There's a
new
issue of Signum, looking again at the '90s cybercultural revolution and
whatever happened to it. It contains some interesting articles, including
one from Brenda Laurel on
Purple Moon,
the company she ran to create computer games for girls:
Everyone knew that girls simply didn't like computer games and wouldn't play
them. Examples would be trotted out as proof. My favorite was Barbie,
published in 1985 by Epyx for the Commodore-64. Barbie was at the mall,
shopping for the right outfit to wear on her date with Ken. Now, "everyone
knows" that girls aren't good at shooting games, so the designers reasoned
that the game should make it easier for them. The brilliant solution: make
projectiles that move slowly. And so it was decided that the action component
of the game would consist of throwing marshmallows. "You see," the game execs
would say, "they did everything right, but sales were dismal."