Come on Alex- why not focus on the rest of the 99% of OVERWHELMINGLY OBVIOUS EVIDENCE that the ‘Gaming Community’ is infected with a toxic racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia and abilism?
But then again what do you expect when women are largely excluded from the early days of tech, denying them the skills to have their own voice in a market which is mostly concerned with white rich men trying to sell as much garish turgid shit to white male teens?
“women are largely excluded from the early days of tech, denying them the skills to have their own voice in a market which is mostly concerned with white rich men trying to sell as much garish turgid shit to white male teens”
Man I don’t even know that I accept this. If we’re talking about games at least, Roberta Williams? Veronika Megler? Just two names that come to mind right away from the Digital Antiquarian. There is plenty of current sexist bullshit driving women away from the game industry without having to advert to the idea that past sexism keeps women from having the skills to have a voice, when pretty clearly there are lots of women who have the skills.
(Here’s one thing I’ve about never seen mentioned — how many games in the Humble Bundle have had women as lead designers, lead programmers, lead artists, lead writers, lead anything? AFAICT (and I don’t know all the credits) you have a couple voice actors (Aquaria and Waking Mars), Marianne Krawczyk writing Shank and Shank 2, several women involved in the Waking Mars team, Angela Sung doing additional art for NightSky, and precious little else.)
That’s what largely excluded from the early days of tech means. You can name two women and when you search for one of them on Wikipedia it asks if you’re searching for obscure Austrian Catholic theologian and activist Gudrun Veronika Kugler.
The other one is Roberta Fucking Williams. She’s an icon of legendary status. She was also married to Ken Williams, which means she had both extraordinary talent AND opportunity.
Also, two women out of the entire industry isn’t a small number but seven women in a single product is?
I’m pretty sure one or more of the gazillion bundles that have popped up since the first Humble Bundle made it big does ‘theme’ bundles. It might be col to see them put together an all-female-designed bundle.
Well with Veronika Megler it’s not so much that she was excluded at the time as that she was written out of history retroactively, which is a different thing. And when I said “From the Digital Aquarian” I meant it — that blog is basically all I know about the early history of computer gaming, and those are two women I remember from it; I think there are more but I’m not positive.
But sure, I’ll take “largely excluded from the early gaming industry” as true. What bothers me is the idea that this means that women don’t now have the tech skills to have a voice in gaming. Insofar as women don’t have a voice or their voice is not heard more, sexist bullshit going on right now is responsible enough.
As for “seven women in a single product” — do you mean the Humble Bundles? Because there might be more people involved in all the games in the Humble Bundle than there were in the early games industry; there’s about a hundred games not counting the THQ stuff. And to get to Angela Sung I had to dive pretty deep into the credits, though I obviously left out a bunch of voice actors from Psychonauts. (Or if you mean Waking Mars specifically, that’s quite plausible — it’s really hard to find the credits besides by replaying an ending so I can’t check — and to Tiger Style’s credit. But it doesn’t take care of the gender imbalances in the games as a whole.)
Strider — well, it seems like having a Bundle by Women would be less bullshit than having so few games by women, but not as much less bullshit as figuring out that women design games and putting some of those in the big bundles.
Until we have a no booth babes policy enforced by developers not just con organisers; until we have marketing teams who think using mutilated women’s corpses is unacceptable; until we have many games with strong female leads (Chell and Faith are not enough and Fem Shep was an afterthought); until its safe to go to a con without being sexually assaulted. No, it’s not enough, no we’ve not gone far enough, no it’s not acceptable. Until my daughters’ daughters are encouraged in school to take up programming as a viable choice; until I’m not offered Nintendogs first in Game; until yet another bloke asks me incredulously “are you a gamer?”; until I don’t need to ask a game dev “what about women characters?” (Yes, Brink, not even leads, simply characters). No it’s not enough.
Well written, Cara.
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how does the zombie torso recite poetry if it has no mouth?
it must scream
Well played, Cameron. Well played.
AlexMAD
MAD ALEX MAD!
ALEX SMASH
ALEX BASH
Come on Alex- why not focus on the rest of the 99% of OVERWHELMINGLY OBVIOUS EVIDENCE that the ‘Gaming Community’ is infected with a toxic racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia and abilism?
