GLS: Wrap Up

So we have just returned from the fabulous GLS (Games, Learning, ad Society) Conference at UW Madison. It is really a great conference: a good mix of professionals from industry, developers, academics, researchers, and K-12 teachers; lots of good tech to check out and play with (as anyone who got a chance to play Johann Sebastian Joust will tell you), good food, some great keynotes and talks, and lots of fun challenges. If only all conferences were bankrolled by Microsoft, right?

I wanted to share a few reflections I have on the conference, and maybe those who went can confirm/deny/add/etc if they have anything as well.

1. The work we do here at NYMG is very, very necessary

There were more women than I expected at the conference, though it wasn’t anywhere near 50/50. But what many of us found was that while there was not a general feeling of hostility against women, there are many pockets of people who are extremely sexist. These pockets gets exposed on the #gls8 twitter feed, in inappropriate jokes, in sexist comments during Q & A, and even in the arcade. As a whole, I think the organizers—headed by Crystle Martin—did an incredible job. I felt safe and like a valued member, and I think for the most part the women I was with did as well. But there are still many more people (men, from what I saw) that still hasn’t gotten the message that 1) women are valued members of the gaming community 2) sexist behavior, comments, and jokes aren’t appropriate at a professional conference—tech based or not—and 3) women don’t come to the conference to be your personal eye candy.

So, like I said, I don’t want to trash the conference in any way because I had a great time. But I wouldn’t think for a second that our work in helping women in the games industry/community has been successfully completed. Not by a long shot.

2. The industry is primed for our message

In our fireside chat, I was surprised at how many outspoken women there were about the idea that labels such as “hardcore” and “casual” are detrimental to women. I was not surprised by a indie-game company owner who argued that those labels have absolutely no meaning other than simple dollars and cents (ie. “hardcore” games sell for $60 and “casual” games sell for $ .99). It was difficult for him to see that these labels are so powerful in the community. And I think it is a perfect example of why we need even more outspoken women behind the scenes and in the community: I don’t get the sense that that guy is intentionally sexist, but he genuinely doesn’t see the damage his decisions in game design do to those outside the majority. This is why it is so crucial to have diverse design teams to bring multiple perspectives that a homogenous community will overlook. Hopefully he will think twice before so easily throwing around labels in the future. But maybe not.

More encouragingly, there were many women who were ready and willing to voice their opinions about women in games—and these weren’t academics but industry folks as well. This makes me think that 1) progress is happening even though it seems SO slow and 2) people want to hear our message. The women were clearly looking for a community, or an affinity group, in the gaming community that they could become a part of. Because traditional micro-communities within the gaming community may be undesirable to them because of the dominance of hostility against women in so many blog, forum, and media outlets, I think spaces like ours are starting to look very appealing.

3. People want to stop talking and start doing

This isn’t directly related to the topic of women in the industry, but I got the sense from the conference—from multiple formal and informal conversations—that people are ready for actions. What this means is that we need to essentially put our academics where our mouths are and stop criticizing gamification, games for learning, and so on, and start making something better.

I created my first game at the conference (which won second place, though it should have won first) along with Sam (the conceptual artist and narratolagist) and Charlotte (the Limbo player). It was incredible how much of a better understanding I have of ideas like visual rhetoric and procedural rhetoric because I made the game. For all the trash-talking I do of Bogost, it was pretty eye-opening to be on the other side of things. And as much as I hate to say it, he is right that it is difficult to understand the intricacies of procedural decisions until you understand the process behind the game.

Now this obviously doesn’t mean that critique is dead, that every academic needs to make games, or anything like that. I’m talking strictly from a procedural and computational-thinking perspective. You can certainly talk about what procedures the game forces the user into without ever creating a game. But this 2-dimensional picture suddenly bursts into 3D when you have the new perspective as well.

But also, I create a game on kodu (kodugamelab.com), which essentially is a software made for kids to create games. But even so, I think I learned a ton from the experience and it enriched my scholarship. And that’s the feeling I got from the conference: you need to “do” and well as “say” in order to come up with ideas and solutions complex enough to compete the complexness of our problems.

So thanks to all GLS participants and organizers. I am full of ideas (as well as delicious food and microbrew). What a great conference.