Gaming in general is a male thing. It isn't that gaming is

“Gaming in general is a male thing. It isn't that gaming is designed to exclude women. Everybody who's tried to design a game to interest a large female audience has failed. And I think that has to do with the different thinking processes of men and women.” — Gary Gygax

Thus spoke Gary Gygax, the father of modern gaming, the mind who first gave form to the world of Dungeons & Dragons — a universe where imagination itself became a battlefield. His words, though born of his time, reach into the deeper truth of human nature: that creation is shaped by instinct, by the patterns of thought and spirit that dwell differently within each soul. When Gygax spoke of gaming as “a male thing,” he did not raise a wall of exclusion, but pointed toward a mystery — that the ways in which men and women perceive challenge, conflict, and creation have long danced in different rhythms, like two melodies that intertwine yet never fully merge.

To understand his meaning, one must look not with judgment, but with reflection. For Gygax lived in an age when games were still the domain of warriors, tacticians, and storytellers seeking conquest — a world of dice, dragons, and danger. The games of his making were quests, reflections of the ancient call to adventure found in the sagas of old — Odysseus sailing into the unknown, Beowulf facing monsters in the dark. These stories, and the games they inspired, were built around the pursuit of risk, mastery, and triumph — energies that, in the traditions of history, had long been taught as the path of the masculine soul.

Yet, to say that gaming “belongs” to men is to forget that play itself is the oldest language of humanity. Even in the ancient courts of Egypt, Queen Nefertari played the game of Senet — a board of fate and chance where strategy met destiny. And in feudal Japan, women mastered the art of Go, their minds as sharp as any general’s. Perhaps what Gygax meant was not that women could not play, but that the games of his time were built in the image of the male mind — that they mirrored the world he knew: one of competition, conquest, and calculated victory, rather than connection, empathy, or creative storytelling.

The “different thinking processes of men and women” that Gygax spoke of were not chains but contrasts — the eternal balance of form and flow, of strategy and intuition. The male spirit, in his words, seeks order, rules, and challenge; the female spirit seeks connection, collaboration, and creation. One builds systems; the other builds meaning within them. This difference, misunderstood, has too often been wielded as a weapon. But in truth, it is a gift — the dual harmony that has driven art, culture, and civilization forward.

In the years since Gygax’s passing, the world of gaming has changed. Women have entered the arena not as strangers, but as innovators, writers, and designers. The rise of narrative-driven games, of worlds where emotion, empathy, and choice matter as much as conquest, shows that the two energies — masculine and feminine — are no longer divided, but interwoven. What was once a battlefield has become a tapestry. If Gygax spoke from the patterns of his time, then the generations that followed have woven new ones — proving that creation itself evolves when all minds, all hearts, are given space to play.

Let us then draw the deeper wisdom from his words: understanding is not the same as exclusion. To observe difference is not to deny equality. The ancients taught that both the sword and the lyre were needed to build a kingdom — the mind that conquers and the heart that harmonizes. So it is in gaming, and so it is in life. When creation welcomes both the logical and the intuitive, both the builder and the dreamer, it becomes whole.

Therefore, O seekers of truth and creators of worlds, take this lesson: do not build for one kind of mind alone. Whether in games or in life, design spaces where both competition and compassion have room to breathe. Recognize the divine balance — the masculine that drives and the feminine that envisions — and let them shape your craft together. For when all hands are free to play, when every soul can find its reflection in the world we build, then creation itself becomes complete, and the game of life grows richer than ever before.