Women in Games Conference 2006

Here’s some highlights from the Women in Games Conference - held at the University of Teeside on the 10th-11th July 2006:

Quality of Life:

“WiG” kicked off with a presentation on “Quality of Life” by Breakaway President Deborah Tillett (BreakAway Ltd. is an independent developer of serious and entertainment software) – on

“the importance of creating and maintaining a family-friendly environment for her employees including, family play dates, throwing company parties to celebrate employee’s special occasions and hiring baby sitters to reward employees for their hard work among many other innovative benefits catering to the both employees and their families.”

Her talk painted a slightly alternative image of computer gaming companies – Breakaway’s employees are generally over 30 – and that was nearly that. The company was mostly men  (which we discussed as being an issue of the shallow pool of 30+ year-old women who were experienced in the gaming industry), and other differences in their company included company picnics, pedicures, dinners for employees and their families, and all sorts of other food-based rewards 

 … hmmm, my question – is access to food the best way ensure a happy (male) employee and retain them? I’d like to have heard that there were actions to support paternity leave, or hear a bit more about family insurance plans (a lot of stay at home mothers were mentioned). Which, in turn, makes me wonder – whose or what kind of quality of life is being endorsed?

Gender “Differences” in computer gaming …

Several other presentation that highlighted “gender differences” were brought to the conference – And thankfully, T.L. Taylor’s keynote on the “A future for gender and computer games” put these studies in place – raising issues of research methodology when studying gender and computer games.

As an example of watching one’s methodology, in one particular talk “Gender differences” in terms of “Fun” were revealed. There were results pointing out “gender differences” in percieved fun whilst gaming, revelaing that women enjoyed “other” things than men. However, after the presentation of the results, it was revealed that the test persons actual gaming experience (What they had played, how much etc.) had not been defined. Without having the particpants gaming experiences or gaming history, the public is presented with shaky results that reify women as naturally, generally, and wholly ”different” gamers.

Personally, I am concerned that women and girls are continually slotted into “traditional femininity” – let us consider how we ask questions, how the particpiants think that they are “expected” to answer, and remember that gender never stands alone, that class, ethnicity, identity, age, sexuality and context (+ all the others) are at all times important.

Pro Women Gamers

“Kitt”, also known as Kirsten Kearney of the UK Frag Dolls discussed Ubisoft’s vision in having the Frag Dolls. This will only be a little snippet and more of a provocation. For when Kitt notes that Ubisoft says somethiing along the lines of “At least we’re (Ubisoft) doing something” in terms of getting women/girls to game – I really wonder Why don’t you market to girls – plain and simple? The Ubisoft Frag Dolls have now got 15 young women working for them (7 in USA, 4 in UK, 4 in France), 3 web sites, they do events & fly Internationally (at least around USA, Cananda, and UK) that’s gotta be a little bit of money, and I agree, they are doing something, but why not do just a little more and put some of that money into marketing a game such as, I don’t know, Prince of Persia, to women, or support the development of a few more games with strong female characters? I just get dissapointed when I see these women being marketed not so much as active gamers, but as … well, you judge for yourself.

 

Kirsten is a piece of gold for Ubisoft – she’s a great spokesperson for gaming for everyone. I’m sure that we’ll be hearing more from her in the future of gaming.

- Emma WiG 2006