Games with a Woman's Touch: Women in Video Game Development.

My first experience on a game development team was truly eye opening to the situation at hand. “First we were multinational, now we're multigenderal.” That boggled my mind, and lead me to investigate what the demographics truly were in the game development industry. While it has been a slow change, women have been gaining ground in this fascinating industry, and changing the field for what I hope is the better.

The Market

Currently both workplace and market are dominated by males ages 21-35, but with the release of mass appeal games such as The Sims or Animal Crossing, more women begin to wonder how the games are made and developed, and pursue information on the various jobs available in the industry.

Programmers, artists, writers, designers, and composers all have a place in the development field, and some paths to becoming involved are less intimidatingly and male dominated, mainly the creative ventures. Both technical and creative sides require a determined, influential, and motivated team player, aspects that fit many women that are interested in such fields, and make it a point to learn more, even against the problems inherent in dealing with a male dominated environment.

The Organizations

Women of like minds have banded together in a variety of organizations, from the casual site such as Game Girls Unite (http://www.cyber-freakz.com/wencke/news.php), to the professional organization like IGDA's Women's SIG (http://www.igda.org/women/). Both offer information, and more than that, the knowledge that there are others that have walked this path, and it isn't as strange or foreboding as it might have seemed at first, that this is a field that women can become involved, and be highly successful in.

In both Austin and Portsmouth, women's conferences on game development are being held, going over a variety of issues unique to the woman in this industry, gender issues in games, and other topics of interest to the predominately female participants.

In general game conferences, there have been panels on women in gaming and game development, but the panels were invariably headed by men.