Women continue to face challenges when it comes to entering and staying in the video game industry. Writer Marina Amores presents these challenges in his book.play like a girl (Play like a girl)’. The publication describes the mechanisms and strategies that separate women from the world of video games and technology, and the situations they face every day. online harassment, prejudices towards the players professionalization ‘esports’ and ‘streaming‘.
Is the video game industry masculinizing?
The figures are currently around 20% women in the industry, which is still very small. It depends on the role we narrow down. If we talk about programming or sound design these are roughly around 5% which is worrying. But then the numbers are much higher, for example in marketing or the arts.
Has it improved in recent years?
There has been a slight increase in the number of women entering the industry in the last 10 years, but not much is being done to retain them and this is a big mistake. Many quit their jobs because of harassment or situations they face.
What can they do?
The first thing is that they are aware of these situations so they can have as many defense mechanisms as possible should they encounter them. It seems wrong to me that we have to spend all the time thinking about how to defend ourselves against the hostile situations they create, but knowledge is power and it is better for them to enter this world knowing what is out there than to be surprised or utterly surprised. unprepared. In this way, they will be able to have the awareness of relying more on the tools and, above all, perhaps on each other. We are few in number, but brotherhood is very important here.
Why is a world so unknown?
In society in general, even within the cultural sector, video games are uninteresting because they still have the idea that it’s just entertainment for kids. This should totally break because there are video games for everyone, with all genres, all genres of stories, and for all platforms. It’s very sad to have this thought because so many of the population are missing out on incredible stories and experiences. They’re also very stigmatized. With proper and healthy use, video game is an incredible socializing tool that allows you to spend quality time with other people.
How does this affect women?
Surveys show that it is women themselves who view video games as a waste of time because, among other things, our free time is always less and of lower quality, meaning that we only consider activities they can do as leisure options. can be considered productive.
Does this promote inequality?
There’s a certain isolation, and I notice it because especially when I go to give speeches, I go to feminist events more than video game events because video game events usually don’t want me. Feminist comrades are frightened when I talk about the situation we are in because they understand that this is an area they have never been interested in or have no interest in exploring, and they discover that we are perhaps in the worst situation in the world. almost all industries. We are quite alone and isolated.
Why don’t ‘players’ raise their voices in action? #Me too?
Those who speak up are in the minority, because raising their voices is the same as losing your job and not being sought after by other companies because you are seen as problematic. Also, without insulting #MeToo, the power of an actress or singer has nothing to do with the power of any video game developer. It’s not the same. Obviously, anyone who raises their voice will get shit on their heads, but the ability of a person of power, fame, and visibility to bring it out has nothing to do with it compared to any worker in the industry.
The “publisher” world is very close to the “player”. What inequalities do women face? twitch?
For women the body is very important and while it is not necessary for a man to have a canonical physique to be successful on Twitch, for women it is almost essential. They need to be confident with their body to some extent, but attitude is also important. Women always have to be kind to the camera because there are many penalties, from assertiveness to responding in a very dishonest way. Also, even when you do your best not to be sexualized, you are being sexualized a lot. Twitch didn’t want to miss this opportunity and created the hot tubs and tubs section, which is totally ridiculous considering the platform was born or originally created to stream video games. But capitalism is doing its part and they see that they can make a lot of money with this sexualization of women.
Is it possible to fix this?
Again, capitalism wins here. They can’t do that because then they lose a lot of money. On YouTube, you would have to make very extreme and outright hateful comments to get your account banned. And you get them to make money there and make it their business. Twitch is kind of the same, and so is Twitter right now. What happens there are some terms of use, the so-called violation of which is not significant. Platforms are not interested in losing the users they monetize, so all they do is take the responsibility of protecting us. They say we have tools like blocking, muting and moderation and they wash their hands.