I was invited by an editor at GameCareerGuide.com to expand on my previous post Game School Dropout: Whining 101 for publication on their website. I put together some of the thoughts I was planning on posting further about on the GL blog, combined with a re-worked version of my original post, and it is up today.
You can read the full article HERE. Feel free to leave comments, I am interested to hear your thoughts.
Allow me, if you will, the opportunity to whine a bit. Indulge me, please, if you can, so that I can have a chance to work this out of my system. It has been a difficult process for me to get back into the routine of blogging now that I finally have time to do it again, and I am thinking that perhaps my problem is that I need to get this self-indulgence out of the way. Thanks for your patience, I will try and keep it brief.
I am a game design school dropout. Having spent a scarce few (although rather intense) weeks in school does not make me an expert on the state of game design education. I know this is so true, yet somehow this wisdom has not prevented me from developing a mighty strong opinion on the matter in spite of the facts. Even though my reasons for leaving school were 95.7% personal, and were the result of real-life issues wholly unrelated to anything having to do with game design, I find I have an increasingly nagging feeling about the state of game design education and how it reflects on the direction of the industry.
In looking back on my brief experience as a student in pursuit of a Masters in Interactive Technology, Art Creation Specialization degree (ack, doesn't that sound so grand? - I just had to see it in writing one more time!) I keep having the same question pop up over and over again. Why is game design, and thus game design education, such a stressed-out affair? Over the last few months I have been thinking it over, and I have a lot to say about the answers I have come up with, but first I need to cover a little ground (Read: here comes the whining).
There are two words that have stuck with me that best describe my experience at game design school: Boot Camp. The military model was obviously in the minds of the creators of the educational philosophy behind the program I attended. Although none of the instructors resorted to calling us "maggots" and making us do push-ups, the over-all structure of the program was strict and grueling. A few of the young men in the program even went out and got crew cuts the first week of classes, assumedly to free up the extra ten minutes a day they devoted to their hair, giving them an edge on the rest of us high-maintenance slaves to personal grooming. The reason for the long hours and sleepless nights required of the students was the expectation that these would be the conditions we would be working under once we had our industry jobs: they were training us for crunch-time. As students we were treated like employees of the school (except we were doing the paying) and were given more work than we could reasonably complete and still have time for the luxuries of life like preparing meals and sleeping. The feeling this gave me at the time was that if I wanted to be in 'this man's army', meaning, if I wanted to hold my own in the game design industry, I was going to have to be put through the wringer and prove that I would be able to survive in the trenches once I had an industry job.
Clearly, I did not pass muster. The lingering and nagging thing about this for me is that this type of education favors the young and (dare I say it?) the male. If what the game design industry needs in order to grow and prosper is diversity beyond the traditional nerd boy army that makes up its proud history, then maybe they need to rethink a few things so that the first ones to drop aren't the females or the grown-ups that are used to having a life (such as, say, myself) so that they can grow beyond that stereotype. Texturing, modeling, level design, programming game engines and AI are all hard enough already that there are not so many people with a talent for this field of study. Do we really need to make this a battle of the sleep-deprived and the toxically caffeinated on top of all that? What about that is good for game design?
I have more thoughts on this, that I will explore in more detail, hopefully without the whining, but I have gone on longer than planned already. In the mean-time, your comments are greatly appreciated!
Game developer Peter Molyneux is in the news for storyline innovations for the upcoming game Fable 2, which has no official release date but is expected some time later in 2007. In last Friday's BBC article Molyneux announced that one of the new goals of the game would be to create an emotional connection between the player and game elements. Peter Molyneux is building love into Fable 2.
I would like to say two things briefly before getting to the heart of this post: First - that I am happy to see that there will be an option in Fable 2 to play as a female character. The lack of this option has kept me from playing the original Fable game, although I have been very curious about the elements of character development used in its design. Second - it is also nice to see a developer speaking so strongly about the importance of story. Molyneux had this to say in a recent GamePro.com interview:
"My ambition is to really just tell a really compelling story. What I keep saying in our meetings is that we have got to think more like storytellers and less like programmers."
There is still a great deal of difference of opinion about the importance of story in games, but since my views fall clearly on the side of storytelling, I am eager to see how this will be explored in Fable 2.
The thing that I find most interesting about the incorporation of love into the design of Fable 2 is one of the ways it is being implemented. The main source of this emotional connection will be the love and devotion you feel from your character's pet dog. Here's what Molyneux had to say about it in the BBC article:
"We have spent an enormous amount of time and effort to make something that feels real. I want you to make you feel it is a real dog. I want you to feel something when you play a game; that's what this feature is about."
Your character's dog will be replacing the UI map in the game, acting as your guide through the game world. Your dog's appearance will be unique to your character, and it will change as your character changes based on the choices you make in the game. Here's more detail of your dog's function in the game, from a GameSpot UK article:
"One of the most intriguing things about your pet dog is that you'll have no direct control over it whatsoever, while almost everything that you do will influence its behavior. When you're walking around, he'll rarely stray too far away from you, but he'll actively explore the area and, in doing so, he'll draw your attention to points of interest and anything that has changed since the last time you were there. Furthermore, when he senses danger, he'll move ahead of you and start barking and growling to alert you. Your dog will be your guide through the free-roaming world that Fable 2 takes place in, and he purportedly performs that duty so well that Lionhead has seen fit to do away with the first game's minimap."
