When I stumbled across a site called FEMICOM — “the feminine computer museum” — I knew I’d found something unique. At first glance, all I saw was a collection of twentieth century “games for girls,” an area that is virtually never talked about. It is also, admittedly, a subset of gaming that has always driven me right up the wall. Fashion and cooking games festooned in pink have never been part of my repertoire, and my cursory opinion of them was one of persistent stereotypes and lackluster design. But instead of passing the site by, my eyes lingered over that tagline: The feminine computer museum. “All right, FEMICOM,” I thought, clicking through the links. “Just how are you defining ‘feminine’? Feminine according to who?”

As it turns out, this is exactly the question that FEMICOM wants you to be asking. Failing to explore this site would have been a big mistake on my part. Not only did it lead to one of the most thought-provoking conversations I’ve had about gender roles in games, but it made me put my own gaming preferences under the microscope. I’ve been chewing on the question of why I like the things I like for days now.

The gaming industry is seriously lacking in women. This is an issue that is being discussed all over the place — at convention panels, on industry blogs, in focus groups, behind board room doors. There is a small but steadily increasing push to get more women into game development (as well as software at large) through incentives such as game design scholarships and better recruitment strategies. I think we can all agree that these efforts are a really good thing. But for the sake of argument…just why is it so important to get women on board?

To help answer that, let me bring you into an email conversation I had this week with Megan Carriker, a staff member at indie developer Spark Plug Games. Of the fifteen people on staff, Megan is the only woman. She shared with me some interesting insights, not only about the development process, but of how she was able to help bring about some positive changes to their latest titles.

My girlfriend’s youngest sister came over to our apartment last weekend with her hair in a Katniss braid. She hadn’t been to a convention or a movie screening. That was just how she wanted to go out into the world that day. The Hunger Games has been consuming the majority of her brainpower lately. She’s been binging on the soundtrack, and she got through Catching Fire in seven hours. At a recent family dinner, she put up her hands and walked away from me when I said I preferred Gale to Peeta (I’m sorry, I do!). She gets like this about books and movies. She’s read The Silmarillion multiple (!) times. We have talked repeatedly about how much we’re both looking forward to The Avengers.

But while she was over the other day, she said something offhand that surprised me. She and her friends won’t go to our local comic book and SF/F store. Setting foot in there, apparently, makes you a geek.

If you go to the “Female Armor” page on the WoW Wiki, you’ll find a very silly statement. To quote:

Female armor tends to cover less than does male armor. Though there are many people who see this as mere fanservice, there are real, practical reasons behind it. First, females are statistically less muscular than males, and depend more on agility and cunning than raw strength in combat, thus lightweight armor makes more sense.

Now, the WoW Wiki knows that this argument is silly. It’s part of a series of satirical articles and says “This is a silly article” at the top. That got a smirk out of me when I saw it, but it also reminded me of the times that I’ve come across people actually trying to use this argument in a non-silly way. It comes up as a justification for why female characters shouldn’t get full armor or big weapons, or even as a counter-argument to those of us who would like to see more equal treatment for female player characters (and NPCs, too). To portray anything otherwise, these people say, is unrealistic.

Rather than dismissing this offhand, I’d like to take this opportunity to break down why this rationale doesn’t fly. It’s time to put a few dents in that idea’s armor. Unravel a few threads. Cut a few holes in the — okay, okay, I’ll stop.

It’s been one hell of a month for Mass Effect fans. Since early March, the fanbase has been seething over the widely reviled ending to Mass Effect 3, with many actively calling for BioWare to change it via DLC. Two weeks later, BioWare announced that it was working on “game content initiatives” that would address issues of clarity and narrative. Today, fresh on the heels of The Consumerist naming EA as 2012′s Worst Company in America, and just in time for BioWare to potentially avoid a bloodbath at PAX East tomorrow, we have an answer.

Yes, there will be DLC that extends the ending. And yes, it will be free.

