Pillowfight Girls a for iPhone and iPod Touch (and iPad) has all the stereotypes: Bonnie, the Catholic school girl with a little plaid skirts and white button-down shirt tied up to there, Jessie, the cowgirl with teenie tiny jean shorts and Julia, some kind of dominatrix-inspired girl with skin-tight black pants and knee-high red boots.

That said, I bet you already know whether or not this game is for you….

Video games and their culture have, since its beginning, been mostly directed at men. Most video games are developed by teams composed mainly of men and explore subjects appealing mostly to men. This has turned men into the target audience for most of the titles and this cycle is perpetuated by profits which drive developers to focus on men.

Some of the recent titles with a more general appeal, like Guitar Hero, Rock Band or Wii Fit, have made video games more interesting for girls but even now the idea of a gamer girl isn’t very common. Or is it?

Halloween is almost over and soon everyone will be preparing for the following holiday season. More and more children will begin begging their parents for pet-related games and toys for the holidays, then eventually beg for a real pet. A pet based on their virtual or toy pets that turn into more responsibility than they can handle or become aggravated with because the pet is nothing like their virtual ones, leaving the animal’s fate in their parent’s hands.

But one game company, Spil Games, created a game to help educate young girls about the importance of caring for a pet through their online game Animal Shelter at GirlsGoGames.com.

The two biggest stereotypes when it comes to gamers are a) that they are kids and b) they are males. A recent study put out by, IBISWorld, Inc. (one of the nation’s most respected independent publishers of business intelligence research), indicates that the complete opposite it true.

Results of the study suggest that most of the current gamers are older adults and may of those are – you guessed it – women.

According to the study, the average purchaser of games in the U.S. is 39, which means these adults started playing video games when they were teenagers and haven’t stopped. As if that’s not enough, 24% of current gamers today are…

Ubisoft tried to fill the E3 bases today, batting third in the press conference (2:30 p.m. PT, July 15, 2008) batting order following Nintendo and Sony.

The company trie dto play it a bit more gamer-y, having Ubisoff America’s President, Laurent Detoc, sitting on the stage and playing with his, er, I mean, a Wii. In addition to a couple big action games including Far Cry 2, Prince of Persia and I Am Alive, most of the games seem a bit more geared toward girl gamers, including a new “Ener-G” line.

Here’s a quick recap gathered from a few of the Live Blogs in the interwebisphere…

EA’s Boogie has evolved from an all ages, whimsical dancing and singing game starring strange characters known as Boogs to your standard little girl’s dancing game with Boogie Superstar. Gone is the character who looked vaguely like Patrick the starfish (Sponge Bob Square Pants) in a disco suit – he’s been replaced by Bratz-esque girl characters.

Boogie Superstar will come with 40 pop songs (not by the original artists) that girls can dance and sing to in order to try and become the best. They also get to create their own avatars from a selection of options, so the character on screen can look (vaguely) like them. It will be out for the Wii in both North America and Europe in October, 2008, and hit Asia soon after. The game will come with a microphone and cost $59.99.

An interesting article by Jason Hill on Stuff.co.nz presents a bit of a biased and opinionated view of female gamers. Even the title irks me. It starts off as “Game plans for girls,” which makes me assume it will refer to positive influences in the industry or studios and companies that are focusing on games with everyone in mind. Instead, the first half of the article largely focuses on common misconceptions.

Opinionated statements appear quickly – in fact, in the third sentence. Hill states, “More than 40 per cent [sic] of game players in Australia are female, yet most games on the store shelves are of little interest to them.” Yet he provides no information on how he arrives at this conclusion. I know when I walk into my local GameStop, there are at least 10 titles I would instantly buy if I had the money. Perhaps Hill should have staked out a GameStop and talked to some customers without Y-chromosomes before writing his article.

Mobile game Coolest Girl in School has been dubbed a Grand Theft Auto for Girls and has already raised some concern in Australia where its currently being beta tested. The goal of the game is to lie, bitch and flirt your way to the top of the high school ladder to be the coolest, even more »

The highly controversial, first ever Miss Video Game 2007 took place in Montreal, Canada, this past weekend. The finals of the event were held at Festival Arcadia, a Canadian gaming event, and organized by Edmond-based Titan Gaming. The five finalists in the competition were Adelle Moore (Syracuse, NY), Lauren Berggren (Mandeville, LA), Tiffany Greene (Simpsonville, more »