Angela Webb: In Her Opinion: Women in the Industry

"Recent estimates have the percentage of women that game at about 50%. However, most studios have less than 20% female employees. What do you think can be done to make a career in video games more appealing to women?"

That is a misleading way of phrasing that. Those estimates show that the casual/facebook games market is dominated by women players, where as the more traditional games are still dominated by men players. There are lots of women and families that play the wii, but only a small percentage of women play XBox or PS.

Those casual games take only a few people to make (sometimes only 1 person), where as the traditional games take big studios to pump out games. This means the majority of the video game jobs deal with making the games that are mostly played by men. That in turn means it makes sense for the majority of video game jobs to still be held by men. As more women move into traditional video games and start moving their percentage up, the amount of women in the jobs that create those games will go up.

Overall the way you phrased your statement came off very biased. It made it seem like the majority of ALL types of video games are played by women but that there are very few women working on them, which isn't a correct view.

I really can't wait until we have true parity in the work force. I'm sick of hearing and reading this battle of the sexes crap. Sexism isn't relevant anymore in America, in fact, I'd say that with this "affirmative action for women" bullshit going on; women are given the upper hand in pursuing the career of their choice.

Boy vs Girl crapola is so 80s... Let's evolve, shall we? 

"The game industry isn't all fun"

Take out the word 'all' and I'll agree with that statement. Time constraints, budget changes, massive competiton in the ranks due to the fact you know you could be replaced by a hotshot eighteen year old fresh out of school who will do your job for roughy half what you get paid. Rampant egotisim. Stress. And worst of all, being under the thumb of some micromanaging dickweeds who know not one damn thing about the gaming industry, but are in charge because of their managerial and accounting degrees. And heaven help you if on top of this rubbish you are attached to an IP that has its own minders (Lucas Arts, Games Workshop. etc..) who continually want to put their fingers in the pie as well.

Sorry but while it seems a noble cause, getting more females into the gaming industry is far from the biggest hurtle the industry currently faces.

I have been in the game industry for fifteen years in Northern California. My first company was heavy with animators and made games for kids. About half of the crew were women, if not more. But in most companies, women seem to all be in HR and Marketing still. It is changing slowly, but too slow in my opinion.

On a related note, I hope someone will explore the elephant in the room on race. Every game company I have ever been in seems to be all Whites and Asians. The non-game companies also tend to have engineers from India. But where is everyone else? My black friends don't have an answer to this one either. We know that black and hispanic kids play games, so why don't they make them with us when they grow up ? It's a riddle.

Square-Enix is full of women making their MMO's. The lead story writer is a woman, like half of the translators are women, animation team too.. It's easy to spot the difference between Korea and Japan as far as the female characters go. Korea is full of horny young guys at least from the looks of it, while S-E's style is more "reserved" with no huge boobs giant asses and less revealing armor.

The animations (and visual style in general) are usually top-notch too, while male-heavy companies tend to focus on the technical side more than anything. Coincidence? I think not.

/sigh women

Can't live with them, can't live with out them. Hahaha

But on a serious note, I know a couple of gamer girls that are better than me at games. I'm very open to accepting more women to the industry, and to just play games. Especially, hot ones, if you know what I mean. ;p Darn my one track mind. lol

its also diferent cultures, and diferent scope they try to score. a FF game is normally for all family (or with that in mind) so they will make things more reserved, in other hand a lot of koreans mmo are for more dudes 14+ even if women plays they are not trying to get then so female armor try to show more skin.

stil I find it amusing because only womens now still care  about this war of sexes thing or" we need more women on the market X", really move on any one who only cares about his sex or skin color should rethinks the way he do things

Originally posted by Tardcore

"The game industry isn't all fun"

Take out the word 'all' and I'll agree with that statement. Time constraints, budget changes, massive competiton in the ranks due to the fact you know you could be replaced by a hotshot eighteen year old fresh out of school who will do your job for roughy half what you get paid. Rampant egotisim. Stress. And worst of all, being under the thumb of some micromanaging dickweeds who know not one damn thing about the gaming industry, but are in charge because of their managerial and accounting degrees. And heaven help you if on top of this rubbish you are attached to an IP that has its own minders (Lucas Arts, Games Workshop. etc..) who continually want to put their fingers in the pie as well.

Sorry but while it seems a noble cause, getting more females into the gaming industry is far from the biggest hurtle the industry currently faces.

100% agreed and /applause

Originally posted by SnarlingWolf

"Recent estimates have the percentage of women that game at about 50%. However, most studios have less than 20% female employees. What do you think can be done to make a career in video games more appealing to women?"

 

That is a misleading way of phrasing that. Those estimates show that the casual/facebook games market is dominated by women players, where as the more traditional games are still dominated by men players. There are lots of women and families that play the wii, but only a small percentage of women play XBox or PS.

 

Those casual games take only a few people to make (sometimes only 1 person), where as the traditional games take big studios to pump out games. This means the majority of the video game jobs deal with making the games that are mostly played by men. That in turn means it makes sense for the majority of video game jobs to still be held by men. As more women move into traditional video games and start moving their percentage up, the amount of women in the jobs that create those games will go up.

 

Overall the way you phrased your statement came off very biased. It made it seem like the majority of ALL types of video games are played by women but that there are very few women working on them, which isn't a correct view.

I agree with this.    Facebook games, and pretty pretty princess dressup games like IMVU should not be counted in this statistic.   If so, then the entire concept of gamers and videogames needs to be redefined. 

I may be called sexist for this, but the fact of the matter is, men still dominate the gaming scene on PC, XBOX, PS3 because men like videogames more than women (in the large general scale) simple as that.   

The % of men to women ratio in the development teams will always reflect this.   If there was a substantial market for "feminine" minded gameplay, we would see a large increase in feminine minded developers. 

Originally posted by SnarlingWolf

"Recent estimates have the percentage of women that game at about 50%. However, most studios have less than 20% female employees. What do you think can be done to make a career in video games more appealing to women?"

 

That is a misleading way of phrasing that. Those estimates show that the casual/facebook games market is dominated by women players, where as the more traditional games are still dominated by men players. There are lots of women and families that play the wii, but only a small percentage of women play XBox or PS.

 

Those casual games take only a few people to make (sometimes only 1 person), where as the traditional games take big studios to pump out games. This means the majority of the video game jobs deal with making the games that are mostly played by men. That in turn means it makes sense for the majority of video game jobs to still be held by men. As more women move into traditional video games and start moving their percentage up, the amount of women in the jobs that create those games will go up.

 

Overall the way you phrased your statement came off very biased. It made it seem like the majority of ALL types of video games are played by women but that there are very few women working on them, which isn't a correct view.

 

Only a 'small percentage' of women  play the Xbox or PS3?  Would you care to back that up with some real percentages or is this just your 'best guess' based on your llittle part of the world? 

I was playing Pong and Magnavox Odyssey before you were even born.  I'd destroyed millions of Asteroids before you left diapers.  I grew up gaming on Atari with my sisters.  We still game together, as a matter of fact. I play on PC, DS, Wii, Xbox, and PS.  I ignore the social games on facebook--I don't find them terribly entertaining  I play MMOs, RPGs, and a few shooters, a lot more of the first 2 than the FPS.  After blowing up millions of Asteroids, it's just not that interesting, no matter what story gets attached--you're still shooting something ad nauseum.  Also, my reflexes are not what they were 20 years ago, and being reminded of that is not so fun.   However,  I was drooling over the Black Ops trailer at E3 and can't wait to get that game. 

