Some sort of thread about women in Gamedev (and an office party)

News & General Discussion
1

Mod note: thread went to all sorts of places, not just op :stuck_out_tongue:

I think this qualifies as a game development question…

But I just wondered about this. I would say this is mostly a problem for men. Let’s face it in our industry, a big games company will have about 90% men. Usually between 20-40 years old.

Then about 8% other women programmers/artists/producers. And 2% personal assistants, receptionists usually women too (just a fact).

If you were a doctor or a nurse there would be many people who you work with you could marry.

According to these statistics:

20% of all people meet their future partner at work. So even if all the women paired off in a company that would leave 70% of men left.

40% of people meet their future partner through mutual friends. But I would imagine a lot of people in these companies have friends who also work in the same business so this doesn’t help much.

Thirdly 20% of people meet through a “social setting”. But what does that even mean? Can’t mean bars and nightclubs as half of them have closed down in the last ten years. Millennials don’t like to drink apparently. Not on Tinder because people don’t actually go on Tinder dates.

So that kind of just leaves holidays. And if you just have 2 weeks holiday a year that’s putting a lot of eggs in one basket.

I mean, I suppose you could ask the same question about primary school teachers (mostly women). But then they could meet the friends of parents etc. or single dads.

Will the game industry end up with just a lot of unmarried people? What can be done about it? Maybe they need to locate into buildings with a profession that is 90% women. Maybe professional cheerleaders and netball players. Then they could meet for lunch.

Also another question. If you work in a game company, how do you feel about it being 90% men. Good, bad or don’t care? Or if your are a freelancer you will have no colleagues at all!

Just some things I’ve been pondering. :s

2

  1. You’re assuming heterosexuality. It’s not a bad assumption, given that the propagation of the human race depends on it, but it’s worth mentioning.

  2. Most of your arguments against devs in these companies finding people seem like you’re painting things a certain way that isn’t guaranteed. Most of their friends might be developers as well, sure, but that doesn’t mean all of them are. And having any friends outside of that means being exposed to a totally different social setting.

  3. I’m not sure how much of an accurate answer you’re going to get at a site occupied (primarily) by hobbyists. Perhaps a couple of the folks who’ve worked in big companies might help you out.

  4. On the question of how I feel about 90% of the industry being men, which is another one entirely… The games I’ve played or know of made/written/directed by females (Uncharted, new Tomb Raider, some visual novels) don’t seem all that inherently different from the games I’ve played by males. Additionally, there are some male-specific narratives only just now being realized (the “dad” game - Witcher 3 being a great example) that have a lot of potential. If I see a game that does things drastically differently and discover it’s made/written/directed by a female, I might feel there “needs” to be a shift (a need in the sense that it’s required for the growth of the industry and the art form). As it stands I’ve seen no evidence of that.

3 Likes
3

The fact that 20% of people find their partner at work doesn’t necessarily mean that not having that option makes it harder to find partners. Maybe it’s just the first option, by virtue of Euclidean distance.

Maybe join a yoga class after work? Problem solved.

1 Like
4

Are you looking to get a date? Or just asking for the general case?

For the general case, mutual friends, social settings and through work all still work for game developers. Human’s have a powerful predisposition to pair off into romantic relationships. Game developers are hardly at risk of going extinct because they aren’t getting married.

Nonsense. Even if all of your friends are hardened game devs, some of their friends won’t be. People get friends through work, school, hobbies and families. Your extended friend network gets really big, really fast.

So what? Workplace romances are messy anyway. Especially in small companies.

Go to IDGA meet ups. Join a LARP. Go to church. Go to a board game club. Go watch a sports game. Go to the gym. Go to the pub. Take a pottery class. There are hundreds of social settings available to choose from.

I see no evidence that this is happening. The engineers disease is more likely to take us all out before celibacy does. (And for reference, I doubt it this is a real threat either.)

This is an entirely different question. In general, I prefer a somewhat gender balanced work environment. It just makes the place nicer to work in. And diverse teams can often get better results based on their diversity. My experience with the game dev industry locally is that its doing a great job as a home for people of all genders.

3 Likes
5

In my experience, the professional game development community is highly social. Though some what segregated. (Artists hang with artists, engineers with engineers, etc)

4 Likes
6

tfw no welsh accent trap gf

Also the appropriate pun here would be “tossing away the egg basket and keeping the seeds”.

7
  1. Stalk
  2. Restraining order
  3. ???
  4. Profit!
8

This a tangent so I won’t expend on this, but this make me sad on multiple level. There is huge overshadowed part of game dev culture and history that make this kind of thought weird. Especially when women don’t have to make thing different to be respected, and there WAS some women breaking ground in how game were made, and in particular by introducing narrative with game like King’s quest or had different imagination like centipede. We need more Roberta Williams, not less. And then the whole casual game movement was started by women seeking a different approach than big games and I remember being puzzled than no site cover the Her Interactive’s game, despite selling better than some “traditional” game. I mean game culture is just in denial. And that’s even without couning Meritt Kopa or Christine love.

9

I’ve had a few of the Nancy Drew games come up in my queue on Steam, and while I overlooked them because they looked dreadfully dated (I realize that’s shallow of me), otherwise they didn’t seem any different from any number of adventure games I’ve been playing for years made by men (the Myst series for example).

