Larisa and Hatch have beautifully covered the rant side of the latest spat on the “women in games” issue, and I highly recommend their articles. I just wanted to chime in from the other side of the fence. (Yes, I’m a gamer, but today I put my dev hat on.)
I work in games as a technical artist for Wahoo Studios, who also publishes under the NinjaBee name, most recently working on the sequel to A Kingdom for Keflings, recently announced as A World for Keflings. I used to work for Headgate Studios working on Tiger Woods golf games but I left just after EA bought them and converted them to EA Salt Lake. I’ve spent a bit of time in the EA Redwood Shores offices before they became Visceral Games (the campus also housed the Sims studios, though I didn’t get to spend time in those offices). As such, I presently work in a studio with about 25 people, but have worked in one with about 50 people, each for a couple of years, and I’ve worked for a week or so in a studio with hundreds of people.
There are differences between them that owe to a variety of factors, merely one of which is how many ladyfolk are working there. My impressions are not a scientific poll or conclusive evidence of, well… anything, but they are observational anecdotes of my life on “the inside”, as it were.
Caveats and preamble aside, it is my experience that there is a marked difference between offices where women and men work together and those who are staffed entirely with guys. I have worked outside the game industry as well, working in retail bookstores and university computer labs, and while there are also clear differences there when the genders mix as opposed to just “the guys”, the game industry seems to be a bit more polarized.
I do believe that any workplace with men and women working together will see a difference from monogender workplaces. It’s just that video games in general are more of a “boy” thing, and that’s reflected inside the sausage factory as well.
If I may wander off on a brief tangent, I highly recommend the following video, brought to my attention by Toskk over at Andrew’s Of Teeth and Claws blog.
Video Games and the Female Audience
It’s ostensibly on the female audience, but it digs into the dev side as well. It’s a bit of a bird’s eye view, but relevant anyway.
So, back to the office. It’s been my experience that when the office is indeed just a “boys’ club”, it tends to be little better than a cubicle version of a locker room. That is to say, the collective IQ of the room is somewhere around room temperature, conversation is profane and pugnacious, and we wind up with game designs like Gears of War, Grand Theft Auto or BMX XXX. There is little in the way to check the slide into baser instincts and power/sex fantasies. Boys who managed to age without maturing are the inmates in charge of the asylum, and their self-restraint is insufficient to the task.
(Edited to add here: This is a bit of hyperbole, as I’ve worked with some great all-guy teams. I have seen some bad conversations, interestingly more frequently out in Redwood Shores, but I’ve seen some really good ones as well. This is almost more a function of human nature than anything specific to games, but since games tend to be more… playful, some civil restraints tend to slide.)
When women are part of the team, it’s reflexive for the boys to be a bit more restrained. Perhaps this is a Cro-Magnon bit of peacockery, little more than a subconscious mating ritual, but it does tend to change the tenor of a team. It becomes a bit kinder and gentler, more restrained and focused on propriety and getting work done. Game design changes from testosterone-laden junk to something with a bit more class. I think this is a good thing, whatever the impetus.
If that’s a relic of an older, less “progressive” time, where people were more couth and civil, well… I’m one of those who pine for “the old days”. Now get off my lawn.
Of course, once the “token chick” starts cussing up a storm or demonstrating jockish (pun intended) behavior (sometimes just because that’s who they are, sometimes to “fit in with the guys”), the restraints start melting away again. If, however, the women on the team maintain their decorum, the boys tend to maintain rough parity of propriety.
No, that’s not fair to put such a burden of responsibility on the women. The boys should grow up and be men. And yet, it’s almost instinctive to see that sort of boy’s club mentality, and the leavening that comes with the mere presence of a professional woman. (A booth babe on the team wouldn’t really help.)
Perhaps that just underlines the Neanderthal mentality of the gaming culture. It’s a terribly self-reinforcing death spiral in a lot of ways. Games are made by boys in man-sized bodies, and then played by juveniles of all ages who think “mature” means gore and boob physics. There is little impetus for women to even bother with the whole thing, and I can’t argue with a lady who dismisses it all. And then there are those women who do dive in, but are just as bad as the boys. In the end, that doesn’t really change anything either.
