Geena Davis and Mitu Khandaker on Masculinity in Video Games and the Gaming Community

[Music] hello folks welcome to gdc 2021 this is the live fireside chat gina davis and mithu kendaker on masculinity and video games in the gaming community i'm joel couture editor-in-chief of indie games plus my pronouns are he him and i'll be the moderator for this session and now i'd like to pass things over to gina so she can introduce herself you know in case you somehow need an introduction for her and her tremendous amount of work in all kinds of media industries so gina please take it away oh thank you so much uh uh thanks for that and uh thanks for everybody for being here i'm very excited to be a part of this today and um very uh excited to get going and talk about this uh this topic that we've done a a very extensive uh study about and uh so uh yeah looking forward to all of this

all right and next we have me too could you say a few words about your own impressive body of work because uh you're pretty impressive as well thanks joel um yeah just really honored to be here so hi i'm dr mitty candica i'm a game designer and engineer um so i'm a professor at nyu game center and i'm also c ceo at blow up games which is a a diverse mobile game studio um and i've been in the games industry for around uh 14 years now so i've been coming to gdc for about that long as well so really thrilled to be here to welcome gina to her first gdc um so i've been lucky as well to be on the um the advisory committee for gdc for the last uh six years or so on the advocacy side so i'm here to represent the game developers perspective well it's great to have you both here uh i'm just gonna jump right in with some questions so let's talk about this study uh can you tell us a bit about the study and how everything worked gina yes absolutely um uh

we uh we looked at both uh the games themselves and also uh the uh the players that uh that people watched play uh and uh took a survey also to find out people's uh impressions and and ideas about it so this is a very very extensive study and uh we believe more extensive than any that's been done previously on uh on gaming and what messages it sends okay um what sort of uh specifics were you looking for in the study like what did you were you hoping to find from watching what people watch played well we wanted to find out uh we wanted to find out what uh like i said what message the the games are sending and uh and and found particularly strong uh results in what uh the male characters represent uh and uh the the

the uh impact of of violence and hyper masculinity in uh in these uh in these games that are that are being played and uh and you know trying to see what kind of impact that has and how it can maybe be improved uh moving forward okay um the study indicates that uh many elements of the gaming inco ecosystem reinforce something called the man box can you tell us a little bit about what this man box entails because that was a that was a learning experience for me because i never heard this subject before right how video games connect to it on many different levels and how is this building a very specific vision of the world and what is acceptable behavior through interacting with the medium of names so it's a mouthful right right so the man box um is uh the seven pillars of the man box is a concept that was developed by our partners at promundo and it refers to a set of beliefs that are communicated by parents and family in the media and

peers and other members of society that place pressures on men and boys to be a certain way and these pressures include telling men to be self-sufficient to act tough to be physically attractive to stick to very rigid gender roles to be heterosexual to have sexual prowess and to use aggression to resolve conflicts and we found in our study that masculine norms are very strongly upheld uh with four and five male characters displaying at least one of these pillars of masculinity for example uh seven to ten male characters are shown engaging in stereotypically masculine activities like taking risks engaging in violence getting angry uh nearly one in four male characters actually express anger and violence is also a major component of this man box um 63 percent of male characters uh enact violence in the in

the in the games and 84 of that time the violence is directed against other people and the leading motive for violence from male characters is personal gain compared to the small proportion of characters who are perpetrating violence for a more noble uh motivation protecting a stranger or protecting society it kind of alters like uh your players uh the game players visions on kind of what reality is or what is acceptable behavior through their kind of interactions with these games right yes hyper exposure to uh to these kinds of tropes is uh is very impactful and will definitely uh uh you know what we what we're exposed to over and over becomes a sort of reality for us and uh uh media and games and and uh um the things that we see in our popular culture have a tremendous impact on shaping who we are so as you can imagine watching playing