I find this to be a very compelling idea, and will be interested to see how this is actually implemented in the finished game. I may have to wait a while longer to get a chance to play this game on my PC, since Fable 2 is being released first on the Xbox 360, but it is definitely something I would like to experience playing.
This seems like such a vast improvement to me over the role that dogs have in Oblivion, that I just have to mention again how impossible it is for me to understand that the Bethesda development team would think that gameplay which includes regularly having to kill dogs, even if they are bad dogs to begin with, would be a good design decision (see my previous post on this HERE). Since Molyneux has identified the relationship between player and dog as one of the main ways in his game to generate the feeling of being loved - the feeling of unconditional love and devotion that is present in that relationship - then Bethesda's oversight seems even more glaring now than it did on release.
PS: There is an Oblivion pet mod called "Cheydinhal Petshop", created by Lady Eternity & Proudfoot, which allows you to have a pet in Oblivion that levels along with your character. I haven't tried it out yet, but it is listed among the featured Oblivion mods in the April issue of Computer Games magazine. Additionally, for a very simple fix that eliminates the need to kill dogs in Oblivion, try my "No Bad Dogs" mod available HERE.
I have been getting my GDC news from Wonderland again this year, and enjoying the chance to see things through her filter. This morning I was reading a post there about Whirled (from the creators of Puzzle Pirates), which Alice seems very excited about, and she also has some interesting things to say about the general state of the industry in contrast to more independent endeavors.
"Generally - I'm being broad - the games industry has been a pretty "closed" industry. Phil Harrison's nod to web 2.0 is the high-profile start of a big change, I think, but generally the games industry is (has been) mostly chaps doing mostly console games, for mostly very big budgets."
This comes as no surprise to anyone, I am sure, but there is something subtle about what she is saying:
"This year's GDC is strong on the alternative fu: indie games are Large. Casual games are Large. Serious Games are grabbing more and more attention.. and this web thing, MySpace is being mentioned a lot. The chaps with consoles are raising an eyebrow, perhaps, as this alternaindustry grows at a startling rate, bridging the whitespace between both the games and web industries."
I have been noodling around about these same feelings myself lately, trying to find a way to write about them on the blog without sounding like someone making unsubstantiated generalizations about the games industry. My thoughts about this have been pretty much based on instinct, a visceral response to what I have been exposed to in my introduction to my game education, and they haven't been settling in comfortably with me. Now that I hear similar ideas being expressed by someone running right along the edge of industry developments, smack dab in the middle of the GDC, I feel a little more comfortable expressing some of these gut feelings here.
Almost the entire reason for me starting and writing this blog, from its very inception, has been about the glaring need for better representation of women gamers in the industry. There has been a shift in my point of view - from originally seeing things as a gamer to looking at things from the point of view of someone wanting to work in the industry toward that change, but the focus has stayed the same. It only seems rational that the industry needs more women making games before it will begin producing games that more women will enjoy playing. But what has been percolating under the surface for me since taking the steps toward entering that industry is that the rational approach may not be the best approach, at least for me.
I now feel that the entire structure of the game industry is limited. I no longer see the possibility that large shifts will occur from within that structure, but I do see those shifts occurring already from outside independent forces. There will always be a fixed market for the kind of games that make up what we now think of when we think about mainstream games - the WoWs, Dooms, Halos, Ghost Recons, and Medals of Honor will continue to be successful in the way that summer blockbuster movies are. Like the big budget Hollywood model, the increased cost of producing games will limit the comfort level with change from those previously successful recipes, including even the small changes that might expand the audience to include more women. Games like The Sims and Spore - truly innovative and hugely successful games, are not going to emerge from that structure. Will Wright is the exception and definitely not the rule.
This is a 180 degree turn-around in thinking for me, and I am not sure yet where this is going to lead me, if anywhere at all. I would appreciate being able to have a dialogue about these thought here on the Guilded Lilies blog, and will be writing more about this in upcoming posts. Let me know your thoughts, and thanks yet again to Alice at Wonderland for her interesting coverage of the GDC.
There is an interesting exchange of ideas floating around the gaming blogosphere related to the primary artwork associated with game marketing - box art covers - and how these images might appeal to women gamers. This discussion originated in a post on the Yudhishthira's Dice blog, where Brand asks this question:
"Ladies, what RPG covers (or interiors) have you seen that involve a woman in the art that make you say, "I want to play that" or, just as good "I want to play her." Or that make you feel like it is a game you could like, or be included in by a group of guys you'd never met and whose maturity you didn't neccisarily know?"
Tekanji over at the Official Shrub.Com Blog (with her usual skill of knowing a good idea when she sees one) has turned this into a meme and has received a number of good responses. Here at Guilded Lilies (with MY usual skill of not catching onto a good thing until everyone else has moved on to something else) I have decided to add my perspective to the dialogue.
I would like to discuss two covers from RPGs for the PC that have good inclusive box art. Below are images from Dungeon Siege and the DS Legends of Aranna expansion pack. Both covers are pretty much the same, but it was the first Dungeon Siege box that got me interested in playing the game and had me looking forward to the later expansion of the game.
Click on images for a larger version.
