SOE has announced Julia Brasil of San Francisco as the first winner of the G.I.R.L. Game Design Competition.  Julia was awarded a $10k scholarship and a paid internship with SOE by this competition which was designed to resolve the gender imbalance in the gaming industry.

SAN DIEGO, Calif. - July 8, 2008 – Sony Online Entertainment LLC today announced that Julia Brasil of San Francisco has won the 2008 G.I.R.L. Game Design Competition. The competition was the first of its kind and was promoted in conjunction with The Art Institutes system of schools, to encourage students toward career paths in the creative and applied arts, ultimately resulting in the development of games that are more interesting for women to play.

Brasil, a student in the Game Art & Design program, was awarded a $10,000 tuition scholarship toward her education at The Art Institute of California – San Francisco and a paid internship of up to 10 weeks at the Sony Online Entertainment studios of her choice in Austin, Denver, San Diego or Seattle.

“I am shocked and overjoyed to be the first G.I.R.L. Scholarship recipient,” said Brasil. “I’m really looking forward to my internship with SOE, and getting some hands-on experience at such a well-known company. It’s such a great opportunity.”

Read more here.

This whole project stinks, and screams of sexism if you ask me.

I mean seriously, what is this project really about?

The purpose of G.I.R.L. is to positively impact the way females are depicted in video games and create and influence content to be appealing to women. Another purpose is to help raise awareness of the serious female gaming audience to the media in an effort to encourage the gaming industry to positively promote women throughout all facets of games, game production and into game management.

Positive impact the way females are depicted is fine and all, but I don't see how getting more women into the industry has anything to do with that.

" Create and influence content to be appealing to women"

Oh I'm sorry, I was unaware you had to be a woman to create content that is appealing to women. I seriously wonder where they got this ridiculous idea that you have to be female in order to understand what games females like. I think SOE should pay a visit to Nintendo, who has great success in creating games that apeal to women, and see how many women were on the development team, I doubt it's many.

"Raise awareness of the "serious" female gaming audience in the media"

Sorry, but erm...why? I see plenty of attention given to females in gaming magazines and websites, and to be honnest games media should be about the games,not the gamers. 

"positively promote women through out games, game production and game management"

This pisses me off right there, this tiresome obsession with political correctness. Why does it matter if an entire development team is made out of men? It shouldn't matter one bit, what should matter is the skills and the abilities of the developer, not their gender.

Perhaps SOE should be more concerned with the quality of their games instead of the gender of their employees.

I agree with GameLoading but I must say I am quite jelous my job doesn't give me giant checks like she got:

A photogenic girl won this award?  I am shocked!  Shocked!

Wow, I wish I could have gotten a scholarship for being male. That certainly would have put a dent in my $250K worth of higher education (and currently rising). Ridiculous.

The next contest will be T.O.T.S.

It will be aimed at those under the age of 10 who wish to be in gaming. SOE will be giving out allowance scholarships of 1 year supplies of Baskin Robbins ice cream. In turn, as G.I.R.L. allowed SOE a glimpse  of the female gamer perspective, T.O.T.S. will give SOE a glimpse of the core WoW player, allowing SOE to be that much closer to finally making a WoW clone from scratch, instead of trying to manipulate existing games into such.

Stay tuned for more details at your next PTA meeting.

Note: This is a satirical post. No WoW players, young or old, were harmed during the typing and posting process.

I kind of agree that this is sexist. Women blew their tops when that particular golf course wouldnt allow women. But this is okay? Double Standard ftw.

P.S. I did think it was odd that off all the deserving applicants they select a nice looking one. This reeks of PR.

I think the important answer that we all really wanna know is: Does she look good in a bikini?

You guys are idiots! Everyone knows girls don't like or play games...duh!

Many industries have been primarily 'boys clubs' so good for her. That said, the actual contest was just a way for SOE to get advertisement and maybe churn up a few femme popularity votes.

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Originally posted by Gameloading
" Create and influence content to be appealing to women"
Oh I'm sorry, I was unaware you had to be a woman to create content that is appealing to women. I seriously wonder where they got this ridiculous idea that you have to be female in order to understand what games females like. I think SOE should pay a visit to Nintendo, who has great success in creating games that apeal to women, and see how many women were on the development team, I doubt it's many.