On the flipside, there are a few men who manage to mature and still work in the game industry. The game industry is still fairly young, and for the young. A happily married father (or grandfather!) of a few who doesn’t want to work for 80 hours a week in perpetual crunch is something of a rarity in the field. Most find the environment toxic, unrewarding and underwhelming. Still, there are a few, at least, I’ve met a few, and I get the sense that it’s becoming more common as our society is learning to accept games as part of our culture and the industry learns better business practices. Time will tell if these stalwart souls are the vanguard of a better game industry or just victims of an inherently broken system. I believe that as the gamer demographics shift as they have been, the industry will indeed improve. I certainly hope so.
In the meantime, it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that there aren’t many women in the industry. I think the industry would be better off with more women on board. The times I’ve worked with women on the team are better experiences that produce better games. …but I have a hard time recommending it to women, and that makes me sad. I can’t say that I’ll always be working in games, either, and I hope for the true maturation of the medium… but every year that goes by, I feel more like I’m tilting windmills. I stop short of saying we’re stuck… but we’re definitely bogged down by being a “boys’ club”. I see reasons for hope, but equal reasons for caution and couth.
Tish Tosh Tesh 
I’d be inclined to think there are many contemplative men out there too and this isn’t a gender issue, but more of a death spiral where the more boyish the groups get, the more the contemplative people of either gender see that and decide to go elsewhere. That makes those groups even more boyish, which turns away more, and so on. Coupled with the impression games are childish and you get a real brain drain.
I think more probably having people of different cultural backgrounds and some spine might help, rather than a monocultural group, or a group of boys who try to act the same out of peer pressure and for career reasons.
My view from having worked 20 years as a female engineer (and I’m getting out of the field, and in part it’s because … I’m lonely being the only woman in the office and having everyone want to go down the pub to chat rather than to a coffee shop, I know it’s stupid but it gets to you after a while) is that the key is mixed groups.
Not just a male/female mix but also a mix of ages and cultures. That’s what makes for better and more balanced output.
Yes, there are contemplative men out there. I exaggerate a bit, as it happens, since I have had the privilege of working with some great guys. If I were in one of the sweatshops in California, I’m certain things would be different (especially if my experience out in Redwood Shores is any indication). Both local studios I’ve worked for the last few years have a lot of good people in them, and we’ve put out some great games.
I should be clear; the industry at large is saturated with problems, but there are still a lot of good people in the industry. I think that they are outnumbered, and I’m certain that I’ve been lucky to work with the people I have, but the entire industry isn’t a cesspool of testosterone and incompetence.
Even so, there is a marked difference in the conversations that take place when there’s a woman in the room. Maybe that’s an artifact of my local culture, but I saw similar effects in Redwood Shores, and it makes me think that there’s something more… primal at play. And for emphasis, I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I think the industry at large really could benefit from more contemplation and class. I believe that part of that is bringing women into the mix, and treating them far better than games and gamers typically treat women.
Oh, and Spinks, I agree that you want a good mix of people. One of the better teams I’ve worked with was at Headgate/EASL, where we had a couple of 50s-ish gentlemen on the team. They had a perspective and wealth of life experience that a team of brash twentysomething American otaku wouldn’t have, and it grounded conversations and office culture.
Is it showing my age that I mis-read the title of the article as XYZZY?
Fascinating subject by the way and its is great to hear insights from insiders.
One has to wonder if there is a circularity about the whole phenomenon: More guys are into games so more guys write games so more games are written for guys so more guys get into games ….
I usally agree with you, but on this I can’t. Your point is really this: Boys are icky, and we can’t leave them alone because they wont make nice things.
Masculine=Neanderthal.
Women=civilized.
Just put women on the team, and men instantly become civilized, and make female player characters with modest attributes and wearing full armor.
