The Women's Game Conference kicked off today with a room full of feisty broads next to three rooms full of boys. Never the twain, as they say, shall meet. Sigh.
Regardless of the gender segregation, already this morning there have been some invaluable sessions hosted and peopled by some pretty impressive female games industry luminaries. While there has been a small amount of male bashing (come on - for a boy-heavy industry that hosts its networking meetings in strip clubs you've got to allow us a little bit of that), much that has been thrown on the altar of truth has had its heart in the right place. Under the sweltering heat of the Texas sun, there are about 150 women in a room feeling empowered. Hear us roar.
First up this morning was the keynote speech by Kathy Schoback, VP Content at Infinitum Labs, ex-EIDOS and ex-Sega. She spoke at length about courage, not just of women involved in gaming, but of aspects of the gaming industry in general. It was a very positive point-counterpoint to many of the issues raised about the industry's supposed fear of risk at the EIGF. Sigh, maybe we Europeans are too cynical. Perhaps there's something to be learned from these colonials.
I spoke in my twisted accent (is she American? is she British?) to the attendees, and officially launched the ELSPA Women in Games White Paper on the "Identifying the Issues" panel, which included women who've been involved from the development side since computer games were in diapers. In fact, there are a lot of women in the room that are over the age of 30. This is totally different from UK conferences where the average age sometimes feels like 23.
Many of the issues raised in discussion are consistent problems within other entertainment industries, including quality of life, work-family balance, sexism on the job and pay disparities. It's not all bad, though, as Nicky Robinson, programming (or "engineer" as they call it on this side of the proverbial pond) veteran, pointed out. "For all the pain in the butt it is to be a woman in the games industry," she said, "it sometimes has an advantage. I have a power the guys just don't have." The secret weapon? Tears.
Out with the light-hearted fun-poking, there are some serious things happening here. The quality of the discussions, particularly the level of participants is encouraging; it's great to put faces to names of high powered women in the industry, including Ellen Guon Beeman, Live Team Producer of The Matrix Online and Laura Fryer, Director, Advanced Technology Group at Microsoft who, with Schoback, answered pressing questions for career girls at the "Getting to the Top" session.
Getting career advice from some of the top women in games is a great encouragement to many of the delegates, regardless of their status as a veteran or wannabe, and highlights that this kind of thing doesn't happen often enough. Computer Science drop out, a real issue internationally and increasingly in the UK, could be diverted if more women stood up and waved their female gamer flag. We'll see what happens after lunch, I'm off to eat a whole Texas cow. Moo.
