Recruit More Women Developers, Attract Women Gamers?

Thanks to MSNBC for its fresh look at the problems of integrating the needs and tastes of the female into the male-dominated videogame industry. It's suggested by Microsoft's Laura Fryer: "Half of the population isn't having input into what's being created... And the one thing that I learned is that people make games they like to play. Having a diverse opinion helps games." Sheri Graner Ray of Sony also points out: "The purpose of recruiting women is not so they can make games about pink fluffy kitties... You can't say that women like this or Japanese gamers want this." Thus, it's argued: "The solution to this dearth of female fandom... lies in recruiting more women coders, artists and level designers, the type of positions that can shape a title's story, look and gameplay."

Comments

Women developers are not the only answer...

[Jeranon]

"recruiting more women coders, artists and level designers"

I don't know about this. It might help, it might not. I find women all have different tastes. Some like the Final Fantasy games with its high character driven drama (with fighting), others like puzzle games (fast to start, fast to stop), while others like something cute and fun (Nintendo's various "kiddie" titles). This looks like it's targetting the FPS or the 3rd person action/adventure which is not where they usually are found (not that I'm saying women don't play such).

I'd say in general, if you're a woman game developer, you probably have similar tastes to other women game developers rather than all women.

On the other hand, focusing on women (maybe near naked) with oversized parts of the anatomy does turn women off. Developers are supposed to concentrate on the character of the female avatar (strength of will, determination, I am woman hear me raaawwrrr), but instead choose to appeal to the traditional male demographic because they're the only consistent game buyers.

Lastly, this topic was talked about at GDC2004. They didn't seem to get anywhere though.

(Off topic... I'd tried to read the article at msnbc but it looks like they stop /. referers?!)

One Problem

[Eivind]

It's a good idea, and not only because the games are likely to be better, the work-environment is typically better in a more healthily mixed environment too.

But one serious problem is that to be able to hire female game-designers, there needs to actually be some of those available. Before women can start taking a big role in design, artwork, story and coding for games, women need to start getting an education and experiences that makes them qualified for those kinds of jobs.

Sure, there are some exceptions, but not very many. I've *been* on the employer side of the table, trying to hire more mixed. We put in ads explicitly requesting women and minorities to apply. Inspite of this less than 10% of the applications we got where from women, and to add insult to injury, the average qualification of those few women who *did* apply was abysmal. Not "sligthly lower than average of the males", but more like the best qualified of the females would still be in the last quartile of the men. Hiring unqualified workers won't help produce quality anything.

Re:How about, make games that are fun....

[dreamsylvania]

You're right, the solution to attracting female gamers is to make games that are fun...to them. Everyone likes to have fun, but they don't all have fun in the same ways. I've been a female gamer since 1988 (back in first grade or so), and I haven't had much shortage of games to play (although there was a time when the RPG scene dried up on the N64 and I'd yet to get a Playstation). I mostly play RPGs (console and PC), point-and-click adventures, innovative games, and pretty much everything developed by Nintendo. Male gamers don't usually like cartoony graphics -- I LOVE cartoony graphics. I also avoid twitch games like the plague - you won't find sports games, shooters, fighting or racing games in my games library, but if they have really story and/or gameplay (like Max Payne 2 or Vice City), I'd usually give it a whirl (I'm a sucker for a good story).

Interestingly, because "guy" genres on the PC are so prevalent now, I've lost the urge to upgrade my PC and am now almost entirely a console gamer (minus the odd adventure game). I'm even considering a switch to Mac now that I'm not so dependent on Windows for gaming.

I'm obviously not saying that every girl gamer is like me, but I think you'll find a lot of similarities among us. When you have mostly guys developing a game, the game will inevitably have a mostly male point of view (unless the game is specifically geared toward girls). It's just human nature. That is why I think it'll be good for studios trying to attract female gamers to hire female developers (FPS developers needn't bother). However, that would also be tough because since there are fewer girl gamers, there are fewer girls who want to become game developers. I've taken a few game design courses during my stint at USC, but the guys in the classes are generally more into gaming than the girls.

But there are still good female developers who are doing their fair bit out there. Check out Jane Jensen's (creator of the Gabriel Knight series) newest venture called Booby Trap. It's a point-and-click mystery adventure that's being sneaked into the casual puzzle-gaming scene.