Mary Flanagan, assistant professor of media studies at SUNY Buffalo, is creating a web-based adventure game for girls ages 9-11. Her hope is that the game will make science and math learning fun for girls as they navigate the various scenes. In testing, she found that “girls would jump to narrative sections and linger there, while the boys would race to the end for a prize.” Yup. No surprise there. The National Science Foundation is helping to fund her efforts. My hope is that more corporations will fund efforts to create girl-empowering and gender-neutral software. Progress has been made in this area, but, as with most endeavors to create “best-sellers” and “hits”, the bottom line always gets in the way and incorrect compromises are made, dulling or lessening the effect. If I learned anything from my time at Purple Moon (now property of the evil pink empire), it’s that, even with the best of intentions, running a business is still, well, running a business. And it’s hard to alter the perceptions of the guys holding the purse strings.