[game_edu] Implications of students going into a male-dominatedindustry?

[Adam Parker]

Hi Ian

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. Your answer to the substantive point is
kind of where my own thinking is at present.

To clarify on broader issues: while I do have ideological views that favor
diversity, my practical reasons for pushing participant diversity in game
play and design stem primarily from business pragmatics.

This issue seems to me to be more tractable as a problem if we talk about
diversity as providing an opportunity for innovation, rather than focus on
the ideological and ethical dimensions. I get a sense from your comments
that this is where your thoughts are heading.

A broader market would tend to underline a more sustainable industry able to
achieve more varied products. Niches should become more profitable. This is
something that even a myopic white dude could grasp - a bigger market space,
and thus a safer payroll, offers greater opportunities.

That's not to minimalise the ideological and ethical issues, which
absolutely will still need addressing, but instead it aims to apply a
Gordian slice to them. If diversifying the palette of game design from
pragmatic business grounds leads to a more equitable profession, regardless
of those debates, then the need to foreground those debates would eventually
retreat to the cultural studies and philosophy departments as historical
curiousities.

The real question, from academia's standpoint, is how we are to help build a
diverse industry right now - starting from a clear statement that diversity
equals better economic sense, instead of arguing on the bigot's terms for
the relevance of diversity.

After all, if industry can't work out critical problems, or holds
industry-wide assumptions that undermine its potential, then it's up to
academia to draw a line and begin to reconstruct industry. That's our
responsibility to our profession, as game design and development educators.

Cheers,
Adam

On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 6:50 AM, Ian Schreiber <ai864 at yahoo.com> wrote:


> Wow, I definitely seem to have hit a nerve cluster here.

>

> Adam Parker says:

> >For me, the real question is: where can we draw a line, saying "we've

> >done our best" with the problem? Where does it cease being our issue

> >and start becoming one where we rely on those outside our practice?

> >And therefore what actual impact can we expect to have? This is not to

> >abdicate responsibility, but to know our pragmatic limits and thus

> >work within them effectively.

>

> To me, I think part of my responsibility is raising awareness that this is

> an issue at all. My students are going to go into what may be a hostile

> workplace, and they need to be prepared for that. My hope is that in the

> long run, as more sensitive students enter the workforce, there will be an

> industry-wide culture shift. In 5 to 15 years when today's graduates rise to

> positions of power and prominence in the industry, they will be able to

> carry more influence. So I think as with every other aspect of game dev, my

> job is to educate and inform, and then let the students go do whatever they

> will do, and cross my fingers that I've done good enough :)

>

>

>

> Anthony Hart-Jones says:

> >  I think we have thankfully outgrown parts of the 'longboat culture', as

> you name it, with half of the developers I

> >know (male and female) being married, often with kids.

>

> Duke Nukem Forever and Metroid: Other M suggest otherwise ;-)

>

>

> >The main discrimination I have seen is not overt sexism, not disparagement

> of women's work or role, but rather a

> >low level of sexualisation.  In some cases, it borders on sexual

> harassment, but it often appears to be more a low

> >level of unconscious flirting (sexual irritation?) which the women in

> question just put up with.  The worst part of

> >this is that I am sure the men in question (usually management and almost

> exclusively 40+) would be mortified to

> >discover that they were making anyone uncomfortable

>

> This has been my experience too, not just with females but also minorities

> and LGBT. The devs I've worked with have generally been an open-minded

> bunch, but we're often oblivious to these issues. Is it "racism" if four

> white artists are discussing how to model a black character in the game, and

> they say things like "well, he should have an afro, right? And gold teeth...

> how many gold teeth should he have?" (Yes, this example comes from a true

> story, or so it was related to me as such.) No malice is intended here, it's

> just a bunch of white dudes who have only ever hung out with other white

> dudes trying their best (and failing) to grasp a subculture to which they

> are totally ignorant.

>

>

> >For my part, I think the best argument for equality is simply working with

> women.

