The contribution women make towards gaming development

[BruceVC]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/20/arts/video-games/those-underappreciated-female-video-game-pioneers.html?_r=1

 

Guys here is a good read. Because of all the negative publicity around the Zoe Quinn incident  we don't  want to loose sight of the objective of gender equality in games on all levels

 

This article discusses what women developers have done for the industry

 

To quote the last paragraph  of the article " Video games will never be widely accepted as the art form of interactive culture if half of humanity doesn’t help to shape their future"

 

In other words we need more female involvement and representation in gaming development, that's what I understand by this?

Edited August 26, 2014 by BruceVC

[Malcador]

When the byline mentioned pioneers I was expecting something about the old Sierra crew or Romero. Also....why must video games be accepted as art ?

[BruceVC]

When the byline mentioned pioneers I was expecting something about the old Sierra crew or Romero. Also....why must video games be accepted as art ?

 

He does mention Roberta Williams in the article.

 

Also for me Video games are already a form or art, I just don't this is widely accepted though?

[Blarghagh]

A better question would be "who cares who accepts video games as art and who doesn't?". Art is subjective. I don't consider a lot of modern "art" to really be art, even if others do. I don't care if they do, it's my personal definition that matters to me. I don't feel the need to convince anyone. I'm mentioned before that Amnesia: The Dark Descent makes me feel stronger emotions than any painting or movie. Games are art to me.

 

As more women become gamers, more women will find an interest in gaming and how it's made and will become game developers. I've mentioned before that I know several and I haven't really seen them having any problems integrating at low level indie devs firsthand, and one of my friends was briefly on at AAA Studio Guerilla (Killzone) as a concept artist and didn't report any problems there. I honestly think this "problem", if there is one, will solve itself eventually. Women, on a whole, are just starting to break out of gender roles. More women are becoming writers, filmmakers, game developers. I have complete faith that whatever "boys club" exists, if it does, will fade away without memory.

[Malcador]

He does mention Roberta Williams in the article.

 

Also for me Video games are already a form or art, I just don't this is widely accepted though?

A whole sentence, woo. Does at least point out that women will bring in more women, which is needed apparently, looking at Sierra.

[Chairchucker]

To quote the last of the article " Video games will never be widely accepted as the art form of interactive culture if half of humanity doesn’t help to shape their future"

By extension, could we say that most other art forms didn't count as such until semi recently/still don't count? It's not like there's a glut of female directors, for example.

 

Which is not to say that the dearth of female game developers isn't a problem in need of a solution, but I think we're being a little kind to the other forms of media if we single out games for this attention.

[Nonek]

The contribution women make towards gaming development?

 

Erm they work on teams that make games, seems obvious really. Why should their gender come into it?

Edited August 26, 2014 by Nonek

[Longknife]

Honestly I'm just so....

 

I don't even want to DISCUSS the male vs. female ratio in gaming. To try and explain it simply:

 

 

In other words we need more female involvement

 

 

Yes. More than welcome.

 

 

and representation in gaming development

 

 

Noooo...

 

 

What I mean is, games are an artform. (or at least can be. Sadly most games are manufactured for money rather than made with love) Art? Anyone can make art. The right to produce art is on par (in my mind anyways) with the Freedom of Speech. Please, EVERYONE make art.

 

But I also can't help but feel like ever since Anita Sarkeesian has popped up, there's this attitude of the gaming industry owing women something. As if we should present games not on their quality and merit, but also with a little gender quota in mind that ensures a certain percent of big famous games are geared towards women or made by women. No, it doesn't work that way. I'd be saying the same if there were a study saying most famous poets today are women and we need more male representation: then go EARN it men.

 

 

Mind you, yes. Yes there are sexist gamers. If you want my personal, super harsh opinion of the gaming community....??

 

A lot of gamers are (or were, when I was a kid) socially awkward. It's a cliche stereotype, but stereotypes typically hold SOME degree of truth. Only exception I've found of this is stereotypes of African Americans where the racist stereotypes are so random and stupid ("DEY LIKE WATERMELON." TF does that even mean, and even if it were true, so what? Liking watermelon means racial inferiority or something? Lolgtfo). The thing that people often don't like to talk about is yes bullying is terrible. Why? Because it's unfair and wrong. But it's also terrible because often what happens is a socially awkward person gets bullied and either doesn't get a chance to develop social skills or learns from one of their most frequent social connections: the bully. AKA, they learn to be jerkish too. Mind you, I'm saying this not trying to make anyone feel upset or like a bad person. I was born in San Francisco - one of the "wheelchair capitols of the world" where me being born with one leg was the most normal thing ever and never got special treatment or weird looks. I later moved to Oklahoma and struggled for a bit with being the only physically disabled kid in the entire school district from elementary school to high school. (save for one dwarf, who wasn't bullied in elementary cause there his height was normal) I coped with it though because luckily I got a boss sense of humor and quickly learned to outwit anyone who made fun of my disability, and by middle school the entire spiel was dead, and most of my friends would describe me as the most outgoing person of the bunch. I'm sure plenty of you got bullied and came out of it fine too, so don't think I'm implying ALL gamers are socially awkward or got bullied and didn't recover; I simply mean we SHOULD acknowledge the percent of us that fit that bill is higher than by other social groups. Having played MMOs and been active in forums like this one...? Let's just say I've learned to have low expectations for such communities. (haven't noticed any problems with these forums though, in case people think I'm implying Obsidian forums are the same)