---

Haven't you heard man? SOE is getting ready to develop Barbie Adventures Online and in order to get a clear vision of what should be in the game they decided to through a contest to crown a women to make a game directed to women. They tried to work out a pilot on the Fox Network to be broadcast as "So You Think You Can Be A Girl Gamer" but that didn't fly with the mainstream-ness Fox was looking for, instead they picked up a pilot called "So You Think You Are A Fat Ass" since fat is in. I mean that is genius if you ask me, SOE doesn't know when to stop flapping their gums.

It is sexist.

But so are video games. They're sexist towards both women and men.

So is life.

So are a good majority of scholarships out there. In fact, if you're not some nationality aside from white, and if you're not female, you've already lost a lot of chances at getting scholarships.

The problem is, people are stupid. People are sexist and racist. In order to protect people from being their normal stupid, sexist, racist selves, scholarships like these are put in place so the "little guys" aren't left out. And no, it's completely not fair.

Also, for people who are deluding themselves into thinking that the gaming world would be just fine with only guys (or only girls, for that matter) running/programming/etc. a game, you've got another thing coming. Women and men AREN'T identical. Both sexes in general bring different things to the table. Just as each person brings something different to the table.

Originally posted by Gameloading

This whole project stinks, and screams of sexism if you ask me.

I mean seriously, what is this project really about?

 

---

The purpose of G.I.R.L. is to positively impact the way females are depicted in video games and create and influence content to be appealing to women. Another purpose is to help raise awareness of the serious female gaming audience to the media in an effort to encourage the gaming industry to positively promote women throughout all facets of games, game production and into game management.

 

---

Positive impact the way females are depicted is fine and all, but I don't see how getting more women into the industry has anything to do with that.

" Create and influence content to be appealing to women"

Oh I'm sorry, I was unaware you had to be a woman to create content that is appealing to women. I seriously wonder where they got this ridiculous idea that you have to be female in order to understand what games females like. I think SOE should pay a visit to Nintendo, who has great success in creating games that apeal to women, and see how many women were on the development team, I doubt it's many.

"Raise awareness of the "serious" female gaming audience in the media"

Sorry, but erm...why? I see plenty of attention given to females in gaming magazines and websites, and to be honnest games media should be about the games,not the gamers. 

"positively promote women through out games, game production and game management"

This pisses me off right there, this tiresome obsession with political correctness. Why does it matter if an entire development team is made out of men? It shouldn't matter one bit, what should matter is the skills and the abilities of the developer, not their gender.

Perhaps SOE should be more concerned with the quality of their games instead of the gender of their employees.

Actually Gameloading, though I usually agree with you I don't agree with you here.

I know that on the surface it shouldn't matter whether a dev team is comprised of men or women in many cases I believe it does.

as I get older I've noticed a few things. One of those things is that people will generally act in a way that is familiar to them when there are no opposing viewpoints. It's only natural.

Even though a man might claim to understand what a woman feels like and what a woman might like I really don't think they can. It's not possible. And unless you have ever felt any discrimination or marginalized in your life you won't either.

For example, I am a white male age 41. That's a demographic in and of itself and joked about by many. Definitely not a minority.

I have never felt discriminated, different or marginalized. Though I live in a city the majority of people are white. I am also not a bigot, don't care about a person's color or sexual preference.

However, I once was in Arizona, stopped off to get some food and when I entered the restaurant noticed that I was the only white guy there.

And apparently the restaurant noticed too, everything got quiet for a second.

I was suddenly not the majority white guy, comfortable in my majority status.

It made me realize that my status quo is only really in my mind and environment. Change that significantly and I become aware of my differences.

So getting back to the topic at hand, I think that stacking the deck with more women will significantly change the timbre of any dev group. Start putting more women to men and I also think that the way things get done will also be different. I've seen this in "real life" and believe it to be true across the board.

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by Gameloading

This whole project stinks, and screams of sexism if you ask me.

I mean seriously, what is this project really about?

 

---

The purpose of G.I.R.L. is to positively impact the way females are depicted in video games and create and influence content to be appealing to women. Another purpose is to help raise awareness of the serious female gaming audience to the media in an effort to encourage the gaming industry to positively promote women throughout all facets of games, game production and into game management.

 

---

Positive impact the way females are depicted is fine and all, but I don't see how getting more women into the industry has anything to do with that.

" Create and influence content to be appealing to women"

Oh I'm sorry, I was unaware you had to be a woman to create content that is appealing to women. I seriously wonder where they got this ridiculous idea that you have to be female in order to understand what games females like. I think SOE should pay a visit to Nintendo, who has great success in creating games that apeal to women, and see how many women were on the development team, I doubt it's many.

