On the TWITT twitter feed today, I saw a post which had me sat with mixed emotions. The article was entitled “Growth in Gaming …” which talked about having more women designing games – great point and absolutely. However, the tag line then goes on to say for women. Question why should women game designers design games for women. Game designers should design games for gamers regardless of gender. Surely this type of statement will only serve to extend an already prevailing gender bias in this remit of work.
A study in 2013 showed that nearly half of all gamers were women at about 45%. This tells me women play the same games as men and therefore there is no need for gender bias in designing games specifically for women. What we really need is more women in the games designing industry.
However, one sad truth of the fact is that despite this fact that nearly half of all gamers are women; women gamers suffer harassment, bullying and trolling if playing on-line with other players especially if the other players are male. Myself I have experienced this briefly but shut them down with my game playing skills. My friend on the other hand was instantly dropped out of a Destiny fire team squad because of her gender …..
If this bias exists in the playing, can only assume that this also exists in the development remit too, or is this a presumption too far? When you look at the top 100 Brit women in gaming you have names like Activision, Microsoft, WBG (Warner brother Games) appearing but the earliest appearing at rank 6,10 & 16 respectively with Ubisoft and Playstation much further down this list. Small publishing houses like Tandem Events, Secret Sauce, and Testronic all appearing far higher up the list. Does this mean the smaller companies are doing something right, whilst the larger ones are failing. Or are women being more successful in the less ‘corporate ‘ world and succeeding outside of the realms of ‘corporate politics’?
If we are going to say this what does this say about people like Kiki Wolfkill who has headed up 343 industries and who is responsible for games like the Halo Franchise. Although I am sure we all remember the ‘teasing at E3‘ when launching the new X-Box one console that Ashton Williams endured live on stage by a male colleague over gaming and bragging rights.
The real challenge is do we need more game designers and do these designers have to be women? Why change something if it is not broken and nearly half of all gamers are women? is there really a problem to be fixed? or are we just accepting the norm as this is the way it has always been? Or maybe what that question should be is, what type of games do these people think women want to play? Is this question just opening up a hornets nest of SIM varients,on running cafes’ running households and ‘playing mum’. I personally love my Halo, Destiny, Assassins Creed and MGS and Forza style games, however, I also enjoy my cheesy puzzle games of Zuma, Kelflings and Peggle. So what games do women want? Probably the same as men and the chance to play in the same arena without bias or discrimination.
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