Women and the Game Industry

CariElf

Join Date 08/2001

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Women and the Game Industry

On Monday, CNN used the furor over the change in rating for GTA: San Andreas to ride one of the game industry's favorite hobbyhorses: why most women aren't interested in computer games. This is something that seems to mystify the mostly male game industry, and the IDGA even formed a Special Interest Group (SIG) called "Women in Game Development" to try and get more women in the industry. Being one of the few women developers in the game industry, this sort of thing interests me, and I've read articles from the IDGA and other places about how women aren't interested in gaming, or game development. The general consensus is that the male-dominated game industry is generally not making games that women like, so women aren't interested in the games, and are not interested in developing games. This is part of the truth.

The article on CNN claims that it's because women don't want to play violent games where the women characters are sex symbols, and they neglect to mention the games where you don't even have the option to play as a female character. This is true as far as it goes. First person shooters aren't my first choice of games, and Halo is the only one that I've played for any length of time (and the feature I like the best in Halo are the vehicles, not running around shooting aliens). None of the women who I know who play games play first person shooters or GTA. None of them play Lara Croft either. CNN goes on to claim that the perception of games being violent and debasing women is what prevents women from entering the game industry, which acerbates the problem of games being created that women don't like.

I went to Lawrence Technological University of Southfield, and women students were in the minority, more so in the Computer Science major. I had 3 female classmates who were also Comp Sci majors, and I knew a few more who were in the graduate program. None of them were interested in programming computer games. I don't remember if I ever asked them why they didn't want to program computer games, but I now have the vague impression that they considered the game industry too instable. Game development is really something you have to have a passion for, and it's not something that you just end up in after college, so maybe it is true that women don't want to program computer games because they aren't interested in computer games. However, I don't think it's necessary to have women in the game industry first to make games that women like. Even if you assume that the majority of game developers are socially inept (being the geeks that they are), I'm willing to bet that many of them have mothers, sisters, and female cousins available for consultation.

I think that the game industry would be better off analyzing what kind of games that women like, and why they like them, rather than spend time worrying about what games they don't like and whether women characters with smaller cup sizes would make a game more acceptable. The women gamers who I know like playing games like The Sims, Sim City, strategy games, role-playing games, horse racing games, puzzle games and word games. I am going to separate the kinds of games that women like into two categories: casual games and building games.

Even women who I wouldn't call gamers like to play causal games like Bejeweled and Bookworm. They're quick, easy, fun games that you can pick up and put down at will without having to worry about remembering what you were doing in your last save game. They don't require a commitment of interest. Most women have other priorities than playing computer games, so casual games appeal to them. Casual games also tend to be extremely polished. Their sound and music is excellent, and the graphics are appealing. Bejeweled, for example, has an effect where the jewels shine like a beam of light has just hit them. It's just as fun to play the Bejeweled clone I downloaded to my new cell phone, but I definitely miss the quality of sound and little graphical touches that are available in the original, pc version of Bejeweled.

I lumped all the other kinds of games that I mentioned that women like into the category of building games, because that's what they all have in common. In strategy games, you build empires. In role-playing games, you develop characters. In the Sims, you build both the world and its inhabitants. In the horse racing game I mentioned, you breed horses and then race them against other horses to try and win blue ribbons. True, they also generally lack buxom females and gore, but I would argue that it's just as important that these games allow you to create something. These are also kinds of games where you are either able to play as a female character, or you aren't so much a character as playing God. It's also fairly easy to make these games either gender unspecific or allow you to choose between male and female. In the case of a role-playing game, it might create more artwork to have to have female models, but if it makes the game more appealing to women, it's probably worth the investment.

There is also the fact that the games geared towards little girls are not always of the best quality. I used to baby-sit a lot, and some of the little girls I babysat for had the Barbie games that Mattel makes. The games they had were buggy, bloated, and traded more on the popularity of Barbie than on good game design. Habits form when people are young. If I hadn't had a computer with games on it since computers didn't even have hard drives, I probably wouldn't be a programmer, let alone a game developer, today. Too many computer games as a kid can be bad, but computer games also help your spatial relations and hand eye coordination. They're also more interactive than TV.

