To my eyes, they're trying to bring attention to a non-existant problem (that has been solved pretty darned well with casual games ages ago) to increase readership on a pretty flamey topic, together with their twitter buddies.
I believe there are very fundamental differences between males and females and that the optimal game design would target very specifically those differences (or at least be very aware of them), unless the core of the design is the actual male-female dynamic or ecosystem. It is also more optimal to target one or the other because of the ad networks in today's world.
I don't know - there certainly are women who play "hardcore games".
The more I think about it, the less understand what the problem is? For whatever reason, women seem to play less hardcore games. OK - but what is their problem? Do they think women unfairly miss out on all the fun? Then why don't they just tell women "hey, there is this thing called games, it's fun, try it" instead of whining that society made them miss out? Or do they complain that the wrong games are being made - which would be rather weird, because people are apparently buying these games. Or in other words, to me it seems a bit like saying "I would really like spinach, if spinach would taste like chocolate". Yeah, but spinach doesn't taste like chocolate, if you want chocolate, eat chocolate, but leave people who like spinach to their spinach. No need to convert all spinach to chocolate.
I get these ^ all the time these days, including HN. Whenever anyone says something like that, I know I'm on the right track. :)
As far as spinach/chocolate analogy goes, the result they're going after is even worse - it's a spinach-flavoured chocolate, or chocolate-flavoured spinach.
I believe there are very fundamental differences between males and females and that the optimal game design would target very specifically those differences (or at least be very aware of them), unless the core of the design is the actual male-female dynamic or ecosystem. It is also more optimal to target one or the other because of the ad networks in today's world.