Women in videogame culture

In the last article, I talked about the lack of women at PAX. I wanted to continue the thoughts, but realized that the data was inconclusive. I could only talk about what I saw, not full demographics.

It has made me look back at my own research, and see if the pattern continues. The first part is that there have been many major women in videogame design. Other conventions have shown similar patterns though. I believe that the reason for this, has been the belief that boys buy more toys.

While writing this article, the psychology department at my alma mater had a display on videogames. The author of the test was Alexis Cruz who studied the positive effects of videogames on players. Her research has been part of a larger work by the department to study the effects of videogames on players. Some of my earliest research was done with that department. It was really cool to see that some of it is finally showing up.

Within research, there are quite a few major women. For example, the University of Washington Game Studies group is about one third women. Within their top contributors, it is almost even. You will find this within most research being done. It’s true, a lot of the earlier research has been done by males, the female research has become part of the tapestry.

Women in game companies have been around for decades. In fact, Sierra wouldn’t be around if it wasn’t for women. Roberta Williams talked her husband into making the company, so she could create Adventure games. She was one of the pioneers of PC games. It gets so much weirder. The first rape scene in a videogame was written by her. She defended it as needed artistically. It went on to be one of the best selling PC games of 1995.

Speaking of which, while trying to find that same game, I found this forum commentary. Go ahead, read it. It is people defending rape for artistic purposes. In case you are wondering, most game companies work very hard to not have these things in them. Partially because of the bad publicity, and also because most people working at the companies actually have friends that are women.

Women continue to make up a large part of videogame design. The visual design for Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, and its subsequent sequels on handhelds was done by a woman. The head designer for Assassin’s Creed is a woman. Many of the games these women have worked on are huge in the industry. It would be a lie to say that women are not represented in videogame companies.

At other conventions I saw similar things. There were a majority of men, but women had a lot of influence in the area. To give you an idea, the entire reason that Thor will be a woman for a story arch, is because right now, only women play Thor. This shocking statistic was discovered during the ECCC. I did not find a single guy dressed as Thor.

I sort of hate the story arch. Not because Thor is a woman, but because of how knee jerk publicity stunty it feels. If there had been a comic about female Thor, or comic about an Asgardian butt kicking woman I would have enjoyed it.

The majority of people I saw dressed up were women. Women made up a third of the folks visiting, but they also had a larger presence within what they did at the con.

The same happened at every other convention. I was taught all sorts of techniques of pinball set up by one of the heads of the NWPAAS. I feel way more confident about how to set them up now than when I first began.

I believe I know what is happening. There are two parts to it, and they work together quite well. The first is that the comics, videogame, and movie industry had men who started it. The second is from the statistical belief that boys buy toys more than girls.

Within programming, the major strides were done by men. This is not to say there weren’t women, but that the core group was male. It doesn’t matter what videogame you claim to be the first one, the inventor is male. The Hacker group at MIT, Tennis for Two at a nuclear facility, Pong, or even Pong did not have women in the story. Women were the wives, sisters, girlfriends, or daughters of the great inventor. The dominance slowly went away as more and more women entered the marketplace. The design ideas though still center on a male centric plot, or theme.

Likewise, women do not spend as much as men on toys. This is something that company executives know, and work towards. The cartoon series Young Justice was cancelled because of toy sales. Although there were strong female parts in the show, there wasn’t a toy line for them. Comic Books don’t sell just the books, but the universe the story takes place in. So, you will find toys, T-Shirts, underwear, and videogames about the subject. If the toys don’t sell, the profit of just the show will not be enough.

Because of this, videogame culture, which is a subset of Geek culture has a pro male outlook. The sales number lean better towards men, and thus the need to sell to them is there. The people who started the business, and moved things forward have been mostly male. So, a male who is trying to sell to males will make a game that is promoted mostly to males. Even though we have female fans, they do not show up as much at conventions.

Within research, females are a big part of the studies done. Although you will not find as many women at game conventions, or a game company, they make amazing contributions. The reason why things are so male oriented is the belief -and sales numbers- that a young male will outbuy a female of the same age.

There is an amazing outlier though. Almost all PR teams of the same companies are female. Of the women I spoke with at the conventions, who were presenting something, they worked for the company as part of the PR team. It was a common enough thing, and you can watch as women take really big roles within that spectrum within videogames.

When I spoke with someone at a PR team that was not geek related, she told me that most of her department was women. Entirely why this is happening is unknown, but it is something to watch out for.