It’s tongue in cheek, but that’s the attitude, and its common. You have to ask yourself, balanced for what? Gears of War and Grand Theft Auto were great games. BMX XXX wasn’t, but not because all the juvenile boys designed it, but because Acclaim was a bad developer anyways. If you are saying locker room banter and all-male developers make worse games, well I kinda doubt that.
mbp, there is definitely some circularity to it. I call it a death spiral for good reason. 😉 It’s not a foregone conclusion, but the positive reinforcement cycle pretty clearly pulls in the “boys’ club” direction.
Dblade, yes, those extremes aren’t always going to be true, and there are Neanderthal women and civilized men. I’m talking of generalities and trends here, though, and there has been some consistency in how people tend to react in my experience. It’s not a matter of a woman instantly purifying and enlightening a room of idiots, but in every case I’ve seen, she will have a leavening effect.
Tangentially, “worse games” may be defined on a couple of different axes. Gears and GTA are very well crafted, but they don’t have the same tenor as The Sims, which is also well crafted. They clearly appeal to different audiences, and were developed by different teams.
Headgate Studios…. did you know my cousin Michael? He worked there before and after it became part of EA. Just curious.
What did he do there, Thallian? The name isn’t ringing a bell at the moment, but then, I *was* over in a corner surrounded by artists.
he was a programmer so I guess not. Tall guy, glasses, funny laugh? No? That’s ok.
Maybe, maybe. It’s been a couple of years… I’d probably recognize his face if I saw him, but yeah, I didn’t get to work directly with many programmers, so I’m not really pegging the name with a face in the ol’ databanks. Ah, well. 😦
As a co-worker of yours, I have to offer my observation that while the men and women at our company have come and gone, we’ve had pretty much the same tone as ever. I think we’re just that kind of group. We’ve never been much of a locker room, even when it’s just the boys around.
I wonder if in our case the cause and effect are reversed… Maybe we hire nice polite people because we want them to fit the existing tone. Maybe we’re more likely to appeal to female applicants? It seems unlikely they’d be able to measure that during an interview and a quick walk through the office.
I do agree with the death-spiral observation! If some people start to get rowdy, there’s a tendency for that attitude to feed on itself. I’ve seen it at other companies, including with the standout rough-talking female scenario you describe.
This is an interesting topic to me. I am disappointed and a bit surprised at the lack of female programmer resumes I’ve seen in the last few years. Roughly guessing from the names on resumes I receive, I’d say 1 out of 50 is female, which is grossly disproportionate to the percentage of female engineers out there in the world. Given that we seem to have no trouble finding female artists and designers, it’s odd.
I’ve worked with some great female game programmers in the past.
Maybe it’s me! I scared them all off. I apologize to the development community as a whole for whatever horrible missteps I have made!
Steve, I’ve wondered about our hiring policy, actually, and how it plays into things. I agree, I’ve not noticed a locker room tone around here, even though we have an “open floor” rather than a cubicle farm. I also wonder if the size of the company has an effect. Headgate was still relatively small when I was there, so things never really got out of hand there either (though I maintain that there are clear differences when there’s a woman around). On the other hand, EA Redwood Shores was just such a huge facility (complete with in-studio game store, exercise room and cafe) that there was almost a subtle “anonymous jerk” effect that could take place. Nobody really knew everyone else, which made for a different workplace tone.
It’s also worth noting that the games we make and that Headgate makes aren’t the same as Dead Space. It may be a bit of chicken and egg going on there, but I can’t be grateful enough that we do dodge a lot of the “seedy” side of gaming.
Then there’s the cultural side, too. California isn’t the same as Utah, for better or worse, and there are some larger sociopolitical effects in play as well.
I took a couple of CS classes at BYU, and there weren’t many women there either. Spinks, any ideas? Maybe that’s another weird artifact of Utah culture.
I think women are just smart and rarely choose to work in the game making industry, which has a very bad reputation at large (not dissing Wahoo here) Women crave stability in a workplace and the game industry lacks that by and large, be it in a big or small company. (Granted there are exceptions)
Very interesting read! Definitely gave me perspective on why the features I’d love to see rarely show up in mmo’s I play and blogged something similar this morning.
And your office experience definitely correlates to my guild experiences. I’ve usually been in guilds with a lot of women around, and often run by a women. Guild chat and the whole experience overall was always pleasant.
