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This was quite the conference. Jane warned us, actually; she said that the women in game development bit wasn't so hot last year. But we went anyway -- and we had moderately high hopes, too.
Unfortunately, we came away with something we already knew; that nobody can quantify women in games.
The session consisted by and large, of the organizers posing questions to the audience. This is a common tactic, but one generally expects there to be some sort of agenda or answer hidden behind the presenter's probes. There was no hidden answer here; these were just questions. "How do we attract women to game development?" It’s troublesome that the organizers of the working session for women in game development didn’t have even a semblance of a pre-formed answer to this question.
This was the model for the entirety of the discussion.
There were a few decent points brought up by other women in the conference. For instance, one game developer asked: "how can I market games to women without being patronizing to them?" The message being that the very fact that the game is being gendered in its demographic is inherently patronizing. Just make good games, she proposed. Ignore gender, simply make the game with the realization that women might want to play it.
But the majority of the questions being asked were either too broad for the scope of an hour ("how do we get women to physically relocate for development jobs?"), or had been asked many, many times before. These were old questions... they’ve still not been answered, it seems.
There were also some problematic ideas, like a proposal of an indie game award recognizing the best game by an all-female team. Why single women out, however? Is the point not to equalize the playing field, rather than to make women special, or a unique case? Curiously, it was the men making the counter point here (myself included).
We were really hoping that they would take the discussion in another direction. What do women have to bring to game design? How is their human experience unique? What can we learn from women about storytelling? This would have taught me something; I am sure of it. Instead, I just came away with the feeling that even a conference of twenty women (and five men) could not come up with a reasonable idea of how many women worked in the industry, nor what precisely they were doing there. It was disheartening at best.
An Aderack interruption: To me, it seemed like everyone in the room was looking at the wrong problem, from the wrong angle, and effectively ramming their heads against the wall. In some cases, they would yell about, or lament the presence of the wall. In no instance did I hear a suggestion that they try a different route.
I wondered why everyone was so eager to break into the industry -- by which they meant being accepted by the oh-so-cruel establishment that already exists, and holds its mechanical claws over them all. How can they become members of the club? How can they trick their way into this mold which wasn't made for them?
My question: why on Earth would you want to be accepted by group which has nothing to do with you? Why should you care? These companies are just made up out of normal people, with their own motivations. Even the biggest developers began with a single idea. Then, in most cases, that idea got perverted or lost somewhere along the way and today we end up with soulless monsters like the current-day Electronic Arts.
And why would you have so little self-respect as to be associated with them? Because they're big and powerful and manly? Please.
Show some independence, why don't you. Why play by rules you never made? Pull together your own design team. If you're determined, and you're truly good, then you will attract money, respect, and support. It just takes work and creativity. If you are neither talented nor brave enough to do your own thing, then maybe you should think more deeply about why nobody wants to hire you.
This should have been a conference on empowerment; on understanding the unique voice that women have to offer any discussion, and to using that as an advantage, both on a personal level and to raise the tone of the medium as a whole. It should have been about rewriting the rules for your own good, rather than finding how to kowtow and pussy-foot through someone else's minefield.
You can't rebel if you insist on asking for permission first.
I did take one much more interesting thing from it though. At the beginning of the conference, the speaker mentioned that with so many girls in one location, she was worried that men would show up merely to hit on them.
Quite to the contrary, I got hit on -- twice.
I expect my severance check by Monday.
brandon sheffield
was born of woman;
Eric-Jon Rössel Waugh
is often mistaken for one
[Next: Denial.]
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