I'd be inclined to say the gamer->modder->hacker path is generally less accessible in the mainstream today than it was 10 or 15 years ago. The above comment made me realize that's effectively the path I followed too, but can today's AAA titles be tinkered with the way Halo PC, Counter Strike, etc could be so thoroughly modified after a few hours poking through forums? I can remember the first time I used the (fan made) halo editing kit to play as an alien on the Silent Cartographer as a crystallizing moment for me to go from a computer user to a computer creator.

I'd say Bethesda games are likely the exception - though from what I remember, trying to mod Fallout 3 mostly previewed to me how frustrating development can be :p

Edit: For what it's worth, I attended the Syracuse University ischool for my bs/ms and while that's also not a computer science program, my classes were usually at least equally proportioned between men and women. So that's at least a personal anecdote that the runway for women entering tech may be improving.

As someone who followed that gamer->modder->hacker path, I would like to see statistics of how many developers got there start that way. The cohort of CS/EE majors I went through college with in 2010 had a solid percentage who started that way, but I don't really see that in the 18 year old CS major of today.

The path is still there, just not in mainstream titles (at least not as frequently in mainstream titles). If I may point you at my favorite crack, err, game: factorio.

Modding: check. Scientific(ish) concepts: check. Mathematics: check. Encouraging automation: check.

Games are often male dominated and the culture can be toxic.

> male dominated

True, but shouldn't/doesn't matter, especially if the game has no voice chat required (or encouraged by the nature of the game). When I played WoW for a little over a year, the guild I was in had several women. LoL has lots of female players (mostly due to the size of its playerbase), Hearthstone even has a few popular female streamers.

> culture can be toxic

Also true, but most mainstream companies are responsive to feedback about negative players via reporting functionality or something of the like. You deal with negative interactions as a female just by being on social media, games are no different. The main difference is that being a dick to someone is a bannable offence in a lot of mainstream games.

The gaming “culture” ain’t got nothing on Twitter.

Basically, any platform a person can hide behind a screen is going to have toxic people. Gaming is a lot better about keeping the community in check than ANY social media company.

Where are the women game developers creating blockbuster hits for their gender? I am asking in a non-inflammatory way. Same with companies. Break the system and its bonds if it is not serving 50% of the population. Should be tons of opportunity to be had.

Gaming culture isn't really any more toxic than other culture held by people who take the subject of their interests too seriously. Other forms of media also have various unhinged individuals acting like jerks online.

And neither have anything on sports, where the toxicity can go beyond the internet in quite a few situations. For all the comments about toxicity and causing violence, games actually have a pretty good record by comparison.

I modded/hacked my school software to get custom CSS themes.