Portal co-creator tells women devs to 'be visible, be outspoken, be strong, and be smart'
Airtight Games creative director Kim Swift has called on women developers to tackle sexism in the game industry.
In a new blog post, the Quantum Conundrum creator admitted that sexism is a common occurrence for many women in the game industry, and said that the recent furore over twitter on the matter under the 1reasonwhy hashtag was just “the tip of the iceberg”.
In November, hundreds of women developers spoke out on rampant game industry sexism, with some lamenting the sector for hindering their chances of progression due to gender and making female players feel unwelcome in gaming.
“As a participator in the 1ReasonWhy hash tag, I am ashamed to admit that I am scared of sharing everything; I’m scared of sharing the worst of it,” said Swift.
“I am fearful of delving below the surface. Talking about this subject in public is terrifying because frankly you never know when retribution is going to rear its ugly head and what sort of consequences will come about because of your words. To tell all, in many ways, either means having nothing to lose, anonymity or extreme bravery, none of which I possess.”
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Swift went on to say that she hoped that being a success in gaming could help inspire young girls to make a career in the industry, and called on other women developers to be more visible and outspoken to help improve gender inequality, but admitted this could take as long as 20 years.
“So here comes my point. This is a numbers game, people,” said Swift.
“If you want diversity in gaming subjects: If you want a more fair, unbiased workplace: If you want the industry to just plain grow up: Then we need to change the makeup of our industry, because games are a reflection of their creators.
“I see the solution to this problem coming not a year from now, not five years from now, but twenty. When this current generation of kids sees the good example that we should be setting now. And though we may not be able to tell it completely like it is just yet, there’s still plenty we can do to help future generations of game developers.
“So ladies, my call to arms is this: Be visible. Be outspoken. Be strong. Be smart. Be kind. Be everything that the younger versions of us could’ve pointed to and proudly said:
“Girls make games too.”
"Alright Games creative director Kim Swift has called on women developers to tackle sexism in the game industry."
I reckon it was just a typo, but I feel obligated to point out that Kim Swift is creative director of Airtight Games.
Yes you're right, apologies for the typo! All fixed.
I appreciate Kim's point about it being a numbers game, but a look at the technical fields in general make for a bleak future. The courses I teach in game development and even general computer science are often 22 men, 2 women.
I appreciate Kim's call to women. My call to my students is to open your mind, respect your colleagues regardless of gender and be aware of what they have had to go through and the courage they have to sit beside you in that classroom and plant their flag in game development as their career of choice.
The problem in the games industry goes deeper than sexism. There's a lot of good old-fashioned bullying goes on towards staff, usually with the threat that there's dozens of people who want your job...
(re cynic's) And it's all part of the growing up that needs to happen. There are some individuals out there who will call the industry "young" as if that's some sort of excuse for all behavior, flaws of logic, or business error. Not only is it not a valid excuse, it's not even true. People need to take responsibility not just for their personal actions, but their jobs, their skills, how they communicate, and so on, no matter where they work or what they do. If this weren't true no one would ever succeed in starting a business, much less growing an industry.
I once had a boss (not in games) that wanted to cover a mistake they made with a customer by having me call this customer, claim I was new, and explain I didn't know what was going on (assuming this would diffuse the customer's rightful anger and prevent them from removing their money). Maybe people do this a lot but this is not the sort of behavior I expect from someone who runs a business or company. The biggest problem with this deception, other than how it was plainly unethical, was that the customer knew full well with whom they had been dealing previously and what was happening. Did the businessperson care about insulting them? If they did, I can only suppose it was deep down.
Excusing bad decision making, culture, or otherwise in the games industry on "being a young business" is the same sort of behavior. It's not just that it's somewhat juvenile; it's never good business, it's indicative of a person who can't take responsibility, it breeds bad social atmosphere, and it has nothing to do with doing a job or having a skill. When we use it like such, people simply take their skills elsewhere, and such a thing will continue until things change from within. (And no, it has nothing to do with choosing between a tshirt or tie.)
Interesting coming from someone who, like Jade Raymond, took credit as being the lead designer on a game she was a producer on, not a designer (Portal).
I realize that for PR reasons this was pushed by Valve in this case, and Ubisoft in Jade's case, but she did have a choice, and stealing credit for the work of others isn't the way to advance women in gaming.
This sort of thing is always hard to gauge. I've worked with good designers and difficult designers and developers, but sometimes when they don't get their way due to lack of ability or people skills, there is the odd time when one of the women will call it out as sexism, or what have you. I have never yet seen good work thrown out because of race or sex, however I have seen people go ignored for abrasiveness or lack of ability (regardless of gender). This isn't always the case I know, but the best way to overcome any obstacle is to prove your worth such that it can't be debated regardless of who you are. I'm sure it's easy for me to get flamed for having that opinion because I'm dude, but I'd hope that other people look at what is being done/said and not who said or does it.
Says the woman who's game Quantum Conundrum is just a copy of Portal (her game). Maybe its not sexism, but originality that holds this female developer back. Have we seen anything from Kim Swift that is not a first person puzzler? I do not care whether a developer is female or male. I want originality and not regurgitated ideas.
I go out of my way to make the ladies feel special when they arrive at my company. If anything they get extra attention than the new boys when they arrive purely because they're girls. More women are welcome in the industry as it makes the office a nicer to place to be.
