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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."
Lalala
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
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.
unless the Sex your trying to attract isn't having any fun with the current selection of games (with the exception of the few Women gamers out there)
imagine a world where Hollywood concentrated on providing entertainment to just the Female audience and told guys to "have fun" watching Movies written for Women
/. is overrun by bed-wetting elitist nerds
let it be known, for anything other than servers, a *nix OS sucks
Uhm, what? I don't really disagree with the assertion that female gamers are not something you see everyday, but I certainly don't think an entire gender of gamers are being ignored. Like another poster said, people create games that are fun, regardless of gender.
This seems to be a bit of a hot-topic, with mainstream media skewing the facts on female gamers. GameInformer ran an interesting feature about female gamers and women in the development and production of games, the results were astoundingly positive. I can't be troubled to walk 7 feet to get an issue of GI so I can login to GI-Unlimited for some linkage, but it's there if someone wants to put up a linky.
Additionally, Pew Internet and American Life Project ran a survey that had some statistics to support the GI article, namely (straight from report) --
Microsoft (of all people) also featured an article about women in gaming, noting that games like EverQuest and Quake have a very large, vocal community. Add that to a Reuter's report that the women 18+ now outnumber the target audience of 8 years ago, and the claim that an entire market is untapped is sounding more and more like propaganda. I mean, obviously game developers/publishers are doing something right.
My point being this: While I believe that, collectively, female gamers are in the minority in the gaming world, I refuse to give into the whole "WE MUST HAVE WOMEN DEVELOPING GAMES OR ELSE WE WON'T TAP UNTO THIS GIGANTIC MARKET" bit. Hire whoever gets the job done (regardless of gender)and make games that are interesting and fun, and everyone will be happy. At least, statistically.
"You and your third dimension."
I've heard this "solution" bandied about often enough. But it's not as easy as it sounds, in a practical sense. Female programmers are unfortunately very few in number compared to the males in the field. From what I hear, there are a much larger number of females graduating into the field now than there were when I graduated only a few years ago and even when I was in school it was much better than it had been before then. Which is good, but it also means, that if the company does happen to come across a female programmer, she is more likely to be relatively inexperienced, and therefore unsuitable for a lead programmer position or anything else where she would get any creative or directional control.
Also, female programmers are, in my purely anecdotal experience, less likely than males to get excited about the prospect of joining a game company, presumably because of the lack of good experiences they have had with games. For many of the gamer guys I know, on the other hand, working at a game company is something of a nirvana, and any job openings are applied to with the appropriate amount of religious fervor.
The only solution I can see is to simply get more female programmers out there. There needs to be some way to attract women to the computer engineering disciplines. Eventually they'll filter down into the gaming companies, and from there into positions of creative control, and then we'll start to see the sort of games that attract girls.
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see the female approach to games. Hell, I'd probably want to play it. I just think that it's not likely to happen in the near future. I think it's a bigger problem than just "the games aren't made by women". There is something on a very fundamental level of these technical fields that is keeping women out. It probably has something to do with the way women tend to use the computer as a communication and information tool, while men tend to use it as an engineering or entertainment tool.
Anyway, good luck to all the female programmers out there. We need your skills in this industry. The more people that realize it, the better.
Random and weird software I've written.
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.
AFAIK the only roles in game design that determine the aesthetics of the game are lead designer, art director etc. Coders, and subordinate designers/artists have little impact on the direction of the game. Moreover designers who are skilled at their jobs are gamers, and know the material first hand.
Now, anybody see the problem? You want more female-friendly (not neccessarily feminine) gaming? You gotta have girl gamers who grow up to be GOOD game designers and find themselves in positions of authority. First we need more female gamers (already increasing as a previous poster mentioned) and then THEY have to go professional. Trying to simply "hire more women" won't work if, for instance, they're coders or subordinate to a male lead.
Also, sexism and objectification in female roles aside, who says that the current crop of games (even FPS/3rd person action etc games) aren't going to appeal to women? Isn't this like assigning GI Joes to boys and Barbies to girls? We don't have to rigidly seperate male/female gamers.
The truth is: Hardcore Gamer = Computer Geek, and us geeks USED to be predominantely male, but that's changing. As Computer Geek goes from 95% male to 50/50, we'll see more women gamers. And casual gamers are ALREADY 40-50% female (look at the Sims), so the "gaming is a boy's club" stereotype is already out of date.
Just my $0.02
RsG
Women play a different kind of video game.
It involves real life clothing, jewelery, shoes, accessories, makeup, perfume, and getting guys to pay for it all and then some.
They see the visa/mastercard flash, quickly sign the slip with practiced abandon, and off they go to the next shop.
Instead of wasting all their gp on some armor that's sure to rust and a dagger of poison resistance, they get the +4 white skirt of fatal attraction with the greaves of smooth-skin, which does massive area damage and renders all mages speechless.
Of course, they have an arsenal of spells, from the "Let's Be Friends" of Doom to the "I like your friend too" of monster confusion.
Surprisingly, their bag of holding actually is able to contain all magic artifacts, and is fully skinnable with the latest Gucci or Louis Vuitton wallpapers.
It should also be noted that while most of them adopt a winner takes all style of play, they will cooperate as a team when faced with a room-full of drunk monsters. They will use the "Wall of Silence" for defense and stick together like a cluster of giant spiders to fend off the most gallant palladin or the most gruff dark elf.
Oh, the payoff for paying the game well is not some cheesy animation with glowing credits scrolling up, but rather the latest Benz in the driveway of a million-dollar house with "Bob the level 60 Lawyer of Litigation" sufficiently charmed to fight all her battles, and an unlimited supply of lowfat Dannon yoghurts, to be enjoyed at all times of the day while deciding which restaurant to make a reservation at for the evening.
No wonder they don't like our stinking video games.
"Piter, too, is dead."
As kindergarten teachers or nurses?
Most aren't interested? Wow what a concept eh?
Hey it's not like men wouldn't be useful in those fields. It's probably easier for male nurses to develop upper body strength - which helps when you need to move/shift bedridden incapacitated patients - to avoid bedsores, etc.
So where's the push to even out the gender imbalances in those areas?
The barriers to _entry_ for programming/software development aren't high. PCs are cheap. Internet connections are cheap. Info about programming is paid for (internet). Write a game/program, stick it on the net and if people think it's good enough they may even pay you for it. Heck contribute to an opensource project while you're at it.
There's nothing really stopping girls/women from taking up programming except themselves.
If they are so easily discouraged (parents/peers/teachers) from programming, then it's VERY LIKELY that programming is NOT the field they should be in. Try something else, for everyone's sake. Please. Really. We need better programmers, not more.
A common complaint is lack of _women_ role models. A good programmer is someone who writes great programs. If anyone is still thinking gender then they're not getting it.
By all means give people opportunities, but if they aren't interested, there are millions of other things they can do. If they think they have better things to do, then for everybody's sake let them do it.