and engrossing worlds.

I am far less interested in so-called "games for women" than I am in high-quality titles for everyone.

Seriously. If Microsoft were a physical entity, I'm sure we'd get into a fight over something stupid - and I'd most likely lose. Why, you ask? Well, outside of the still problematic Xbox Live issues, my 360 decided today that it would rather kill itself than have to deal with another two minute delay while inviting a friend to a game. When you compound that with a recent inexplicable Vista crash on my laptop, it almost seems as if everything Microsoft has begun to revolt against me.

Live has been horrendously slow since the first week of the holiday break, and it's quite surprising to see that it hasn't been repaired after all of this time. Night after night, Call of Duty 4 continually insists that I need an internet connection to play multiplayer games. I don't want to jump the gun here, but I'm pretty sure that I have one. In between bouts of profanity, I'll finally get into a lobby, only to have it not start a game, or launch itself and crash shortly thereafter. The best part is, you're particularly screwed if you want to party up with a friend, as the lag between when you join a game and Live tells your buddy to do the same is so severe that he'll get dropped 95% of the time. Granted, these problems were intermittent, but they coincidently happened to occur virtually every time I wanted to play a game on Xbox Live in the past 3 weeks. A free arcade game is a nice bit of compensation, but I think a focus should be placed on fixing these nagging issues first. Three weeks is a long time for there to be terrible service with just about anything.

The poor thing simply couldn't handle the pressure anymore.

Somehow though, the online annoyances pale in comparison to my 360 suffering a painful red-ringed death. The culprit: Omega Five. Well not really, but for some reason the title screen of this game caused the machine to artifact and promptly lock-up. A reboot yielded the "general hardware failure" notification, and the console hasn't functioned properly since. You can tell the poor thing really wants to serve my gaming needs, but can't, given how it will sometimes start the boot-up process, only to freeze at the logo. Out of curiosity, I checked out the error code that the console gives you - it returned 0102. A quick Google search will reveal that this is actually Microsoft's way of saying "we have no idea what the f*** went wrong," which is awesome in and of itself. If I had to guess, I'd say that the machine was screwed from the start. Within the first few weeks of its use, it would infrequently lock up, until one day that just stopped. I should have taken that as an omen to return the thing and wait until they released the newer model a month later. That's right; my 360 is less than six months old.

I think the best (worst) part of this whole situation is that I'm now left with two horrible choices. I can either wait for Microsoft to receive, repair, and ship back my 360 (which apparently takes about 21 days) or burn another $400 on a new console. As someone who has to constantly review games, the 400 dollar option sucks, but almost seems necessary at this point, as I have deadlines to meet and reviews to write. I was actually playing through Omega Five for review purposes, and since I never finished the game, I can't properly finish the article.

So what was the point of this blog entry? I suppose it seemed like the right time to put all of the 360's current issues on the table and examine why many who use this console consider this acceptable. Three weeks of piss-poor online performance in a subscription service is a travesty. Hardware that dies after six months of casual use is downright reprehensible. And having to wait a month for repairs is the ultimate low blow. I can't believe Microsoft originally had the gall to charge people to get their consoles fixed. I'm getting it done for free and I feel like I should be compensated for the inconvenience alone. One thing is for sure though, you know it's real bad when you tell people that your 360 died and they respond with "you too?"

As you may have heard by now, former editor Jeff Gerstmann was let go from his long-standing job at GameSpot this past Thursday. While the specific reason for his release has yet to be officially confirmed (and probably never will be), everything seems to indicate that he was fired due to the "tone" of his Kane and Lynch review. Given the rumor of Eidos' threats to cease future advertising on the site and numerous staff blog posts describing the situation as a total nightmare, it seems that there is some degree of truth to all of the speculation. And if that's the case, parent company CNET has effectively destroyed their credibility as a reputable review source.

I've been a long time reader of GameSpot, since back when they were called videogames.com. Over the years, they evolved into what I considered to be the best and most professional corporately owned video game publication on the internet. Many of my gaming purchases were based on GameSpot's reviews, specifically those of Greg Kasavin (who now works for EA) and Jeff himself. Hell, I've even adapted a few of their concepts into Game Positive. It's extremely disheartening to see this legacy tarnished due to what can only be called a corporate blunder of massive proportions.

The culprit that allegedly started it all.

