This week focused in on player two, but not the player two in the obvious sense, like the Luigi to player one’s Mario. This “Player Two” refers to the women of the gaming world, or the demographic that has been shadowed by gaming being marketed to mainly men and boys for many years. While in the 80’s and 90’s advertising was pointed towards boys, girls got “pink games” to satisfy their gaming tastes, with games like “Barbie” for the NES. “Pink Video Games” have been a thing for as long as I can remember, and were always given to my sister to play while I played “Smash Bros” or “Sonic Heroes”. It never occurred to me back then that games like this were purely designed to capture a certain (neglected) audience, but looking back, the crappy “Mary Kate and Ashley” tie-in games never seemed to have a lot of effort put in. As my sister abandoned games made for girls, I would pick them up to see what they were all about. A classic staple of “pink” games was the dress up mode or minigame. It seemed to be in almost every girl game, along with some having a subplot about wooing boys or fawning over crushes. I wondered, even back then, why these mechanics kept popping up in those games, as every other game I played was completely varied and they all had something that made them stand out between all the rest. “Pink” video games melded together in my mind, to this day I can’t remember the names of some of the games my sister played (which subsequently led to me playing them).  As time goes on, games have started to appeal to wider audiences, but the stereotypes of “girl gamers” have never gone away. With women being harassed in online spaces such as online multiplayer games, being told to leave because “this game isn’t for them” is downright abhorrent, but the “stigma” was set by the market years ago. However, modern game developers have begun to develop games directed towards females, made by females, and coded by females that can be enjoyed by everyone, leaving no one behind. Females having a place in one of the fastest growing industries has been a long time coming, and we saw a very enjoyable game this week with a female protagonist, “Life is Strange”. It seems this game has a story based on the high school life of a teenage girl, yet makes this story inviting and engaging to all audiences, straying away from the “pink” game label and making a compelling mechanic and story for males and females. It is important to remember your audience when creating a game, but pandering to an audience is certainly not the way to do it. Games like “Life is Strange” pave the way towards a better and more inclusive future, where the audience of a game isn’t judged by outsiders or ridiculed by the broader community for its differences. Games should bring us together, after all, and not make us butt heads.