As a female gamer for a very long time,  I podcast about gaming with another female gamer and several male gamers (Lucascast.net).  I see plenty of females buying games in Gamestop and other retail outlets--games these _women_  plan to play, not games they're buying for their boy children.  Both my kids (one male, one female) play PC games, xBox,, Wii, and PS.  We game together instead of watching TV together at night.   I converse with female gamers on a regular basis on Lucasforums and Lotus Fleet.  Many of us play on XBox or PS3 as well as PC, as well as Wii.  I've even spent time modding The Sith Lords on PC.  Your gross overgeneralization about famale gamers has led you to some incorrect conclusions, and has led you to take a biased and unfair view in your reading of this article. 

I also take issue with your assumption that in order for a game to be any good for males, it must be designed for males, and for it to be any good for females, it has to be designed for females.  That idea is a load of complete crap.  I'm not a better doctor to my female patients than my male patients because I'm a female.  Why would anyone design or code a game differently based on their gender? Where exactly does gender contribute or not contribute to software engineering?  A good game story is a good game story, regardless of the gender of the author.  I will give you the fact that males and females do process things somewhat differently, but it's not that huge a difference.  The hardest thing I've had trouble with, actually, is in the hardware.  My hands are small compared to most males, and most remotes and mice are too big for my hands and actually make them ache after gaming a long time.  This is where having some female parity would be especially helpful, because that kind of thing would get caught in development. 

Should we have more parity in the genders in gaming development? Absolutely.  Those slight differences in perspective can bring new facets to the game that might not have been considered otherwise.  This benefits not only female players, but males as well. 

Originally posted by Jae_Onasi

Only a 'small percentage' of women  play the Xbox or PS3?  Would you care to back that up with some real percentages or is this just your 'best guess' based on your llittle part of the world? 

I was playing Pong and Magnavox Odyssey before you were even born.  I'd destroyed millions of Asteroids before you left diapers.  I grew up gaming on Atari with my sisters.  We still game together, as a matter of fact. I play on PC, DS, Wii, Xbox, and PS.  I ignore the social games on facebook--I don't find them terribly entertaining  I play MMOs, RPGs, and a few shooters, a lot more of the first 2 than the FPS.  After blowing up millions of Asteroids, it's just not that interesting, no matter what story gets attached--you're still shooting something ad nauseum.  Also, my reflexes are not what they were 20 years ago, and being reminded of that is not so fun.   However,  I was drooling over the Black Ops trailer at E3 and can't wait to get that game. 

As a female gamer for a very long time,  I podcast about gaming with another female gamer and several male gamers (Lucascast.net).  I see plenty of females buying games in Gamestop and other retail outlets--games these _women_  plan to play, not games they're buying for their boy children.  Both my kids (one male, one female) play PC games, xBox,, Wii, and PS.  We game together instead of watching TV together at night.   I converse with female gamers on a regular basis on Lucasforums and Lotus Fleet.  Many of us play on XBox or PS3 as well as PC, as well as Wii.  I've even spent time modding The Sith Lords on PC.  Your gross overgeneralization about famale gamers has led you to some incorrect conclusions, and has led you to take a biased and unfair view in your reading of this article. 

I also take issue with your assumption that in order for a game to be any good for males, it must be designed for males, and for it to be any good for females, it has to be designed for females.  That idea is a load of complete crap.  I'm not a better doctor to my female patients than my male patients because I'm a female.  Why would anyone design or code a game differently based on their gender? Where exactly does gender contribute or not contribute to software engineering?  A good game story is a good game story, regardless of the gender of the author.  I will give you the fact that males and females do process things somewhat differently, but it's not that huge a difference.  The hardest thing I've had trouble with, actually, is in the hardware.  My hands are small compared to most males, and most remotes and mice are too big for my hands and actually make them ache after gaming a long time.  This is where having some female parity would be especially helpful, because that kind of thing would get caught in development. 

Should we have more parity in the genders in gaming development? Absolutely.  Those slight differences in perspective can bring new facets to the game that might not have been considered otherwise.  This benefits not only female players, but males as well. 

Pot calling the kettle black.   You don't know him.  You don't know how old he was when you were playing pong.   Your 'gross' generalization about his life is as bad if not worse than his generalization about women gamers.  Just because you broke the mold doesn't change what we all know and see daily.    Great, you're an exception.  A mom who loves gaming.  Bravo....

Now let's get a show of o/'s for all those who know moms like this.  (*cricket sounds im sure, with no hands raised*)

  Yes, there are women gamers out there... millions. But there are probably 1-2 billion males that are gamers...   no i don't have EXACT numbers, and neither do you... but i'm being realistic.   You aren't.  You know darn well that the majority of gamers are not women. 

What was the point of this article?  Are you trying to hint that there is some injustice being done by having unequal employment ratios in this industry?

OK then.  How about we have more female garbage collectors, too?  That is a job that is grossly over represented by men.

Not appealling?   I get it.  There's only a problem if the job is glamourous.

Originally posted by mm0wiggins

Originally posted by Jae_Onasi

Only a 'small percentage' of women  play the Xbox or PS3?  Would you care to back that up with some real percentages or is this just your 'best guess' based on your llittle part of the world? 

Pot calling the kettle black.   You don't know him.  You don't know how old he was when you were playing pong.   Your 'gross' generalization about his life is as bad if not worse than his generalization about women gamers. 

Actually, I do know his age--it's in his profile, so yes, I know he wasn't born when I was playing Pac-Man, Centipede, and assorted other games. This is, of course, assuming he hasn't lied about his birthdate, given that this is the interwebz.   If you'd  taken a moment to research his profile as I had, you'd have known this before responding. ;)

You've also missed the major point of my post--parity brings things to games that might not be there if they're dominated in production by either males or females.

Talking about women on the internet is one of the oldest troll tricks in the book. The men, boys, and the in-between on the internet -- and the many girls/in-between who try to be accepted into the culture cannot handle it. It's an automatic response, oh no - you're wrong, women lol, get over it, go away this tree house is ours.

My geek friends don't differ from the rest of the population due to gender but because of their inherent geekiness/membership in a sub-culture. Male or female they are all very much geeks. Male individuals dominate certain aspects of the industry because of the cultural norms that are burned into our brains. Oh, most girls only like to play dress-up Facebook Wii Cooking Mama etc games and only guys like to kill stuff in post apocalyptic wastelands. If we change the industry that the culture revolves around, then we can change the culture. 

This same topic always pops up in every corner of the internet. Every time the female population/girl gamers is/are mentioned as some sort of separate entity, there's a negative trollerific reaction. There is obviously a problem. 

I try to resist commenting on these sorts of threads because I know there is no real point as it is generally twelve year old trolly tree house boys -- I just wish that people would recognize that if we could change the institution then we could change the culture and everyone would benefit. 

We could have more Felicia Days guys, how can that be a bad thing? Anyways, 10/10 I raged briefly good job kids.

