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2006. Here's something I find disturbing: the notion that females are rare
in the video game industry because the gender is less inclined
technically or technologically. This is a common opinion. Disturbingly
the trend in college enrollment is showing fewer women than men enrolled
all technology-savy majors including Medicine, Architecture,
Research, Computer Science, Engineering, and Physics. American women
seem to be less able to deal with hands-on computer hardware and
software upgrades, and as our professional culture becomes increasingly
dominated by computer technology; women are falling behind in the
technology professions.
If you are a
game developer I hope you read this.
Computer proficiency currently DOES seem to reflect a marked gender disparity; males seem to know a lot more about their computer hardware and content management than females. How did you learn so much about computers? Was it because you wanted to play a game? Or download a demo from the internet? Maybe you needed a better video card to play a better game? How was it you needed to learn about ram? What even sparked an interest in bus speed or dual processing? What motivated your forays into file sharing, cracks, cheats, and digging up esoteric information or demo software?
If you think about it; anybody who doesn’t play a lot of games also doesn’t know much about using a computer.
Many females in general, older people (like your parents or grandparents; depending on your age) and the folks who don’t think they need to
know. These demographics have limited skills in knowing about file types, downloading installing and managing their programs, navigating the internet,
or avoiding spam and data miners; and clueless about hardware.
If you’re anything like me, you probably think that all these people might as well have stayed in the 2nd grade, because there is no life or career anymore that doesn’t involve advanced technical computer skills. But is that the same thing as saying that these people are
less intellectual? Or not inclined? Or simply unable to grasp the material? Or does it mean that they haven’t been introduced, or haven’t been expected to be interested, or haven’t been included?
You can’t lead a horse to water. Women (and older people) are not going to decide that they should play video games because of the tremendous technical advantages and education that the process will bring to them. Not if the content is gender offensive;
condescending or completely uninteresting outside of gameplay . Then there’s the social stereotypes which are re-enforced through game advertising; you
know: the stoned looking 16 year old guy in a basement slathering over blowing shit up, or ogling the
bimbo avatar. Do you think any of the rest of the people in the world want to become that person? It’s not that interesting.
So; there’s a problem right now. We Game developers can only imagine the kind of games that
we play, and have always played. The rest of the
populace would actually like to play games (anything’s better than TV), but there aren’t any games made for them. It ISN’T that only young guys like to play video games, or that women, for some unexplained reason have no desire to play or make video games.
When we developers think about making games for people whom we know are
none gamers, we don't make the games more interesting; we make them
dumber!
Ok, we're sabotaging our own marketplace: If the game market stays confined to
our small market niche,
publishers will continue to set the terms, and the life of the developer continues in it’s difficult trend; making ever more complex games on ever tighter budgets and schedules.
If games could expand to a larger audience, there might be a chance of
wider success, or at least a bigger pie.
I don't know about you, but I'm also incredibly disturbed that by
missing out on games; women and others miss the technology curve and become increasingly perceived as less able to understand complex information, or less likely to possess the inclination to perform manual skilled labor, or to have less capacity for highly technical positions.
What can you do? You can learn to identify negative stereotypes in
games and possibly discourage them. You can help educate others. You can widen your viewpoint to include other points of view. You can think about different styles of gameplay. You can encourage diversity in games. You can introduce women and older people to games, how to access information, and how to play. You can promote (however possible) games that other demographics might have an interest in.
You can volunteer to speak to grade schools and high schools about
careers for women in the industry. You can keep your eyes and ears open and keep learning.
So even if you've had that (evil) thought about the dumbed-down
technical potential of the alternative audience; I hope you keep thinking about it.
Because dammit,, we could be the dumb ones.
Authored By Jess Bates
Seattle WA
Reproduction allowed with attribution
www.jessbates.com
jessbates (at) gmail.com
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