It’s more than possible that the types of games I play that see little variation between male and female designers/writers/directors are built upon the foundation of female innovators. In that case…it’s clear that these females are already contributing valuably (is that a word?) to the medium and there’s no need to “force” anything.

I do think if it’s a situation like that purported for Remember Me (where publishers refused to support the game because of its female protagonist–though I can’t be sure how accurate the claim is, given how mediocre-ly that game was received (though I liked it quite a bit)) where the industry is actively fighting against something, then obviously there’s a problem there.

Outside of that, however, trying to force the growth of something that’s already there and has already been there for many years, in a more exclusive form, to make it more “mainstream,” seems like a recipe for disaster.

Looking at your final statement I realize we’ve got to make a delineation between advancements in gameplay and in narrative. It seems like a lot of what people single out female designers/writers/directors for is narrative advancements, when quite frankly that’s not something a great deal of gamers care about. Even for male D/W/D (sick of writing that out) there are very, very few who’re known for narrative and not gameplay advancements (the only ones I can think of are only because I’m familiar with the developers themselves, like the Miller brothers or David Gaider or Chris Avellone or Casey Hudson.

10

I’m aware that my experiences are not representative of the norm (largely positive), but at DI/LF our studio was on average around 40% female overall, (though a lower percentage in engineering). My current studio is roughly 20% female, though they are almost all executive/management. (Our studio head is a woman.) They run our show.

11

If you’re concerned enough to read statistics about it, I would suggest to just try online dating. And I don’t mean Tinder, I’m talking about the more oldschool approach where people fill out detailed profile pages and talk to each other.

Does it make things different compared to studios with lower female representation?

2 Likes
12

90% of the game industry is men don’t necessarily mean a bad thing because we don’t look for women in our industry anyway, right?

13

I like the first option of your poll. :slight_smile:

Here is a picture of the team that developed Skyrim; I didn’t compare the ratio men/women but you may need to rethink the percentages.

1920×1207 876 KB

14

I met my wife at work, so I’m one of the unusual ones whom actually found someone within the industry. However almost everyone else I know in the industry met their significant others outside of work. Many met before entering the industry (either were dating or at least had mutual friends in school, or games are a second or third industry). Those I know who met someone after being in the industry did so the way described above… by using an online dating service or by having some not at home hobby they did in the evenings or weekends.

Basically, bars and office lunch rooms aren’t the only way to socialize.

As for the side conversation … having people with a diverse set of life experiences working on a game is a great benefit. Be that where they grew up, the color of their skin, or their gender, these should all be considered a benefit.

Video games came of age at the same time as strictly gendered toy advertising did; a toy had to be either for boys or girls, not both. Not to mention it came out of an industry that was already male dominated at the time, the computer industry. I could go on, but the video game industry has been a tough place for women to be, and in the past has not focused on making games with women in mind. It feels like it’s starting to change, but not as fast as other industries have.

Also the argument that games made by women don’t feel any different than those made by men … I might argue that has more to do with the player than the game. If you’re a white male it’s quite likely you’ll completely miss any of the subtle differences that a game might have by virtue of having a larger female or ethnically diverse influence during development because you’re likely blind to those differences in your normal life as well. The privilege of the white male is we don’t have to notice them. However I guarantee someone out there has noticed, and it may be beneficial for you to try to see it too.

Also on the topic of homosexuality in the industry. I’ve seen a very small percentage of outright gay men in this industry, likely for the same reason there are so few women. I’ve met plenty of bisexuals though, and trans genders. However they tend to look outside the industry for dates as far as I know.

1 Like
15

Oh boy, a gender ideologue thread.

And now there’s racers as well.

16

What if we aren’t white males?

Strawmen are the first sign this discussion is going to go south. Please don’t go there.

17

Friendly reminder to keep it civil. :wink:

@yoonitee - Statistics are always skewed by various factors and these are probably based on a general survey. If people don’t meet someone at work, they just meet them elsewhere. Some people also have jobs, where they don’t have colleagues or a social sphere - some people work their own companies with themselves as the only employee, but no-one is doomed to be alone due to that. As long as people engage in social activities, they’ll meet, fall in love and build a great board game collection in a house somewhere. Don’t worry.

2 Likes
18

Yes, I’ve noticed that too. It can be a bit cliquey. It can be the companies fault too sometimes if they put all the programmers in one room and all the artists in a separate room. And all the IT support and testers in the basement! It’s much nicer if you work in teams with all kinds of different skill sets. But then again sometimes you also just want to talk to another programmer about the trials of refactoring or something!

Just from a quick look 80-90% looks about right. Of course they put the few women at the front. Just to make your trick your mind.

I agree office relationships are not really a good idea. But I think maybe friends of colleagues is OK.

Sorry if this thread sounds a bit sexist. Like as if the only reason there should be more women in the games industry is to provide wives for male game developers! Of course that’s not true. And if you’re a woman going into a games industry don’t worry as far as I’ve seen women are treated with the up-most respect. Especially as its all about how good your artistic or programming skills are.

19

No they haven’t. Take a closer look, longer than 2 seconds, please. :slight_smile:

1 Like
20

You’re going to make me actually do some counting aren’t you. :confused: