Network now...FEATURE
GDC: We Need More Women in Games
It's more critical than ever for women to get into games, whether it's as a player or as a developer.
That's according to a panel comprised primarily of women on the closing day of GDC. But women don't always recognize or even have confidence in their ability to be game designers.
“The game industry has created a box around itself that says 'get out,'" says Tracy Fullerton, associate professor of interactive media at University of Southern California. "If you’re not dedicated to hardcore games, you’re not a gamer," some believe. That leads some aspiring female designers to doubt themselves because they prefer so-called "casual" games, not Gears of War or Halo.
"I think the industry has to invite people to come in and play.” Nintendo, she notes, is a prime example of making gaming more inviting.
Attracting more females to actually work in the games industry is also tied to encouraging more women to play games. Men and women often play games in very different ways, and the best games encompass all play styles.
Fullerton talked about her experience in a Halo clan that was comprised of both men and women. “I realized we weren't playing the same game. The guys were playing ‘I beat that guy,’ whereas I was playing ‘I am hanging out with my friends,’ yet we were both having fun in that same game.’”
Noah Falstein, president of consulting firm The Inspiracy, was fascinated when he watched girl friends of his 10-year-old daughter play Diablo II. One of them wasn't interested in slaying monsters; she played it like a shopping game, buying different items.
“One of the effects of getting women into game design is that they are going to add play patterns," says Fullerton.
And with wider-appealing game design comes a wider audience, a good thing for the games industry as well as gamers.
Sande Chen contributed to this report.
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Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court 30 Monmouth Street Bath, UK BA1 2BW
England and Wales company registration number 2008885
Good article! I admire Nintendo for making a system that caters to "casual" gamers, particularly women. My wife and I both play video games together, and it's obvious to me that there are only a limited amount of games out there that she and I would enjoy playing together on our PS2 (Sims, Lego Starwars games, Champions of Norrath, etc.) while the vast majority of games are very obviously catered to males.
This is no surprise of course, but I hope it's something that changes as time goes on.
Im glad to see women playing video games!
I play COD4&COD5 all the time & i see some female gamers giving some Prestige10 players an ass whooping! haha!
Some women have even created clans & regiments within games. Bullet Babes!
I think like most articles on the subject is has a theory about why more women are needed, but then drifts into fantasy land. I find its ironic that they article settles into the comedian’s trick of making social observations like “Women are like this and men are like that...PUNCHLINE. Ha Ha!
If I were to say to women gamers I know “Men want to win and women want to socialize” they’d sneer at me as their fist landed on my nose. All gamers play for all sorts of reasons, and I would bet and most people want to do both. If you looked at not how they self-identify their actions but just looked at their actions we’d see mean socialize about as much a women play to win just as much.
That is what is wrong ever time ties discussion comes up the arguments fall into deep stereotyping be before you hit paragraph three. And nobody wants to examine the games made when women were either. In most cases if you did that you’d find that the game made are usually games gamers of both sexes play. A women designer would be under the same industry wide pressures to produce the same games. Or am I to understand developers don't look at the bottom line when a lady is present? Am I wrong that Lara Croft would be in a head-to-toe mu-mu and not shorts and t-shirt if a woman made it? I don’t think I’m wrong in either case. Women in charge or men in charge would change very little in the substance of games, the characters portrayed or the amount of skin, course language or sexual innuendo.
Why?
Because women in the industry wouldn't be caricatures either, they would be professionals who would have to fight within the same market pressures as always. Women in the industry have so far defied the stereotypes and produced not games for women but for the most part games for gamers.
1) This seems a bit like the chicken and the egg scenario. If more women become involved in the gaming industry, then surely the creation of more 3 dimensional female characters and leads is sure to follow, but why would women be attracted to work in an industry where misogyny is so evidently rife and the developers are used to trying to appeal to 13 year old boys who have rather different requirements and expectations from a game to a young woman about to embark on a future career.
2) I don't think a 10 year old girl treating the shop in Diablo 2 like a mini-mall suggests that this is what women who game want to see. She was introduced to the system and misunderstood its purpose, rather like a child who mistakes your priceless collection of vintage vinyl for a number of peculiarly fragile frizbees.
Please do, and make female protagonists less generic, either boobs or whiny and annoying, too devoid of personality to even bother remembering a name. Bring on developed characters!
*sigh*
While more women in games is to be welcomed, in the same way that more people joining the party is also good, I must say I'm getting very very tired of 'analysts' and 'experts' telling impressionable marketers and publishers what's wrong about the industry 'this week'.
I would love Edge to do a retrospective piece on when the games industry moved away from being driven by fun i.e. enthusaists in it for the fun and people creating for fun, and into the grey world of stats and figures.
How soon before we start worrying if enough albino people are being properly catered to? Please note, I'm not singling out people with albinisim I just plucked an identifiable demographic out of the air, I could have just as easily said men who like to wear red jumpers *looks at his red jumper*.
My main point is, while I love that games can bring everyone together, I worry that when a product tries to cater for as many specific groups as possible then it begins to weaken it's core attraction.
Take the opening line of this article;
"It's more critical than ever for women to get into games, whether it's as a player or as a developer."
Why? Is the industry on the verge of collapse?
'It's critical people! Force women to play dammit! WE NEED MORE MONEY, OUR REVENUE ISN'T BALLOONING FAST ENOUGH!' - some hysterical marketer that I made up
I don't have the answers, perhaps more games need to be designed for specific target audiences rather than trying to appeal to as many as possible? But that will never happen so long as the main aim is to get as many people buying as possible. What we're looking at here is the same mentality that makes a 12a rated Termninator movie turning its attention to games.
Shopping in Diablo 2? I can see the new FFVII remake as Cloud faces Sephiroth, '"Does this sword make me look fat?"
*edit*
Yes, I know the last line can be interpreted as sexist, but if French and Saunders or the Fast Show can make people laugh with similar jokes then so should everyone else. =)
Absolutely need more women in the gaming industry. More women, and WAY less staged "gaming" ads. I mean seriously, look at those people in the picture, standing waayyy too close to each other and a little too into the whole Wii thing.
Those girls look like they're attached at the rear, too. Just sayin.
Corrine Yu was part of the dev team for Halo 3 :) Us true girl gamers are out there, we may be few and far between but our numbers are growing!
No girls allowed! They only love the Wii cos you don't need opposable thumbs for it.
:)