Barbie Fashion Designer was the first wildly successful game marketed explicitly to young girls, selling over half a million copies in its first two months in 1996 and completely outpacing Doom and Quake.

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Barbie Fashion Designer was the first wildly successful game marketed explicitly to young girls, selling over half a million copies in its first two months in 1996 and completely outpacing Doom and Quake. The gaming industry had previously assumed that girls simply did not play video games, completely ignoring the fact that developers had spent the last two decades exclusively making games about shooting demons or rescuing princesses. This title allowed players to design 3D outfits and print them out on special fabric for their physical dolls, tapping into a massive, neglected market. The success bewildered male executives who could not fathom why a demographic ignored by the industry was not buying their violent space marine simulators, proving once again that corporate myopia is the only true constant in the entertainment business