 

 

Anyways, my point is that yes it's fairly easy to point at gamers and call them sexist based on the comments saying "**** OR GTFO" or "go make a sammich, don't make games."  But 1) It's the ****ing internet. Must be born yesterday if these seem outrageous to you and 2) Why do we care about those idiots? Hell, half of them are probably joking and just enjoying the anarchy that is the web.

 

Those idiots that mean it don't just have a problem with women, they have a problem period. They'd probably prove to have all sorts of social issues and prejudices. But why are we focused on these losers and acting as if they represent all of us?

 

I have a ****ed up Youtube channel where the recommendations I get are SOOOOOOOO random. I think I broke it long ago when Youtube first started as they failed to notice a pattern with my watches, so it tried EVERYTHING. Did you know getting kicked in the nuts can be a fetish? I do, thanks to youtube recommendations. Recently I've been getting some Tommy Sotomayor guy who does nothing but rant about black women and how disgustingly pathetic they are. His logic is freaking NONSENSE as he begins to cite the most outrageous and outlandish news stories possible and say they represent the entire population of black women. For example he'll cherry pick only the BLACK women from the Maury show and say they represent the entire culture while the white women on the show are just losers and by no means a representation of the white community. That's nonsense. Complete and utter nonsense logic and it's clear the guy got dumped hard by a black woman (sure enough, did research on the guy and an ex-wife got him arrested for not paying child support. Big surprise there).

 

 

  I can't help but feel the same is being applied to the gaming community. Anita went on some rants with her admittedly often faulty logic and questionable motifs, but SOME people didn't respond with counter-arguments, but with "SHUTUP B**** GO MAKE A SAMMICH UR JUST MAD CUZ UR TOO UGLY TO GET A DATE." Lo and behold, suddenly those scumbags represent all of us and we all owe women more spotlight time in gaming SOLELY based on their gender.

 

As I said, I just believe art shouldn't be controlled. There should be no quota, no guidelines, no moral compass saying "hey developers, you SHOULD go out of your way to try and make a concious effort of more women than you normally would." While there's theoretically nothing wrong with that and there are cases where that does work, overall the little mental note only distracts from the overall focus and message of the game, which I promise you, probably has ****-all to do with gender equality. Small example, imagine if Mr. House was re-worked to be Ms. House. In theory this is harmless, but that's just time and resources going towards reworking his backstory and all assets related to him to turn him female. It's small, but yes it's distracting from the overall theme of the game, which is war and has very limited focus on gender as both genders partake in war. (all of humanity does)

 

 

 

So yeah, personally? I'm hesitant to say I'm sick of hearing these little entitlement speeches because I'm certain there ARE sexist men out there who will agree with me while not understanding my point whatsoever, agreeing solely because it gives them an excuse to continue hating the way they do. At the same time though I think those idiots are a lost cause anyways, what do we care and why are we focusing on them.

[Malcador]

The contribution women make towards gaming development?

 

Erm they work on teams that make games, seems obvious really. Why should their gender come into it?

Who else will provide proper boob physics ?

 

 

 

(that was a joke)

[Blarghagh]

I once spent an entire week animating proper boob jiggle onto existing animations. It lost most of the charm on the first day.

[Chilloutman]

 

The contribution women make towards gaming development?

 

Erm they work on teams that make games, seems obvious really. Why should their gender come into it?

Who else will provide proper boob physics ?

 

 

 

(that was a joke)

 

Only boobilicious womens of course

[Monte Carlo]

 

To quote the last of the article " Video games will never be widely accepted as the art form of interactive culture if half of humanity doesn’t help to shape their future"

By extension, could we say that most other art forms didn't count as such until semi recently/still don't count? It's not like there's a glut of female directors, for example.

 

Which is not to say that the dearth of female game developers isn't a problem in need of a solution, but I think we're being a little kind to the other forms of media if we single out games for this attention.

 

 

Because of course romcoms need more car chases, and The Expendables needs a cutely hilarious date-goes-wrong scene.

[Fighter]

In other words we need more female involvement and representation in gaming development, that's what I understand by this?

 

Yes. Lets round them up and put them to work.

