Nope they don't This is why I prefer PC gaming since I started playing games again. It does have second-hand games which is not (YET) possible in the digital market.

Yes they have, at least XBLA:

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/marketplace/dealoftheweek/

when i first saw this thread, i thought it said "preety pissed about steam"

which... considering how annoying it is... makes alot more sense.

This is what I want to hear!

because consoles still hold a large portion of the video game market, and that's who the large developers will cater to ATM

I see your point. We get piss poor ports and heavy handed DRM and they get... market share because we get piss poor ports and heavy handed DRM. However, when a company does it right, makes it for the PC and stops treating their customers like thieves, it's still truly great.

I would rather hear about impulse phase 5 though

I mean sorting out the auto-patching for other companies would be good - it took me a week to patch hoi3 properly

I certainly don't hate consoles. I have one and I enjoy playing on it. I am using it as amy secondary gaming device though.

As for expensive to develop. Last I heard Stardock games didn't require a 200 million dollar advertising budget. There are some indie developers who seem to be doing very well and who knows, maybe in the future they'll shift to more mainstream stuff, hopefully not loosing the creativity in their wake. Heck most the games I play aren't considered "mainstream" whichi is not entirely surprising since the mainstream typically could care less if women play their games and hardly make an effort to appeal to them.

I like consoles, I was adicted to Grand Theft Auto Vice City and San Andreas. I eventually turned PC gamer and have been one ever since.

Although I criticized Infinity Ward for screwing up what could have been the best PC game today, Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 2, I eventually gave in as I saw my online friends playing it and I was left out. I recently purchased both Modern Warfare 2 and Battlefield Bad Company 2 (pre-order) thru Steam and while Battlefield won't be connected to the Steam client as Modern Warfare 2 is, it was pretty cool to download the BETA version and try it out. I look forward to the game in March, it's cool to know I wont have to worry about losing the CD or key. It's a shame Modern warfare is so tied up on the Steam client that playing it becomes an annoyance just because of Steam. The game itself is great but the inability to create dedicated servers made this game to feel like driving a Ferrari with a VolksWagon Beetle engine in it.

Once I biuld my new PC I plan on getting my son his copies of the Call Of Duty series thru Impulse. Music is digital, movies are digital, and software is digital, it's about time games become more digital.

I don’t know about the rest of you but im tired of ported, washed-out bland textures, horrible control setups and gameplay limits due to either a console’s power or control scheme. I understand the economics behind cross platform design, but I don’t have to like it.

Well who said it has to be a "massive" difference? And since women are like men in that we don't all have the same tastes, there wouldn't be one change that "fixes" the problem. Impulse reported 4% of their users, who participated in their survey, were women. That is miniscule compared to the fact that women make up roughly at least 40% of the market. About 55% of the Sims players are women (Old CNN article on women in the industry which is a shockingly low 12 percent), and guess what guys, that means 45% aren't women so a lot of people need to stop calling it a chick game. My guess, Steam has a higher percentage but they're just like Impulse, nothing about the UI or even their advertisement makes even a meager attempt to lure in women players.

I can only speak from my own experience, Bioware tends to do an okay job in catering to women in that their RPGs allow you to play a woman and storylines sometimes even acknowledge the fact you are a woman, romances still available, though sadly often scaled down, for female characters too. They're advertisement is still sadly focused on guy centric programming though. MMORPGs do an excellent job as well. I wouldn't be surprised if MMORPGs have a significantly higher perecentage of women playing their games than the other mainstream titles. The Wii, which some people still like to make jokes about, sells to women very well. Not only that, I actually see their advertisements since they purchase spots I would encouter them (not just gaming sites I happen to go to and have to endure to get my gaming news).

Anyway, I love my Wii, got a few series there I've loved since the SNES days of gaming that, happily, are still going strong, but the PC is probably going to be my primary choice for awhile becaose of MMORPGs, RPGs and strategy titles. I'll be playing X-com again tonight... i've purchased the original X-com 4 times so time (original, windows CE, playstation one and now 2 dollar steam). Still love it.

The lead developer of Galactic Civilizations and Elemental is female.

A significant portion of the art in Elemental is done by women.

A near majority of the overall code in Elemental is done by female game developers.

Does that means it 'appeals' to female gamers though? That was the point.

I don't even know what the opposite context of appealing to male gamers truely is beyond the stereotype of "boobs, guns and explosions". I love playing good characters, not specifically any gender or species - what am I supposed to like? I always see this topic and think "what do they really want/need?", thus what Nesrie is saying is interesting.

(also, the 'massive' was sarcastic)