Jade Raymond – producer of Assassin’s Creed at Ubisoft, Montreal

When I talk about gender issues in general, I tend to say that there’s no such thing as ‘men’ and ‘women’, only ‘humans’. But the differences between the genders is a never ending debate, which I won’t delve into here, and while there still is a lot of issues in this world regarding women’s rights, you will also find similar issues in the more obscure world of computer gaming.

Game Girl Advance talks about the personal attacks on Jade Raymond – attacks that are not at all rare, when strong, wise women climb the corporate ladder. It is a shame that this happens to a very competent woman, also because her appearances indirectly have been (mis)used by Ubisoft. A pretty face always sells? Yes, but in a male dominant world that is. GGA asks the question: “Who even knows what Patrice Desilets looks like? And he is the creative director on [Assassin's Creed].” The paradox here is that although Jade Raymond has been heavily exposed, the gaming industry actually could benefit from an exposure of talented women, because the industry is in grave need of them.

Hawty McBloggy talks on her blog about the insults a female gamer can experience when playing on Xbox Live. While this issue has a lot of different aspects, again we see a perfect example of a female gamer entering a world, that is dominated by males in all ages. But this does not mean that women do not play games. If you look at the UK, within the age group of 5-65, you will find that female gamers represents approximately 45% of all gamers (recent IDSA statistics says 43%) . According to this BBC research paper:

Simulations and MMOGs perform equally well with males and females, while RPGs and Strategy fare only marginally better with males. Females then show strong approval for Music/Dance, Puzzles/Board/Quiz, and
Classic games. Males show strong approval for Action-Adventure, Racing, Sports, and First Person Shooters. Simulations and MMOGs seem to be key to attracting audiences of both genders equally: Sports and Shooting category games generally hold the lowest appeal for females, although it should be noted that this doesn’t mean they have no appeal: 12% of females play First Person Shooters.

This could indicate that if female gamers tread into the realm of the genres where male representation is strong, they may become victims of misunderstandings and even attacks, that overall is bound to a myth saying that girls don’t play games. But let’s take a look at that list again. Why is it that we don’t see more action-adventures, that are more gender-neutral? Sure, Lara Croft could be seen as a role-model for women, but then again, her clothing and voluptuous curves surely also indicates a clear bias towards male gamers. Again (and I keep bringing up this brilliant game), Indigo Prophecy / Fahrenheit is a great example of a game featuring a strong, intelligent woman – with all of her clothes on almost throughout the entire game. I’m not implying here that women should play more sports games, and that the industry should go deep into research regarding gearing NFL towards women, but there are other things at play in this discussion.

Carla Valenti from Indigo Prophecy / Fahrenheit

One thing is that the industry lacks innovation regarding gameplay. This I have ranted about before. But one key aspect in the development of more gender neutral games, or games at large that spans across a broader range of variety, is the lack of women working within the industry.
This paper from IGDA (pdf) addresses this very issue. In this, Lizzie Haines tries to pin down why it is that so few women work in the games industry. 2004/2005 numbers indicate that only 17% of the workforce are women, and that a whopping 73% of these work in managerial, administrative, marketing and PR roles and therefore not in hands-on games development. One of the reasons for this is a lack of embracement of technology that in turn creates a turnoff from formal academic technology subjects. Then, only 5% of games students are women. Another aspect is a kind of uncomfortableness for women working in the industry. For example the typical male-dominated workforce equal treatment issues, coupled with the occasional crunch time and a sort of ‘hacker culture’ that envelops the industry culture.

But it also comes down to the games… A lot of effort is being put into games for women and casual games in general these days. The question is if targeting women directly is merely enough. Also, a one-sided view on the creation of games for women only widens the gap between the genders. Even though there is profitability in creating games for women and girls, this is in my opinion still not enough. And why is that? Both the BBC survey and the paper from Lizzie Haines tells ud that girls like short play and quick rewards, and they are more likely to play on mobiles, on-line, on interactive TV and on computer games than they are to play classic console games. This in turn means that women who are not hardcore gamers will have a problem getting into the industry. Because one key point in working with games is that you play. A lot.

So this creates another paradox: Women who are not hardcore gamers can’t enter the industry as it is today, in order to change it. And they can’t become hardcore gamers if there aren’t any decent games to play in the first place. It bites itself in the tail.

But then what to do?

Perhaps we could do with a bit of cultural exchange. The Japanese market is more diversified, this partially because of the cultural influences of popular culture in the country. For example, a manga comic can both exist as an anime, and a game at the same time while fans discuss it in every thinkable media. This heavy exposure and the myriad of genres within the pop culture, covering all ages and all interests, seem also to influence the gaming industry. Whether there are more women in the industry in Japan is to me unknown, but the innovation rate regarding casual games is higher than in Europe and North America, and a lot of games are directly targeted towards Japanese women and girls. Something we might be able to learn a lot from. Not saying that we should copy any formulas, because the Japanese society is in many ways very different from the Western world, but at least we could start by not thinking that games only are for teenage- or thirty-something males and make some kind of cultural exchange of ideas and experiences. Casual gamers also do not only consist of women, so it can also be very profitable in the end – and a lot more fun. Perhaps this could kick start a development phase that could attract more female gamers, and in the end – developers.

And while we’re at it [From]:

On this day...

... in 2002: Ripples in Time