I think there are elements that developers introduce to try and make the game appeal to their target audience, how much that actually works is another matter. I mean, it's not like the 80's when girls had 80's things to do, like crimping their hair and boggling to Aswad. These days gaming is socially acceptable - everyone I know on Facebook plays at least one game, every woman on Facebook has a virtual animal that needs feeding.
I think though that they can only add the elements that worked before, we can all probably list some games that women tend to like - but to explain why is another matter altogether, a programmer trying to understand women, now thats a scary thought. The game elements that work, do so regardless of Y chromosomes - it's more about how a game is visualised and marketted, not how it plays.
Make a Barbie dress up game, let girls change hair and clothes and add on accesories to make their own unique virtual Barbie doll - then take them shopping for new items.
Make a monster game, where you have to design your monster and give it weapons and special powers, then take it out hunting for rabbits and hedge porn.
Really those 2 ideas are identical, hell it could be the same engine and interface with just different graphics. I don't play the Sims but I can see why people do - I really liked Dungeon Keeper, making sure my beasties have somewhere nice to live, lots to eat, a library, gym, casino... most of the time I'd play that game and not even fight the enemies - find the gem block and mine the heck out of it - then make an epic dungeon. I used to play a lot of LAN games with my bro, spend a good couple of hours on the dungeon, then have a battle - but that was really just so we could get some prisoners to torture or turn into a skeleton.
Speaking of which - isn't it about time Molyneaux left Fable alone for 5 minutes and made Dungeon Keeper 3, imagine that sort of game on a next gen console with multiplayer.
