A brief overview of some of the issues related to gaming and gender (forms part of a talk to students)

1. Where are all the female game developers?
Elke Schneider 2017

2.  47% of video game players are female
 $2.462 Billion = Australian total digital games
industry value (traditional retail + digital sales)
 > $100 Billion =World
games market
 ~10% workers in game
industry are female
 Game industry is
dominated by white men
under the age of 45

3. 1. Female game characters are
overwhelmingly negatively represented
2. There are too few female main game
characters
3. Female gamers are harassed
4. Female game designers/developers are
uncommon

4.  Damsel in distress
 Traditional gender roles
 ‘women as decoration’
 Sexual objectification
 Revealing clothing & unrealistic body images
 Violence against women
 Decrease empathy for female violence victims
 GTA, Assassin’s Creed II, Far Cry 3,TheWitcher,
Red Dead Redemption

7. A plot device in which a female
character is placed in a perilous
situation from which she cannot
escape on her own and must be
rescued by a male character,
usually providing a core incentive
or motivation for the protagonist’s
quest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6p5AZp7r_Q

9.  ONLY 6 games at the E3 2016 event featured
female playable characters (main character)
 Mass Effect:Andromeda (Ryder)
 Horizon Zero Dawn (Aloy)
 Dishonored 2 (Emily Kaldwin)
 ReCore (Joule)
 Bound
 Battlefield 1

10.  Ubisoft - Assassin’s Creed: Unity
 Too much extra work!
 DICE – Battlefield 1
 Female soldiers are not to the core
audience of boys – risk alienating young
male gamers
 Nintendo – Zelda: Breath of theWild
 Stick to original game plan
 If Princess Zelda is the character, then
what will Link do?

11. Not InThe Kitchen Anymore
http://www.notinthekitchenanymore.com/ (Not for young viewers)
• Jaw dropping examples of
online female gamer
harassment, including
violent threats
• Microsoft responds after
outcry on social media

12.  Females in IT
 Why is it so difficult to encourage females to the
IT industry?
 Cultural stereotypes, harassment (at work &
online), co-worker negativity, bias
 #Gamergate
 Threats towards Zoe Quinn (game developer)
 Quinn was ‘doxed’ & relentlessly harassed

14.  Jane McGonigal – inspirational female in IT
 Robin Hunicke – worked on Journey & now
co-founder of Funomena
 Laments that media questions revolve around her
gender and not her work
 LisetteTitre – game designer; art director
 Elizabeth Sampat – award-winning game
designer (Subway Surfers, Plants vs Zombies 2, Ghost
Recon & more)