This cover art works for me primarily because it shows a female character that isn't objectified, but instead looks capable and ready to get things accomplished in the game world. The expression on her face is confident and self-assured, with a dash of sass in her wry smile. At the time I played the original Dungeon Siege I wasn't familiar with the kind of female characters being designed to appeal exclusively to the hard core male gamer demographic, so my original reaction on seeing this cover art wasn't in relation to what it wasn't showing me - overly sexualized female game characters. I didn't read it as necessarily inclusive to me as a woman gamer, because I didn't realize at that time just how non-inclusive most game art could be toward women gamers. Call me naive, but my interest in this game was based purely on it making me feel that it was a perfectly normal thing for me to want to play a fantasy RPG on my computer - and that is precisely why I think it is successful. That feeling was reinforced by gameplay that lived up the inclusive artwork on the cover, and I was able to enjoy playing an equally strong female character with none of the starting stat differences between genders present in other fantasy RPGs.
The one important thing I would like to point out about my experience with the Dungeon Siege cover artwork is that this box art didn't just sell me on this particular game and the expansion pack, but it also turned me into a gamer. Dungeon Siege was the first real PC game that I played with anything like dedication, even though I played other computer games before that (the Myst games, and some other casual games). Until I played Dungeon Siege I would have never considered myself a gamer, and it opened up my interest in finding more games like it to play. The inclusive quality of that artwork is what led me into the whole genre of fantasy RPGs on the computer, and led to me playing a load of other kinds of games that followed. As many of you know, I came to playing games later in life, and rather than having access to being introduced to games through a sibling's console I had to cross the line of perception - that games are for immature boys - on my own. I'm not sure I would have done that without the help of a game like Dungeon Siege, which thankfully had a marketing department with enough sense to sell their game in a way that didn't automatically exclude someone like myself from buying it.
This is an open ended meme, in that I am not going to tag anyone in particular. If you are interested in throwing your point of view into the pot, have at it - also, this meme is not limited to just video games. Here are the details of the original meme as posted on the Official Shrub.Com Blog:
Meme Rules:
All I would add is that I would like it if you would also leave a track-back link to my post if you are writing yours after reading about it on Guilded Lilies. Thanks!
UPDATE 3/3/07: I only just now noticed that 100LittleDolls tagged me earlier, so HERE is a link of thanks to her response to this meme. Sorry I missed it earlier, thanks!
I just read through a great article on gaygamer.net written by Tiny Dancer. The post is called Metasex Appeal: Why Games Might Be More Gay-Friendly Than We Think, and is worth taking the time to read through. Go ahead and read it, and then we can see what you think.
I find an interesting parallel in this piece to some of the issues that have been discussed on Guilded Lilies in the past, especially in relation to how games can be designed to be more inclusive for women gamers. I have often expressed my belief that it wouldn't take much at all to remove the largest and most obvious barriers to women gamers, and for the most part I can see that awareness working its way into the collective consciousness of the game making psyche. In a similar way, Tiny Dancer is saying this about his hopes for gay gamers:
"I suppose the heart of the matter is that I'm rethinking my position on the nature of what a "gay game" might look like. It's not that I'm rescinding my hope for an all-out responsibly designed gay main character or gay-targeted game; rather, I'm asking myself if in our anticipation we might be overlooking a culturally relevant subliminal and transitional period similar to the sea-change that's taken place in gay-targeted print and TV ads."
In other words; the revolution might just be a quiet one. I can see the same quiet revolution happening for women gamers as well, as the full financial impact of this growing multi-billion dollar industry starts to stretch itself beyond its fanboy roots. In a sense, I am hoping that the changes are already in place in the development cycle, and that women gamers and gay gamers (and gay women gamers too) will see the results sooner than we expect. Maybe it will be such a subtle shift that it won't be obvious that things have changed all that much, at least for a while. But someday we will look back at all the rabid commentary from the fanboy gamers and websites (you know who you are . . .) the way we look back on all the immature insults of junior high. And we will sigh and say - Thank the Gods THAT is over with!
And your thoughts are . . .?
You may have noticed that things have been a little quiet at Guilded Lilies. First there was the entire month of September that I took off from blogging, and then there was the month of October with barely enough posts to distinguish it from the previous month. November postings have been pretty scarce as well. For all (both) of you who have been wondering what is up with the GL blog, wonder no more.
I am very pleased to announce that I have been accepted into the Masters of Interactive Technology, Art Creation Specialization, at The Guildhall at SMU. In January I will begin a two year intensive program to learn everything I need to know (but was afraid to ask) about how to create art assets for the digital games industry. I spent the month of September preparing a very involved portfolio assignment for my application, which was the reason for my blog vacation. I then spent the month of October and most of November fretting over whether I would get into the program, and was thus too preoccupied to think about anything else, including blogging. Now that I have been accepted, I am up to my neck in the details of packing and moving and preparing to start school after the first of the year.
The result of this will be a shift in focus for the Guilded Lilies blog, which will mean that for the next few months posts will be few and far between as I relocate and settle into the school routine. The Guildhall program is intense, with little time for anything else, but I hope to maintain the GL blog - albeit in a different format. At this point I expect to blog primarily about my experiences as a grown woman learning how to work in the digital games industry. This may mean that the format will become less focused on opinion pieces (not that I won't still have an opinion, far from it) and more of a personal journal blog. I will also focus on the specifics of digital art creation for the game industry, as soon as I learn enough to have something to say about it. The blog may be too much for me to keep up with once reality sets in, but I am determined to keep it going at least on some level.
So now that I have an exciting future of creating artwork for digital games ahead of me, think of the Guilded Lilies blog as making a subtle shift from Grown Women Playing Games to add Grown Women Making Games to the mix. It may be dull here until after the holidays, but things are going to get much more exciting once I get started. I can't believe I am really going to get to do this, and I look forward to sharing my amazement with you here as my education progresses.
