[game_edu] What are we doing right that brings in female developers?

[Gregory Walek]

So far, we've been focused on what is wrong. A few spots here and there on what we can do to improve the situation. And to be honest, the discussion can get very depressing. I'm not dismissing the issue here, I'm changing the question to flip the discussion on its head. What are we doing right that brings in female developers?

What Kim alludes to is the fact LARP'ing is a social activity. When you take part in a LARP event, you're getting out of the house and dealing with other people. In the digital side, the LARP is equivalent of an MMO. The model holds up here as well. (( if you look at recent information from CCP, they're taking the analogy to heart with the upcoming World of Darkness Online. )) This is one of the keys to which separates the sub-par MMO with a successful one. We can leave the issue of gender bending in MMO to the aside as it's an artifact of gameplay and not a result of the topic at hand. The numbers may not be equal, they're much better than you'd expect. 

Another area is social gamming. I have no hard data to back this up. But it's hard to discount when my Mother and Aunts who have traditionally looked at not as gamers are eating up the latest game on Facebook. To push the issue harder, I provide the fact that I only started playing Farmville only because my wife was already playing it. (I stopped because I broke out Excel as a game aid, but that's another issue)

Why am I highlighting this? My though process is simple. If have a group of people playing, there are always those who will want to take the next step forward and create their own games. If we expand this group to have a more noticeably larger female portion, then we should see larger number of females who want to take part in development. 

The social \ Let's get more female gamers route is just the first one that comes to mind. There's obvious more area where we are doing thing right. I'm curious to see what others say. 

-----Original Message-----
From: game_edu-bounces at igda.org [mailto:game_edu-bounces at igda.org] On Behalf Of Kim Blake
Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2011 6:44 AM
To: 'IGDA Game Education Listserv'
Subject: Re: [game_edu] Implications of students going into a male-dominated industry?

My main hobby is LARPing (live-action role-playing). Like game development, it is seen as, and largely still is, a mainly male thing. However, the group I play in has the largest proportion of women players in our system, and we retain them and regularly recruit more.

I *think* the reasons for this are twofold. One, the existing female players are welcoming to new players of either gender but do make a special effort to engage with new female players, so that they get involved in what's going on and don't feel lost or out of place.

Secondly, by and large our male players don't act like dicks. They too are welcoming and (mostly!) respectful of women. New players are actively encouraged to report being made to feel uncomfortable by words or actions, and this will be taken up with the person or people responsible.

Like Anthony, I think this is an approach we could profit from in our industry!

Kim


-----Original Message-----
From: game_edu-bounces at igda.org [mailto:game_edu-bounces at igda.org] On Behalf Of Anthony Hart-Jones
Sent: 21 September 2011 11:25
To: IGDA Game Education Listserv
Subject: Re: [game_edu] Implications of students going into a male-dominated industry?

On 20/09/11 23:37, Johnnemann Nordhagen wrote:

> Just saying "well, it's society's problem" isn't ever going to help 

> solve the issue.


   I think it is a tricky one; we need to address our industry-specific 
issues (Lara Croft, Dead or Alive Beach Volleyball, Duke Nukem Forever) 
and our own social issues within game-dev society, but we do need to 
look at both the help we can do in the wider world of STEM subjects and 
how current solutions to the social issues can be relevant to our 
experiences.

   If anything, I think we have two issues.  The deeper pre-existing 
issues with society, the assumption of girls that STEM subjects are for 
boys, is the first part of the problem, as it stops girls from seeing 
the games industry as viable in the first place.  Quite simply, girls 
don't look at our industry because it is full of smelly boys.  The 
industry-specific issues come into play once girls start to show an 
interest; they play the games and visit the studios, they try to work 
out where they fit, but they see an environment which is unwelcoming or 
which treats them as second-class citizens who need special dispensation.

   Here's the thing; I think the wider social issues are not something 
we need to address.  I strongly suspect that if we clean up our industry 
and make women welcome, both by making studios better places for a woman 
to work and by making game that don't rely on gender-specific design, 
then we will already have helped to change society.

   As the father of a girl, I just hope we can fix our issues before my 
daughter falls prey to them.  Strong-willed though she is, despite 
growing up around technology and playing games, I still worry that 
gender-expectations will drag her down.

  - Anthony
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