"Raise awareness of the "serious" female gaming audience in the media"

Sorry, but erm...why? I see plenty of attention given to females in gaming magazines and websites, and to be honnest games media should be about the games,not the gamers. 

"positively promote women through out games, game production and game management"

This pisses me off right there, this tiresome obsession with political correctness. Why does it matter if an entire development team is made out of men? It shouldn't matter one bit, what should matter is the skills and the abilities of the developer, not their gender.

Perhaps SOE should be more concerned with the quality of their games instead of the gender of their employees.

 

Actually Gameloading, though I usually agree with you I don't agree with you here.

I know that on the surface it shouldn't matter whether a dev team is comprised of men or women in many cases I believe it does.

as I get older I've noticed a few things. One of those things is that people will generally act in a way that is familiar to them when there are no opposing viewpoints. It's only natural.

Even though a man might claim to understand what a woman feels like and what a woman might like I really don't think they can. It's not possible. And unless you have ever felt any discrimination or marginalized in your life you won't either.

For example, I am a white male age 41. That's a demographic in and of itself and joked about by many. Definitely not a minority.

I have never felt discriminated, different or marginalized. Though I live in a city the majority of people are white. I am also not a bigot, don't care about a person's color or sexual preference.

However, I once was in Arizona, stopped off to get some food and when I entered the restaurant noticed that I was the only white guy there.

And apparently the restaurant noticed too, everything got quiet for a second.

I was suddenly not the majority white guy, comfortable in my majority status.

It made me realize that my status quo is only really in my mind and environment. Change that significantly and I become aware of my differences.

So getting back to the topic at hand, I think that stacking the deck with more women will significantly change the timbre of any dev group. Start putting more women to men and I also think that the way things get done will also be different. I've seen this in "real life" and believe it to be true across the board.

I disagree with that. If you look at the games that have been really popular among women. The sims, for isntance, is insanely popular among women, the series was designed by Will Wright, a male. Same for the Wii and Nintendo DS , which ire both very popular among women, were designed by Shigeru Miyamoto, yet again a male. Just like fashion designers don't have to be female in order to create clothes that for women, game designers don't have to be female to create games that appeal to women.

Sure the vast majority of developers right now are male, but I don't see how this is a problem. If women feel uncomfortable around a big group of men (and imho, if you're an adult then you should really get over that) then sorry, but that's just too bad. In most of my jobs i have had my workplace was primarily dominated by women. It didn't bother me at all, and why should it bother anyone?

I'm sure there are lots of males who would love to enter such a contest at a chance to win a scholarship and intern experience who were disqualified simply because they happened to be a male.

Originally posted by Gameloading

 

I disagree with that. If you look at the games that have been really popular among women. The sims, for isntance, is insanely popular among women, the series was designed by Will Wright, a male. Same for the Wii and Nintendo DS , which ire both very popular among women, were designed by Shigeru Miyamoto, yet again a male. Just like fashion designers don't have to be female in order to create clothes that for women, game designers don't have to be female to create games that appeal to women.

Sure the vast majority of developers right now are male, but I don't see how this is a problem. If women feel uncomfortable around a big group of men (and imho, if you're an adult then you should really get over that) then sorry, but that's just too bad. In myst of my jobs i have had my workplace was primarily dominated by women. It didn't bother me at all, and why should it bother anyone?

I'm sure there are lots of males who would love to enter such a contest at a chance to win a scholarship and intern experience who were disqualified simply because they happened to be a male.

You are correct, those games were made by men. But those games seem few and far in between.

If I look at games today I do see a lot over the top sexualizing of the women in those games. Now, before people think I'm saying that this shouldn't be done, I'm not. I'm all for developers and designers making the game they want to be.

However, it does seem to be a bit one sided. I wonder if you had all women designers/dev's in games like Lineage 2 if you would see as much skin and skimpy armor.

No doubt there are women who don't mind being seen as sexual objects but in many cases they want to be seen as sexual objects on their own terms.

It would be nice to have more women in game design and this just greases the wheel a bit. I have no problems with that. I also don't have any problems with male only clubs or women only clubs. I'm all for people creating scholarships for whatever reasons they want to. Sort of a freedom of choice things.

So, if they wanted to create a scholarship that gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to women but they had to be transexuals or to Men that are Eunichs named "Bob" then that is ok by me. It's their money and they can do what they want.

