The Entertainment Software Association recently reported that over 40 percent of gamers today are women. A respectable figure and one warranting a closer look at the industry to see how it’s reacting to the burgeoning feme-gamer market.

Electronic Entertainment Design and Research (EEDAR) did some poking around and noted that over 50 percent of games across most genres allow for players to select a female avatar.

What does this mean? It means that most game developers are finding it worth spending a little bit more of their time and money to ensure that not just the boys are happy with their avatars. Female representation in video games is now almost a virtual necessity if one doesn't want to alienate half the gamer market.

Music and Rhythm games topped the list with 92 percent and Shooters predictably bottomed out at 18 percent.

RPGs, in theory, should have gotten some the one of the highest scores since character customization tends to be pretty important regardless of the gender of the player. Not so. It was 4th. I blame JRPGs, which are usually more linear than their western counterparts.

I guess they figure that they don't need to give gamers the choice of gender since few can really tell if their protagonists are male or female anyway. (yes, yes, I know I'm not being fair, but I still haven't forgiven them for Vaan.)

Among consoles, the Wii scored top marks with 51 percent of its games allowing for selectable female avatars (not really surprising because of the Miis). The Xbox and PS3 were roughly the same, scoring about 38 percent apiece.

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