"While gamers of the female gender may be considered a rarer sight than their Y-chromosome-bearing counterparts, it would seem that there are enough of them around that making blind assumptions about a gamer’s identity would be viewed as a bad idea. But apparently, Microsoft disagrees.

Although women are still slightly in the minority among global Web users, they are closing ground with men and, once connected, spend about two more hours online a month on average. According to data from comScore, females exceed males particularly in communications, devoting about one-third of their online time to social networking, instant messaging and e-mail messages compared with about one-quarter for men. Women 45 and older exhibited the greatest growth in social networking.

Are women getting what they want from video games? Although they are playing games in large numbers, few companies are trying to appeal to women, and most of those that do merely release pink controllers or stereotypically "girlie" games. Silicon Sisters wants to help change that, with the first "female owned and operated video game company," operating out of Vancouver.

We got in touch with Kirsten Forbes, the COO and founding member of the company, to get our questions answered. First, how do you create games for women without pandering to them?