Originally posted by Tardcore

"The game industry isn't all fun"

Take out the word 'all' and I'll agree with that statement. Time constraints, budget changes, massive competiton in the ranks due to the fact you know you could be replaced by a hotshot eighteen year old fresh out of school who will do your job for roughy half what you get paid. Rampant egotisim. Stress. And worst of all, being under the thumb of some micromanaging dickweeds who know not one damn thing about the gaming industry, but are in charge because of their managerial and accounting degrees. And heaven help you if on top of this rubbish you are attached to an IP that has its own minders (Lucas Arts, Games Workshop. etc..) who continually want to put their fingers in the pie as well.

Sorry but while it seems a noble cause, getting more females into the gaming industry is far from the biggest hurtle the industry currently faces.

 

 Remove the word "gaming" and I'll agree with the above statement. I work in the business world of software development, and it faces all the same hurdles<---.

Work 100 hours a week, yet they want to dock you for showing up 15 minutes late one day....

Gotta love it.

Originally posted by dar_es_balat

What was the point of this article?  Are you trying to hint that there is some injustice being done by having unequal employment ratios in this industry?

OK then.  How about we have more female garbage collectors, too?  That is a job that is grossly over represented by men.

Not appealling?   I get it.  There's only a problem if the job is glamourous.

I protest.

One job is full of sweat, filth, degradation and involves removing uneeded rubbish from out daily lives.

The other is full of .... sweat, filth, degradation, and involves creating new uneeded rubbish to add to our daily lives.

Being a garbologist might not be the most glamourus of professions, but you have to admit its a hell of a lot more useful than creating mindrot that goes bing.

Originally posted by Jae_Onasi

Originally posted by mm0wiggins

Originally posted by Jae_Onasi

Only a 'small percentage' of women  play the Xbox or PS3?  Would you care to back that up with some real percentages or is this just your 'best guess' based on your llittle part of the world? 

Pot calling the kettle black.   You don't know him.  You don't know how old he was when you were playing pong.   Your 'gross' generalization about his life is as bad if not worse than his generalization about women gamers. 

Actually, I do know his age--it's in his profile, so yes, I know he wasn't born when I was playing Pac-Man, Centipede, and assorted other games. This is, of course, assuming he hasn't lied about his birthdate, given that this is the interwebz.   If you'd  taken a moment to research his profile as I had, you'd have known this before responding. ;)

You've also missed the major point of my post--parity brings things to games that might not be there if they're dominated in production by either males or females.

Actually, i didn't miss any point.  

Why should I have taken a moment to research his profile?  it's quite pathetic that so many people check people's profiles before they respond to a fracking forum post.   You have to research someone first?  what for?  did he 'QUALIFY'?  Does he reach your standards?    Gimme a break...  In fact, I hope he didn't put his real info in his profile, just for people like you.    checking up on, i mean "researching" people's profile just so you can gather some baseless info so you can deliver a cheap witty insult about their personal life to back up your arguement on a subject not relavent to his age in the first place.  

I hope your kids are free of this mentality. 

Crappy, petty people breed and raise crappy, petty kids.

Testicles. 

That is all.

Originally posted by mm0wiggins

Crappy, petty people breed and raise crappy, petty kids.

Oh Im going to try to add this to my signature.   Because its true.

Originally posted by dar_es_balat

Originally posted by mm0wiggins

Crappy, petty people breed and raise crappy, petty kids.

Oh Im going to try to add this to my signature.   Because its true.

 That truly was a classic, well-done mm0wiggins ;)

why are people so hell bent on having women devs?  maybe they don't want to be devs.  have you ever thought of that?  why aren't there more men in the perfume sales business?  maybe because the majority of men don't have ANY interest in perfume.

the reason there aren't as many girl devs is because the majority of gamers are men.  i'm not saying they don't play games, i'm sure plenty do, but overall more men play games then women.

why do they insist on making this into a battle?  nobody is stopping women from playing/making games.  you're just telling yourself that.  it's nobodys fault but your own.

Originally posted by Jae_Onasi

Originally posted by SnarlingWolf

"Recent estimates have the percentage of women that game at about 50%. However, most studios have less than 20% female employees. What do you think can be done to make a career in video games more appealing to women?"

 

That is a misleading way of phrasing that. Those estimates show that the casual/facebook games market is dominated by women players, where as the more traditional games are still dominated by men players. There are lots of women and families that play the wii, but only a small percentage of women play XBox or PS.

 

Those casual games take only a few people to make (sometimes only 1 person), where as the traditional games take big studios to pump out games. This means the majority of the video game jobs deal with making the games that are mostly played by men. That in turn means it makes sense for the majority of video game jobs to still be held by men. As more women move into traditional video games and start moving their percentage up, the amount of women in the jobs that create those games will go up.

 

Overall the way you phrased your statement came off very biased. It made it seem like the majority of ALL types of video games are played by women but that there are very few women working on them, which isn't a correct view.

 

Only a 'small percentage' of women  play the Xbox or PS3?  Would you care to back that up with some real percentages or is this just your 'best guess' based on your llittle part of the world? 

I was playing Pong and Magnavox Odyssey before you were even born.  I'd destroyed millions of Asteroids before you left diapers.  I grew up gaming on Atari with my sisters.  We still game together, as a matter of fact. I play on PC, DS, Wii, Xbox, and PS.  I ignore the social games on facebook--I don't find them terribly entertaining  I play MMOs, RPGs, and a few shooters, a lot more of the first 2 than the FPS.  After blowing up millions of Asteroids, it's just not that interesting, no matter what story gets attached--you're still shooting something ad nauseum.  Also, my reflexes are not what they were 20 years ago, and being reminded of that is not so fun.   However,  I was drooling over the Black Ops trailer at E3 and can't wait to get that game. 

As a female gamer for a very long time,  I podcast about gaming with another female gamer and several male gamers (Lucascast.net).  I see plenty of females buying games in Gamestop and other retail outlets--games these _women_  plan to play, not games they're buying for their boy children.  Both my kids (one male, one female) play PC games, xBox,, Wii, and PS.  We game together instead of watching TV together at night.   I converse with female gamers on a regular basis on Lucasforums and Lotus Fleet.  Many of us play on XBox or PS3 as well as PC, as well as Wii.  I've even spent time modding The Sith Lords on PC.  Your gross overgeneralization about famale gamers has led you to some incorrect conclusions, and has led you to take a biased and unfair view in your reading of this article. 

I also take issue with your assumption that in order for a game to be any good for males, it must be designed for males, and for it to be any good for females, it has to be designed for females.  That idea is a load of complete crap.  I'm not a better doctor to my female patients than my male patients because I'm a female.  Why would anyone design or code a game differently based on their gender? Where exactly does gender contribute or not contribute to software engineering?  A good game story is a good game story, regardless of the gender of the author.  I will give you the fact that males and females do process things somewhat differently, but it's not that huge a difference.  The hardest thing I've had trouble with, actually, is in the hardware.  My hands are small compared to most males, and most remotes and mice are too big for my hands and actually make them ache after gaming a long time.  This is where having some female parity would be especially helpful, because that kind of thing would get caught in development. 

Should we have more parity in the genders in gaming development? Absolutely.  Those slight differences in perspective can bring new facets to the game that might not have been considered otherwise.  This benefits not only female players, but males as well. 

