Another exhibit they had at ACMI was one on women in the games industry. There was one booth for each of the women listed on the left, and it had a quote from them about their thoughts on the game industry, and a list of their accomplishments.
I thought it was interesting seeing the different perspectives, and some of the reasons they got into the games industry, but there were two that particularly spoke to me.
Brooke Maggs, who worked on The Gardens Between and Paperbark, said:
Games are a wonderful creative expression. They're the main reason I'm a storyteller. That's why I want to see more women and girls making, playing and sharing games. There are many different types of games but we need more stories, more characters, and more voices to capture our imaginations and inspire us. I invite you to develop and grow your own game making and playing style because we're here, we'll support you and we want to play your games.I know that I pretty much only play one game (Dota 2), and so I can't really speak much on this topic, but I as I've said so many times, I love hearing about different people's perspectives, and games are one way to do that. I think games are a unique medium in that unlike a lot of books or movies (with maybe the exception of choose-your-own-adventure-style books), a lot of games put you in the drivers seat, and when you make a choice that leads to a certain outcome, it starts to make you think about yourself.
One of the games I really enjoyed playing was Heavy Rain. In the story, your son has been kidnapped, and unless you perform certain challenges set by the kidnapper, your son will die. Some of the things involve you doing things that are dangerous to your own life: driving the wrong way down a freeway, crawling on floor covered with shards of glass, stepping through an electrically charged fence, trying not to get electrocuted, cutting off your own finger. Then came the challenge to murder someone. And that's when I stopped to think. There are a lot of things I'd do to myself to save my son, but what right do I have to kill someone else? Even if that someone else is a drug dealer. Arguably, driving the wrong way down a freeway is also endangering a lot of people, but I think I was too caught up in the game and focusing on not crashing to think about that at the time.
So it's not just about gender diversity, but about inviting as many people as possible to come up with stories and games. People always complain that all the future holds is Call of Duty 99 and NBA 2030, and I don't doubt there will be those "safe" titles that will get pumped out year after year, but there are so many amazingly different games that are being created these days, and it's great. Games like Orwell and Papers, Please sound like really stupid games on paper, but I really enjoyed playing them. I find it difficult to believe that these kind of games would exist if the only people who made games were the stereotypical "brogrammer"-types.
Lisy Kane, who worked on Armello, Hand of Fate and Push Me Pull You said:
The art of game development is unique, bridging creativity and techology into a chaotic bundle of entertainment. Having more diverse people including women making games means that I'll have more games to choose from and explore!On similar vein to Brooke's comment, but the last part is something I think is worth emphasising: having more people making games means having more games to choose from. I get that some of the games made by women are not everyone's cup of tea, but some of the games made by men aren't their cup of tea either. The great thing about games is that nobody is forcing you to play them. If you think a game sounds cool, by all means, go and play it. If you think a game sounds rubbish, then move along. I honestly don't understand the mentality behind trashing someone's game, and then going on to trash the person who made it. That's time you could be spending playing a game you do enjoy!
That being said, I am grateful for people who have reviewed games I have thought about buying, warning potential buyers about flaws in the game, and I think criticism like: "Mechanic X gets really repetitive after a while" is helpful. But reviews like, "Nobody wants to play a game about depression, Y should stop making games and go back to the kitchen" aren't very helpful. I guess it's hard to be objective and judge which camp you are in.
Anyway, I thought it was a great exhibit, and was cool to check out while we were in the area. They also had game stations set up, where you could try out some of the games that these women made. Unfortunately, yesterday was the last day of the exhibit, so I think it's gone now. But I thought it'd be nice to give a shoutout to these women who I never knew existed:
- Cherie Davidson
- Erin Dupuy
- Rebecca Fernandez
- Elissa Harris
- Lisy Kane
- Brooke Maggs
- Katharine Neil
- Maru Nihoniho
- Siobhan Reddy
- Nicole Star
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