>

> Chicken-and-egg problem. The solution to a hostile-to-women environment is

> to attract more women. The solution to attracting more women is to fix the

> toxic environment. Which comes first?

>

>

> Nathan Runge:

>

> >I am going to be the person to disagree almost completely. I am not

> opposed to women in games, let me clarify.

> >Nor am I in support of discrimination or the poor behaviour sometimes

> displayed by my contemporaries. Instead,

> >I am opposed to many of the measures considered, and differ in my opinion

> on the magnitude of the problem.

> >Firstly, some context: I am a caucasian male in my twenties, and I speak

> from my experiences as a student and a

> >professional developer in Australia.

>

> With all due respect, Nathan, saying "I'm a white guy and I don't think

> there's a race or sex problem" is a bit optimistic. I've never had a female

> student complain to me that she felt marginalized - but is that because I

> teach my classes in an inclusive way, or is it because I send off the same

> subconscious "only boys allowed" signals as everyone else, and no one feels

> comfortable confronting me because I'm in a position of power? How would I

> know? There is literally no way that I can answer that question through

> personal experience alone; I have to specifically seek out people in the

> development community who are women, minorities, LGBT, and so on, and ask

> them. And when I do, the resounding answer I get is that Yes, This Is A

> Problem.

>

>

> >The imbalance in the industry is simply the fact of the situation, and it

> being so is not causing any harm.

>

> AAA games routinely target straight white males, and thus exclude well over

> 50% of their potential market. How is running at <50% of your potential

> profitability NOT a problem? (Okay, I admit that's a bit of an exaggeration,

> since there are plenty of gamers who will play these games in spite of not

> being specifically included, or even in spite of being indirectly excluded.

> But even a 5% drop is hundreds of millions when you're operating at the

> scale of EA.)

>

> As for it being "simply a fact" I'd have to ask, why? Would you be willing

> to make the argument that one sex is genetically more predisposed towards

> game development (or gaming) than another? The only studies I've seen on the

> matter show that once you remove environmental factors, the gender gap

> instantly evaporates.

>

> I don't think anyone here is advocating quotas, so much as offering an

> environment that gives everyone an equally welcoming and engaging

> atmosphere. It's like any other pedagogy -- if you're a visual learner you

> are predisposed to teach visually, and thus it will be harder for students

> who are aural or kinesthetic to really grok your class. Attract a department

> with all visually-oriented teachers, and you'll find that suddenly 90% of

> your student population is visual learners. Then you say it's not a problem,

> the field just lends itself to visual learning, it's just how things are.

> But if you found that incorporating a variety of teaching styles can reach

> and engage non-visual learners, then you are excluding a lot of students who

> really should and want to be there, aren't you?

>

>

> >Encouragement is good, bribery (excessive bursaries and other financial

> inducements) would just be sexism by

> >another name.  Denying funds to men which you offer to women is still

> gender-bias of the worst kind, no matter

> >that you might put a word like 'positive' before 'discrimination'.

>

> I wouldn't even say "encouragement" so much as "lack of exclusion." If

> women are systematically marginalized in an academic program, if male

> students are allowed to say sexist remarks in class and not be called out

> for it, if even the professors make such remarks in class... I would not

> classify the problem as "gosh, our department has an unbalanced male/female

> ratio, we should try to attract more women." I would say the problem is "our

> department drives away females by sheer brute force, and we need to stop

> doing this because it is stupid." It's not about meeting quotas or applying

> an artificial load-balancing algorithm. It's about finding ways to detect

> the reasons behind any imbalance; honestly assessing whether the gender (or

> race, or whatever) disparity is due to the randomness of statistics or other

> controllable factors; if controllable, honestly deciding whether these

> factors are excluding students who would like to learn game dev but choose

> not to because of the environment we provide.

>

> That's my two cents, anyway.

>

> - Ian

>

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>



-- 
Adam Parker
Senior Lecturer, Games Design
Qantm College

Qantm College Melbourne Campus
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South Melbourne VIC 3205 Australia

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