The Entertainment Software Association (ESA), which represents the interests of the video game industry and puts on the annual E3 gaming confab, apologized for “perpetuating a harmful stereotype” after backlash for linking to an article about games for women.
ESA published a tweet to the E3 Twitter account on Tuesday, August 18, that linked to a Parade article about the “25 best online games for women” that perpetuated stereotypes about female gamers.
Soon after, Twitter users criticized ESA for sharing the article, prompting the organization to yank down the post.
“We messed up,” the ESA said in a follow-up tweet. “We are taking down the post and apologize for perpetuating a harmful stereotype. We will do better.”
ESA did not immediately respond to Digital Trends’ request for comment.
Despite the apology, many female gamers continued to criticize the organization on Twitter. One user asked if the organization thought “this stereotype of women is funny.” Others called on ESA to talk to female gamers before posting items like the Parade piece.
Parade also took down the article following the outcry and said in its own tweet that it made the decision “after hearing your comments and reviewing again.”
The article, which is still available in the Web Archive, lists a variety of games available online. Its first sentence reads, “girls love gaming just as much as men.”
The video game industry has been criticized for years for being a male-dominated industry with a disturbing track record in its treatment of women. Earlier this year, in fact, hundreds of women in the industry recounted instances of sexual harassment, assault, and abuse.
Ubisoft, one of the industry’s most prominent studios, has fired several men who have been accused of sexually harassing women.
The issue also extends to the hiring process, where women are often underrepresented. While women make up 41% of the total number of video game players in the U.S., they account for just 22% of the game industry’s workforce, according to ESA data. Although that figure is still dangerously — and troublingly — low, the number of women working in the industry has nearly doubled since 2009.
The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.
After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.
Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.
Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”
It’s turning into a pretty good time to be a Monster Hunter fan who plays on a phone. Capcom has confirmed that Monster Hunter Outlanders will launch on Android and iOS on October 29, giving the series a new mobile-first game just as Monster Hunter Rise is also preparing to make the jump to smartphones through Netflix.
Outlanders is being developed by Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio Group under license and supervision from Capcom. Unlike Rise, which appears to be the full console and PC game adapted for mobile, Outlanders is a free-to-play survival hunting game made specifically for phones.