Modern video games are interactive art. People have emotional experiences from finishing games with stories and performances that speak to them. Part of this emotion comes from a deep understanding of the "lived experience" of people. There are parts of the lived experience that drastically differ for women and men, on the whole. Does that mean that men couldn't write a story that women find powerful and challenging? Of course not. But men aren't going to fully grok the little details of how society treats women, which means a lot of relevant themes relevant go unexplored if there aren't women on creative teams.
Diversity of experience translates into diversity of ideas. Hell, I always thought that was a strength for FOSS, after all.
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[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvskMHn0sqQ - Kurzgesagt
I'm not gonna assume what your thoughts are on the matter, but I will suggest that if you're actually interested in an answer to your questions and not just starting a discussion that might or might not be fruitful for anyone, your answers will be best found doing earnest research and especially talking to real people who are affected by a lack of representation.
There is some argument to be made that it is good to have someone that is at least remotely contained within the target demographic involved when creative decisions are being made, at the very least to avoid having to send every little thing out to a focus group. That is for example why metal bands are usually made up of people who like metal, and why session musicians who are jobbing it don't end up doing a lot of songwriting.
Why should males be represented in games? Do only men play games? Is there “merit” to male representation in games, and if so what is that exactly? The phrasing of your question is revealing some assumptions you’re making, isn’t it?
Why is it important for women to have representation in business or education or politics? What things have happened over the years that have lead to changes in the amount of representation? Which direction has it been going?
Why is it important that blind people are represented in city design, or in browser design? Why is accessibility important? Why is it important for black people to have representation in the US? Why is it important for people to vote in a Blue State or a Red State?
Or maybe ask some women! See what your mom or sister says in response to that question. Ask some local teenagers why they play games and whether the girls all want to play only Call of Duty forever.
> Would the world be a better place if males and females were both to be exactly equally well represented in the field of gaming, whatever that means?
How about instead of emphasizing “exactly equally well represented” since that seems a bit loaded, we focus on simply being better represented? Whether we’re talking about female story protagonists, or we’re talking about female programmers, all categories appear to have visible discrepancies due to known cultural biases today. If we know that there are cultural barriers to women, is it reasonable to worry first about just making sure those go away, rather than get hung up on “exactly equally”?
Did the world become a better place when women gained the right to vote, or to own land? Yes, it did. Will the world become a better place when women face less discrimination than they do now, even if it’s a small amount? Yes, it will.
Or your daughter.
Will those fields be somehow better with more male representation? Are men being discriminated against joining those professions? Or is the gender disparity that exists in pretty much all professions a product of our own differences in interest, social predisposition, or any number of different factors?
I'm not downplaying the discrimination women have historically faced and continue to face in the workplace, and the wage gap that still exists. But maybe we don't need to label any gender disparity as a social injustice that needs to be corrected.
FWIW, I don't think video games are a medium where the gender of the creator matters much. Like any creative art form, what matters is how the consumer experiences it. Do you care about the gender of the painter, or about the painting itself? Do video games really need to be created by a specific gender to be enjoyed by a specific gender? Why is gender even part of the conversation when video games are a creative outlet only limited by our imagination?
With how popular games are today, and how easy it is for anyone to start creating them, what exactly are those cultural barriers you talk about?
But you are downplaying the discrimination that woman are faced with now simply by demanding that cultural barriers are explained to you, when you are aware that the wage gap still exists.
> Will those fields be somehow better with more male representation?
Yes.
> Are men being discriminated against joining those professions?
A little, but not in the same way and not as much bias as women who code or do other things, and men who join female dominated professions tend to be paid equally, unlike women who join male dominated professions.
> With how popular games are today, and how easy it is for anyone to start creating them
You’re asking a theoretical question that ignores the reality of the imbalance of how many people actually do make games, as if somehow logic can overcome history. Your question is one you need to justify asking - if it’s so easy to make games, and if women play games, then why is it a fact that so many fewer women make games and so many fewer women study CS? The answer has played out publicly with many women detailing the abuses they’ve suffered at male dominated dev shops, and these articles seem to bring out the same kind of skepticism and denial that you’re exhibiting, and the same kinds of baited derailing questions that started this thread on an article that had next to nothing to do with sexism. I’m sure you’re aware of the fact that this is being widely reported, and aware of exactly what cultural barriers are being pointed at repeatedly. Are you saying it’s being exaggerated and people are lying?
Not at all. What I'm saying is that those issues are due to a general discrimination of women in the workplace, which, yes, we should work towards fixing. They are the same issues we hear about in other industries as well.
But not that the gender disparity is necessarily due to that, nor that we should try to "represent" women in gaming more to fix it. As I'm sure you're aware, there are many strong women leaders in game development (Roberta Williams, Amy Hennig, more here[1]), most of whom we probably haven't heard of, indie developers, etc. And there's a healthy representation of women in game streaming with a very large following.
Video games is an art form that can be enjoyed or created by anyone, regardless of gender or any other distinction. Nearly half of gamers are now women, and they seem to be enjoying the broad range of content that exists, whether or not it's specifically targeted at them. It's never been easier to start creating games as an indie developer, which is a good thing given how toxic the game dev industry is as a whole, for all creative people.
[1]: https://www.gameindustrycareerguide.com/influential-women-ga...
Maybe you’re making some assumptions about what “represent” actually means? What actions are you imagining people take when people say they’d like to see more female representation, as in this thread?
In my mind there’s no difference between saying I’d like to see more female representation, and work towards fixing discrimintaion in the workplace. More representation is synonymous with fixing the discrimination problems to allow more women to the table. In games this means not just more women engineers, but more women designers & modelers & environment artists & management. My personal experience in the games industry is that women were underrepresented in all departments except HR, though some departments (art) were higher than others (eng).
> As I’m sure you’re aware, there are many strong women leaders in game development
The only way I can read this statement in this context is as a suggestion that because some women survived ongoing discrimination, there isn’t that much of a problem, as literally downplaying the problem. While it’s some sort of progress that we have more than zero female representation in game dev, game streaming, and game players, that’s not a great reason to pat ourselves on the back. The industry needs to first move out of the toxic zone, and it hasn’t even done that yet.
> Video games is an art form that can be enjoyed or created by anyone
This, again, is a hypothetical that ignores reality. You can say the same hypothetical about almost any profession on earth. Airplanes can by flown by anyone. Politics can be done by anyone. It’s never been easier to start with any of them. And yet there are persistent stubborn disparities despite women having equal amounts of interest and ability as men in these fields.
If by ‘anyone’, you’re referring to being a solo indie developer on a mobile platform, the stats for people having a career there don’t exactly support your argument. And by “don’t exactly” I mean not at all. The majority of people who do game dev full time today work in a company, go through standard educational paths to meet requirements, and are subject to the company of other people and their, let’s say, foibles.
Addressing under-served markets means more money.