 People often mistake what THEY do to be what the MAJORITY do. Ok so you are a female who plays a lot of games, has for a long time, and plays the more traditional video games. That's great, it doesn't come close to making it a majority. Plenty of research studies have been released this year alone that show the break down of m/f gamers along with game types and ages. Could I spend the time to look them up? Sure, but I'm not really out to prove something, especially to someone who flies off the handle because they think it's an insult to say the majority doesn't do what they do. You can feel free to look up the research if you are so offended by it, and then yell at the population for not being like you. But either way the facts have been researched and are out there for all to see. It's not an insult to women to say the majority of them don't play Xbox/PS, it is a fact and it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with women.

One of those studies just came out within the last couple months too, and guess what? It showed the casual gamer market was majority female and the more serious types of games had a majority male player base. But I'm sure for some reason that would offend you.

Does it always guarantee a better selling game is the people who make the game represent the majority who play that type of game? No. Does it certainly help? Yes. But obviously a female who is into traditional games and understands game design/programming/art etc. and has the skills to produce something, will do as good as a guy who has those skills.

The thing that cracks me up about these forums is anytime someone points out that genders ARE different, and they DO have different gaming preferences, some woman gamer gets offended by it. There is nothing to get offended about, and no one is trying to put women in their place or anything else. Relax and learn the facts and do be offended that you are in the minority of something and not the majority.

So you said "Your gross overgeneralization about famale gamers has led you to some incorrect conclusions, and has led you to take a biased and unfair view in your reading of this article. " To which I counter, no I took a position based off of FACTS and STUDIES. To you I say "Your over-sensitivity to being a woman gamer who does not fit into the style of majority female gamers has caused you to take an EXTREMELY biased read of my post." And that is the truth.

Originally posted by Jae_Onasi

Originally posted by mm0wiggins

Originally posted by Jae_Onasi

Only a 'small percentage' of women  play the Xbox or PS3?  Would you care to back that up with some real percentages or is this just your 'best guess' based on your llittle part of the world? 

Pot calling the kettle black.   You don't know him.  You don't know how old he was when you were playing pong.   Your 'gross' generalization about his life is as bad if not worse than his generalization about women gamers. 

Actually, I do know his age--it's in his profile, so yes, I know he wasn't born when I was playing Pac-Man, Centipede, and assorted other games. This is, of course, assuming he hasn't lied about his birthdate, given that this is the interwebz.   If you'd  taken a moment to research his profile as I had, you'd have known this before responding. ;)

You've also missed the major point of my post--parity brings things to games that might not be there if they're dominated in production by either males or females.

 Even I don't know what's in my profile, I don't know how much I filled out. If birthdate/age was required then I filled it in, if not it may not be correct. I am 29 years old, and as wiggins was nice enough to point out, my age isn't relevant to the conversation. But if it helps to have it out there, there you go.

I'm a Male. I Do Notice That Men Think that they Rule the MMO's. I Try to explane I Have Lived in Some of the biggest Cities in the US and Have Been to Many  Midnight Sells and the Number of women would knock your Sock's off. Of course they will kid by saying  there boy friend or husband prolly sent them. Another BIG Change is that I'm a {Jock} and there are many Cheerleaders who play MMO's it is No more for the Nerdy as they would say."Nerd Rage" I Have Myself been Gaming since the 80's PnP , Ping-Pong, frogger, and of course can't forget Pit Fall. I Know I'm showing my AGE ;-P. The Sterotype of Gamers is so Off,even by fellow gamers that it is Redick.

Playing games and making games are two very very different things.

Just because 50% of gamers are women does not mean 50% of devs should be women.  It takes a certain person to put up with an industry like this one and that bill often fits men more than it does women.

Also what about the other jobs in the industry?  Why not get more women in the business side of things.  Who said that we must have more female coder and artists (not against that but still)

I have to agree with the person who said that perhaphs not as many women are interested in working in the game industry.. I mean really.. I play games.. I love them I play MMO's RTS RPG and even a certain arena fighting game I love.. But If given the choice between a job working in the fashion industry or the game industry.. Well I have a big closet for a reason :P  I think if girls *Want* to pursue a job in gaming development they can do so as any boy can and honestly when looking for a job they WILL have an advantage because as was stated before, companies want a diverse staff.. It looks good. 

The article is good.. Gives some insight into what working or pursueing a job in the game industry would be like.. But the discussion that has evolved from it is off base I think.. Seriously.. Fewer women than men play games.. It is a fact.. Its changing and I am all exited about that but the days of being only one of 6 or seven females in a guild are not gone yet.. :) 

I am a female gamer and I've NEVER played the games on Facebook or Nintendogs etc, I play PC and Playstation - that is all.

I would say women like games just as much as men, but maybe aren't given as much opportunities to play, hopefully that will change....

Quote:

"I may be called sexist for this, but the fact of the matter is, men still dominate the gaming scene on PC, XBOX, PS3 because men like videogames more than women (in the large general scale) simple as that.   

The % of men to women ratio in the development teams will always reflect this.   If there was a substantial market for "feminine" minded gameplay, we would see a large increase in feminine minded developers."

Originally posted by Tardcore

"The game industry isn't all fun"

Take out the word 'all' and I'll agree with that statement. Time constraints, budget changes, massive competiton in the ranks due to the fact you know you could be replaced by a hotshot eighteen year old fresh out of school who will do your job for roughy half what you get paid. Rampant egotisim. Stress. And worst of all, being under the thumb of some micromanaging dickweeds who know not one damn thing about the gaming industry, but are in charge because of their managerial and accounting degrees. And heaven help you if on top of this rubbish you are attached to an IP that has its own minders (Lucas Arts, Games Workshop. etc..) who continually want to put their fingers in the pie as well.

Sorry but while it seems a noble cause, getting more females into the gaming industry is far from the biggest hurtle the industry currently faces.

 Tardcore...  I commend you!!!   These are the exact reasons I left the Games industry and switched to Film...  Working in any Game production house is coming very close to working at a convieniance store.  Hell in many states programmers and artists dont even recieve overtime pay due to a clause in labor laws excluding "creative" positions! 

I love it how you hardly see males complaining that other males should be given more leniency in fields dominated by females...but everytime a minimum number of females enters a male dominated field, all hell breaks loose. Womens rights groups are everywhere and in the end females are hired just because they are female into many areas...

The reason I don't strike down every single feminist group in this post right now is because Feminist groups are also the leading groups in promoting the rights of children.

The games industry is a job, like every other job. Either you can handle it or you can't handle it. It is discrimination in itself to have to change an industry by legal force simply because a group that becomes the minority demands it. It gives a bad name to the people who have proven themselves in the field (both genders) and its a slap in their face.

In my line of work, I received some training...But the heaviest training I received was from my first trainer...A woman who trained me well. Eventually she turned me over temporarily to a man who also helped me. When I became fully-fledged and started training people, I spoke with her again and did a lot together. Her biggest complaint was that so many women tried the job but failed at it,

they came to her because "she is a woman" and she never liked being treated as an object and unprofessionally, while males who are being trained believe she can't cut it because she is female. In short, she feels screwed by both genders, but is treated with respect by trained groups. I've seen her get insulted by other women simply because she doesn't try to "Fight for all women" and just "Does her job" and they look at her and feel "betrayed."

In fact her #1 rule to "Survival" in training became a rule I live by when teaching others. It was "Keep your head out of your ass and your eyes on me!"

Her quote on women's rights was "You don't need to see the snake to see its eyes staring down on you"

Point is...I believe in "LIBERTY" and I never appreciate someone because of Gender or Race. I simply believe in treating people by their abilities, actions, reactions and personality, to the point I do all possible to learn and memorize the name of every person I meet!