So will making games that women like generate more women interested in becoming game developers? My guess is that it would, up to a point. However, there is still the problem that women are less interested in programming in the first place. CNN says in its article that only 10% of software engineers are women, as opposed to 4% in the game industry. Let's assume that both of those figures are accurate, although I think that both might be a bit too generous. That means that only 14% of all software developers are women. I blame it on the difficulty of getting women interested in math and "hard" science (like physics). So, if people are really interested in getting more women in the game industry, they're going to have to get them interested in math, science, and then programming first. People, particularly women, have the perception that programming is very difficult, and that computers are way too complex. Well, I'm a game developer, but the thought of teaching kindergarteners scares me. Yet, there's a lot of people who say "those who can't do, teach" and think that teachers have a cushy job with summers off; they have no idea how hard it really is and how much skill good teaching really requires. We have to direct young people's minds away from thinking that different disciplines are easy or hard, and instead direct them into thinking of things in terms of what they like to do.

It's not going to be easy to get more women interested in gaming and game development, and it's going to take effort on the part of more people than just the ones in the game industry. The game industry, like all the other parts of the entertainment industry, have to know their target audience, and that might actually involve talking with women.
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As a woman I wanted to throw in my two cents... that list you came up with casual games and builder games are right on the money that women like to play. In my opinion.. I liked every game you used as a reference... However how many games like that are out there? Hardly any at all, I would love to buy a really awesome horse racing game.. but err I've only ran across two in my life time. One when I was a kid for playstation... and one a few weeks ago that had lame cartoon graphic characters it was for PS2... If I was able to find the first one I found when I was a kid I would buy it today just to play it.

I also would say that I'm definetly a rare one as a gamer woman.. I loved LaraCroft as a girl power Icon and that intrigued me to play the game... but unfortunately I found the game play boring and repetitive, it was to much work to go from one place to another. So for that reason I've never played a single one of her games through more then a few levels. It never bothered me that she had sex appeal, and they used that to sell her games. Infact one part that I liked about her persona was in game she cared less about men... as in some movie sequences she'd blow them away. Now if she would have been say a female James Bond... that would 'always get the guy'.. Puh-lease I would of lost all interest in the game entirely.

As for other playstation games I also enjoyed numerous fighting games Tekken, was my favorite of fighting games, racing games it was Gran Turismo hands down, because of the awesome graphics, and realistic driving feel. First person shooter games OOO Metal Gear Solid! I played that game atleast 4 times all the way through. Syphon filter, was another good one, I didn't like duke nukem, not because of the typical sex content, or aliens, and violence, and gore, that was in it but because of the really sucky graphics. Half life has plenty of aliens violence gore, but the game play made duke nukem look like nintendo.

You know speaking of nintendo I remember playing that with lots of my girlfriends good ol mario brothers.. we've come a long way from mario brothers.

On PCs I've played half life 1 and 2 and loved them, Diablo, Warcraft...*these were my first online playing games* and oh yes most definetly World of warcraft... I had to give it a try since I played warcraft in its old days. And yes will admit that I'm most addicted to W.O.W.... more then any game ever, TheSims2 runs a close second.. but the fact is I can save TS2 at any point of my game play and come back later... WOW on the other hand...*8 hour instances is Blizz crazy or what?* I think that's a HUGE draw back to WOW, but none the less Really Enjoy playing because of the SOCIAL factor in it, not to mention as odd as it is as much time as you spend developing your character and grinding out levels... you miss them when you leave the game for a month or so. That character litterally becomes like an alt personality to you... *is that going to far?* WOw addicts understand I'm sure.

I must say I think your article and all your research is pretty right on. But also as long as women are such a minority in gaming are they really going to spend extra money to gear games that only a minority will buy? So maybe if there were more games that women obviously liked... women would be more inclined to be apart of developing them.. but why be a woman developer if your going to end up developing something you don't have the passion for.

Sorry if my post was a bit long... I wanted to toss a quick two cents but ended up dragging it out. Great article I loved reading it!!

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