Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this column are those of the participants and the moderator, and do not necessarily reflect those of the GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive material afoot. 7 degrees isn't as cold as I thought it would be. Don't say we didn't warn you.

So yesterday I somewhat kiddingly suggested that only 11 people responded to the survey, only one of whom was a woman. And lo and behold, many women wrote in to say that they must have been the one in question, although jokingly, I'm sure.

Of course, the survey was answered by many, many more than 11 people. I don't know how many actual numbers I'm supposed to mention, so I'll just say that it was comfortably into four figures, which, in turn, is a minority share of our monthly readership.

But this record number of letters from female gamers has inspired me to do something I never thought possible - write a column composed entirely of letters from women authors, just for the hell of it and because it's unlikely ever to happen again. And to disprove the notion once and for all that there are no women gamers out there, although it probably didn't need disproving in the first place.

Yep, it's another first for the DA column. And the people rejoice!

Onward.

Hee hee... I dunno why, but lining up all these people who had the exact same idea for a joke email just cracks me up. I mean, yes, I'm a complete jerk for setting this up in the first place, I humbly apologize for lying about the hits we got on the survey, and yes, I know I need to have rocks thown in my direction.

But still... heh. Ok, letter-columnist-specific humor is over, never mind.

First off, I can't think of any self-respecting guy who'd wear Ashley Riot's pants... but if I'm wrong, let me just say this in advance: PLEASE DON'T TELL ME ABOUT IT.

Second, let's just do an order of magnitude thing for a moment. We know that there are about a million RPG players in the US, because that's roughly how many people buy any given PSX Final Fantasy. Of that number, I'd say maybe 100,000 qualify as "hard-core" - the type who buy more than just one RPG a year, get wrapped up in games like Xenogears, and visit sites like the GIA.

Now, 100,000 people is a pretty sizable number. If an RPG developer can sell a game to each of those people at $50 a pop, we're looking at 5 million bucks just in the US alone, which is a decent return. So from that perspective, we're a decent sized demographic.

However, let's look at how that number actually breaks down, geographically. It's probably not accurate to divide evenly among the 50 states, but many states will have something near the average - about 20,000 gamers apiece. 20,000 gamers apiece spread out among an entire state is good enough to dilute the population to next to nothing, so you might, in a 5,000 student high school, find two people who are seriously in to RPGs, but you're probably just as likely to find only one, or none at all.

Of course, random chance dictates that there will be more than a few groupings of five or ten or more hard core people in a town or school, and just because of the demographic breakdown, and I suspect that places like California are likely to have many more gamers than, say, Montana. But just think about the kind of odds that are against you next time you complain you don't know any RPG people in real life... a lot of other people are in the same boat too.

Wow, I didn't even know GamePro was still in existence, and I'd never even heard of Tail of the Sun until you mentioned it. All I can say is - "It's Game Pro. Who cares?"

End of story.

Closing Comments:

That was... interesting... or not. Worth trying once, anyway. I'd just like to apologize once more for any confusion my little joke might have caused yesterday, and thank all today's contributors in advance for being good sports about it.... and in the off chance they do feel the need for some kind of retribution, may I just plead: not the eyes, ears, or hands. I need those to finish Final Fantasy 9, ok?

Another free topic day tomorrow, see you then.

-Chris Jones, wondering who'll guess the title of tomorrow's column first