Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Mattel Sells Out Of 'Game Developer Barbie' (cnet.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the Malibu-Bejeweled dept.

Long-time Slashdot reader sandbagger writes: The Mattel people have released a new Barbie doll figurine touted as Game Developer Barbie. Dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, she was apparently designed by a game developer.
It's already sold out on Mattel's web site, with CNET saying it provides a better role model than a 2014 book In which "computer engineer" Barbie designed a cute game about puppies, then admitted "I'll need Steven's and Brian's help to turn it into a real game," before her laptop crashed with a virus. Mattel says that with this new doll, "young techies can play out the creative fun of this exciting profession," and the doll even comes with a laptop showing an IDE on the screen. Sandbagger's original submission ended with a question. Do Slashdot readers think this will inspire a new generation of programmers to stay up late writing code?

4 of 224 comments (clear)

  1. Come on Barbie Lets's Go Write C, Ah Ah Ah Yea by lobiusmoop · · Score: 3, Informative

    Link is article is borked I think...

    --
    "I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
    1. Re:Come on Barbie Lets's Go Write C, Ah Ah Ah Yea by Noiser · · Score: 5, Informative

      Broken for me, too—it's just <a>!

      But the “cnet.com” link in the title works correctly. Here’s the URL: http://www.cnet.com/news/game-developer-barbie-gets-it-right-by-being-cool-and-capable/

    2. Re: Come on Barbie Lets's Go Write C, Ah Ah Ah Yea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

      Why is this nodded -1? The same applies to boys. In college they had a really hard C++ course, only half of us passed, the other half quit. Mostly men. Some woman passed some quit, same with the men.

  2. Re:Some clarification is needed. by Z80a · · Score: 4, Informative

    There are several more important female game developers that could serve as a model like Carol Shaw (probably one of the first female game programmers, that had to deal with the hell that is programming for the atari 2600) , Roberta Williams (Basically invented the point & click genre and had such influence on the gaming in general that PC gaming probably would not exist as it is today without her influence), Corine Yu (Worked directly on Direct3D, and its quite likely you're reading this text thru her work, given the fact windows aero uses D3D to compose the windows etc..)...