Gaming is having a Nobel Prize in STEM moment here.
They are totally right, it’s a shame that PC Gamer did not name a single woman.
One nitpick though: Two of the women named in the article, Rieko Kodama and Amy Hennig, did not create games for PC. Both were employed by console makers. Jen Zee being acknowledged is certainly deserved, but a there are many, many trailblazing women in PC gaming which should be highlighted: Roberta Williams (co-founder of Sierra Online), Brenda Romero (Wizardry series), Jade Raymond (Assassin’s Creed producer) or Danielle Bunten Berry (M.U.L.E.), just to name a few.
Particularly the omission of Roberta Williams who has not only co-founded one of early gaming’s most successful game dev studios and publishers, but also designed the long-running King’s Quest series which transformed and defined the adventure game genre, is inexcusable. It does not get more influential in gaming than that.
Roberta Williams deserves so much respect. She sculpted so many peoples childhoods. Phantasmagoria was so ahead of it’s time.
Fair point. Though the article points towards Uncharted and her work on Legacy of Kain is not as well-known IMO.
I am fairly confident that Roberta Williams was mentioned in Stephen Levy’s seminal work Hackers. It’s been 5+ years since I read the 25th anniversary edition so I don’t want to say it was good or bad; it was enough coverage that I remember it and think it’s really weird that PC Gamer wouldn’t include her work.
Considering that the term “computer engineering” was created by a woman, programming is based on maths solved by a woman, and the push for graphics in adventure games was started by a woman, I don’t think PC Gamers list is worth even checking, as I know that many notable leaps in gaming I don’t know about have since been pushed by women.
Not OP but I believe he’s talking about Margaret Hamilton. She also wrote the descent module for the Apollo lander.
Shame they didn’t even mention Stevie Case since they even had her on the cover of one of their issues from what I recall. As a Game God but I agree Roberta Williams should be on there.
How do you make a gaming recap without mentioning Amy Hennig, she invented modern videogames
I kinda find PC Gamer to be irrelevant. Same as IGN and Kotaku.
Extremely hot take: I rather read through the uninformed shitty ai generated gamerant articles.