In short, the only time I ever make a claim to gender or race is when scientifically something exists within those bounds that is justifiable, but I dont do the "oh person x is good because she is female and (insert race here)" that is just plain stupid...

....as idiotic as this entire article.

Sexual revolution my ass. look at all movies, musicvideo, soaps or commercials women are still housewifes sexobjects slafes to man.

A few maybe high up the ladder but world is still very dominated by man all who say thats not true are ones who do everything to make sure women stay at bottom.

Last 10 years its going downwards instead upwards for women most man want time back when women where only good for kitchen and bare babys as it was before sixties :(

Many male want to be caveman again eating raw meat walking barefeet being the neanderthal they ones where dominating women again, with club stomp his women and show other man how he is king of his cave/castle.

This also is women there own fault specially in western world they let themselfs portraited as sexobjects many dye there hair blond facelifts enlarge there boobs so man get horny, wow what a evolution what progression in 2010 instead forwards it seems we go backwards:(

We had chess that was 100% dominated by male untill '80s and then a father famous Polgar family desided to make sure his daughters become grandmasters in chess and maybe even higher.

All three became grandmaster IGM.

Judith polgar youngest of 3 daughters even reach top ten of best players in world beaten even few times kasparov one best chess players of all time.

But result of women became top chess player is almost zero chess again dominated 100% by male in 2010.

Father proofed women can be as good as males in chess but as long parents put dolls and babys in there hands to prepare for housewife women will never be equal and reach higher echelons in work force or get positions wher they rule instead a male.

Maybe one day women will be equalin few hundred years, but thats when we all start thinking completely different and chance our whole way of life untill then man rule world im affraid.

Offcorse always exception where women reach top but comepare to men this still rare.

I still hope many women can succeed but this world dont help much achieve this goal im affraid.

Originally posted by Evasia

Sexual revolution my ass. look at all movies, musicvideo, soaps or commercials women are still housewifes sexobjects slafes to man.

Im guessing you meant "slaves to men". Very interested in whatever evidence you have of this. And i do hope you can come up with something relevant to the cultures mostly present and represented on this gaming forum and in our modern time.

A few maybe high up the ladder but world is still very dominated by man all who say thats not true are ones who do everything to make sure women stay at bottom.

I guess i have to ask for your definition of "dominated".

Last 10 years its going downwards instead upwards for women most man want time back when women where only good for kitchen and bare babys as it was before sixties :(

I cant recall anything being repealed in the last 10 yrs in reguards to womens rights. Is it simply men's attitude's towards women that has become the problem?

Many male want to be caveman again eating raw meat walking barefeet being the neanderthal they ones where dominating women again, with club stomp his women and show other man how he is king of his cave/castle.

Way i keep hearing it from feminists, it seems women want to be back in the trees living like bonabo ape's having random orgys and masterbation sessions. If men are so interested in living like cave men then why did they bother inventing these computers were using to communicate with on this forum? Or the internet? Or learning how to harness electricity to power it all? Or civilization? Yes. Thats right. Men created civilization. All successful civillizations the world over have been patriarchies. Matriarchies have never managed to work beyond tribes/clans of people.

This also is women there own fault specially in western world they let themselfs portraited as sexobjects many dye there hair blond facelifts enlarge there boobs so man get horny, wow what a evolution what progression in 2010 instead forwards it seems we go backwards:(

We had chess that was 100% dominated by male untill '80s and then a father famous Polgar family desided to make sure his daughters become grandmasters in chess and maybe even higher.

All three became grandmaster IGM.

Judith polgar youngest of 3 daughters even reach top ten of best players in world beaten even few times kasparov one best chess players of all time.

But result of women became top chess player is almost zero chess again dominated 100% by male in 2010.

Father proofed women can be as good as males in chess but as long parents put dolls and babys in there hands to prepare for housewife women will never be equal and reach higher echelons in work force or get positions wher they rule instead a male.

Well, perhaps when women arent so encouraged to trap men with there sex apeal, and then have kids with and then divorce the man for his money, Maybe more fathers will be around in the lives of there daughters to help them become something better like the example you illustrated above. But as long as women continue to view men as the enemy and something to be used for there own selfish ends, we arent going to be able to do much to help you. Men dont want to fight women. We arent all that interested in a battle of the sexes. You all seem to have it in your heads that we are all one big monolithic enemy to be overcome and that were trying to give other men secret advantages over you.

Truth is, most men view each other as rivals and competition. They screw each other over all the time, and the sad thing is, its for you women that we do this. We throw each other under the bus all the time for your benefit. Men gave you all the right to vote knowing full well that we would lose all political advantage since there are more potential women voters then male voters. We did it anyway. We even gave you the right to vote without the accompanying responcibility of sighning up for selective service (the draft). As it stands now, if women wanted, they could vote there support for the war and the draft and have an entire generation of men sent off to die in a foreighn land and they would be seen as blameless and it would be perfectly legal. So really, who has the control and power here? And with none of the responcibilities. Even if every man voted against this, it wouldnt matter as they would always hold the minority vote. But most men are perfectly fine sacrificing themselves for the sake of women. They see it as a noble, honorable, or chivalrous thing to do and they are willing to die in some cases or at least risk it, just for the approval of women.

Maybe one day women will be equalin few hundred years, but thats when we all start thinking completely different and chance our whole way of life untill then man rule world im affraid.

Women will be equal when they choose to be. But as long as they keep portraying themselves as victims hard done by men and the world, they never will be. You can either prove your our equals or try to get sympathy and support. Cant have it both ways. Why? Because us men dont get sympathy or support and in most cases a man that expects sympathy or support is often seen by the rest of us men as weak because he otherwise wouldnt need it. It isnt to say we should and are always rocks. We are human after all, but we recognize that human life is not expected to be easy.

To be honest, all of this affermative action scholarships/ job placement/etc. Just makes you look more weak to us men on an objective level. And the fact that you are given all these advantages over us men and yet so often so many of you still cant seem to not be victims just makes those women look all the more pathetic. Sadly there is so much of this affermative action going on that its virtually impossible to tell in alot of cases whether a woman deserves her position in life. But every one of them claims they got there through the same blood sweat and tears then men did completly ignoring the advantages that got them there (to be fair there are many cases of competent women who do a great job). It just comes off a bit disingenuous to alot of us guys.

Offcorse always exception where women reach top but comepare to men this still rare.

You know what else is rare? Women being wiling to take the same kinds of risks that men do to get on top. The same risks that in alot of cases lead to men also being the ones on the very bottom of the economic ladder. Visit a homeless shelter sometime. Or even a freeway underpass will do. Compare the male/female homeless ratio. Or how about workplace deaths? Those which most often happen in the most dangerous male dominated fields. How come women arent clamoring to break into those fields in large numbers? Ok how about suicide rates? I know that women ATTEMPT suicide more often. So why is it men are on top in suicide rates 4:1 over women? Well partially due to the aforementioned statistic, women are on top in terms of life expectancy. Seems women get to live on average an extra 8 yrs longer than men. Wait, men as a group are on top of what again?

I still hope many women can succeed but this world dont help much achieve this goal im affraid.

