Forty-seven percent of all players are women, and women over 18 years of age are one of the industry’s fastest growing demographics.

When we first got an SNES in our house I was young (about 6) and Link to the Past was out, but we couldn’t get it in stores so we rented it instead. This was before walkthroughs and before the internet was as common as it is these days.

My mother and I would play Link to the Past constantly trying to figure out the many puzzles and trying to beat the game together before we had to return it. We made it all the way to the first dungeon in the dark world to a dead end room with an eyeball statue in it and couldn’t, for the life of us, figure out what to do.

After many attempts at trying many different things we gave up and had to return the rental with our save file on it and kind of forget about the whole thing for awhile. A couple of months later I ended up getting the game for Christmas, from Santa, and when I loaded the game up there was only one file on it with the name Santa on it as well.

Turns out Mr. Claus had completed the game all the way up to the point we were stuck, finished the puzzle we were stuck on, and left a note in the game box saying I had to shoot the eyeball of the statue with an arrow.

Santa may have gotten all the credit back then – but now – all these years later, I know who actually put in all the effort of creating the gift of a file where I left off… On top of the gift of the game itself.

My mom is awesome, I’ll remember it forever.

Some folks said it should happen naturally, that it should serve the story — as if the story is its own magical creature that will one day evolve to embrace an actress in the role, as if these things happen all on their own and without human meddling. They do not. Diversity does not occur in a vacuum. Defeating sexism is not the default mode or it would’ve happened already. We want to evoke diversity in writing and publishing, don’t we? Then it happens with choice. With agency and action. It happens when you make it happen, not when it happens on its own. Fuck inertia. Enact change by MAKING THINGS HAPPEN.