Next Generation has recently posted a list of "50 Books for Everyone In the Game Industry", (link via Wonderland, where all good links come from!) put together by game designer and author Ernest Adams. The task of putting together such a list in the first place is in no way an easy one, and Adams explains the limitations of his list in the introduction. He purposely left out any tech specific books, so my personal interest in finding good books on creating game art isn't covered there. It is an interesting list, and I will certainly spend some time looking into a few of the titles he recommends. I would also be interested in seeing a list like this put together that suggests more non-industry books (there are a few included in his list) as a way to broaden the scope of thinking for people inside the industry. The one example that jumps out at me is the book A Pattern Language, by Christopher Alexander. Adams says about this book "Will Wright says that this book was part of the inspiration for The Sims." That sentence alone is enough to get me interested in reading this title, and so I think it would be fabulous to also see a list of other books like this, ones outside the gaming mainstream, that have been inspirational to leaders in the industry.
I have had it in the back of my mind to write up a review of a few good game related books I have been reading lately. In the spirit of supplementing the areas of Adams list that were necessarily brief I will throw a few more titles out for those of you who share my interest in learning more about the art creation aspect of games. I don't have Adams' professional experience to offer - my perspective is that of the rank amateur eager to find the right book to learn something useful on my own. Computer books are expensive, and there is nothing more disappointing that plunking down $30 - $50 on a title that doesn't really deliver on the promises made on the cover. This is especially the case when buying books online, when the only real information you have is what other people have to say about the book. Hopefully you will find something useful here.
First on my list is a title that Adams includes: Creating the Art of the Game, by Matthew Omernick, 2004. This book is a simple introduction to the processes of producing game art. This is not a book that contains software specific tutorials; although there are a few brief descriptions of how certain tasks are done in Photoshop, Maya and 3D Studio Max. It is a book for beginners, and provides a helpful introduction to the basic functions of the elements used in art creation, with chapters on textures, modeling, lighting and effects. It is a well designed book, with helpful illustrations and an engaging text. I highly recommend this one!
As a companion to the above title, you might also be interested in finding a copy of Game Art: The Graphic Art of Computer Games by Morris and Hartas, 2003. This is a pretty fluffy book, so don't expect to learn anything deep or meaningful from reading this one. Instead it is a large format picture book with a wide range of game art offered in full color. I have found it useful to look at the variety of images from a wide range of games, especially since I haven't seen many of these games from playing them myself. I picked this up cheaply online, but you may also be able to find a copy of this in your local library.
The next great title is: Game Art: Creation, Direction, and Careers, by Riccard Linde, 2005. This is a perfect follow up to Omernick's book, as it takes all of the topics in his book to greater detail, and throws in a useful look at the specifics of careers available for game artists. If you read Creating the Art of the Game and find you want to know more, this book is the next step.
There are two books on creating textures that I have found very helpful: the first is 3D Game Textures by Luke Ahearn that I discussed in detail in THIS earlier post. The second book is The Dark Side of Game Texturing by David Franson. This book offers more of the same helpful sort of step-by-step Photoshop tutorials of Ahearn's book, but with an emphasis on the types of textures used in FPS and action games. These two books cover pretty similar ground, so you may not feel the need to buy both of them (in which case I would recommend Ahearn's book, which is much
more comprehensive) but I was happy to have more tutorials and the different perspective that Franson's book offers.
I recently found the book Action Anatomy by Takashi Iijima, 2004. It is full of useful visual information on the human figure, and is an excellent reference for character design. It was put together specifically for game design, animation and digital artists, and is a reference book that I am sure I will use again and again.
The last two books I will mention are waiting in the wings - I have them on hand but I haven't had a chance to read through them yet. They both look very promising, and offer another level of information for the would-be game artist. Both of these titles are designed for digital artists in general, rather than specifically for game artists. I will let you know more about these once I get a chance to dig into them.
I am interested to hear what you think of this book list, and would also love to hear about any more of these kinds of books that you would recommend. All the title links will take you to Amazon.com where you can find more detailed information on the books and can read the customer reviews. You may also be able to get used versions of books for a lot less than the cover prices from Amazon or one of the many other used book websites online.
There is an excellent article up on the BBC website by Jane Wakefield: All Women Gamers Please Stand Up. Take a few minutes to read it when you have a chance. In usual BBC fashion this piece cuts through the fuss, is free of the usual gender antics, and clearly sorts out the place women gamers are at. How refreshing!
This one quote from the article jumped out at me:
"EA's chief executive, David Gartner admitted at a recent gaming conference that his company could increase sales by a billion dollars if it cracked the problem of how to get women more involved in games."
I can imagine no better motivation for game developers to consider women as a market than this image: An enormous green wave of money flowing from women's pockets and collectively washing over the game industry. Money is the great equalizer, and it is in the process of transforming the game industry into an interactive entertainment Titan. Thankfully it is now becoming clear that women will be recognized for their interest in this new medium, if for no other reason, then at least for the contents of our pocketbooks.
