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[Jobbs]

Regardless of your opinion on the Ouya (I know a lot of people consider it a complete joke), Julie Uhrman did manage to bring a games console to the market and clearly has a lot of passion for the industry. Even though the whole thing's been a bit of a misstep, I like to think she's made some small impact. She started the platform that brought us Amazing Frog, for god sake!

I think the Ouya is kind of a piece of shit, but this woman was so smart and compelling in some interviews I watched that she damn nearly sold me on it. Reality set in later, but yeah, she's definitely good.

Where's my girl Jade Raymond.... She liked a tweet of mine the other day and my pants got tight!!!]

really? 4th reply and someone's talking about his penis?

 

[fedexpeon]

There are so many positive female role models in the JRPG genre.
From composers, artists, voice-actors, writer, and creative director.
It is pretty much the norm to see at least some female influence in the JRPG genre.

 

[TylerDurden4321]

You know what's really weirding me out at the moment? Do the following comparison please:

(number of male game developers you can think of) / (number of male gaming 'journalists'/commentators you can think of)
compare that number with
(number of female game developers you could have thought of before reading this thread) / (number of female gaming 'journalists'/commentators you can think of)

for me the first number for males is >1 and the second number is considerably <1

 

[Dugna]

You know what's really weirding me out at the moment? Do the following comparison please:

(number of male game developers you can think of) / (number of male gaming 'journalists'/commentators you can think of)
compare that number with
(number of female game developers you could have thought of before reading this thread) / (number of female gaming 'journalists'/commentators you can think of)

for me the first number for males is >1 and the second number is considerably <1

that stuff is what kinda annoys me....you see less women trying to actually get into video games even when proven they can. But more women noting that other women can't get into video gaming and sometimes throwing nothing but negatives about gaming towards newcomers to the point where no women ever want to join. Yes there are men outside of game dev studios that insult you along the way but I'd think by now a lot of the high profile gaming studios are pretty welcoming to women. Since they're are more welcoming I'd think getting into the industry with so many changes would encourage more women to join...but it seems to shrinking...

 

[Dugna]

There are so many positive female role models in the JRPG genre.
From composers, artists, voice-actors, writer, and creative director.
It is pretty much the norm to see at least some female influence in the JRPG genre.

That's what I love about Japanese games tons of them have women in them and it's a common occurrence that nobody finds it weird.

 

[BGMNTS]

I saw a very crap article about women in the games industry. Basically summated to 'If you're not with us, you're against us' and 'Its a war'. Volatile stuff.

To the ladies and gents out there making good games, I salute you, keep it up please.

Also its true about Japanese women in games, yet Japan has, or at least had, a patriarchal and warped view on women. How odd.

 

[Jachaos]

There's a lot of female Japanese composers on that first page. They make great music.

I hear a lot of the visual artists at EAD are women now too. The art is great, nothing but praises for them. Same goes for Jen Zee. Transistor, what a beautiful game.

 

[Dragoon En Regalia]

There's a lot of female Japanese composers on that first page.

But no Mieko Ishikawa? She only did the soundtrack to Ys III, which, on the X68000, is more consistently awesome than Ys I & II. Another musician we've overlooked is Hitomi Sato, who's also one of Game Freak's head designers besides doing Pokémon music (along with Minako Adachi!).

 

[inm8num2]

Jane Jensen has been perhaps my favorite game designer for about 20 years. Her GK games had a huge impact on me and my interest in games.

She wrote an opinion piece on Gamasutra some months back, and in that article she mentioned how she often gets asked what it's like to be a 'female game designer' in the gaming industry when she considers herself to just be a 'game designer'.

 

[CO_Andy]

Rika Suzuki: Wrote the stories to all of Cing's best titles and has been working in the games industry since the first Dragon Quest.

 

[JNT]

Quickly rising superstar, someone append the picture!

Please look at the image in the OP more closely.

 

[djtiesto]

Lack of Brenda Romero in that list is disappointing. She's a huge figure in the social impact game scene besides coming from the old school PC RPG scene and founding several companies. I had the pleasure of meeting her and John Romero 2 years ago at Games For Change. They were both incredibly awesome and humble to talk to.

Yes, surprised not to see her on the list, she was involved in the development of some of the old Wizardry games iirc.

Also I'd like to throw in my hat for Anna Anthropy, she has made a few indie games like "Mighty Jill Off" and dys4ia, and has written lots of great articles about gaming (including an awesome analysis of Mario 1's level design that I wish I could find right now )

And another one who isn't very well-known but she was a huge influence on my life to get into programming and game development. Alexis Janson, who now works as a lead developer for Magic The Gathering: Online. Originally she programmed a game creation system called MegaZeux, and a host of games for Tim Sweeney's game creation system ZZT... using ZZT and MegaZeux, playing her games and peeking at their source code and programming tricks, gave me a bit of programming basis and eventually led me into a career in software development (though not in the games industry).

I'm glad to see Rieko Kodama - my favorite game designer of all time of course - make the list though!