> male dominated

True, but shouldn't/doesn't matter, especially if the game has no voice chat required (or encouraged by the nature of the game). When I played WoW for a little over a year, the guild I was in had several women. LoL has lots of female players (mostly due to the size of its playerbase), Hearthstone even has a few popular female streamers.

> culture can be toxic

Also true, but most mainstream companies are responsive to feedback about negative players via reporting functionality or something of the like. You deal with negative interactions as a female just by being on social media, games are no different. The main difference is that being a dick to someone is a bannable offence in a lot of mainstream games.

The gaming “culture” ain’t got nothing on Twitter.

Basically, any platform a person can hide behind a screen is going to have toxic people. Gaming is a lot better about keeping the community in check than ANY social media company.

Where are the women game developers creating blockbuster hits for their gender? I am asking in a non-inflammatory way. Same with companies. Break the system and its bonds if it is not serving 50% of the population. Should be tons of opportunity to be had.

Gaming culture isn't really any more toxic than other culture held by people who take the subject of their interests too seriously. Other forms of media also have various unhinged individuals acting like jerks online.

And neither have anything on sports, where the toxicity can go beyond the internet in quite a few situations. For all the comments about toxicity and causing violence, games actually have a pretty good record by comparison.