What is great about this article is all the comments from readers. Here are a few of my favorites:
"Women buy more magazines than men so why not a gaming mag for women? If the industry stopped targeting men between the ages of 18-25 with their advertising and made it more unisex, then maybe that would go someway to solving the problem." - Tracie, Wales
I've been gaming since I was a girl although I actually prefer gaming with someone else- either two player games or as a partner on a more elaborate game. My husband is great at manipulating characters on screen and fight sequences but often lacks an overview and problem solving skills whereas I am the opposite so we have developed a passion for playing games together, using both our natural skills. It means he can enjoy the adventure and puzzle solving games that he normally would get stuck on and I get to enjoy the action games that I find frustrating to move about in. I'm fearful of saying that this reflects a gender split but perhaps it reflects the way that we complement each other.
For us it's a social activity unlike watching and consumming TV or films- are we alone in gaming like this? Do things always have to be polarized? - Jenny Jones, Bristol
"The point is, it doesn't matter whether a game is aimed at men or women, the point is that the industry should forget trying all kinds of gimmicks to sell their wares and instead focus on giving us (men and woman gamers) quality games instead of poorly made games that should be shunned by all of us." - Chetna, Vilvoorde,Belgium
"The companies involved in the gaming industry are thinking way too hard. A Desperate Housewives game? Please. We don't need "girly" games.
We play the same games as the boys do. We like strategy games and action games and shooters. Don't insult our intelligence.
Here's what the games industry can do to bring in more of the ladies: give us real women characters. Don't give us the sassy vixen who speaks in constant double entendres, or the blushing damsel who needs rescuing. Don't make us wear body armor that covers less than a bathing suit. Don't make us play the sidekick; give us a real heroine. We want to be what we are: brave, clever, and every bit as capable as a man." - Larkin, San Francisco, USA
"I've been gaming all my life, and frankly most of the games I've seen that have been targeted at female gamers are...awful. I personally don't need pink and fluffy to make me play a game, what I want is glitch free coding and female characters that aren't solely there to provide eye candy, and don't spend the whole time trying to get into the male lead's underwear." - Sarah Young, Durham
It cheers my little old gamer's soul to read these comments, especially associated with something published by the BBC. Let's hope the discussion of women gamers can remain as clear and productive as this as it continues to progress.
Link via wonderful Wonderland.
I'm breaking radio silence to post a link to this just released article on Next Generation:
GAME INDUSTRY'S 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL WOMEN
Be sure to browse through all 11 pages of the article to see the profiles of all these great women working in important jobs in the digital games industry. Congratulations to Wonderland's Alice Taylor and the 99 other women on the list!
UPDATE 10/4/06: HERE is Next Generation's follow-up article that includes reader's nominations for women not included in the original list of 100 (via Wonderland).
I know this is slightly old news, but I came across this curious bit of game development news in my in-box this morning via the Gamasutra Career Newsletter - it is a call for applications for the recently formed Slipgate Ironworks MMO project headed by the closest thing that the game industry has for a tabloid darling - John Romero of Doom fame:
"John Romero's newly founded and funded MMO game company in the Bay Area is developing a Super Secret Mystery Project that will be revealed to only the most qualified candidates!
My executive cabal and I are very excited to build an amazing development team and create something truly unique. . . Apply now and prepare to enter the reality distortion field!"
Must . . . not . . . mock . . . game . . . developers . . . arghhh! I will say that this job listing did stand out from the others in the email so it is surely distinctive. Do you suppose that applicants deemed unfit by the Executive Cabal ever return from that Reality Distortion Field? And does anyone know how I can receive a John Romero Super Secret Mystery Project decoder ring?
If you feel up for the running of the gauntlet at Slipgate Ironworks you can read the full listing of job openings HERE.
You can read more about the launch of Slipgate Ironworks HERE and HERE.
At the recent Women in Games International conference keynote speaker Denise Fulton, head of Midway"s Austin studio, had this to say on the topic of getting more women working in the game design industry:
“I’m a hiring manager,” Fulton explained. “I’ve been a hiring manager for a number of years. One out of maybe twenty resumes I see is from a woman – that’s not about who’s good, who’s bad – you’re just not seeing them apply.”
She expresses one of the ultimate issues responsible for the number of women working in the industry - the limited number of women applying for jobs. In this second part of my interview with AI Programmer Tara Teich (read the first post HERE) I have asked her some questions specific to the point of attracting more women to game development:
Guilded Lily: The number of women working in game design has been slowly increasing, but there is still a vast majority of men working in the field. What do you see as the major obstacles to getting more women involved in the game industry, and what do you think could bring more women into this field?
Tara Teich: So many people are trying to answer this question. I think there are so many issues here. First, why aren't there more women programmers in general? I remember reading a great article in the Boston Globe about this. And thanks to the power of the internet, you can too: LINK HERE (free registration required).
The basic idea is that during the dot-com era, everyone and their cousin was becoming a computer science major so they could make big bucks. With overwhelming class sizes, the profs starting trying to weed people out by making the intro classes really tough. In these weed-out situations, you lose a higher percentage of women then men, or so says the article.
I know that was the case at my school. Many women I know either took the intro CS class and then stopped because it was too tough, or were intimidated out of it by reputation alone. Fewer women go into CS as a result.
This is probably a bit of a touchy subject, but I'm going to say what I think. Women are more social then men. Not *all* women of course. But as an aggregate, women are a more social creature then men. Programming tends to be a very solitary, very isolating path. You need to be satisfied working on challenges within your own head, and not necessarily interacting with people at all. Once you get out into the workforce, programming is a much more shared challenge. But in school, group projects are few and small. I think many women get turned off by that sort of required solitude.