As far as working in an office that is predominantly male or female, I've done both. And the timbre of the office is different. Not saying one is better than another though there are bad sides to both but they are different and things are done differently. Has nothing to do with being uncomfortable and everything to do with how it all "is".

In any case, I'm all for this scholarship and congratulations to the winner.

Originally posted by Wickersham

A photogenic girl won this award?  I am shocked!  Shocked!

 

 

This would be part of the reason for opening the award to females only.  The stereotype of a woman that plays video games is far worse than the stereotype of a male gamer.  This will also help to introduce women into video gaming, showing women that it is no longer a field just for men (that is if people like Wickersham get over themselves).

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by Gameloading

 

I disagree with that. If you look at the games that have been really popular among women. The sims, for isntance, is insanely popular among women, the series was designed by Will Wright, a male. Same for the Wii and Nintendo DS , which ire both very popular among women, were designed by Shigeru Miyamoto, yet again a male. Just like fashion designers don't have to be female in order to create clothes that for women, game designers don't have to be female to create games that appeal to women.

Sure the vast majority of developers right now are male, but I don't see how this is a problem. If women feel uncomfortable around a big group of men (and imho, if you're an adult then you should really get over that) then sorry, but that's just too bad. In myst of my jobs i have had my workplace was primarily dominated by women. It didn't bother me at all, and why should it bother anyone?

I'm sure there are lots of males who would love to enter such a contest at a chance to win a scholarship and intern experience who were disqualified simply because they happened to be a male.

 

You are correct, those games were made by men. But those games seem few and far in between.

If I look at games today I do see a lot over the top sexualizing of the women in those games. Now, before people think I'm saying that this shouldn't be done, I'm not. I'm all for developers and designers making the game they want to be.

However, it does seem to be a bit one sided. I wonder if you had all women designers/dev's in games like Lineage 2 if you would see as much skin and skimpy armor.

No doubt there are women who don't mind being seen as sexual objects but in many cases they want to be seen as sexual objects on their own terms.

It would be nice to have more women in game design and this just greases the wheel a bit. I have no problems with that. I also don't have any problems with male only clubs or women only clubs. I'm all for people creating scholarships for whatever reasons they want to. Sort of a freedom of choice things.

So, if they wanted to create a scholarship that gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to women but they had to be transexuals or to Men that are Eunichs named "Bob" then that is ok by me. It's their money and they can do what they want.

As far as working in an office that is predominantly male or female, I've done both. And the timbre of the office is different. Not saying one is better than another though there are bad sides to both but they are different and things are done differently. Has nothing to do with being uncomfortable and everything to do with how it all "is".

In any case, I'm all for this scholarship and congratulations to the winner.

I guess I see it as another "You cant have your cake and eat it too." All those years of feminism and fighting for equality, and yet were supposed to give them equality and perks too? I can see if this were the 1920s and womens groups were giving away scholarships under the guise of womens sufferage, but its 2008, do we really need to draw more lines between the sexes? I mean lets face it, stereotypes aside, there are hobbies women are more insterted int than men, and vice versa. Big deal, such is life. Equality is good, but Id rather have seen the money go to someone who really needed it, someone who cant even afford a computer, but would jump at the chance to go to college, regardless of sex.
 

But hey, SOE was looking for PR points. good for them.

Originally posted by Locklain

Originally posted by Wickersham

A photogenic girl won this award?  I am shocked!  Shocked!

 

 

This would be part of the reason for opening the award to females only.  The stereotype of a woman that plays video games is far worse than the stereotype of a male gamer.  This will also help to introduce women into video gaming, showing women that it is no longer a field just for men (that is if people like Wickersham get over themselves).

I was being sarcastic.

I expected SOE to get a nice looking girl for their G.I.R.L award.  They want to milk this publicity for all it is worth and let's face facts - a big fat ugly girl ain't gonna get into the glossy game magazines.  If she's a cutie they might run the article in magazines just to show a photogragh of a girl with a  pretty face and nice little figure.

I don't see any problem with giving women a little extra help to break into the gaming industry. I myself like to give women in my office a little something extra to help them with their careers. The important thing for me to know though is, does she swallow?

Originally posted by Samuraisword

I don't see any problem with giving women a little extra help to break into the gaming industry. I myself like to give women in my office a little something extra to help them with their careers. The important thing for me to know though is, does she swallow?

As humorous as the might be this is probably why there needs to be more women in the gaming industry. I can't argue that Sony didn't do it for PR but at the same time the end result is good.