Successful Female Game Developers Speak

It Pays to HireWomen in Games

LEADERSHIP & PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT track, at the Gamesauce Conference, July 19, 2010

Organized by WIGI, IGDA Women in Games & WIG Vancouver

Why this panel?

More Female GAMERS than ever before. 40% of all US gamers are women (ESA

2008 Study) 74% of casual game “payers” are

women

Let’s take a moment to talk with four successful female game developers & leaders….

  Male Female

     

Business/Legal 75% 25%

Production 82% 18%

Audio 88% 12%

QA 89% 11%

Artists 92% 8%

Design 92% 8%

Programmers 95% 5%

2010 Game Developer Salary Survey

Not as many female game DEVELOPERS women only made up 11.5% of game industry overall in

2005 IGDA survey In 2010, data by discipline is slightly better, not by much….

Source: IGDA 2005 Demographics survey; 2010 Game Developer Salary Survey; IBIS Capital Report March 2010

Solveig Pederson Zarubin (moderator) Producer, PlayFirst

Brenda Brathwaite Creative Director, Lolapps

Anne Grant Game Production Manager, Her Interactive

Carrie Heeter Professor, Michigan State University

Maryann Klingman Developer Relations Manager, PlayFirst

introductions

Photo of the Panel

Carrie Heeter, Ph.D. Professor of Serious Game Design, Michigan State

University

Creative Director for Virtual University Design and Technology (VUdat) at Michigan State University.

Founder and curator, http://investigaming.com, gathering research findings on gender and gaming.

Software designs won more than 50 awards, including Discover Magazine’s Software Innovation of the Year.

THE “ALIEN” STUDY Females too often “alien” to video game design teams

THE STUDY: Boys and Girls worked in same gender same grade teams to invent space exploration learning games.

Girl designers, even as kids, consider and accommodate the possibility that males may play their games. 1 group named the main character “SAM” so it could work for male or female player Kids who saw promos thought Girl-designed games were more for everyone

Boy designers did not consider female players. 3 of the 4 Boy groups never discussed the possibility that females might play their game. The 4th group offered a choice of 5 avatars, 2 of them female. Both female avatars were “bad-tempered.” Kids who saw promos thought Boy-designed games were more for boys

From study - Alien Games: Do girls prefer games designed by girls? (Published in Games & Culture Journal (2009) – Heeter, Egidio, Mishra, Winn, Winn

Brenda Brathwaite Creative Director, Lolapps, working on social

media games and entertainment products

Veteran game designer and artist, making games since 1981 according to

the research of Ernest Adams, is “the longest-serving female game developer in the business”.

Most recently won the Vanguard award at Indiecade for her non-digital game Train. Part of non-digital game series “The

Mechanic is the Message”

Worked on classic series such as Wizardry and Jagged Alliance as well as the Dungeons and Dragons franchise.

Anne Grant Game Production Manager at Her Interactive

Computer science background Contributes to our 5% engineers stat

17 games and 8 years at Her Interactive – Nancy Drew & Dossier line

Working in a wide variety of areas from QA to Scripting, Program Management, Localization and Digital Distribution.

17 Years of Production Experience in the Gaming Industry Producer Director Developer Relations Manager

Work Environments Electronic Arts Disney Mattel The Learning Company PlayFirst

Produced and Shipped over 40 Titles Working with Major Licensors and/or on Top-Tier Brands Warner Brothers DC Comics PlayFirst’s Dash™ Titles

Work/Life Balance 2 1/2 years sailing the Caribbean with husband 2008 return to workforce at PlayFirst Raised two daughters, one a Producer in the gaming industry ☺

Maryann Klingman

QUESTIONS

ORIGINS

How did you get into the game industry? Why were you interested?

MEMORIES

Any memorable moments from your career as a woman in the game industry?

OUTREACH

How can everyone in this industry reach out to women and girls – make them more aware of gaming as a career?

Are young women already aware of the industry?

MOTIVATION

How do each of us stay motivated?

LEADERSHIP AND GROWTH

Tips on growing career in the long –term?

Work-life balance issues

QUESTIONS FOR THE PANEL? Solveig Pederson Zarubin (moderator)

Producer, PlayFirst twitter @sunpath Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/solveigpederson

Brenda Brathwaite Creative Director, Lolapps & IGDA Board Member twitter @bbrathwaite http://bbrathwaite.wordpress.com/about/

Anne Grant Game Production Manager, Her Interactive http://www.linkedin.com/pub/anne-grant/20/467/6b0

Carrie Heeter Professor, Michigan State University @carriejill (emerging media) and @tc841 (design research) CV: http://gel.msu.edu/carrie

Maryann Klingman Developer Relations Manager, PlayFirst http://www.linkedin.com/pub/maryann-duringer-klingman/2/8b0/943

Post Panel Summary Karen Clark (@clarkkaren), moderator of the “Building the Next Generation of Rockstars” panel, tweeted during this panel, as below:

· The "alien" study: 3 of 4 boys made games only for boys. Girls designed games with the possibility boys would play. #gamesauce

· Mother-daughter game designers. Second-generation industry professionals! #gamesauce (this was regarding Maryann Klingman and her daughter who works at EA, most recently on the Spore line. Also Brenda Brathwaite and her young

daughter who designs board games).

· Awareness of games by younger women so different than the experience women in the industry had even 10 years ago. #gamesauce

· (yes, REALLY!) · Game industry people - make a plan to talk to some kids about making games. I promise they will be interested! #gamesauce

· Women heading lots of game dev programs at colleges and universities - major touch point for girls who want to make games! #gamesauce

· Women have more opportunities now in college, at least, to start a career in games. (Game design programs in the US and Canada) #gamesauce

Link to Solveig’s blog post on the PlayFirst blog: http://blog.playfirst.com/2010/07/playfirst-casual-connect-gamesauce-women-in-games-panel/

Link to VentureBeat wrapup of Casual Connect in general (This panel and Gamesauce overall not mentioned, but PlayFirst CEO Mari Baker’s speech is mentioned, pointing out that she is one of the

few female CEOs in the casual game industry, which markets largely to women. Also writer Dean Takahashi made a small mistake – Mari’s story about the employee who hung out at the maternity ward to learn about the user base, was from BabyCenter, not a game developer. (See also the relatively few other women pictured in the photo gallery…one of my goals for this panel was to feature women that we don’t always get to hear from.)

http://games.venturebeat.com/2010/07/23/casual-games-expand-in-new-directions-at-seattle-conference-photo-gallery/