Next up, the challenges of getting into the industry. This issue applies to both programmers and designers. Start with the pool of programmers - already not many women there, my graduating class had 10% women, in 2000 - and let's start applying to the games industry. Send out those resumes and hear nothing back. We lose some people to well paying non-industry jobs. Some stick it out, they make demos, they take internships for little pay and apply again. We lose some more. After all this, how many are left at all? What percent of them were women to begin with?
GL: I get the sense that programming is the area of the game industry that has the lowest percentage of women. Do you know if that is the case?
TT: I don't actually know. I've only worked at one game company so far, and the numbers of women that I've seen at all are too low to be able to make that kind of a generalization. On my last project, however, we had three women programmers at one point, out of 10 programmers total. That was quite exciting. But very unusual.
GL: What are some of the better approaches you have seen to encourage more women to consider the game industry as a career?
TT: I think the biggest change for the better has been the rise of "geek chic." It's become increasingly "cool" to be a geek. When I was growing up, I was mocked by my peers as a nerd for my love of gaming. No one admired me for being a girl into gaming. I don't know what's caused the cultural shift (maybe the dot-com era and the realization that being a nerd can bring in the bucks?), but today everyone I meet thinks it's totally awesome that I'm a gamer. Kids today don't have the same difficulties that some of us had. It's fine if a little girl wants to play a computer game now - gaming has just become more mainstream. With more and more girls growing up gamers, it becomes more likely that more of them will want to make games.
Everyone is constantly discussing what we can do to bring more women into the games industry, but I don't think we need to work so hard at it. I think it's getting better every year because of this gradual cultural shift. More women play games, more women will make games.
I think the best thing to do is to constantly encourage girls and remind them they can do whatever they want. Send women from the games industry to talk to the girls and tell them about their jobs. Send women to universities to remind them as they grow that we're out here and we're having fun.
GL: Do you feel that as the game industry grows that the percentage of women working in game design will naturally increase, or do you feel that there will need to be a continuing effort to increase the number of women in game design.
TT: I think I covered this a bit. Yes, I think it will naturally increase. But I do think that some game companies need to grow with the times and make sure they become welcoming to women. I had the good fortune to work at a place were I was completely respected, but I've heard from women in the industry who had terrible experiences where they were made to feel like their gender was all that mattered. I'm sure this is true in many non-game companies as well, but it's something that we should be extra aware of as companies that were female-free for many years gain their first women employees.
Thanks very much to Tara for taking time out from her busy schedule to answer these questions, and best of luck to her in her new job. You can keep up with Tara's progress via her blog, Free Candy for Everyone.
At the recent Women in Games International conference keynote speaker Denise Fulton, head of Midway"s Austin studio, had this to say on the topic of getting more women working in the game design industry:
“I’m a hiring manager,” Fulton explained. “I’ve been a hiring manager for a number of years. One out of maybe twenty resumes I see is from a woman – that’s not about who’s good, who’s bad – you’re just not seeing them apply.”
She expresses one of the ultimate issues responsible for the number of women working in the industry - the limited number of women applying for jobs. In this second part of my interview with AI Programmer Tara Teich (read the first post HERE) I have asked her some questions specific to the point of attracting more women to game development:
Guilded Lily: The number of women working in game design has been slowly increasing, but there is still a vast majority of men working in the field. What do you see as the major obstacles to getting more women involved in the game industry, and what do you think could bring more women into this field?
Tara Teich: So many people are trying to answer this question. I think there are so many issues here. First, why aren't there more women programmers in general? I remember reading a great article in the Boston Globe about this. And thanks to the power of the internet, you can too: LINK HERE (free registration required).
The basic idea is that during the dot-com era, everyone and their cousin was becoming a computer science major so they could make big bucks. With overwhelming class sizes, the profs starting trying to weed people out by making the intro classes really tough. In these weed-out situations, you lose a higher percentage of women then men, or so says the article.
I know that was the case at my school. Many women I know either took the intro CS class and then stopped because it was too tough, or were intimidated out of it by reputation alone. Fewer women go into CS as a result.
This is probably a bit of a touchy subject, but I'm going to say what I think. Women are more social then men. Not *all* women of course. But as an aggregate, women are a more social creature then men. Programming tends to be a very solitary, very isolating path. You need to be satisfied working on challenges within your own head, and not necessarily interacting with people at all. Once you get out into the workforce, programming is a much more shared challenge. But in school, group projects are few and small. I think many women get turned off by that sort of required solitude.
Next up, the challenges of getting into the industry. This issue applies to both programmers and designers. Start with the pool of programmers - already not many women there, my graduating class had 10% women, in 2000 - and let's start applying to the games industry. Send out those resumes and hear nothing back. We lose some people to well paying non-industry jobs. Some stick it out, they make demos, they take internships for little pay and apply again. We lose some more. After all this, how many are left at all? What percent of them were women to begin with?
GL: I get the sense that programming is the area of the game industry that has the lowest percentage of women. Do you know if that is the case?
TT: I don't actually know. I've only worked at one game company so far, and the numbers of women that I've seen at all are too low to be able to make that kind of a generalization. On my last project, however, we had three women programmers at one point, out of 10 programmers total. That was quite exciting. But very unusual.
GL: What are some of the better approaches you have seen to encourage more women to consider the game industry as a career?