  What is it about the world that isnt helping? And succeed at what? If men are succeeding without women then i dont think we view it as success. Part of being a success for most guys is being able to please women. Without women, we have little reason to succeed ourselves. We would just make due on the bare minimum. Women are one of mans greatest motivations in life. So i have to ask: What is it that motivates women? What drives you to succeed? Im not implying you should be a failure obviously.

I know four females who have landed jobs in the gaming industry in the past few years.  I'm jealous.   They all got art jobs.  Two of them I went to school with.  The other two I collaborated with in online art competitions.   
 
Mila Kunis used to be a WoW addict.  Shes a girl AND shes cute AND shes popular.  What is the world coming to.  One of the previously mentioned females I know landed her job at Blizzard by the way.  Kind of a big name company for a noob to the industry!  Mila Kunis doesn't like FPS games much though.  Nor does one of the gamer ladies who posted in this thread.  That seems to be a common occurrence.  Yet FPS games are a huge portion of the market.  I would guess that females don't like killing people over and over again, but WoW seems to be all about killing stuff as well.  Pretty much all "serious" games are about killing stuff actually.  So I don't know why the aversion to FPS games.  Maybe because you usually play as a macho soldier guy.  My sister used to play Quake2 with me and my friends.  She doesn't play games much anymore though.

My god, after reading parts of this thread I feel like I'm in the 19th century. Between stupid females assuming their roles and even more stupid males inherently going on the defensive after reading stuff like this (like the asshole practically saying "the industry needs manly men who can withstand the stress of corporative battle, a job definitely not best left to the weaker sex") it's like half or more of the twentieth century never fucking happened. It's disgusting.

To the article writer: keep up the good work, and for diversity's sake, I hope you do more stuff like this in the future. Some people really need the education. 

Originally posted by mm0wiggins

Originally posted by Jae_Onasi

Originally posted by mm0wiggins

Originally posted by Jae_Onasi

Only a 'small percentage' of women  play the Xbox or PS3?  Would you care to back that up with some real percentages or is this just your 'best guess' based on your llittle part of the world? 

Pot calling the kettle black.   You don't know him.  You don't know how old he was when you were playing pong.   Your 'gross' generalization about his life is as bad if not worse than his generalization about women gamers. 

Actually, I do know his age--it's in his profile, so yes, I know he wasn't born when I was playing Pac-Man, Centipede, and assorted other games. This is, of course, assuming he hasn't lied about his birthdate, given that this is the interwebz.   If you'd  taken a moment to research his profile as I had, you'd have known this before responding. ;)

You've also missed the major point of my post--parity brings things to games that might not be there if they're dominated in production by either males or females.

Actually, i didn't miss any point.  

Why should I have taken a moment to research his profile?  it's quite pathetic that so many people check people's profiles before they respond to a fracking forum post.   You have to research someone first?  what for?  did he 'QUALIFY'?  Does he reach your standards?    Gimme a break...  In fact, I hope he didn't put his real info in his profile, just for people like you.    checking up on, i mean "researching" people's profile just so you can gather some baseless info so you can deliver a cheap witty insult about their personal life to back up your arguement on a subject not relavent to his age in the first place.  

I hope your kids are free of this mentality. 

Crappy, petty people breed and raise crappy, petty kids.

 

Why would I research his profile? For the same reason I resarch anythikg--to make sure I get my facts right before making a claim, since I was specifically addressing age as part of _my_ argument.  You asked how I knew his age, I told you, and now you try to get insulting because I used a very simple research tool to check a fact?   Not only is that unfair, it makes you look utterly foolish.  Now, you still have yet to provide me with the source data for your assertion, so I'm going to assume from this latest trolling post that you've made up your "facts"  since you're going off on an unrelated tangent to avoid debating the actual facts.  When you decide to actually provide some real data, I'll be interested in discussing those numbers with you.  Until then, you're wasting my time and everyone else's here.

"Crappy, petty people breed and raise crappy, petty kids."  I'm not sure whether to laugh at this or hope that you haven't bred yet.

And this line of discussion still isn't touching my point about what increasing parity in the numbers male/female developers.  I don't think gaming is something that should be dominated by males, females, or 1 of the 4 genders of Andorians.  However, each gender brings subtly different  things to the gaming table.  Having developers who are male and female could help round out some games better and improve sales.  Would this not be a positive thing for the industry?

Snarling Wolf says: " People often mistake what THEY do to be what the MAJORITY do. Ok so you are a female who plays a lot of games, has for a long time, and plays the more traditional video games. That's great, it doesn't come close to making it a majority"

I did not claim to be the majority voice, because if for nothing else my age alone precludes me from being that.  However, your OP appeared to assume that all female gamers fit whatever odd stereotype there seems to be of female gamers, and I needed to point out that I'm certainly not a part of that mis-perception. 

Snarling Wolf says: "Plenty of research studies have been released this year alone that show the break down of m/f gamers along with game types and ages"

Please share these with this group, then. A number of us would be most interested in seeing what your research has to say, particularly if it is different from the sources I have access to. 

Snarling Wolf says: "Could I spend the time to look them up? Sure, but I'm not really out to prove something, especially to someone who flies off the handle because they think it's an insult to say the majority doesn't do what they do. You can feel free to look up the research if you are so offended by it, and then yell at the population for not being like you. But either way the facts have been researched and are out there for all to see"

I read medical research articles all the time--the data is what it is, and I don't get mad at it just because it doesn't meet my expectations.  Also, some studies are researched with better technique than others--that's why I like to look at the originial studies to see if there are facts to learn that I don't already know, or if the way I practice medicine should be changed based on the latest findings.  What I dislike intensely is people saying "The research says X" but then don't provide the research.  Sorry, but I've seen way too many people misquote (accidentally or intentionally) comments from research articles to further their spurious or ill-informed arguments.  If you choose not to provide proof for your claims, that's fine, but please don't expect me to take any of  your arguments seriously in that case in this thread.  I have no idea what data or studies you're quoting, so we now have no basis, unfortunately, for a serious and meaningful discussion of the merits of your arguments and claims.  If you do want to provide that proof, then we'll have some very interesting things to work with, I'm sure.

Snarling Wolf says: "The thing that cracks me up about these forums is anytime someone points out that genders ARE different, and they DO have different gaming preferences, some woman gamer gets offended by it." 

No, I don't get offended by the stat differences--they are what they are, although I'd love to know which articlue you're quoting so we could have a more thorough discussion about it..  However, I get offended by someone who lumps ALL females into this category by virtue of being female, or that we females should just accept that the field is going to be male-dominated just because the player base is male dominated.  

Furthermore, the percentage of female Xbox or PC players should have no bearing on the percentage of female developers any more than the number of female Facebook gamers should have a bearing on the genders of Facebook game devs .  It is incorrect to assume they are correlated.  It is also wrong to assume that we should ONLY have, say, 10% female developers if there are only 10% female gamers.  Should we only have 10% left-handed developers because only 10% of the population is left-handed?

Snarling Wolf says:" To which I counter, no I took a position based off of FACTS and STUDIES."

Please, SHOW me these facts and studies, then. I have no way of knowing which studies you've even looked at, or what data you're talking about, if you don't even quote them.  Good researchers are not afraid of citing their sources.  Be a good researcher, please.

DarthBec says: "If there was a substantial market for "feminine" minded gameplay, we would see a large increase in feminine minded developers.""

What is "feminine minded gameplay', first of all?  Are we talking Hello Kitty and Barbies here, or something else?  And how does one define 'feminine minded developers'?  Why do we have to have one in order to have the other?

