(this is a reply to https://twitter.com/hownottodraw/status/892655179509764096)
Okay, so: I think the situation with girls games in the 90s came pretty directly out of them being sold as a weird form of toys (as opposed to games for boys, which were their own thriving market with a specialist press etc). This doesn't apply everywhere, but I think it does apply to the Barbie games especially - if only because they were published / licensed by Mattel.
(I also do think there were other factors at play - many people at publishers and developers were probably sexist, and working on girls games was no doubt seen as low status for both publishers and devs. None of that helped)
I'm also kinda shading between toys as they are now and toys as they were 20 years ago. I actually don't really know what the toy market was like in the 90s, but I heavily suspect it has not changed all that fundamentally. (I should also point out I'm not an expert in the current toy market, but I have been exposed to it as we talk about h