Post 3: Conference on Gender Equality in Video Games

While browsing the internet, I happened upon an interesting article related to gender roles as presented in video games. As some may know, the video game industry, much like the music/movie industry, is often cited as failing to portrait women characters in a positive light. Instead of being strong and independent people, women are often presented as sex objects that often fail to advance the plot in a meaningful way. Though there are certainly a decent number of exceptions (especially in the past 2 years), the overwhelming belief held by creators of video games is that a game with a strong female lead wouldn’t be able to return a profit, despite the fact that statistically, women make up approximately 45% of the video game market (link to statistics provided below).

As a direct result of this lack of representation in video games, a group of developers collectively called “I am a gamer”, decided to host a 48 hour conference with the goal creating a video game with a “strong female protagonist.” The group organizer, Kimberly Voll, is a professor of software engineering and game design by trade, and provides a short interview describing why she thinks that games developers often avoid strong female characters.  Personally, I feel that the event is wonderful step towards equal representation in video games, and I thought that it was very cool that a group of game designers would set aside time specifically to address such an important issue. Albeit, this conference is unlikely to have major impact immediately, it is still a great step forward!

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/vancouver-video-game-jam-breaks-gender-stereotypes-1.1364491  (link to Voll interview)

http://www.theesa.com/facts/gameplayer.asp  (link to stats)