However, CNET's decision making isn't the only problem here. It's no secret that the publisher/press relationship is an almost broken one. A quick chat with someone in the industry or a search in Google will yield quite a few instances where publishers have attempted to (mostly unsuccessfully) exert control and manipulate review scores to their benefit. Part of what makes this incident so shocking is the fact that GameSpot was widely known for its unwillingness to succumb to such demands, as they kept a strict barrier between money making and editorial integrity. I can speak from personal experience that when it comes to dealing with any of the top-tier publishers, it's not only difficult to establish a professional relationship, but even harder to maintain one if you don't easily conform to their will. Until the industry realizes that this needs to change, it can only get worse from here.

It's going to be interesting to see if the fallout from this whole debacle has any lasting impact outside of the companies involved. Virtually all of the previous instances where integrity in this industry was legitimately questioned have been forgotten, so here's to hoping that something positive emerges from the rubble. On a more personal note, it's hard not to feel for all of the innocent parties affected by this situation and I would like to offer Jeff and the rest of the GameSpot crew best wishes through what has to be an extremely difficult time.

Game retailers suck. I've been tempted to quit my job and put the controller down only to apply for a management position at an EB/GameStop, slowly but surely climb the rungs of the corporate ladder and reach the board room, slap every director in their pudgy face and change the way they operate once and for all. The current state of affairs is pretty crappy for us gamers, and it's about time we see some changes.

Even though it's a definite source of annoyance, it doesn't even bother me too much that their employees shove reservations down our throats with empty threats of scarcity. They use scare tactics to try and convince us that they'd run out of Halo 3's in twelve seconds flat, but each store had walls of copies on day one. And I understand that they're just doing their jobs when they try and sell me each game's $20 strategy guide despite the existence of the friggin' Internet, where it takes no more than 9 seconds post-release for FAQs to be posted and guides to be created.

And you know, it doesn't even faze me that the guy behind the counter with his cute button-laden Neopets lanyard told me that Blue Dragon has 800 hours worth of content. No joke, that really happened. Eight hundred hours…seriously? Wow, so you're telling me I can suffer through that steaming pile for enough time to see every little thing in Oblivion a half dozen times? So I can beat The Bouncer 1,600 times or I can play through Poo Dragon once? I asked for clarification, and yes, he was adamant about it being 800 hours long. That's 33.3 consecutive days of pure unadulterated garbage. Thankfully, he was off by nearly 770 hours, so at least that's good news.

You could argue that the employees of game retailers are just random people working at a store that was hiring and that the list of prerequisites only included "a pulse", and not "gaming knowledge." Well, you'd be right, they're not supposed to know everything about games, but they should certainly try and avoid misinformation. Regardless of the above paragraph, that issue isn't even what gets to me. Above all else, the one thing that really irks me is their used games pricing structure.

When a new game is priced at $59.99, marking a used copy down to $54.99 isn't a deal, it's dumb. So that $5 is supposed to entice me to forego the joy of unwrapping a game for the first time? Awesome! Seriously, that's a little over 8% off. But hey, if you fork over another $10, you can get a membership card giving you the chance to get another 10% off! So you can save an additional $5.50 by spending $10. You do, however, get a 10-month subscription to a gaming magazine, which is nice, but doesn't make up for lousy used games pricing.

Making matters worse, these retailers buy recently released games back for between 30 and 50% (if you're lucky) of the original price, and then sell them for as much as they can, up to 92% in many instances. Case in point: Blue Dragon, oddly enough. I bought it, I admit it, and after a mere two out of the impressive 800 hours of playtime, I was compelled to sell it back for a measly $25.00. Used copies are now selling for $54.99. Maybe they should pass some of that money onto consumers, by offering a savings of more than just 8% on used games. In any other industry, this simply wouldn't fly. Imagine walking into a Mercedes dealership, seeing a brand new model at $40,000, and a used model at just under $37,000. Would that be accepted? Probably not. All right, so that example entails a difference of thousands of dollars instead of just a few bucks, but the percentages are the same, so the markup is equally absurd.

Am I alone on this? Does anyone agree that it's ridiculous to get an 8% discount on a used product as opposed to a brand new one? The absurdity increases given the amount of money they make from used game re-sales. I haven't even begun to discuss how retail outlets are stifling digital distribution, which would benefit gamers. That's a topic for another time. I make it known that while I do sell my unwanted games back to stores (sometimes regretting the hell out of it, I wish I still had Dark Cloud 2), I haven't purchased a used game for a while and I don't see myself doing so until the pricing structure is changed. What's the point? What's five bucks? It can barely buy you lunch nowadays. And anyway, if that's all I'll save, I'd much rather be the first to open my copy of Dynasty Warriors 9.

