As a woman, and a gamer, seeing more women in the industry would be nice, but I don’t really think having more women in leadership roles will draw more women into playing games.
The solution to drawing more women into games is to make quality products at a reasonable price; (by reasonable I mean, able to make a profit without gouging customers.) The solution is to end console exclusivity and release on all platforms. The solution is to allow their customers to own the game they purchase instead of trying to make them rent it. (These sorts of changes will draw in men, women, trans/non-binary from across the board.)
Plenty of games get released full of bugs that get fixed after release because the bean counters at the top are rushing release, or are meddling in content creation when their MBA gives them no practical experience in development, coding, art, music, or play testing. I’m a woman, and I’m not spending money on a buggy piece of shit.
Then there is the issue with day 1 DLC. Day one DLC is not DLC, it’s a fucking money grab designed to milk more income out of your customers. How about those micro-transactions? How about taking some fucking chances instead of releasing sequel after sequel. How many COD and BF games do we really need? I’m a woman, and I’m not interested in playing the same boring, rehashed garbage over and over. I’m pretty sure people in other demographics have similar views.
The solution to making good games is understanding game theory, and the type of game you want to release. Games fall into general modalities. Some games could involve lots of collecting (pokemon,) beating hard enemies/bosses (dark souls,) telling a story (Clair Obscur: Expedition 33,) open world exploration (Fall-out 4.) Good games do 1-3 of these things really well. We’re getting to a place where we see more female or LGBT video game protagonists/characters. That inclusivity is great, but that doesn’t stop a game from being trash everywhere else. (Thank you Lara Croft for crawling so the rest of us could walk and run.) I’m not going to run out and buy a game with a female protagonist if the game play is trash.
The Tetris Company is a company that licenses tetris to 3rd parties, and occasionally releases rehashed versions of tetris. Nothing this company does is groundbreaking in anyway, other than trying to be an inclusive employer. (Kudos to them for recognizing the need for inclusivity in organizational hierarchy.) Per the article: Maya Rogers has been the CEO at Tetris since 2014. Her father, Henk Rogers, founded The Tetris Company with Tetris creator Alexey Pajitnov back in 1996. Maya Rogers is a fucking nepo baby, so any hot take coming out of her mouth is kinda meaningless to me.
Such a well thought comment. I’d also add, just trying to build women centric won’t give as much rise in female gamers as would having Dad or Mom introduce kids into gaming.
As a male gamer I had my interests, but once the kids were old enough to hold a controller we’d get multiplayer family friendly titles. Now my daughters play online together in different provinces, and have built their own gaming PC
There’s also an incredibly mysoginistic culture in many competitive games. Good luck using a mic as a woman playing CS, for example.
Completely agree though, more women in leadership and even just dev is a good thing, but for the most part people don’t really care who made a product, only how much they like it.
I don’t really play many games like CS, BF, COD because 1st person perspective shooters give me motion sickness/vertigo. I spent nearly a decade playing wow, and leading raids over vent. In those instances where men have been assholes, I had the ability to just kick assholes from my raid. I have been playing arc raiders, and at the start it was a mixed bag. Turning off cross play so I’m only in matches with other PC players made it much better. 95% of the interactions I’ve had with men after eliminating console players have been nice and respectful.
As a woman, and a gamer, seeing more women in the industry would be nice, but I don’t really think having more women in leadership roles will draw more women into playing games.
The solution to drawing more women into games is to make quality products at a reasonable price; (by reasonable I mean, able to make a profit without gouging customers.) The solution is to end console exclusivity and release on all platforms. The solution is to allow their customers to own the game they purchase instead of trying to make them rent it. (These sorts of changes will draw in men, women, trans/non-binary from across the board.)
Plenty of games get released full of bugs that get fixed after release because the bean counters at the top are rushing release, or are meddling in content creation when their MBA gives them no practical experience in development, coding, art, music, or play testing. I’m a woman, and I’m not spending money on a buggy piece of shit.
Then there is the issue with day 1 DLC. Day one DLC is not DLC, it’s a fucking money grab designed to milk more income out of your customers. How about those micro-transactions? How about taking some fucking chances instead of releasing sequel after sequel. How many COD and BF games do we really need? I’m a woman, and I’m not interested in playing the same boring, rehashed garbage over and over. I’m pretty sure people in other demographics have similar views.
The solution to making good games is also not MOAR graphics; it doesn’t matter if the art is made by a male/female/non-binary person. Plenty of small studios release games with low/mid graphics and do really well. See Stardew Valley, Hades 1 & 2, hollow knight, terraria, slay the spire, don’t starve, mega bonk, ect.
The solution to making good games is understanding game theory, and the type of game you want to release. Games fall into general modalities. Some games could involve lots of collecting (pokemon,) beating hard enemies/bosses (dark souls,) telling a story (Clair Obscur: Expedition 33,) open world exploration (Fall-out 4.) Good games do 1-3 of these things really well. We’re getting to a place where we see more female or LGBT video game protagonists/characters. That inclusivity is great, but that doesn’t stop a game from being trash everywhere else. (Thank you Lara Croft for crawling so the rest of us could walk and run.) I’m not going to run out and buy a game with a female protagonist if the game play is trash.
The Tetris Company is a company that licenses tetris to 3rd parties, and occasionally releases rehashed versions of tetris. Nothing this company does is groundbreaking in anyway, other than trying to be an inclusive employer. (Kudos to them for recognizing the need for inclusivity in organizational hierarchy.) Per the article: Maya Rogers has been the CEO at Tetris since 2014. Her father, Henk Rogers, founded The Tetris Company with Tetris creator Alexey Pajitnov back in 1996. Maya Rogers is a fucking nepo baby, so any hot take coming out of her mouth is kinda meaningless to me.
Such a well thought comment. I’d also add, just trying to build women centric won’t give as much rise in female gamers as would having Dad or Mom introduce kids into gaming.
As a male gamer I had my interests, but once the kids were old enough to hold a controller we’d get multiplayer family friendly titles. Now my daughters play online together in different provinces, and have built their own gaming PC
Appreciate you taking the time to read and consider it.
There’s also an incredibly mysoginistic culture in many competitive games. Good luck using a mic as a woman playing CS, for example.
Completely agree though, more women in leadership and even just dev is a good thing, but for the most part people don’t really care who made a product, only how much they like it.
I don’t really play many games like CS, BF, COD because 1st person perspective shooters give me motion sickness/vertigo. I spent nearly a decade playing wow, and leading raids over vent. In those instances where men have been assholes, I had the ability to just kick assholes from my raid. I have been playing arc raiders, and at the start it was a mixed bag. Turning off cross play so I’m only in matches with other PC players made it much better. 95% of the interactions I’ve had with men after eliminating console players have been nice and respectful.