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Waterloo Region’s ’s s independent monthly • Vol 2 Issue 5 • FEBRUARY 7, 2014 • community.thecord.ca
THE GI JANES ARE BREAKING DOWN VIDEO GAME BOUNDARIES. READY, PLAYER ONE?
ANNA BEARD ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR
A
group of Waterloo gamers are hoping to change how women are portrayed and perceived in and out of video games. Elise Vist, Emma Vossen and Judy Ehrentraut, three PhD candidates at the University of Waterloo (U of W), are the founders of the Games Institute (GI) Janes, an organization working to confront problems surrounding gender and gaming. “I remember a distinct time when I was younger that I was the most shy about playing games. You get to an age and you care so much about what other people think of you and it’s crippling,” said Vist. “When I would hang out with guys and they would be so aggressive and mean, it would make me not want to play at all. I don’t think there’s a way to prepare girls to be able to deal with that, but I do think there’s a way to teach boys [different behaviour].” With women representing slightly less than half of the gaming population, it’s a wonder that they are still perceived by a large portion of the community as less than equal. According to the Entertainment Software Association’s 2013 Sales, Demographic and Usage data report, 45 per cent of game players are women. When you break down the demographics, you actually find that women over the age of 18 make up a big chunk of the
market — just over 30 per cent. And it’s not just an issue related to video game consumers. Women made up just 16 per cent of video game workforce in Canada in 2012, part of what the Entertainment Software Association deems a worldwide trend. Of that 16 per cent, only five per cent were employed in the technical field — those that actually develop the software for the games. Look behind the statistics and you find shocking stories of harassment faced by women who work in the industry. Jennifer Helper, a writer and developer who previously worked for Canadian video game developer BioWare, faced negative backlash when she wrote a blog post that suggested creating a game that allows players to skip through fight scenes in adventure games, instead of skipping narrative cut scenes. Even five years after writing the post, she remained the recipient of death threats and calls for her resignation from BioWare. In another recent incident, Josh Mattingly, founder of indiestatik.com came under fire for harassing a female industry veteran on Facebook. A screen cap of the conversation made rounds online, bringing to light the types of situations women in the gaming community sometimes face. Trying to find out development information about a project from another studio, Mattingly aggressively extended offers of Continued on page 6 >>
• GRAPHIC BY STEVEN STINSON CCe COnTRiBUTOR