TT: I think the biggest change for the better has been the rise of "geek chic." It's become increasingly "cool" to be a geek. When I was growing up, I was mocked by my peers as a nerd for my love of gaming. No one admired me for being a girl into gaming. I don't know what's caused the cultural shift (maybe the dot-com era and the realization that being a nerd can bring in the bucks?), but today everyone I meet thinks it's totally awesome that I'm a gamer. Kids today don't have the same difficulties that some of us had. It's fine if a little girl wants to play a computer game now - gaming has just become more mainstream. With more and more girls growing up gamers, it becomes more likely that more of them will want to make games.
Everyone is constantly discussing what we can do to bring more women into the games industry, but I don't think we need to work so hard at it. I think it's getting better every year because of this gradual cultural shift. More women play games, more women will make games.
I think the best thing to do is to constantly encourage girls and remind them they can do whatever they want. Send women from the games industry to talk to the girls and tell them about their jobs. Send women to universities to remind them as they grow that we're out here and we're having fun.
GL: Do you feel that as the game industry grows that the percentage of women working in game design will naturally increase, or do you feel that there will need to be a continuing effort to increase the number of women in game design.
TT: I think I covered this a bit. Yes, I think it will naturally increase. But I do think that some game companies need to grow with the times and make sure they become welcoming to women. I had the good fortune to work at a place were I was completely respected, but I've heard from women in the industry who had terrible experiences where they were made to feel like their gender was all that mattered. I'm sure this is true in many non-game companies as well, but it's something that we should be extra aware of as companies that were female-free for many years gain their first women employees.
Thanks very much to Tara for taking time out from her busy schedule to answer these questions, and best of luck to her in her new job. You can keep up with Tara's progress via her blog, Free Candy for Everyone.
The topic of women working in the game industry has come up a number of times on the Guilded Lilies blog. When looking at issues in game development that impact women gamers, especially elements that work as a barrier to women players, the general solution always ends up having to do with getting more women involved in the development of games. The rough estimate of the number of women working in the game industry today is 10%, and many companies are making efforts to see that number
increase.
I am interested in finding out more about the women who are involved in this industry, and what they think will help attract more women to game development. To that end I have put together a two-part interview with Tara Teich. Tara is an AI programmer working in the games industry. I met Tara on the Women in Game Development email list, where she can be counted on to express a clear perspective on the issues discussed there. I was curious to find out more about Tara's work, and her insights about what it is like for her working in the games industry. Tara took some time out from preparing for her move to the west coast to answer some questions.
I asked her to introduce herself and the games she has worked on:
My name is Tara Teich and I'm 27. I've been working in the Boston area for 6 years and am in the midst of moving to the Bay Area. My MobyGames profile is complete, so that's the easiest place to look for the games I've worked on: LINK HERE.
Guilded Lily: How long have you been working in the games industry, and what type of work do you do in making games?
Tara Teich: I've been in the games industry for six years. I'm a programmer with a specialty in Artificial Intelligence. Most recently I was the AI Lead on Empire Earth II and then the Lead Programmer on the EE2 expansion pack. While AI is quickly becoming one of the newest buzz words in game news, many folks don't really know what working on a game's AI really means. EE2 is a real-time strategy title - the easiest way to consider it is as the computer opponent. When you play against the computer, everything it does is AI - deciding how to gather resources, where and what buildings to construct, what troops to build and where to send them - these are all elements of the AI.
GL: What is your education background - did you want to work in the games industry while still in school?
TT: I have a BS in Computer Science from Northwestern University. I always knew I wanted to be a games programmer, but wasn't necessarily sure how it would come about. I first started programming really trivial Basic games when I was 11 - nothing anyone would want to play, but my heart was in the right place. I entered Northwestern certain the CS was the right degree for me. When it got along to my senior year I was determined to land a job in the games industry, but knew it was pretty difficult to do, so was willing to accept some sort of software engineer position as a fallback if absolutely necessary.
GL: With your experience working in the games industry, how important do you feel a specific education in game design is? Do you think it is better to learn-as-you-go through job experience or to start from a strong educational background in game design?
TT: I'd first like to make it clear that I'm a programmer, not a designer. These are two completely separate jobs. I saw many job candidates come through the door for a programming position when they really want to be game designers. They are not the same thing, and in most cases, you cannot be both - at least not on a big budget "AAA" title.
As a programmer, I don't think a specific game curriculum is needed. The most important things I looked for when hiring new programmers was intelligence and passion. If you made 10 games at your specialty game programming school but you're not bright and excited, I wouldn't hire you. You need to care about your work, be willing to devote yourself to your job, and realize how much there is that you don't know. That's what matters.
As I've said, I'm not a game designer, but I've had the pleasure of working with many. None of our designers had any sort of specific training - they had history degrees, CS degrees, English degrees. Most came into the industry by proving themselves in the QA department. They bring varied knowledge, and again, passion and enthusiasm. Those are the things you need above all else.
GL: Have you ever been in a work environment that was not supportive of you?
TT: Never. I know how rare that is, and I consider myself incredibly lucky. I've never had my gender become a factor in my career. Everyone has always dealt fairly with me and appreciated what I know and can do, not what I look like.
GL: What specifically drew you to game development? What is it about game development that you would recommend to other women considering pursuing a career in that field?
TT: I love games. That's the bottom line. I've been playing video games for as far back as I can remember. The idea that I could be a part of crafting something that could bring someone else as much entertainment as I received was really exciting. I don't even remember the desire to work in the industry as a decision - it was just something I always knew I was going to do.
GL: Do you still have time to play games? What are a few of your current favorites outside of the ones you have worked on?