With the release of its latest home and portable platforms - the Wii and the DS - Nintendo has adopted a risky mass-market business model, hoping to attract new, casual gamers into the fold and grow the industry as a whole. It has worked tremendously well, with friendly, un-intimidating offerings like Nintendogs and Wii Play garnering significant media attention and shattering sales projections. Needless to say, these accomplishments (see: cash money) have attracted the attention of many big-name publishers in the industry. Will the resounding successes and increased profitability of casual games affect the development and marketability of hardcore titles? Short answer: Yes, but in a good way.

Many suspect that this is a recent trend, since the Nintendo Wii and DS - both relatively new platforms - have brought casual games into the limelight. However, casual games have been gaining popularity for quite some time, especially in Japan, where many so-called "non-games" are platinum hits. Strange examples include an ultra-exciting Dreamcast bus-driving simulator, the PS2's Mister Mosquito (which was actually released in the US and quickly became the most popular mosquito sim ever, selling a whopping 9 copies), skin and face-training DS titles, and others devoid of any hacking and/or slashing to which the Western hardcore audience are so accustomed.

Even in the West, where publishers hold a monthly contest to see who can release the most shooters, both the best selling PC game and PC franchise of all time is The Sims (also in the top 5 franchises across all platforms), a decidedly casual series dating back to 2000, when the last round of the console war was only getting started. Now, several years removed from the release of the casual gaming juggernaut, mega-publisher Electronic Arts has dedicated one fourth of its efforts in continuing The Sims franchise. EA has recently fragmented its operations into four divisions: EA Sports, EA Games, The Sims and EA Casual Entertainment. When the world's biggest publisher announces that one half of their efforts are being concentrated towards the production of casual gaming entertainment, it becomes apparent that the industry is shifting, encouraging all publishers to make casual games part of their business strategies.

That's all well and good, but what does all of the above mean for hardcore gamers? Well, it's a scary concept that casual games are cheaper to produce yet often earn more revenue than some of our beloved hardcore titles, thus making them less risky (even if they fail), and more profitable and appealing to publishers. However, there are a few silver linings in this looming dark cloud. With the profits earned from casual games, more money can be pumped into the creation of those hardcore titles we know and love. For instance, the success of Ubisoft's Rayman Raving Rabbids makes it easier to justify a risky new title like Assassin's Creed.

Furthermore, the rising cost of development means that the money faucet will be closed tight on projects that don't seem very promising, giving way to a Darwinian filtering process leaving only strong contenders alive. So one difference is that we might see less bad games released, which is terrible news for those eagerly anticipating Lair 2. There are new hardcore games being announced very frequently, both sequels and original intellectual properties, many of which will be fueled by the successes of the safer, friendlier casual games released. So in essence, we won't be seeing the decline of hardcore games any time soon, but we will see a refining process that allows the best to float to the top and the worst to go down the proverbial sinkhole.

Something we're already seeing is the convergence of hardcore and casual games into one multifaceted entity attempting to please all possible consumers. A recent example is The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass on the DS, which I've had the pleasure of reviewing. Although it's an old-school hardcore franchise with a legion of dedicated followers, it's evidently been sprayed with the casual hose, as it's much easier, simpler, lighter (mostly due to its Wind Waker roots), smaller in size and scope, and less intimidating than previous entries in the series. In effect, these design choices make it more inviting to the casual gamer, while still keeping it enjoyable for pure Zelda fans. It is the perfect balance of casual and hardcore, and it's no surprise that it comes from Nintendo, as they're leading the way in casual console gaming. Most importantly, it's a good game first, making the ‘casual' or ‘hardcore' moniker less meaningful. However, this convergence of opposites could lead to some interesting results… Cooking Mama 2: Sons of Liberty, for example, or Gears of Sudoku.

Although many would pit casual gamers against the hardcore, there is a certain population of players that appreciate both types of games, adding weight to the notion that we can all peacefully coexist. This is evidenced by the popularity of the titles available on the PlayStation Network, Xbox Live Arcade and the fervor surrounding the upcoming Wii Ware channel. All three major console manufacturers are embracing the rise of pick-up-and-play gaming by providing very compelling content that can be experienced in short bursts or extended sessions. With simple and addictive gameplay hooks, treasured titles like Calling All Cars and Geometry Wars would not exist were it not for the need to appeal to various segments of the gaming marketplace.

Will hardcore games go the way of the dodo? I don't think so. We'll always have those niche hardcore titles, because developers are hardcore gamers more often than not, and quality hardcore games were profitable long before the casual wave. Regardless of the publishers' motivations, there is money to be made in both segments of the industry, so there's nothing to fear. We can all sit back, relax, and start looking forward to Tom Clancy's Free Cell.