Written by:
Jocelyn Voo
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this Issue of Curve:
Vol. 15#1
In the virtual gaming world, real-life female programmers have always seemed to take a back-seat to the busty, lusty Lara Croft-esque digital women created by their male counterparts. That may no longer be the case. Banding together last fall to represent a tiny minority in the vast video game industry, five female software executives and educators held the first women’s gaming conference in Austin, Texas, and created a steering committee on women in video gaming. Though the committee is as of yet unnamed and they have no headquarters for their operations, they do have a specific objective: to encourage more females to join the male-dominated gaming industry. According to Jason Della Rocca, program director for the International Game Developers Association, only 10 to 15 percent of the association are women.
“For the longest time, games were exclusively a fantasy space for men, and the people playing games were playing with what they wanted in a fantasy character: an ork, an elf or a scantily clad woman,” says Mia Consalvo, assistant professor of telecommunications at Ohio University in Athens and a member of the committee. “We are trying to get the industry to break out of that mold.”
The committee has already put several projects into motion. In addition to creating networking and mentoring opportunities for young women, a scholarship program is in the works, designed to send an aspiring female designer to the 18-month-long Guildhall Digital Education Program at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, covering the $37,000 tuition price tag.
Moreover, the committee is working to encourage better recreational gaming content for women, particularly more gender-balanced targeting. The Entertainment Software Association reported that 39 percent of the approximately 145 million people who play video games are female. Given this audience, it would be to the industry’s advantage to create games with more gender-neutral appeal. After all, there is a reason The Sims is the only game that sells equally well to both males and females: Market research has shown that females tend to enjoy games that emphasize cooperative play, communication skills and solid story lines, rather than games that are primarily violence-driven action or gore games that are often demeaning to women.
Well, duh.
As exciting as Grand Theft Auto can be, deliberately running over pixillated people gets old after awhile. There’s a downloadable game accessory called Nude Raider for the ever-popular Tomb Raider game, which removes Lara Croft’s clothing and has her battling her foes while naked. And a game called Leisure Suit Larry, starring a male college student whose primary purpose in the game is to score (both literally and figuratively) with as many women as possible, epitomizes just how poorly women can be portrayed in the gaming world.
“Remember, it’s not who you impress, but who you get to undress,” boasts Larry’s tagline. Um, sure. In the 3-D nondigital real world, I guarantee Larry would be seeing more backhand than backside.
If the steering committee is successful in its endeavors, perhaps we’ll be seeing less skin and more story in the next wave of video gaming, a concept that we think is long overdue.
For more information, visit the Women’s Game Conference (http://www.womensgameconference.com), WomenGamers.com and the Entertainment Software Association (http://www.theesa.com). |