TT: I do have time to play games. For the last year, I've been playing way too much World of Warcraft. I'm just a little bit addicted. :) I have a regular group that plays every Sunday night, and it's a lot of fun. Before the WoW addiction started I played a lot of strategy games on PC - Civilization is my all time favorite, and I got a little time in on Civ 4. I played some Galatic Civilizations 2 when it came out as well. Console RPGs are my other big interest. I was sooo close to the end of this one title called Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne (I was in the final dungeon of this large RPG) when I started playing WoW and unfortunately I've never quite made it back to complete it. I really like the Final Fantasy series - FFX and X-2 had some great emotional impact for me. Oh, and the first Xenosaga was fantastic! But I digress. Yes, I have time to play games, even in the industry. I make games because I love them, and I think if my job took that away from me, I wouldn't want to do it anymore.
Tara has her own blog Free Candy for Everyone where she writes about games, tech gadgets and movies.
Stay tuned for part two of my interview with Tara Teich: Getting More Women into Game Development.
Since the last post featuring a YouTube clip was so much fun, I decided to run this one as well. I found this clip via Wonderland's del.icio.us links for 6/26/06, and features the speech given by Joss Whedon at the May 15th Equality Now event honoring "his outstanding contribution to gender equality in film and television."
Take a few minutes to hear what he has to say:
He is speaking about women characters in film and television, but his perspective is equally valid for game characters as well. He has expressed so much in this short speech with a great deal of insight and clarity, which is what makes this so wonderful to listen to. Even though what he has to say here speaks to many levels of interactions between men and women, this particular answer to the repeated question "So, why do you write these strong women characters?" offers a particular interest when applied to game design:
"Well, because these stories give people strength, and I've heard it from a number of people and I've felt it myself, and it's not just women its men. And I think there is something particular about a female protagonist that allows a man to identify with her that opens up something that he might - an aspect of himself he might be unable to express, hopes and desires he might be uncomfortable expressing - through a male identification figure."
He captures an element that I have tried to express in previous posts (never anywhere near as clearly), how designing games with strong women characters isn't just a nod to women gamers, but is equally important for the men playing these games as well. As he says, it's about balance, and it isn't just that it is the right thing to do, it makes for more compelling stories and for engaging and successful entertainment.
I will close with this quote from Joss Whedon's speech, and hope that the time will be soon when the perspective will shift to asking:
"Why aren't you asking 100 other guys why they don't write strong women characters?"
I have been looking for a reason to embed a YouTube clip into the Guilded Lilies blog (ALL the kids are doing it!) and I finally came across a good one. A recent Gamasutra article alerted me to the release of a Daily Show segment called Player Haters, which appeared on the show in response to the recent Congressional hearing: “Violent and Explicit Video Games: Informing Parents and Protecting Children”. The clips on the Daily Show website never run well for me, so I headed over to YouTube to find it there.
The following clip starts at the beginning of the show, with the Player Haters segment starting around the 2 minute mark. Enjoy the show!
Lately I find I am spending most of my spare time working on building my game creation skills instead of playing games. My interest in modding The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion has spurred me to translate my otherwise specialized computer skills into something more useful for game design. I am interested in learning 3D modeling, and have downloaded a free student version of Maya 7, but I am presently working on learning how to create 2D textures for use with 3D models using Photoshop.
Textures are something that I never gave much thought to with all my game playing. Their presence is essential to the look and feel of any gaming environment, but additionally a well designed texture avoids drawing too much attention to itself. In the games I have played the textures have succeeded in creating a seamless experience of immersion in the game world they adorn, and so I never paid much attention to them. Now that I am learning how to create textures I am much more aware of their use and design in games, and have spent most of my time playing games lately simply wandering around in the game worlds to see how they are textured.
I was ever so fortunate, thanks to the kindness and generosity of my brother and his wife, to receive a full version of Photoshop CS2 for my birthday. I was thrilled to get the box in the mail, and have done little else but work with Photoshop since the software arrived - hence the dearth of posts on GL recently. Before loading up CS2 onto my system I used Photoshop Elements, and the difference is vast. I can't get over all the things I can do with CS2, and I find that when I imagine wanting to do something a particular way, there is an intuitive process already built into the software to get it done.
I have been following the tutorials in the book 3D Game Textures: Creating Professional Game Art Using Photoshop, by Luke Ahearn. This is a beginner's level book, and as such, has been very helpful for getting me up and running in learning how to use Photoshop to achieve great results. I have worked through about half of the book so far, and recommend it to anyone who is starting out like I am. The book has a few rough spots in the tutorials, which may be due to my inexperience, or the small differences between Photoshop CS (which is the version the book was written using) and CS2. Being a visual artist by trade, I would like to see more pictures in the book as well. Overall it has been a wonderful guide for me, and has really added to my general Photoshop skills in addition to the specifics in creating game textures.
The title of my post comes from the following quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson:
"All that is in the world, which is or ought to be known, is cunningly wrought into the texture of man, of woman."
Due to my present mindset involving game textures, when I read this quote I thought that if you insert the word virtual before world, you also end up with an appropriate way of looking at the role of texture artists in the design of game worlds. I have a new appreciation for texture design in computer games from learning about how it is done firsthand, and have gained another level of enjoyment in the game worlds I spend time exploring.
I am looking for a more advanced book on game texturing as a follow-up to this one, and would love to hear any of your recommendations.
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