But then again what do you expect when women are largely excluded from the early days of tech, denying them the skills to have their own voice in a market which is mostly concerned with white rich men trying to sell as much garish turgid shit to white male teens?
Is that guy still around? Jesus.
the global human spring continues:
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/anonymous-encouraging-message-posted-university-restroom-172524530.html
Is Frog Fractions a game? Why or why not?
Is Progress Quest a game? Why or why not?
Arguments about exactly where the line between “games” and “interactive art” falls are largely pointless.
- HC
“women are largely excluded from the early days of tech, denying them the skills to have their own voice in a market which is mostly concerned with white rich men trying to sell as much garish turgid shit to white male teens”
Man I don’t even know that I accept this. If we’re talking about games at least, Roberta Williams? Veronika Megler? Just two names that come to mind right away from the Digital Antiquarian. There is plenty of current sexist bullshit driving women away from the game industry without having to advert to the idea that past sexism keeps women from having the skills to have a voice, when pretty clearly there are lots of women who have the skills.
(Here’s one thing I’ve about never seen mentioned — how many games in the Humble Bundle have had women as lead designers, lead programmers, lead artists, lead writers, lead anything? AFAICT (and I don’t know all the credits) you have a couple voice actors (Aquaria and Waking Mars), Marianne Krawczyk writing Shank and Shank 2, several women involved in the Waking Mars team, Angela Sung doing additional art for NightSky, and precious little else.)
That’s what largely excluded from the early days of tech means. You can name two women and when you search for one of them on Wikipedia it asks if you’re searching for obscure Austrian Catholic theologian and activist Gudrun Veronika Kugler.
The other one is Roberta Fucking Williams. She’s an icon of legendary status. She was also married to Ken Williams, which means she had both extraordinary talent AND opportunity.
Also, two women out of the entire industry isn’t a small number but seven women in a single product is?
I’m pretty sure one or more of the gazillion bundles that have popped up since the first Humble Bundle made it big does ‘theme’ bundles. It might be col to see them put together an all-female-designed bundle.
- HC
Well with Veronika Megler it’s not so much that she was excluded at the time as that she was written out of history retroactively, which is a different thing. And when I said “From the Digital Aquarian” I meant it — that blog is basically all I know about the early history of computer gaming, and those are two women I remember from it; I think there are more but I’m not positive.
But sure, I’ll take “largely excluded from the early gaming industry” as true. What bothers me is the idea that this means that women don’t now have the tech skills to have a voice in gaming. Insofar as women don’t have a voice or their voice is not heard more, sexist bullshit going on right now is responsible enough.
As for “seven women in a single product” — do you mean the Humble Bundles? Because there might be more people involved in all the games in the Humble Bundle than there were in the early games industry; there’s about a hundred games not counting the THQ stuff. And to get to Angela Sung I had to dive pretty deep into the credits, though I obviously left out a bunch of voice actors from Psychonauts. (Or if you mean Waking Mars specifically, that’s quite plausible — it’s really hard to find the credits besides by replaying an ending so I can’t check — and to Tiger Style’s credit. But it doesn’t take care of the gender imbalances in the games as a whole.)
Strider — well, it seems like having a Bundle by Women would be less bullshit than having so few games by women, but not as much less bullshit as figuring out that women design games and putting some of those in the big bundles.
Until we have a no booth babes policy enforced by developers not just con organisers; until we have marketing teams who think using mutilated women’s corpses is unacceptable; until we have many games with strong female leads (Chell and Faith are not enough and Fem Shep was an afterthought); until its safe to go to a con without being sexually assaulted. No, it’s not enough, no we’ve not gone far enough, no it’s not acceptable. Until my daughters’ daughters are encouraged in school to take up programming as a viable choice; until I’m not offered Nintendogs first in Game; until yet another bloke asks me incredulously “are you a gamer?”; until I don’t need to ask a game dev “what about women characters?” (Yes, Brink, not even leads, simply characters). No it’s not enough.
Well written, Cara.
http://onebillionrising.org/
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