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Friday, July 11, 2008
Chipping the Glass Ceiling
 One of the main issues in the gaming industry is that there are relatively few women in it. Many folks would claim that this discrepancy is because women just aren't interest in video games, but we've learned that the real culprit is the difficulty women face trying to break into such a male-dominated industry. Fortunately, there are scholarship programs out there that are designed to help even the odds--and two of them have just found winners. 2007's Game Career Guide shows that only 9% of game artists are women and make on average over less than $10,000 per year than male game artists. In light of this information, Notes on Game Dev started the Aspiring Women Game Artists Contest--a contest that was judged by such female leaders in game art and education as Heather Kelley, Sheri Graner Ray, and Christin McKee. Last week, the winners were announced: Amy McDonough Jones and Erin Robinson will receive a fully paid grant for the Accredited Game Art Certificate Program at Sessions Online School of Game Art, the right to use the NoGD Grand Place Award Winner digital seal in their future portfolio, a one-year membership to the International Game Developers Association, and a one-year subscription to Game Developers Magazine. Runners up Elise Motzny and Lesa Wilcox will also receive the right to use the NoGD Grand Place Award Winner digital seal and the Game Developers Magazine subscription. Just a few days ago, Sony Online Entertainment announced the winner for their G. I. R. L. Game Design Competition. Contestants were asked to submit an in-game design, original concept art and two essays. Winner Julia Brasil will receive a $10, 000 tuition scholarship toward her education at The Art Institute of California -- San Francisco and a paid internship of up to 10 weeks at the Sony Online Entertainment studios of her choice in Austin, Denver, San Diego, or Seattle. I hope programs like these can help women break into the gaming industry with a little more ease, but we still have a long way to go. Keep it up, everyone, and congratulations to the winners! via Women Gamers Labels: Getting it Right, PlasmaRit, The Industry
Friday, May 23, 2008
Women in the Industry: They Exist, Donchaknow
 Gamasutra has started a new feature on their website called the Gamasutra 20, a twenty-item list concerning any gaming-related subject they'd like to spotlight. They're starting out with an unranked list of twenty women in the gaming industry today. No, Jade Raymond isn't the only one out there, in spite of what the news might tell you. This list is not some thrown-together nod to women in gaming, either. It's a twenty-one-paged article that features each woman in wonderful detail, including their job title, a career overview, major accomplishments, innovation (what new twist they've injected into the industry), and a few words about them from their peers. There are younger women and older women, those newer to the industry as well as veterans, and women working in a spectrum of gaming genres. The list features women who are currently making a significant impact on the face of gaming today. The article also notes how difficult it was to compile the list--not for lack of candidates, but because there were so many women to choose from. The gaming community today would have one believe that gaming is a Boyz Only club, but the stereotype just isn't true. It's a little known fact that there are many women working in the gaming industry, and many of those women hold very important positions in their companies. What I really love about this article is that it does help dispel this Boyz Only myth; it presents a list of role models that other women and girls aspiring to enter the gaming industry can look up to and know they're not going in alone. My only quibble is that, while the list is quite diverse, it seems awfully whitewashed; what a great opportunity this could have been to spotlight some women of color working in the gaming industry. I encourage all of our readers to check out the article; it really is top-notch. Labels: Getting it Right, PlasmaRit, The Industry
Friday, April 25, 2008
Women's Gaming Community: Are We Being Heard?
