I wish I had a chance to check out more panels, but a panel that I was curious to see was "How to get your girlfriend into gaming." The panel consisted of Christa Phillips (XBL Community Manager), Jane Pinckard (Editor in Chief at GameGirlAdvance), Cori Roberts (Editor at Gameinatrix), Shelby Wills (Producer at Pipeworks Software) and Nicole Tanner (Director of PR and Marketing at Foundation 9 Entertainment). This was and an opportunity for people in the audience to ask questions and get advice, so hopefully it was informative to people who were seeking answers.

　　One of the main problems that the women pointed out was that when some guys play games, they act like complete jerks (to put it nicely). If you're throwing a controller around and screaming at the television, no one (who isn't already absorbed in the same game) is going to want to be next to you, let alone your girlfriend. Trash talking and gloating is also not the best way to ease a non-gamer into the wonderful world of gaming which is why there are a lot of women who don't like playing online. They'd rather just avoid all the profanity and incessant trash talking.

　　The panel pushed for people to introduce games that the girl might be interested in. It doesn't mean that it has to be games for "girls" it could be any game that is fun and easy to pick up. Just because you want your girlfriend to play Halo with you, doesn't mean you can't start her off with something she might like and maybe be able to one day make the transition. It was also important to note that in a relationship, there has to be compromises. You can't expect your girlfriend to want to play WoW when you spend all your time with the game and ignore her. Sometimes the guy needs to change their attitudes and behavior to make it more inviting for a girl to join in.

　　In the end, it seems to all boil down to respecting the other person's interests and abilities. If your girlfriend is really into solitaire, let her play. You can't hope to transform everyone into a shooter fan overnight, but encouraging them to branch out by buying games she might like or suggesting games that you can play together will help her become interested.

　　I thought this panel was amusing, mostly because of the questions that were asked. It seemed like more people wanted their girlfriends to play a specific game instead of getting them interested in games. I think it's fine if people don't like games, I don't want to force it on people who have no interest. The way I encourage my non-gamer friends to play is to try and find out what they like and what game they've played in the past. It also helps that I play a wide variety of games so I can tell what games are fit for what kind of people. If you only play shooters, it's going to be hard to recommend a game for someone else if you don't have experience playing anything else. However, video games are a form of entertainment that I really think everyone can enjoy. The big barrier that I see is the bad attitude that surrounds games and gamers. I hope that changes soon.