dgaider:
I happen to be fortunate. My team of writers on Dragon Age currently consists of nine people— most of which are female. It’s reached the point that, when we consider new hires and transfers, I tend to joke “ummm, we could use some more testosterone in here…” and give a big goofy grin. Mine is probably the only department that could get away with saying something like that.
And I’m not truly serious about it, anyhow. If having such a large number of women on my team has taught me anything, it’s that you can’t lump them into one category of preferences any more than you could the guys. Yes, there are those among my female writers who are more averse to combat and more attracted to the romance plots… but, you know what? That’s equally true for the male writers. Considering there are those among the women who would be seriously put out if a plot didn’t engage in some serious bloodletting, and who roll their eyes whenever the subject of gooey romance comes up, I think it’s pretty safe to say the stereotype of a “female gamer” doesn’t exist outside of the heads of men.
Which meant I was a little surprised when I learned something new the other day.
We were sitting down to peer review a plot— a peer review being the point where a plot has had its first writing pass completed, and whoever wrote it sits down with the other writers as well as representatives from cinematic design, editing, and level art to hear critique. We’ve all read it first, and written down our thoughts, and go around the table to relate any issues we encountered.
As it happened, most of the guys went first. Typical stuff— some stuff was good, some stuff needed work, etc. etc. Then one of the female writers went, and she brought up an issue. A big issue. It had to do with a sexual situation in the plot, which she explained could easily be interpreted as a form of rape.
It wasn’t intended that way. In fact, the writer of the plot was mortified. The intention was that it come across as creepy and subverting… but authorial intention is often irrelevant, and we must always consider how what we write will be interpreted. In this case, it was not a long trip for the person playing through the plot to see what was happening at a slightly different angle, and it was no longer good-creepy. It was bad-creepy. It was discomforting and not cool at all. And this female writer was not alone. All the other women at the table nodded their heads, and had noted the same thing in their critiques. So we discussed it, changes were made, and everything was better. Crisis averted.
All good, right? That’s what these reviews are for.
Here’s the thing: after the meeting was over, it struck me how sharply divided the reviewers were on gender lines. The guys involved, all reasonable and liberal-minded fellows I assure you (including me!) all automatically took the intended viewpoint of the author and didn’t see the issue. The girls had all taken the other side of the encounter, and saw it completely differently— all of them. As soon as it was pointed out, it was obvious… but why hadn’t we seen it?
And this thought occurred as well: if this had been a team with no female perspective present, it would have gone into the game that way. Had that female writer been the lone woman, would her view have been disregarded as an over-reaction? A lone outlier? How often does that happen on game development teams, ones made up of otherwise intelligent and liberal guys who are then shocked to find out that they inadvertently offended a group that is quickly approaching half of the gaming audience?
For the girls reading that, I imagine a bunch will roll their eyes and say “well, duh, pretty damn often.” But what about the guys? Will the idea make them uncomfortable? Will they come up with excuses, or go right to hostility? Guys, particularly in game development, are a pretty privileged bunch. That’s not meant as an insult; it’s just the way it is. The teams consist primarily of white guys and (shockingly) that’s who we assume our audience is— almost exclusively. But the gaming audience is changing, just as the nature of our games is changing, and perhaps there’s value in appreciating the fact that greater female representation in game development teams has a more practical benefit than equality for equality’s sake alone.
First off—kudos where it is due for backing up the women on your staff and listening to them and valuing their opinions and perspective. I mean, if kudos are really necessary for being a decent human being, I guess.
But I have two problems with this post. Firstly—and I’ve seen (mostly male) game industry people continually pushing this meme about how the ~gaming audience is changing~ and it is inaccurate and y’all need to stop sipping this particular flavor of koolaid. The gaming audience has
never been exclusively white guys. Ever. In the history of gaming. Women and POCs and WOCs have been playing video games literally since Pong, despite the bullshit we experience at the hands of developers and other gamers. I am old enough to remember the birth of home gaming (my first console was a hand me down Colecovision, back in the Jurassic era of 1984). I learned how to play video games from my older sister—who, shockingly, just like me happens to be a black woman. I laid out on her beanbag chair and we used to play Q-Bert. And I am not alone here. Women/POCs/WOCs have always been involved from a player perspective. We have always been around,
you just never ever saw us. Jesus dude, do you even remember the Baldur’s Gate modding community? Women were influential in that. That’s why we got so many fan made romance options for female CHARNAMES. Those weren’t all just for dudes playing female PCs. Are more women gaming than before? Yes. But we have always gamed. That you think we’re undergoing some kind of seismic shift in demographic is telling, and pretty damned troubling to me. And maybe you’re not nearly as ~liberal and enlightened~ as you think you are even on gender.
My other problem is with how easily you seem to understand that having women involved is important, not from a standpoint of “quotas” or “political correctness” but from the standpoint of creative integrity, but you seem to perpetually and continuously screw the pooch and be clueless on racial issues. Every single word you’ve said here, especially the story you relayed about the scenario that could be construed as sexual assault by players—ALL OF THAT ALSO APPLIES TO RACE, DUDE. When fans of color complain about the lack of racial diversity in Thedas, we’re not Social Justice Warriors doing it to make ~political points~ or pick fights. We do it because Thedas is so good on gender (usually—I had serious, serious issues with romancing Anders as a female Hawke), we expect it to be just as good on race. We’ve seen how very good and deep this setting is and are baffled that POCs are absent from it, when women are important and sexual minorities are important.
I’ve ranted at length, even just the other day, about how problematic the “mages as oppressed people/templars as oppressors” metaphor is, and how it’s actually kind of offensive that the only People of Color with major roles are alternately killed in the first hour or so of gameplay (Duncan), and a promiscuous pirate captain who is untrustworthy and slut-shamed left and right (Isabela). And look, I’m a huge fan of both characters. But this is something where having People of Color on your staff would benefit you, in the same way that having women on your staff benefitted you during that peer review process. (How many of those women are Women of Color, by the way? Because you recognize that women’s POV is not monolithic, I’m just wondering if you understand that intersectional concerns such as race and sexual orientation have an effect on that too.)
And yes I’m being hard on you, because, well, I expect better from you. You’re the guy who has made hay of the fact that you’re some kind of Ally and Champion for marginalized gamers and you have made yourself very popular in fandom for that reason. Lots of people will cheer you on for this post, and point to you as the guy who Gets It and as a role model for other gaming industry people. Hell, you used to be something of a personal hero of mine when you smacked down those homophobes on BSN that time.
So color me disappointed as hell that you still seem to be so myopic on race, that all the careful research you do in terms of medieval history that shows in the world building completely misses the fact that People of Color existed in Europe for centuries and that black people didn’t stay in Africa until it was time for us to be enslaved by white people. Bioware is better than this. And instead of getting defensive at fans, you need to take these words to heart and really do some soul searching.
There's blood in the water from a testerical privileged "liberal" fauxgressive white man, how can she resist?
