Comments on: Games for Change 2006 – Report

By: mary

mary — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 18:14:22 +0000

patrick – everyone – thanks for the discussion. I would wager that perhaps more young white men are documented as being parts of movements, but women are often just as active in political and social movements. Their contributions just aren’t as well recorded in the cannonization process and they are often collaborative.

For women game designers, in addition to katie and me, also check out tracey fullerton, celia pearce, chris trottier, heather kelly, sheri graner ray, and others… you can find out about some via ; also some companies are more open to others as far as hiring women (ex Amaze Entertainment).

By: mark

mark — Mon, 03 Jul 2006 16:24:20 +0000

That’s something I’ve found interesting, in that it seems like activist media, especially radical activist media that eschews previous assumptions, ought to be a fairly level playing field, since you can almost literally do anything so long as someone is convinced that it’s interesting. Yet somehow it seems to mostly, with a few notable exceptions, be young white males. I’m mostly familiar with that sort of thing in the context of late-70s/early-80s radical music (and various musical offshoots to the present day), in which the only three reasonably prominent people bucking that trend I can think of are Lydia Lunch (no-wave poet/musician/artist), Eve Libertine (of punk band Crass), and Jarboe (of no-wave offshoot band Swans). I’m probably overlooking some, but the proportions do seem to be off.

Interestingly, the demographic bias in that area isn’t towards *straight* young white men; if anything, gay white men are very overrepresented, and gay clubs, especially in London, were often meeting places and centers of collaboration.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Sat, 01 Jul 2006 23:19:11 +0000

Oh yeah, I write in that essay that I only know of two innovative female game designers: Roberta Williams and Mare Sheppard. Since then I read the paper on your Dancing/Imitation/Teach-Girls-To-Program game and I was very impressed. Also Katie Salen has done some interesting work, and I know there are a handful of others. Half of the core design team on Spore are women, as well as an above average chunck of the whole team. My friend Bonnie has aspirations of designing a game that turns typical gender conventions on its head, but the issue it seems is providing tool sets for non-technical people. Do that and you’ll see PLENTY of female game designers doing interesting work.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Sat, 01 Jul 2006 23:08:20 +0000

Cindy, sad as it is (and this is coming from a young white male) the patterns of activist movements in the past have typically been saturated with white men as the early adopters, as recently as the Beat movement of the 1950’s. The advent of feminism proceeded this, so men aren’t nessecarily catalysts for social activism, just the statistical norm given the patterns of history.

Mary, I don’t have any playable work in this regard, as I’m still fairly early on in my career and have been primarily focusing on commercial projects. The last game I worked on, a soon to be released indie title called Play With Fire, involves a fireball avatar that ignites different sorts of blocks as its primary mechanic. I had wanted to build a 9-11 level where the player begins inside a metal structure and, in the matter of course escape from this starting point, ends up catalyzing the destruction of the structure and a matching one. The implication is that in passively consuming entertianment (i.e. the game) we are indirectly complicit in U.S. foreign policy (which I consider the piorneering agency of international terrorism) and therefore catalyzsts for the “tragedy” of September 11th. The problem is that most Americans wouldn’t get and/or appreciate that implication, and instead be offended (though I’m sure international players would get a real hoot out of it). My proposal to build the level was rejected by the lead designer.

My current project is set against a pastiche of Irish myth and involves some political and religous thematic undertones, but these are secondary to what is intentionally a commercial product. If thats succesful and I become financially stable I’d like to use the same engine to do a game about school violence. I’m of the Ian Bogost school of procedural activism, don’t imbue a message, just make an interesting social dynamic (or system thereof) and left people draw their own conclusions.

A reletively popular essay I wrote, which references the Beat movement, can be found here if you are interested: http://kingludic.blogspot.com/2006/04/progressive-design.html

By: mary

mary — Sat, 01 Jul 2006 20:06:23 +0000

ian – merci merci i-an-bo-go. I’m your fan. Even if you beat me to Badiou apparently ; >

patrick — i’m thrilled that you are bent on activism. can you post a link to your work>?

cindy! long time no chat. Too bad we didn’t catch up at the conf!! We could have mulled this over in person…
anyway, no, I don’t think that school aged white young men are the primary consumers of all activist media. Hunter’s IMA program focusing on social/activist media is dominated by female makers… and historically, activist video art/public access was a very female-led domain (with groups like paper tiger tv for ex.). I’m sure we could find stats about it–this would be interesting…

I’m pretty certain the gender bias you noted is because of the context of the computer/technocultural saavy games “thing,” the very subtle “one-ups-man-ship” very rampant in our field and particularly in relation to gaming that is manifesting here… In fact, for those of us teaching gaming, I think we’re about to see an accelleration of more women leaving technology related courses (rather than the rhetoric used to get such new games programs through, ie “new games coursework can attract women”) due to the increasing focus on gaming and its ultimate baggage–

If the industry is only appx 10% women in 2006 (see igda industry demographics report, blogged 6 months ago), and very lacking in diverse voices, people of color, various economic backgrounds, &c, we as educators and practitioners *have to act responsibly* –no one teaching technology and design can ignore the state of the industry and must devise strategies to address diverse voices. I strongly believe that anyone who goes *near* gaming as an educator or activist (and hopefully, as a designer!!) must examine/confront the assumptions they might have about gender, ethnicity, and technology, carefully broaden the material they show, &c so as not to reproduce the current problematic gender crisis of the field…

By: Cindy Poremba

Cindy Poremba — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 22:55:15 +0000

On day one, there did seem to be a strong bias towards a certain demographic (male, white, teens) from both the presenters and the bulk of the audience. Tried to raise the question, and was pretty much blown off by the industry panel…

My point was: in any medium, are school aged white boys the primary consumers of social change and activist media?

By: Patrick

Patrick — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 22:36:01 +0000

I’m largely self-taught when it comes to game design, and I feel the “natural activist” stance Salen suggests, I’m very interested in using low overhead tool sets and procedural rhetoric to make a socially relevant game. I’m probably not representative of most wanna-be designers, (or designers in general) but I think a prevelance of tool sets will add to the momentum of these movements, and I’m glad thats the direction you’ve decided to focus on.

By: Ian Bogost

Ian Bogost — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 13:18:47 +0000

Hi Mary! Your panel was great btw!