But my more recent experience in a guild where I was only one of a couple females wasn’t positive at all and I did use the word “boys’ club” (with a few more adjectives in there) to describe it to my husband. Anything was fair game in chat, including profanity, racial slurs, and all sorts of sex acts.
It’s unfortunate it doesn’t seem like the boys’ club scenario in gaming development is likely to change any time soon.
Tesh, well its more that their effect is “leavening.” I probably will think more on it in a post of my own. I think it is more complex to explain than I realize.
You finally came around to make this post! Thanks! It was enlightening and written with much more insight than I could provide, since you actuall have experience from the industry and know what you’re talking about.
I wonder if we’ll slowly, slowly see a change in the recruitment strategy of the companies. As they’re trying to broaden the markets, realizing that 50+ year olds with grown-up kids and loads of money at hands might be a more profitable audience than busy, easiily-distracted teenagers, they should be interested in getting to know this audience better. Employing a few of them might be a way to go. Maybe at least some companies will make a bigger effort in the future to recruit women and family fathers, older than 30. I belive that in the long run, this will pay off, not just by giving you a good image, but also in making more successful games.
[…] versus Y Tesh wrote a post here about how monogender workplaces breed a “boy’s club atmosphere” which leads to […]
Coming from the financial sector, I always wonder why the gaming industry does not seem to grow up.
Risk assessment and analyzing anual reports is part of my business. So I was rather surprised when I realised that even today, most financial investments in the gaming sector are still based on how pretty the graphics are.
Most professional investors, seem to have no clue, what gaming is all about. When I talked with a responsible colleague about Nintendo’s WII success, he still seemed to be surprised that the concept worked.
“Looks like we focused to long on trigger happy teenagers”, stayed in my memory.
People who are now 50 years, already grew up with video games, but the industry did not grow with them. So they lost the interests.
And those non-geek gamer above 30, disappear into the shadow communities, like you blogger.
So their marketing has poor evidence that you exist and what you want.
Coming back to your “recruiting” phenomenon. The idea of making a generation balanced game, by finding “settled” developers beyond the age of 30 came to our mind.
The problem is, in order to convince Investors, you must either have some flashy graphics or some designer in a suit who speaks their language.
I know a lot about finance, but I have no clue about game design. I would help any designer to convince the silver temples to finance his “mature” game, but there is none to be found.
The gaming industry still seems to recruit their own cliche. But where are the grown ups disappearing to?
I am definitely not smarter than anyone else, so the idea must have come to a lot of people as well and still we see no change.
One thing, that drives my girlfriend always insane is the bad marketing of the gaming sector.
Anyone ever been on a gaming convention? They do not even try to attract people above adolescence.
Best example: PS3.
Whenever we have guests, they are usually distracted to see a console were normal people have their DVD Player. But later on people are always fascinated by our PS3. Whether it is, browsing through pictures, playing background musics, watching VoD or my girlfriend an her colleagues, meeting for a round of Grey’s anatomy online, everyone is exited about the smart handling of media.
At that point, our guests often say something like, “Well, I have not played for years. Don’t think it’s something for me”. We usually invite them to try Little Big Planet, which wins everyone heart. Afterwards I usually let them try a something with a deep atmosphere and easy control like Deadspace or heavy rain in the future.
Were Apple and Nintendo succeed in turning something from a nerd thing into lifestyle Sony absolutely fails, although they have a perfect product.
Did Anyone saw Sterntaler, presenting Warhammer on a Life Action Role Playing Convention? Did that Community Representative even know to what audience he was showing Warhammer Online?
A GM contactetd our Guild Master at that day, and asked us, to organise take part in an organised battle for a live presentation on an LARP Convention.
So we prepared for Formation Fights, like Roman Armies or Greek Phalanxes. Instead they showed them lagging Throne Room fights and aspects of the game, that only MMORPG Veterans understand. GOA even used the MMORPG Language, that certainly none of the LARPs understood.
Maybe we should start our own software forge, but were are those developers?
[…] XYXX […]