People young and old enjoy playing video games. In the younger age groups, more males play, but in the older populations in general, there are more females playing digital games. All told, the number of men and women gaming is more or less the same. Yet, 80% of the game design workforce is male.
Nikkei Rio Expo 2008 – Visão Geral, visitantes, profissionais by Rodrigo Della Fávera
Statistics are usually dry and boring, but they help in telling some stories which need telling. Men aged 18-29 are three times more likely than the females to identify themselves as gamers. Among the younger women, there are gamers who don’t identify themselves as such, but this trend fades in the older age groups.
The Advent of the Smart Device
With smart devices like phones and tablets becoming more affordable, gaming has become socially acceptable behavior, and women have actively taken to gaming in large numbers. As the variety of games increased to include puzzle/word/adventure/fashion games, women of all ages and interests have started gaming. Once producers realized that more women were into gaming, studios which had traditionally catered to predominantly male interests, slowly morphed their offering to include more games which interested female audiences. In 2015 the revenue from mobile devices was greater than revenue from consoles.
The Jigsaw Pieces of a Good Game
From primitive games played inside University Labs to MMORPG games, video games have come a long way from creating games which removed gamers from reality— games now aim for of an appearance of reality. Immersive gameplay, taut storylines with appealing characters, great art, realistic graphics – these are some of the pieces which make up a good game.
The Inherent Ugliness in Gaming Culture
Some of these videos help us comprehend the depth of the problem. Not only is the depiction of women the problem, the reward for winning can be a sexualized favor. Teenage boys love the fact that Grand Theft Auto offers a lap dance. On the forums, the attitude of hard core gamers can be so unwelcoming, that women are happy hiding behind a male facade. Female characters in many of the video games are typically oversexualized which contributes to discomfort among women who play these games. Women play competently and aggressively, but handling other non-games issues of sexual talk and aggression can be very dispiriting.
Correcting Imbalances
One of the simplest ways to correct imbalances both inside a game and in the studio which develops it, is to get more women in. Women who contribute to developing games and playing games. Young girls must be informed of the many work options that gaming provides, in art, music, coding, game development, design, business development etc. In recent years, more studios have fleshed out their women characters by adding some spunk and grit. Interestingly, as a first in bringing balance into the male dominated video game making world, women outnumber men in the graduate program for game design at USC. Many of the women who enter the video games workforce do so primarily because they want to develop games which they would want to play, instead of the ones which offer violence and sexualized content.
Mentoring Programs
Many women in gaming are very low profile and rarely enter the worlds of regular school girls. E.g. Michiru Yamane, a video game composer and pianist, is very well feted, but is not widely known. It is imperative that mentors help girls understand that the video game business has a variety of jobs that can be exciting, fun and lucrative. This will start an inflow of women into designing games. If successful women in gaming become mentors to girls, it increases their exposure to people, possibilities and the job market in game design.
Women Founders in Gaming over the Decades
Donna Powell, was co-creator of the very successful game Neopets in the late 90s. It was created for ‘bored college kids, who missed having a pet’, but then grew into a very successful gaming world. With exclusive Neopian currency, Neopia was a virtual world where virtual pets could be adopted and nurtured. Even after changing hands twice, Neopets is still a game where nostalgia draws back old players who are now in their 20s. Donna was in charge of the creative part, the website and oversaw the Neopets Magazine, long before women were seriously involved in gaming either as players or as creators.
Siobhan Reddy was one of Fortune’s Women in Gaming, in 2014, and a rare female studio head. Her studio has worked on very well received games like Tearaway World and Little Big Planet. Started in the mid 2000s, her belief in diverse workplaces has contributed to some of the most creative games coming out of her studio. As video games are a mix of many things like art, storytelling, music etc., she feels it’s a wonderful career opportunity. She is very conscious of the fact that diversity needs to be increased in the gaming industry.
Lina Chen and Naomi Ladizinsky are the designers of the game Egg Baby which had 9 million downloads thanks just to word of mouth advertising, and their next release is going to be Egg! which emphasizes sharing and friendship. Founded in the 2010s, it is an unusual company as not only does it have women founders who are not trained game designers(they learnt coding online), but their aim is to build girly games for girls. They make no bones about it, and have smartly gone about raising $5 million. As they all work very hard, here is that rare firm which has Saturday to Monday off for the creative health of the employees.
To wind up, for the good of the gaming industry, there should exist a plethora of wonderful games for a world of gamers, as against female and male gamers.
Perhaps one day.
Soon.
Author Bio:
George Schalter loves being a dad. He and his wife share the joys and responsibilities of bringing up their two children. As believers of good all round education, they spend a lot of time playing with their children and spending time outdoors. As George is the writer in the family, he blogs at Educational Kids Games.
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