Color me ignorant, but it pleases me to hear how supportive
technology educators, industry men/women, and major games publishers have been
to the increased presence of underrepresented groups in game’s industry.
Polygon’s Emily Gera wrote an excellent piece today covering how educators in the STEM field and game
developers find how damaging the absence of women in game development is to
this thriving art form.
"Far too
often, the image of the tech industry insider is a white guy in a hoody."
MIT GameLab studio
manager Rik Eberhardt talks about the lack of diversity in game studios and
game studio representatives. “I can't remember the last time a technology
representative from a company on a news program (either the morning programs
like Today or on a specialty program) I watched was a woman."
In a similar
point, indie developer Mike Bithell discusses how the imbalance in demographics
have painted an all too common image for the industry, “You look around
studios, and they are a tiny minority, more so in older studios. It's weird how
much this has informed the image in my head of what the entertainment industry
is like."
Constructing a
level playing field regardless of gender and ethnicity has grown throughout the
history of education, from encouraging young girls to learn math and science to
modernizing text books within urban schools. Music producer Elana Siegman
describes her path in pursuing her creative endeavors on her own away from
socialized gender expectations, “Eventually I gravitated to creative endeavors
where I had some encouragement to be trained (music and acting mainly), and
then fell into technology by training myself how to make websites. I gravitated
toward grass roots circles of female web development — I had been inspired by
the riot grrl movement in high school, and found communities like webgrrls by
accident. Through that, I met lots of geeks who were gamers in that realm, and
eventually realized that the game industry was the perfect place for me. It
never occurred to me to pursue a computer science degree or to learn about the
technical aspects of art, I dove in and became self-taught, which was all the
rage at the time!"
EA, who’s gotten
a lot of shit and formally awarded the worst company in America two years in a
row, doesn’t get the attention it deserved in its grass roots efforts (nor does
Peter Moore get enough credit for his response for the hateful backlash against
their LBGT policy, “If that's what makes us the worst company, bring it on.
Because were not caving on that.”)
Along with nagging microtransactions, EA is also known for
partnering with minority organizations such as the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, SHE++, the
National Society for Black Engineers, The Anita Borg Institute and Women in
Games-Jobs. However, it would be nice to see this support directly
reflected in their games.
As education
becomes more and more accessible thanks to forward thinking minds looking to lift
the rest of the nation’s demographics, we will continue to see the products of more
and more perspectives in the public eye. When discussing video games, this has
long since been a medium that has been indiscriminately captivating, yet the
games themselves don’t always reflect so. Perhaps as we see organizations such
as Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, SHE++, the National Society for
Black Engineers, The Anita Borg Institute and Women in Games-Jobs, we will
begin to see a propagation of stories, themes and ideas in games that all
consumers, regardless of their identity, can directly relate to.
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