 1up.com has a great article up that discusses how online forums influence game makers and marketers. The idea is that important gaming folk have been discovered combing through gaming message boards and forums online in order to learn how gamers feel about certain games, marketing ideas, and game developers themselves. The article talks about several interesting examples of this phenomenon, which had me thinking about our neck of the woods. If game developers read through the typical gaming message board, do they read feminist gaming blogs as well?Fortunately, I've had first hand experienced with that: after I wrote an article about ICED, the computer game focusing on deportation in the United States, the game developers Breakthrough left a comment under it: Hi, We just wanted to say that we greatly appreciate your positive post. Reading comments like yours in response to our game helps us continue to do our work in an environment that doesn't seem to see that immigration is a human rights and due process issue. Thank you again! -Breakthrough http://www.breakthrough.tv I had not contacted Breakthrough before or after writing the article, which indicates to me that they were actively searching for internet activity surrounding their game. They may not have come across Girl in the Machine primarily to read about feminist issues, but there are wonderful implications about this phenomenon: Breakthrough read what a feminist blog had to say about their game. Who's to say Breakthrough is alone in this respect? Other game developers are more than likely Googling their own games to discover the public's opinion about them. There are feminist and women's gaming blogs sprouting up and discussing popular video games every day, providing a widespread, powerful voice for women's issues in video games. The more we women blog about women's issues in games, the more likely game developers will come across them and--hopefully--take our opinions into account. This is our chance to tell them what they're doing right and what needs to be changed. So blog on, women gamers. --Iris Directory Logo from the Iris Gaming Network Labels: Getting it Right, PlasmaRit, The Industry
Friday, December 21, 2007
The Jade Debate
If you haven't heard the news, please read this first. Out of all the things I'm feeling, I wish one of them was surprise. I wish it was surprising to hear about such disgusting behavior directed at someone, but sadly, it's not. Jade Raymond had the gall, the nerve to be an attractive woman working on a popular video game. Someone's got to put her in her place--good thing Dave Cheung was there to knock her down a peg. After all, Raymond put herself out there by actually having a job, right? She's public property now; she has no right to protest. It's debacles like this that prove to me that we still have a long, long way to go. It just blows my mind how threatened so many men were by Raymond that they had to objectify her to make themselves feel better. This wasn't some stupid little scribble of a comic by some college boy--this was a carefully-drawn, thought out comic by a well known published artist in the comic industry. Who posts on his website that he's proud he "made Jade cry." Great guy, huh? If this comic makes you angry, then get angry. It's a childish, immature, and hateful thing that does nothing but potentially harm Raymond's career and set the gaming industry back decades in equality. I'm tired of seeing shit like this, so it's time to get angry. This doesn't need to go unheard, so don't let it. Labels: In the News, PlasmaRit, Stereotypes, The Industry
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Women Working in Games
We're smack dab in the middle of finals season and BomberGirl is one busy robot! In order to tide you over, allow me to point you in the direction of the MTV Multiplayer blog, where there's been an ongoing series of interviews with women who work in the gaming industry. Awesome! Today's interview is with Elspeth Tory of Ubisoft. You can also find the first interview in the series here. Labels: BomberGirl, Linkfest, The Industry
Friday, September 14, 2007
Swing and a Miss, EA
Oh, dear; as if Disney wasn't bad enough, here comes EA games with their opinion of the female gamer demographic. David Gardner was trying so hard, wasn't he? But he's still not quite getting it. Why don't we take a look: He said if EA cracked the problem [of catering to female gamers] the firm "could add a billion dollars to its sales." He said the industry had to learn from the film business. "The movie industry doesn't just make films for boys. Very true, Gardner, and a point I agree with. A good portion of the video game industry seems focused on creating games for boys (and, in some situations, believing they are instead). Would you like to elaborate? "Star wars was the biggest film of all time until Titanic came along; Titanic became the biggest because women went to see it and women went to see it multiple times. Ok, we're starting to tread on some dangerous ground here-- "Just boys saw Star Wars multiple times." Aaand there it is. I seriously doubt that there were no hardcore female Star Wars fans back in the 70s. I must have watched those movies a thousand times when I was a kid, and I'm sure I'm not alone. Does anyone else out there see the trainwreck coming? Mr Gardner said one of the biggest problems was that the content aimed at women gamers was not appealing. "They don't want 'pink games'. They are not trying to play girly games where Paris Hilton and Britney Spears go shopping and put make-up on. "Those kind of things have not been that successful." Once again, another point I can agree with. As we've stressed here at Girl in the Machine, the way to attract the female demographic takes more than stuffing glitter into