[OCWIC] A Few Good Women Are Needed in Computer Gaming

[Bettina Bair]

The article (below) talks about how the computer game industry is finally
coming to grips with their lack of diversity in development.  If you think
that you'd like to learn how to develop computer games, consider competing
in the Games4Girls (G4G) programming competition, hosted by University of
Illinois.

The competition is open to all college women currently residing in the
United States. Each student team must submit an on-line application (date
announced soon). Visit the web site to complete an application:
www.cs.uiuc.edu/g4g


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A Few Good Women Are Needed in Computer Gaming
Computerworld (06/04/07) Pratt, Mary K.

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyId=10&articleId=293317&intsrc=hm_topic

Women are highly valued by the gaming industry for the fresh insight
they can bring, and this is creating opportunities for female tech
professionals looking for job options outside of the usual corporate
IT departments. "If we want to have [game] titles that reach a diverse
audience, our workforce has to reflect that diversity," argues Sirenia
Consulting game designer and developer Sheri Graner Ray, who is also
chairwoman of Women in Games International's steering committee.

Peter Gollan of Iceland's CCP Games believes adding more female game
designers could result in the production of content that draws more
female gamers, while University of Southern California School of
Cinematic Arts professor Tracy Fullerton suggests that more women
would become game designers if there were more games on the market
that appeal to them.

According to the International Game Developers
Association, only 11.5 percent of the gaming industry workforce was
female as of 2005. Graner Ray points out that most game designer
tutorials follow a distinctly male learning paradigm, that of jumping
right in and playing with the game environment, while women are more
inclined to first understand games before they experiment with them.

Also discouraging to female game designers are negative portrayals of
women and a strong anti-female bias in popular games, notes ECD
Systems CEO Jack Hart. Meanwhile, JupiterResearch analyst Michael
Gartenberg observes that women and girls have a greater affinity for
games that involve strategy and puzzles than in violent first-person
shooter scenarios.
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