Thread by @GailSimone

I have a short thread about representation that I think a lot of people might find interesting. Some of it I witnessed and some I was told second hand.

Now, it's important to say, I don't think anyone in the story is a villain. A lot of it is just fearful inertia. 1/

But for a LONG time, I didn't feel I could tell this story because people's jobs might be affected. But it's been a few years, the people have moved on.

So here we go.

2/

When it comes to representation of any marginalized group in games and media, there are three kinds of responses.

1) This is important, or
2) I don't care, or
3) I hate it I hate it and now I'm going to cry about it online for years

Some variation, but those are the three. 3/

This is just a little bit about representation in games. I think it's interesting, you may not, so feel free to mute for a bit.

Here we go.

For whatever reason, I get invited to visit creative studios a lot, especially games companies. 4/

Sometimes they want to hire me, sometimes they want me to spread the word, sometimes they just know I love games and gaming and they are being courteous. But it happens a lot.

So in one year, I was invited by three game companies to check out their operation. 5/

Since I love this stuff, it's every bit as fun as you'd think, super creative people working on awesome projects. For them, I'm sure it's just plain hard work, but for a visitor, it's a bit like Willy Wonka's factory, right? Fun, fun stuff.

6/

And each company was very different in their corporate culture. But each was great fun to visit, I had a blast each time, got a bunch of great swag, got to play advanced demos, the whole thing.

And one very exciting thing was the number of women at each company. LOTS. 7/

But as different as these companies were from each other, a couple things kept coming up.

First, it seemed like the women all would have their own area, for the most part. Not exclusively, but a whole room would be either all guys or all girls. Why? I HAVE NO IDEA. 8/

But it reminded me of how Disney didn't allow women to be animators, they did the color work. They had their own annex, their own café, they weren't even allowed in the fanciest studio club/restaurant, it was guys only. 9/

Even more, it reminded me of a story about the filming of the original Planet of the Apes movies. Observers said that without being told, the actors playing different species would segregate themselves at meal time...gorillas at one table, chimps at another. 10/

Now, here's the thing. I don't know how this happened. I don't know if the women segregated themselves or if someone else did it. But it was notable, and it was all three companies, and I've seen it elsewhere, too. NOT saying it's sinister, because I don't know. 11/

So, from here, please understand, my visits were SHORT and CURATED. I don't claim ANY knowledge of how opportunities are parceled out or if everyone is equally respected or what. I have zero inside knowledge in that regard. But it was still notable. 12/

Here's where I was surprised.

I was really happy, right? Because of all the representation, all the women working for these game companies, and it was a LOT. That seemed very progressive, and I was delighted to see it. Then a thing happened, EACH TIME.

13/

ALL three companies, and this happened over the span of a year or so, once we got away from the crowd, one or more of the women would come up and tell me in hushed tones how difficult it was to get female characters represented in the game. Each time, three in a row. 14/

They liked their jobs, they liked their bosses, they liked their co-workers. We're not talking about harassment, simply that they wanted to include female characters, and it was a struggle to make that happen.

And these were games I really liked! 15/

One was a huge company that makes celebrated open world rpg/action games. You'd know it.

There, they were battling to get females included in the main story, and there was something about how the first women you meet all end up dead in gory fashion. 16/

Okay, that stuff happens, and violent games have violence in them, surprise surprise. But they felt it was hinky.

THEN I went to talk to the people at Lego Infinity, they couldn't have been nicer. But a similar thing, once I was taken aside...17/

...and told that the core game had been expressly designed to appeal to guys. It was thought that the emphasis should mostly be on action. They thought girls would play the princesses on the arcade portion, boys would do the worldbuilding portion. 18/

There were even a bunch of articles about it at the time: fastcompany.com/3033837/disney…

But what ACTUALLY happened was something very different. 19/

It turned out that girls WERE buying, and more than that, they used the worldbuilding aspect, AND they played longer, AND the sales were almost evenly split between boys and girls, and a lot of the 'girl' sets were huge hits. 20/

So when I got pulled to the side, these women said that they had TRIED to explain the girl appeal of this game, but that the word from above was, emphasis on guys. In the core starter set, you get three characters, all dudes (Sully, Mr. Incredible, Jack Sparrow). 21/

Flash forward to being invited to demo Lego Dimensions. Now, I stress again, I love these games. But there, too, lots of women behind the scenes, but when they got me somewhere quiet, they said that they had had to FIGHT to get a female character in the starter set. 22/

They were told the original characters should be dudes. But they apparently one that, so the core set is Gandalf, Batman, and Wyldstyle. But it was a fight.

WHY was it a fight, I have no idea. But the thinking apparently is, girls will play with boy toys, not the opposite. 23/

I have to say, gaming is a love of my life, it's a hobby I really enjoy. I don't begrudge games that appeal primarily to straight guys or whatever, that's fine, enjoy. But these games, all three, specifically were supposed to appeal to a WIDER group of gamers. 24/

I'm going to say that in my opinion, all three games made serious course corrections when the fan audience clearly skewed far more female than they had anticipated. And I say again, there's no villains here. The people I talked with were all just games who love their gig. 25/

In all three choices, it appears that the CULTURE at a high level simply decided to target boy players, and that those players would be uncomfortable buying princess figures or whatever the hell the reasoning was (I love you, Lara Croft!).
26/

But it begs the question, what is the true value of having diverse employees if they don't get to influence the product, so that other people like them might feel included and welcome and participatory?

These were smart, talented women. Seems wasteful. 27/

I love all three of these games and I got to see them evolve a bit to become more inclusive. Lego Dimensions might be my all-time favorite game. I even got to work on it a little and it was a huge thrill. So kudos for the course-correction, honestly. 28/

But it kinda makes me wonder if that's still happening a lot at other game companies, and other creative endeavors. And this is to say nothing of POC or lgbtq or people with disabilities. 29/

I've seen it happen almost identically at other companies, including animation companies, that there's more diversity BEHIND the product than in the product itself.

It seems a bit weird and backwards to me.

30/

This turned out longer than usual, as always. I think things are improving, I looked at the games available on my Switch/Ps4 and Xbox today and there's a LOT of variety there, something for everyone.

That's good, right?

:)

31/

Anyway, it's interesting, that on some level, it was just accepted that boys would reject playing even girl action heroes, while girls would accept that they had to play boy characters.

I THINK we are moving past this. But this was only a few years ago.

32/

Just something to think about.

AND ANOTHER SHORT THREAD GOES LONG.

end/

PPS. The point of this isn't to shame anyone, people worked hard making those games and I loved all three.

And everyone starts somewhere. I hope everyone kind of learned to listen a little more.

That's it!

Have a great night, everyone!

PPPS.,

In post 17, I meant DISNEY Infinity, not Lego Infinity (no such thing as the latter, sorry!).