It really depends. Have you played games built for guys? Can you think like a guy?

The reason why guys make games for guys…well, it’s because they are guys. Do you see what I’m saying? I can see if maybe you have many male influences around you and you can draw from that. However, when you’re getting deep into creating a game geared towards the male gamer, you need to know what goes on in the mind of a male. I’m not saying it cannot be done. I’m just saying a woman needs to do her research if she wants to create a successful game for guys.

Creating games for women is much easier because we know what women like.

Creating games for both gals and guys could be the way to go.

[Btw, this is from labor economic theory]

1. Women leave the workforce (for babies, child-rearing) whereas men continue on in their careers. This gap in work history makes it harder for women to pick up their career when they want to re-enter the workforce. Most women do want to re-enter the workforce. They do so by choosing to take a lower wage.

2. Women choose careers in which they can juggle the responsibilities of child-rearing. They will choose companies that are more family-friendly. Women (and men) with experience who can command a higher salary leave the game industry for companies without hectic work schedules. (Anecdotally, I’ve got 2 friends who left the game industry and accepted offers at Google)

3. Women tend not to negotiate as well as men in regards to employment contracts.

For further reading, see Women’s Quest for Economic Equality by Victor Fuchs. Note however, it’s a labor economics book, so it’s not light reading. It may even have calculus in it.

On the legal front:
Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. is a case decided by the Supreme Court in 2007. When she was near retirement, she discovered that she was getting paid 79 cents to the dollar in comparison to male colleagues. After 20 years, that adds up! But the Supreme Court ruled that you can only sue for sex discrimination within the first 6 months of an unequal paycheck. This applies EVEN IF you don’t know about the unequal pay.

In one instance, I was invited to Atari by a marketing manager who wanted to try to expand their audience. The executive he wanted me to meet with basically laughed me out of the office. I met with Electronic Arts at that time and all they wanted to talk about was football.

I later held a position as a VP for high tech attractions at an effects company. I was subjected to lewd comments in front of my co-workers by one of my male colleagues who worked under me. When I complained about it I was told to “have a sense of humor,” and then was promptly railroaded out (with the full support of management) by the very person who had made the comments.

I always enjoyed working in the theme park industry because it is family-oriented, and although there could be more women in it, there are many more than in the game industry. I was often hired to design high tech attractions because my clients could not find male game designers who would make a game with broad enough appeal.

Recently I have done a lot of writing on game design and gender with my collaborators at Ludica. As a result, we have started getting calls from companies, once again, because they want to understand this audience. I too have had many many experiences of people saying “we want to talk to you…etc.” and then never actually doing so. But this is different for some reason. I’m not sure why, but there seems to be a little more follow-through. We’ll see what happens.

One of the complaints I’ve heard for YEARS from game companies is that they don’t get enough qualified applicants. First of all, they really need to reconsider their definition of “qualified.” 10-15 years of experience that includes clients like Disney and SEGA Gameworks should be ample for a game industry job. As an academic, I’ve made it one of my goals to provide them with such qualified applicants. Between that and writing papers and making a fuss at the GDC whenever I get a chance, hopefully my short time on this earth will have made a difference.

To oversee the invention and development of new interactive media that caters toward my target demographic — teenage girls.

My role is whatever I make it. At the moment, that’s what I’m making it.

>>Do you feel pressure to make games for women?

So far, I have only been interested in making games for the female demographic. It seems to come naturally to me, and is the demo I most love catering to.

>>Is it even pressure, or something exciting to innovate around?

It’s the audience I am most drawn to. It also happens to be a very hot audience at the moment, which is a nice coincidence.

>>Do you ever feel underpaid or ‘othered’ in your team?

No, but then I put the team together. FWIW, the CEO and COO of our company are male and they have never shown any bias against gender, never given a female employee a lower salary that they would have give a male employee, or hired someone simply because they were male. We have two sides to our business right now: publishing books and developing games. On both sides, there are more female than male employees. This is probably because we get more female applicants than male applicants for all of our positions. (That could have to do with the fact that we publish manga and are creating manga-influenced games. The readership of manga is about 70% female.)

>>And how do we break away and represent ourselves as individuals?

By doing what comes naturally.

I think it’s wrong that men are getting paid more than women as long as its an injustice. Whoever works the hardest and does the best job should get more pay. I don’t think it’s right to accuse men of being sexist without making sure that women are doing just as much or more than men at an equal level. As a woman I don’t want to be hired somewhere, simply because I’m a woman. I want to be hired because I’m the best qualified for the job.

I’ve been working in games for a while, but still relatively new to production. I haven’t felt pressured to make games for women yet. I can’t help, but be worried that when I put my resume out there that men think that I’m a woman and couldn’t possibly work on a bloody, sexual, or violent game. For the most part I haven’t felt like I was underpaid because I was a woman. In fact, I have been promoted before some men because I was more qualified for the job. Once again I fear that men may look at it as I must have done something special, as opposed to just hard work. I have had a more positive experience, but I’m sure other women out there have had bad experiences. Most of my problems are the worries of men’s misconceptions. It might just be my own misconception that they could be thinking that way.

After about 2 years worth of that I had it up to my arm pits. Men use the “Oh We need more women in here” thing in public gatherings because lets face it, it’s good PR. “Oh look over there! Dave is saying we need more women! Jolly good!”

There are double standards yes… and even more so depending on where in the industry you are I can’t say that I am even making the typical starting wage for someone who has worked freelance in the industry with a couple games under her belt. It’s annoying as mess. It was hard to get in, and now that I am in I would like to find a fair place.

The place I currently work, judged me on my art alone, not that I was a woman. Which I am VERY glad of. I would rather be judged for my talent then for my gender. I also work with 3 other lovely ladies. A Programmer, a 3d artist and then an office assistant.

My role as a women in the industry? Wait… aren’t we trying to get away from label judging?

My Role in the industry as a Game Developer is to be a good example to all those that would follow me. Be them men or women.