Women in the Gaming Industry

GOAL: To better understand where women fit into the gaming design and development industry and what students can expect.

• Possible approach to this research could be to conduct gaming industry podcast interviews to put on the KnowledgeLab website

  • One example of an interviewee might be Brianna Wu. She is a Software Engineer specializing in Graphics Specialist Programming and the Head of Development at Giant Spacekat, a game design company out of Boston that employs women developers and produces positive content for and of women.  You can check her work on Revolution 60.  She is perhaps most known for being a key victim in Gamergate in 2014. She spoke at Smith in Spring ’17 and at the time, stated that as a result of her experiences, she is currently running for Congress in 2018. Brianna Wu for Congress.

• Potential questions to explore might be:

  • What are your thoughts on women in the gaming industry today?

  • Do you have any specific games that you think really personify women on both sides of the issue?  So for instance, what games genre do you feel most objectifies women and do you think this is a niche or more mainstream?

  • What games do you know of or that are emerging that you feel are contradicting this negative image of women in games?  Brianna Wu suggested the newest Tomb Raider, Lara Croft as the best example she has seen of designs of women in games.

  • Do you find it’s difficult as a woman to be taken seriously in the game industry in general?

  • What advice would you give students who are striving to achieve a position in developing games?

  • One of the things Brianna was asked about during her presentation at Smith was whether she felt the interest in gaming from the educational industry might eventually bring about a shift in the attitudes of game development toward a more responsible all-inclusive one.  Her response was that there is a real deficiency in the industry for educational content.  Do you agree, and do you have an opinion as to why that is?

  • What are your thoughts on representing real-life issues in this kind of medium?  Women’s issues particularly when we consider worldwide women’s issues can be incredibly violent and saddening.  (Very much outside the idea of entertainment but important to make more mainstream accessible and to start discussions around.)  Do you have any thoughts on how to go about creating storylines that convey the severity of some of these issues but don’t discourage the user from engaging with the game?

  • For instance, if a player is put first-person in a violent situation that parallels reality, and is tasked with combating it, could that be considered too much and dismissed as ‘bad taste and too intense’ for this medium? Is it better to consider a third-person vantage point where the player is in more of hero position and can come in and make a difference without being discouraged by extreme victimization – perhaps roles offer both experiences?