Shinami says: "I love it how you hardly see males complaining that other males should be given more leniency in fields dominated by females...but everytime a minimum number of females enters a male dominated field, all hell breaks loose."

I think there shouldn't be more 'leniency' per se, but equal access and opportunity.  That still is not the case, unfortunately.  When I visited a large medical supply business as a student doctor, the executives took all of us students (who all happened to be female) to lunch.  One of the senior executives informed all of us student doctors that the reason the economy was in bad shape was because women were in the work force.  It took all my strength not to facepalm.  If he wasn't required by employment law to hire women, he'd have an all-male business, even if it meant hiring a less qualified male than a female.  There are still more men out there with this outdated notion, and there is more discrimination against women in the workforce than there is men.  That is why "all hell breaks loose".  It's better than it was 25 years ago, and certainly better than it was in my parents' generation, but we still have a way to go before those prejudices are finally set aside. 

Nailzzz says: "Sadly there is so much of this affermative action going on that its virtually impossible to tell in alot of cases whether a woman deserves her position in life"

Equal opportunity laws simply gave me the opportunity to compete at the same level as my male peers for my seat in med school--to make sure I didn't get denied a seat simply because I was a woman (which had happened in the past at this major university until '73).  I got in to the school because my grades, test scores, past job and volunteer experiences, and assorted other criteria were better than a number of other  males and females alike who were in the same pool of applicants.  I was able to stay in the doctor program because I worked my butt off to keep my seat.  Affirmative action did nothing for anyone once they started the medical program--that was all our own work--male and female alike.

@droini--I did my share of Pitfall, too.  Loved that game!

So, why is there a lower percentage of female game developers?  The answer is far more complex than 'because there are fewer female gamers".  Once we answer that question, we might be able to get to the place where we work on more solutions.

Originally posted by Jae_Onasi

Nailzzz says: "Sadly there is so much of this affermative action going on that its virtually impossible to tell in alot of cases whether a woman deserves her position in life"

Equal opportunity laws simply gave me the opportunity to compete at the same level as my male peers for my seat in med school--to make sure I didn't get denied a seat simply because I was a woman (which had happened in the past at this major university until '73).  I got in to the school because my grades, test scores, past job and volunteer experiences, and assorted other criteria were better than a number of other  males and females alike who were in the same pool of applicants.  I was able to stay in the doctor program because I worked my butt off to keep my seat.  Affirmative action did nothing for anyone once they started the medical program--that was all our own work--male and female alike.

@droini--I did my share of Pitfall, too.  Loved that game!

 

So, why is there a lower percentage of female game developers?  The answer is far more complex than 'because there are fewer female gamers".  Once we answer that question, we might be able to get to the place where we work on more solutions.

 

 

 

 Equal opportunity laws are not affirmative action laws. Anti-discrimination laws are equal opportunity laws. Affirmative action is in fact the very definition of discriminatory laws. Affirmative action sets up quota systems that bar a certain group of people reguardless of qualifications to be able to fill job vacancy's they would otherwise be qualified for based on there race and gender. It wasnt right for those same factors to have been used against you in the past anymore than it is right to do the same to others in the present.

 Your obviously older and were able to qualify and compete at a time when there was little bolstering of support for women in your workplace, but that was along time ago. Its been over 3 decades since that situation was the norm. The world is a much different place these days and now it is the other side getting discriminated against. In the workplace(affirmative action laws/quotas and female run HR dept's), In the home (divorce/custody/and child support/alimoney laws), In schools (60% of college students are now female and are still being awarded scholarships and financial aid grants based on there gender or race alone and even in elementary schools boys are being diagnosed and medicated for acting like typical boys while falling behind girls in class due to unwillingness by teachers to acknowledge different learning methods proven to work better with different genders), In health (women continue to recieve the vast majority of medical resources devoted to them while outliving men by an average of 8 yrs. 100 yrs ago the difference in life spans was a mere 1 yr longer for women) and in Law (gender is the single biggest determination in regaurds to variation in sentencing, even surpassing race).

 I could go on and on, but the point is, the pendulum has swung all the way to the other side and it is getting incresingly worse as time goes on. I dont wish to take anything away from your accomplishment and given the time during which you got into the medical field, my earlier statement clearly doesnt apply to your situation. But it does apply to the current generation of people entering your field.

Originally posted by tapeworm00

My god, after reading parts of this thread I feel like I'm in the 19th century. Between stupid females assuming their roles and even more stupid males inherently going on the defensive after reading stuff like this (like the asshole practically saying "the industry needs manly men who can withstand the stress of corporative battle, a job definitely not best left to the weaker sex") it's like half or more of the twentieth century never fucking happened. It's disgusting.

 

To the article writer: keep up the good work, and for diversity's sake, I hope you do more stuff like this in the future. Some people really need the education. 

If that 'asshole' your referring to is me then your way off.

I never said the industry was difficult, only that it took a certain person to do well in it.  The same goes for every job on this planet and in certain cases it does tend to favour one sex over the other (Soldiers, Beauticians..ect).

Women will always be increasing in ratio within all industries including the games industry. With the abolition of child labour, the men will still need to eat and drink while working.

Originally posted by SnarlingWolf

This means the majority of the video game jobs deal with making the games that are mostly played by men. That in turn means it makes sense for the majority of video game jobs to still be held by men.
 

 

I don't follow your reasoning here at all.  Only women give birth to children, but there are many male obstetricians and doctors delivering babies.  In other words, there's a lot more at play in who gets employed to do what than you seem to think.

Great article, I really enjoy hearing about three women (including the interviewer) who have persevered and succeeded in a career path which remains dominated by men (for whatever complex reasons).

Originally posted by jayarte

Originally posted by SnarlingWolf

This means the majority of the video game jobs deal with making the games that are mostly played by men. That in turn means it makes sense for the majority of video game jobs to still be held by men.
 

 

I don't follow your reasoning here at all.  Only women give birth to children, but there are many male obstetricians and doctors delivering babies.  In other words, there's a lot more at play in who gets employed to do what than you seem to think.

 

Great article, I really enjoy hearing about three women (including the interviewer) who have persevered and succeeded in a career path which remains dominated by men (for whatever complex reasons).

 And having babies isn't an entertainment industry. Your example is extremely off the mark.

When you are designing products that serve no other purpose then to entertain, it makes the most sense to have the majority of the jobs creating that entertainment held by the majority of the people who enjoy that same entertainment. They are more likely to understand what that group enjoys. Being a doctor/lawyer/teacher/etc/etc/etc/etc has no correlation to this in any way, at all.

Interesting article in the Chicago Tribune today on this very topic:

LINK

What happens when feminazis and  chauvinists get together?

Read this thread.

To the men - These feminazis want to believe theyre fighting their way in.  If you simply open the door and say "come on in! youre welcome here" theyll get offended over being allowed to do something.   You will never convince them that there is no problem because they want a problem to exist!

To the women - If youre angry, loud, and constantly point your fingers at someone theyre not going to like you, and theyre going to want you to go away.

Originally posted by Evasia

Sexual revolution my ass. look at all movies, musicvideo, soaps or commercials women are still housewifes sexobjects slafes to man.

 Really? And this doesn't work in the reverse either?

How many romance movies have the woman fall in love with some overweight balding unattractive man? Very few if any.