a cartridge. Good job, Gardner. But he said games such as The Sims and websites such as Pogo.com proved there was a market for women gamers. "Most of the Sims players are girls - 70% are women under 25," he said. "The Sims is really a game about relationships - and that's what girls want - they want relationships, they want to be able to chat." I--guh? The fact that Gardner feels confident enough in his opinion to make such a blanket statement about female gamers is giving me a headache trying to comprehend it. Sure, I love the Sims. I love watching my Sims get abducted by aliens and get lei'd by the Grim Reaper--establishing relationships with fellow Sims who jabber in Simlish at me isn't exactly at the top of my list of fun things to do in that game. But you know us women; we just looove talking and carrying on. Gardner totally gets us, doesn't he? He added: "One of the things that is going to make games for girls happen is creative teams. It's going to be new people and experiments. Four of our 11 studios around the world are run by women. That's an important start. "Investing in new and upcoming talent is critical." And then he rounds it all off with another point I agree with. Reading this article in its entirety just gives me a headache; how can there possibly be so many contradictions in one place? It simply boggles my mind. If you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to have a little lie-down now. Labels: In the News, PlasmaRit, Stereotypes, The Industry
Friday, August 31, 2007
A Look into the Industry's Perception of "Girl Games"
 Since I had offered my opinion of the notorious Imagine games as well as reading Bombergirl's take on the "girl games" phenomenon, I decided to do a little research of what some video game company's are really saying about the "girl" market. I came across an article off of Yahoo that did little to alleviate my dread. The title? "Videogame industry hopes to harness girl power." Guh. Well, let's take a look, shall we? Can "High School Musical" and "Hannah Montana" finally take girl gaming to the next level? Uh, what? Considering the mindless "girl games" we've had in the past, I guess just about anything with skill would take it to the next level. I'm going to assume they're referring to tweens when they say girls, because otherwise I would be very depressed right now. "The demand for both the 'High School Musical' and 'Hannah Montana' games has been enormous among retailers," Disney Interactive GM Graham Hopper said. "I think the industry is starting to wake up to the fact that girls play games." Why are "High School Musical" and "Hannah Montana" the Holy Grail of girl videogames all of a sudden? Do they think only boys play Mario games or something? The problem has been that girls and women tend to be among the most casual players, interested in easy-to-pick-up social games but not consistently shelling out $30-$50 for more complex fare. Okay, I can't be charitable with this one because the quotation says both girls and women; this is wrong on so many levels. I could maybe let it slide if it just left it at not spending $30-$50 for a game (even that's a stretch--I know several female gamers who would readjust their food budget to snag a new release, me included), but for more "complex" fare? Did we just discover why most "girl" games have been drivel? We'll get back to this later. "The real key is to get girls to begin obsessing over games the way they might obsess over a boy band or shows like 'High School Musical,"' Boy bands? Who even listens to boy bands anymore? They were popular when I was in middle school, for chrissake. I didn't get sucked back in time, did I? Other companies, most notably the now-defunct Acclaim, had some solid sales in the past with games based on the Olsen twins. But they also might have done more harm than good because many of those properties lacked the thing that keeps girls coming back, which is good gameplay. We finally get to something I can congratulate this article for: they realized that all the "girl" games that existed when I was young were, under the surface, really shitty games. If they really want to snag the younger female market, they can't just slap a bunch of shoes or glitter or whatever into a cartridge and call it a game--it actually needs something to keep a player coming back. It needs to be engaging and fun. And yes, you couldn't make me touch those Olsen twins games with a fifteen-foot pole.  Hopper said the "High School Musical" game for the Nintendo Wii will be among the first to feature a microphone, while the upcoming "Hannah Montana": Music Jam" for the DS will allow up to four players to play various wireless instruments together.I can't tell you how nice it is to see games directed at young girls that aren't about shopping. It's good that they've added all these interactive elements as well, especially with the different instruments. As Bombergirl stated in her article, vapid "girl" games can lead to a deadly stream of thought from "Girl games are stupid" to "Girls are stupid." While I've mentioned that I disagree with marketing games to a particular sex, I am happy to see companies focusing more on the gameplay than just slapping a television show character on the cover and hoping a few girls will pick it up. Labels: In the News, PlasmaRit, Stereotypes, The Industry
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◊ Girl in the Machine◊ BomberGirl ◊ Calabar ◊ PlasmaRit
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◊ First Friday Drinking Game ◊ Diversity and Mass Effect ◊ Linkfest: Fat Princess Edition ◊ Expectations: Sheva Alomar ◊ Women Worshipers ◊ Mrrow? ◊ Chipping the Glass Ceiling ◊ First Friday Drinking Game ◊ How can Dissidia avoid a sausage fest?
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