We're all geeks now, so let the games begin Joss Whedon has gone from being a guy who does cult shows to being a guy who made one of the highest grossing movies of all time. IT REALLY is a wonderful time to be a geek. Comic books are cool (again). People love Doctor Who (again). And video games are out-earning movies, by a lot. So not only are geeks cool, but you now don't have to be one to enjoy the nicer things in life. In fact, most people who play video games aren't geeks at all, and they're usually not the stereotypical fat, sweaty dude who survives on nothing but chips and energy drinks while sitting in his parents' garage conversion. Though, to be fair, some gamers are that guy. While the stats are about to be updated (it's an E3 tradition; more on that later), last year's Entertainment Software Association report revealed that your average gamer (in the US, at least) is 30 and almost as likely to be female as male. Women comprise 47 per cent of gamers and women over age 18 are the fastest-growing demographic. If someone tells you that playing games will ruin your life, point out that, according to New York's Beth Israel Medical Centre, surgeons who played video games three hours a week made 37 per cent fewer errors than non-players in laparoscopic surgery simulations (which involves joystick controls). So, maybe being a gamer will help you save a life, or at least make you faster at texting. The ubiquity of smartphones now means that almost everyone has a gaming device in their pocket, and a lot of people who otherwise would never encounter a video game now play obsessively. My father still hasn't mastered texting or cutting and pasting shortcuts, but he now plays games on his phone or computer whenever he has some down time. You just need to know that Angry Birds has had more than a billion downloads to see how big mobile gaming has become. But it's not just mobile games that are doing really well. While movies last two hours, console and PC games can last hundreds of hours, so it's no wonder that, in these unendingly uncertain economic times, people see games as a better investment for their hard-earned spending money. The highest-grossing movie of all time is Avatar at $2.78 billion. The highest-grossing game is World of Warcraft, which has earned somewhere in the vicinity of $12 billion. For a more recent, mainstream example, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 made $1 billion in its first 15 days on the market last year and people are still buying it. This week is like Christmas for gamers, because it is the week of the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), when all the video game companies announce their new titles, show videos and give journalists the chance to play the games you are all going to be looking forward to. Although video games have become ridiculously popular, the industry still has a lot of ways that it needs to improve. Even though women are the fastest-growing demographic, female representation in games and attitudes to female gamers are, at the moment, depressing. Something needs to change. I have lofty hopes for what I'm going to see over the next few days in LA, because I know that developers and writers can do better. I want to see a whole bunch of new, female lead titles where the heroine can see over her own boobs. I want beautifully written stories where the token female character doesn't have to die at the start to motivate the white, brooding, male lead. I want to see games where as much thought has been put into the writing as the graphics. And I want to see whether or not the PlayStation 4 is actually going to be invisible (because that would be awesome). I'm probably going to be royally disappointed, but at least I'll have Disney Infinity (similar to Skylanders), Forza 5 (best racing game ever) and Magic the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers 2014 (the digital version of a severely nerdy card game) to console me. If you're going to be disappointed, you may as well do it in geek heaven while being one of the cool kids. Alice Clarke is a Melbourne writer and game reviewer for the Sunday Herald Sun. She's going to E3 as a guest of Microsoft. Follow her on Twitter @Alicedkc