How many romance movies have the woman always fall in love with they good looking strong yet sensitive to her needs man? Almost all of them.

How many commercials show the stupid husband and all knowing wife roles? The majority of them.

How many sitcoms are just like the commercials where the husband is stupid and always messing up and the wife is the one who knows everything and always comes to the rescue? Almost all of them.

There are just as many men sex symbols out there as there are women. There isn't a massive world wide attempt at keeping the woman down or in her place like you seem to think there is.

Your whole post sounded like you were just angry and only seeing what you wanted to see, instead of reality.

Originally posted by SnarlingWolf

Originally posted by jayarte

Originally posted by SnarlingWolf

This means the majority of the video game jobs deal with making the games that are mostly played by men. That in turn means it makes sense for the majority of video game jobs to still be held by men.
 

 

I don't follow your reasoning here at all.  Only women give birth to children, but there are many male obstetricians and doctors delivering babies.  In other words, there's a lot more at play in who gets employed to do what than you seem to think.

 

Great article, I really enjoy hearing about three women (including the interviewer) who have persevered and succeeded in a career path which remains dominated by men (for whatever complex reasons).

 And having babies isn't an entertainment industry. Your example is extremely off the mark.

 

When you are designing products that serve no other purpose then to entertain, it makes the most sense to have the majority of the jobs creating that entertainment held by the majority of the people who enjoy that same entertainment. They are more likely to understand what that group enjoys. Being a doctor/lawyer/teacher/etc/etc/etc/etc has no correlation to this in any way, at all.

Are you suggesting then that the fact that this article refers to women employed in the gaming industry means that trends from other industries have no relevance?  It is not possible to separate out one aspect of our society, in this instance the gaming industry, from societal trends in general.  Perhaps you might want to take a look at percentages of women employed in other industries where you will notice some trends.

Your argument is flawed in other ways, too.  For example, the gaming industry, like any other, wishes to maximise profits and therefore target the largest, most diverse audience possible.  Are you suggesting that if gamers are predominantly men, then men should design and produce games, presumably because they know more about what men want?  An arguable premise in itself, because "men" are not a homogenous group and as we see from these forums, what gamers want varies enormously from individual to individual.

Funny, I've never seen any lobbying or griping at the fact that women only make up 20 percent of American Military forces.

Guess these special feminist interest groups don't consider fighting for their country an enviable position.  Seems they'll gladly let that bit of dirty work up to "the boys".

Originally posted by Evasia

Sexual revolution my ass. look at all movies, musicvideo, soaps or commercials women are still housewifes sexobjects slafes to man.

Yeah and all those darn pornos, and college videos with girls goign wild.... of course they choose to do this, but their CHOICE makes them slaves.... Really?

A few maybe high up the ladder but world is still very dominated by man all who say thats not true are ones who do everything to make sure women stay at bottom.

Yeah those greedy corperate fat cats are not busy on makign profit .... instyead their goal is keepin the woman down, and and every other group. Beucase they hate profit. Oh This is true unless we are talking about how evil they are and how they only care about profit, then they love profit.

Last 10 years its going downwards instead upwards for women most man want time back when women where only good for kitchen and bare babys as it was before sixties :(

How so?

Many male want to be caveman again eating raw meat walking barefeet being the neanderthal they ones where dominating women again, with club stomp his women and show other man how he is king of his cave/castle.

Ima wear da pants.

This also is women there own fault specially in western world they let themselfs portraited as sexobjects many dye there hair blond facelifts enlarge there boobs so man get horny, wow what a evolution what progression in 2010 instead forwards it seems we go backwards:(

WHAT GIVES YOU THE DAM RIGHT TO TELL WOMEN WHAT TO DO. HOW IS THAT ANY DIFFERENT THAN ANY OTHER GUY TEELING A WOMEN WHAT SHE SHOULD DO; YOUR WORST THAN THOSE MEN WHO DO IT BECUASE YOU SHOULD KNOW BETTER IN THIS DAY AN AGE AND HAVINg AT LEAST SOME KNOWLEDGE AND INTRESET IN IT AND THUS YOU CAN'T CLAIM IGNORANCE.

We had chess that was 100% dominated by male untill '80s and then a father famous Polgar family desided to make sure his daughters become grandmasters in chess and maybe even higher.

All three became grandmaster IGM.

Judith polgar youngest of 3 daughters even reach top ten of best players in world beaten even few times kasparov one best chess players of all time.

KICK ASS

But result of women became top chess player is almost zero chess again dominated 100% by male in 2010.

:( , So they can do it proven by those 3 girls but they don't. Is this correct? Sure people could push their daughters to do this by why i think all proffesional chest players are useless.  WTF i mean who gives a dam.

Father proofed women can be as good as males in chess but as long parents put dolls and babys in there hands to prepare for housewife women will never be equal and reach higher echelons in work force or get positions wher they rule instead a male.

Becuase this is the point of life right, gettign the bestest job? Maybe many males are dumb enough to fall for this but i sure as heck will not. I want a modest job were i have time to spend with my family and this is somehow a bad thing?

Maybe one day women will be equalin few hundred years, but thats when we all start thinking completely different and chance our whole way of life untill then man rule world im affraid.

They NEVER WILL BE EQUAL, becuase they are not equal. Their values has humans are equal but lets not pretend men and women are the same... People aren't the same for that matter. People aren't equal. Taller people have advantages, pretty people have advantages, SMART people have advantages, Females have advantges, and males have advantages. All these people also have disadvantages, its part of nature. There are not wide differences in developing math/writing skills between males and females for no reason, does this mean that girlS cannot do math ... HECK NO; does this means guys can't do formal writing .... HECK NO. At the end of the day individual difference are larger than any "group" difference; however, there are differences.

Offcorse always exception where women reach top but comepare to men this still rare.

I still hope many women can succeed but this world dont help much achieve this goal im affraid.

What does it mean to succeed? Why do women have to achive YOUR goal. Why not let them work on their goals. Are things equal no, do they need more work , yeah, is acting like people need to do x and x for the world to be equal right ..... heck no. Let people live they way they want, stop artificially trying to engineer the way the world looks and let people do what they want and what they can. If some male assholes get in the way of jobs; go to the males that don't care about m/f and make them money and females will get bigger and better jobs, females will take over corps and then it will be males going to females for a job and if they reject them becuase they are males; they will go to other females and make them money.

See Laissez-faire and for profit structures kill these the nastys of society (maybe not in a day but they do it and they don't stop) but trying to CREATE, FORCE, or PLAN equality  never works.

I knew I shouldnt have clicked on this article.

Facepalms on the house!

Originally posted by Shinami

 

The games industry is a job, like every other job. Either you can handle it or you can't handle it. It is discrimination in itself to have to change an industry by legal force simply because a group that becomes the minority demands it. It gives a bad name to the people who have proven themselves in the field (both genders) and its a slap in their face.

QFT

Personally I object to any discrimination - either positive or negative as no matter which way it goes it is still discrimination.

I can only speak of MMO's and Strategy games but in my experience the number of men playing far exceeds the number of women - so to me it makes sense that these proportions are reflected in the gaming industry.

Btw - as a female I'm generally vastly outnumbered by men both in my real work life and my virtual gaming life - I have never seen any reason to worry, feel threatened, or feel the need to justify myself - in this day and age surely we are all way past that - and imo if anyone isn't thats their problem not mine.