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It's unfortunate we've sidetracked so far off of the original thread. Stay focused so I don't have to keep doing this to you.. :(

Stay at home moms play a whole host of games. Why would you possibly think otherwise? Welcome to 2007, my disillusioned friend. Honestly, teenage to 20 something males playing The Sims? 54+ million of them? Are you serious? A report in 2004 showed 2/3 of MSN's 8.7 million users were women.

My earlier statements come from first hand knowledge. My mom is a grandparent, and my sister is a stay at home mom, and they both play The Sims. They both have a whole host of friends within their same demographic that they talk to online about the game, if not play along with them. Myself, I've played with countless non-teenager or 20 something males in numerous games. (WoW, Command & Conquer, Age of Empires, etc.) Since I know my first hand experiences mean nothing to you, I'll continue on.

I could honestly post hundreds of articles that disprove your unfortunately naive view of gaming, but I'll start with just a few to hopefully make it easier to digest.

Have a look at this article which outlines the fact that women over 18 are 38% of all gamers. I don't know, but that doesn't seem like ..what'd you call it.. "in the noise" to me.

Please keep reading and have a look at another article about women playing WoW, and why they enjoy it as an outlet. The article states there are over 5 million stay at home moms, and you're lead to believe that when the kids are gone to school, all they do is cook and clean?

Don't stop now. Read another piecethat outlines all of the myths that you apparently still believe. How about that less than 30% of gamers are under age 18? How about nearly half (48.6%) of the PC entertainment software purchases in 1998 were women. Oh, and nearly half of the purchases of online games of any genre are women. Most of this data is from a few years ago, and the trends were already starting.

I'd agree, you won't find women playing games like Quake, Counterstrike, or Madden as often as men, but you will find them casually gaming, most likely online, as the social aspect seems to be a key factor in attracting women to games. Many of the games women play may not necessarily have DX prerequisite (web based games), but the gaming demographic is not limited to teenage or 20 something males. Not even close.

Correct me if I'm wrong here but Oddworld Inhabitants were never bought by Microsoft. Munch's Oddysee was moved from a PS2 exclusive to an Xbox exclusive and Stranger's Wrath was cancelled for the PS2. Infact I do believe it was Oddworld's lack of support of Sony's machine that has caused the company to exit the gaming industry...

Considering that I've never heard about them until today, I'd say that StarROMs had some serious marketing issues. Now that I hear about them and actually want to try their service, they're out of business? Sometimes the world just isn't fair.

In any case, I did a few background checks on StarROMs and I've come to the following conclusions. Let me know if the rest of you agree or disagree:

1. They didn't market enough. I'd heard about such a service in passing, but never found any concrete information. Had they made themselves more visible, perhaps they would have done better.

2. Game selection. With the release of the Flashback 2 and other Atari wares, it's become pretty clear which games Atari feels it has the rights to, and which ones it doesn't. Thus, just like Atari did back in the 1980's, they're recycling the same tired games over and over and over again. (No, I don't want to play Pong Yet Again(TM).) This article discusses how upset that StarROMs was that they didn't gain more industry support.

3. Price. Originally the files were $5 a piece. It looks like many went as low as $2. Given that Atari was probably chewing up a lot of that fee as licensing, I can't see how they made a profit.

Rest in Peace StarROMs. I wish I knew you better.

This is a good resource as well - removed from games by a few degrees yet still in the entertainment biz: http://www.thehollywoodreporter.com/thr/video_game s/index.jsp