After twelve years since the Lord of Terror was unleashed, it’s finally official: Diablo III will be raising hell on May 15. All I’ve ever really wanted in life is a co-op hack-and-slash dungeon crawler, so I was excited for this game from the get-go. But after spending a little time poking around on Diablo III’s official website, I’m really excited. Like, super excited. I am downright stoked. And it’s for a very simple reason:

All of the female characters look like someone I’d like to play.

As I mentioned back in January, Diablo III will be the first game in the series to offer full gender customization for player characters. This on its own is a welcome addition, but the fact that the female character models are so good has earned Blizzard a stamp of approval in my book. To help explain why, I’m going to put these new ladies into the greater context of how Blizzard has portrayed women throughout their games.

When I wrote my breakdown of the Mass Effect 3 ending kerfuffle on Tuesday, I didn’t think there’d be anything to add to the discussion for a while. It had only been two weeks since the game was released, and I figured that the very earliest we’d hear anything more concrete from BioWare would be at their upcoming panel at PAX East.

Oh, silly me.

Yesterday, BioWare co-founder and general manager Dr. Ray Muzyka directly addressed the controversy through an open letter to all players of the game. He humbly accepted criticism and acknowleged the “valid principles” behind some of the more prevalent complaints. He also promised that in April, we’d be hearing more about “game content initiatives” that would address some of the fans’ concerns, notably those of narrative clarity and closure.

By now, you’ve likely heard that the endings to Mass Effect 3 have made people a little bit…upset. Fan backlashes to endings are hardly a new phenomenon in the geek community, but this goes beyond angry letters and wistful fanart. A significant chunk of the fanbase is petitioning BioWare to change the ending entirely via DLC.

If that sounds ridiculous to you, you’re not alone. Many gaming sites have scoffed at Mass Effect fans, throwing around words like “childish” or “entitled.” However, this fight is far more complicated than a few fans whining over the lack of a sunshine-and-rainbows ending. The way this thing plays out could have major ramifications not only for the gaming industry, but for how we define the concept of creative ownership. If you care about gaming, storytelling, or digital media, this is a story you should know about.

EDITOR UPDATE: Bioware has, uh, actually responded, sort of. Read Becky’s response here.

Last year, I learned about The Art of Video Games, a six-month exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (opening today!). This made me sad, because I do not live on the East Coast and transporters haven’t been invented yet. The exhibition sets out “to explore the forty-year evolution of video games as an artistic medium, with a focus on striking visual effects and the creative use of new technologies” — in other words, everything I love in one neat little package. Sigh.

However, for those of us who can’t attend the exhibition in person, the next best thing is the companion book, The Art of Video Games: From Pac-Man to Mass Effect, written by curator Chris Melissinos, with images by Patrick O’Rourke. I was expecting a heroes gallery of the best and finest of the gaming world, but this book was oh-so-much more than that. The reader is taken through not just the chronology of digital design, but the gradual synthesis of visual art, music and narrative that has made games into forms of expression far greater than the sum of their parts. At 216 pages, half of which are illustrations with text overlays, this is an easily-consumable read. But that doesn’t mean that it’s light on content. The Art of Video Games is a thought-provoking combo punch of colorful imagery, insightful interviews, and artistic exploration.

(No spoilers beyond a bit of incidental dialogue and things seen in the trailers.)

So there I was, running across broken window ledges, trying to make my way to safety, while the world was ending around me. Every so often I would stop in awe and horror as the Earth I loved began to fall. Buildings crumbled. Swarms of Alliance fighter ships darted across the sky, raining gunfire upon the Reapers. Oh God, the Reapers. They were everywhere. Three years ago, it had taken an interspecies fleet to take just one of them down. And now, here they were, descending upon skyscrapers, laying our cities to waste.

I had warned them. I had warned the Council. I had warned the Alliance. No one listened. Now, it was too late. Earth was burning, and the galaxy would follow.

I snapped myself out of my daze and kept running. The Reapers’ foot soldiers were everywhere. Somehow, I pulled it together enough to carve a path through them with my pistol. I got to the shuttle. I was forced to leave as innocent civilians died below me. My heart was pounding. My eyes were watering. My stomach felt heavy.

And then the title screen came up.