[Chaz]

As long as the game is good I don't care the gender of the developer, to suggest that it HAS be 50/50 is sexists and has nothing to do with equality.

In other thread I commented I study two careers, one is 10% men and the other is 10% women. I'ts not an issue as long as people are FREE to choose.

But if we're going to celebrate women in the games industry, the first ones that come to my mind are the women doing voice acting, like Jennifer Hale or Felicia Day, i really liked her as Veronica in Fallout New Vegas!

[NWN_babaYaga]

I once spent an entire week animating proper boob jiggle onto existing animations. It lost most of the charm on the first day.

ehm. Why dont use a flex modifier. I did that myself and just had to watch animations go and let the boobs jiggle very realistically. In 3dsamx of course ! You could also add just 2 new bones (titty bone) into the skeleton, rerig the parts of boobs and just... well. Thats pretty easy .

 

And if woman wants to do games they should just do it. Dont demand anything because they are female. There are alot of realy talented woman outthere not making a big deal out their gender. So where was the problem again ? It´s about talent and passion, not about gender!

Edited August 26, 2014 by NWN_babaYaga

[Blarghagh]

That is mostly what I did, there was just a lot of them (dancing game) and the software the company had (definitely nothing as advanced as 3DS Max) wasn't as easy to work with.

[NWN_babaYaga]

That is mostly what I did, there was just a lot of them (dancing game) and the software the company had (definitely nothing as advanced as 3DS Max) wasn't as easy to work with.

At least you were creative on how to deal with the problem But must suck to work on many rigs when the software is not realy being made to deal with them :D

[Meshugger]

I wonder if Bruce could even allow himself to enjoy when visiting museums showcasing famous paintings, or would he constantly think about the woman/man ratio of the works displayed?

[Hurlshort]

It seems like the industry has gotten far away from really recognizing developers.  Roberta Williams, Jane Jensen, Lori Cole, Linda Currie...these were all big names in development in the 80's.  Now the only people that get any recognition tend to be independent or on small teams, the big developers hide everyone away.  I'm not sure what my point is, I just think it's odd.

[BruceVC]

I wonder if Bruce could even allow himself to enjoy when visiting museums showcasing famous paintings, or would he constantly think about the woman/man ratio of the works displayed?

 

You should ask me that question directly young grasshopper

 

Of course I don't consider that a factor when I look at historical artworks, but  back then gender equality wasn't the issue it is nowadays. I am more concerned with reasonable and fair gender representation in games going forward than I am concerned with  why 200 year old artwork may or may not contain the same representation

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I wonder if Bruce could even allow himself to enjoy when visiting museums showcasing famous paintings, or would he constantly think about the woman/man ratio of the works displayed?

I wonder if before a SJW goes to see a movie, they research the cast and crew to verify if it has an acceptable male/female ratio?

[Blarghagh]

Bruce won't go see a movie that hasn't passed the Bechdel test.

 

It seems like the industry has gotten far away from really recognizing developers.  Roberta Williams, Jane Jensen, Lori Cole, Linda Currie...these were all big names in development in the 80's.  Now the only people that get any recognition tend to be independent or on small teams, the big developers hide everyone away.  I'm not sure what my point is, I just think it's odd.

 

Interesting point. Are there any rockstar devs like Romero at all anymore? Devs that most of the gaming community is familiar with?

Edited August 26, 2014 by TrueNeutral

[Meshugger]

 

I wonder if Bruce could even allow himself to enjoy when visiting museums showcasing famous paintings, or would he constantly think about the woman/man ratio of the works displayed?

 

You should ask me that question directly young grasshopper

 

Of course I don't consider that a factor when I look at historical artworks, but  back then gender equality wasn't the issue it is nowadays. I am more concerned with reasonable and fair gender representation in games going forward than I am concerned with  why 200 year old artwork may or may not contain the same representation

 

 

Good, then you're still a human being with a differenting opinion from my own and not a clueless rebel.

[Fighter]

I think people should be able to do want they want to do and cater to who they want to cater to. And as more women get into 'hardcore' gaming people will appear who will recognize the market potential there and cater to them specifically. Or be 'fair' and make 'neutral' games. I believe that's a fine thing to promote and I gladly play those games too if I find them interesting.

 

What I don't like is the outrage brigade that makes a fuss any time someone puts big boobs in a game or writes a damsel in distress plot. What I don't believe is that any of that is misogyny.

[HoonDing]

It seems like the industry has gotten far away from really recognizing developers.  Roberta Williams, Jane Jensen, Lori Cole, Linda Currie...these were all big names in development in the 80's.  Now the only people that get any recognition tend to be independent or on small teams, the big developers hide everyone away.  I'm not sure what my point is, I just think it's odd.

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/61623-green-shirt-girl-she-should-be-a-companion-and-even-mascot/