these games over and over or watching people play these games um can have a significant impact about what you think is is the actual uh way that men should be what masculinity should look like yeah exactly seeing these kind of reinforced from like hearing with the the boys hangouts or seeing them reinforcing the games they're playing can kind of feed into this is this is right this is real this is how people talk and act to each other right right your point um me too i wanna bug you um can you suggest some ways uh no matter how small to kind of break away from these man-box elements in game development or how developers kind of steer away from that yeah i mean i think firstly to speak to that like this is the first time i was lucky enough to sort of get a peek at the study ahead of time and i think um firstly to speak to the man box like i think the thing i love about um the that definition is the way that it talks about how it is limiting right for for

both cis men and folks of all genders right so like the ways in which um these representations kind of box people in um in certain ways um and i think the other thing as well um before i sort of get to your question directly is that that uh that i love about the study is that it is very intersectional and that's something i care a lot about so there's a lot of um in addition to sort of looking at gender representation um it's also sort of uh you know there's some groundbreaking sort of new findings through the content analysis uh to do with uh race representation to do with queer representation and like looking across all of these different intersecting axes which is a really important perspective to take um and so um and those are sort of all things that we should be thinking of kind of together as game developers like you know taking this very intersectional approach um i think you know to to speak to sort of ways that we can um intervene in these kinds of representations um i think it's like

several fold right as these things often are because you look at this sort of um i think i have like you know three distinct sort of ways that i think about this because firstly there's the business perspective right and if we're looking at because i know the study looked at sort of the um the top five streamers and what games they're playing and so the reasons for um and often those are sort of aaa games etc and the reasons why those games are often sort of perpetrating uh these types of uh you know these types of tropes etc is because you know the games industry as we know um we sort of uh it's very like most designs are very sort of iterative right like we take sort of what's worked before and innovate on it slightly because you know games are kind of making games is inherently risky in a lot of ways it's financially risky it's also really really hard right like as we know as game developers um you know games can run into all kinds of you know

it's just a inherently uh tricky sort of technical and design sort of undertaking anytime you're making a game and so often the things that you know so innovation can can often be difficult um you know in that context um especially so so i think the thing i'm getting to is that it really takes uh studios to hold values around wanting to break free of these traits right it really does need to come from on the from the business perspective studio leadership wanting to really take a stance and uh and and you know and innovate on these types of representations and part of that as well is you know something i'll get to again more is like who is who is in positions of decision making around uh what what goes into a game right like who is being represented because as we know often it is uh you know over the games industry is overwhelmingly represented in leadership positions by sis white men um and says white

statement so we need to disrupt that um and the last thing i'll say i think from a design perspective you know it's it's not that it's not that um we don't have ways uh to uh to think about better representation because there are plenty of developers out there who are doing that work and often those are folks from marginalized backgrounds themselves who um have perhaps you know smaller studios or they're doing work by themselves or in like tiny teams but they need the opportunity to sort of have funding to really have their ideas pushed forward so we need to sort of you know this is a wide-ranging problem and it's a structural problem that we need to disrupt i definitely agree that uh this goes all the way through every level of like game development like requires management to take a lead on this requires like uh people in like your position in like leadership positions to take care of things handle things much better than their they've been handled before and it tells different stories it shows

different types of like gameplay elements and risks and yeah yeah it's risky but like it also will broaden what this industry can do and say reaching out to folks who are normally represented here um gina i want to bug you about some more stuff uh what trends are you seeing in kind of the characters representing video games you talk you touched on it a little bit but uh sort of in who gets represented and how they're being represented right right so uh male characters outnumbered female characters four to one and white characters outnumbered characters of color three to one uh unfortunately lgbtq disabled and large body type characters are nearly non-existent white male characters are twice as likely to carry a weapon as male characters of color and are much more likely to be violent uh particularly carrying a gun um and then when we look at the top 20 streamers uh they are all men uh only one is a man of color and only one identifies as lgbtq

and uh there's often uh ten percent of uh streamers use homophobic or transphobic language or that language appears in about ten percent of segments uh no disabled characters um and then uh streamers often use ableist language in nearly half of the gameplay segments uh like some kind of variation of the ableist language crazy in one in five game segments um so uh so there's there's just a lot of that sort of uh negative stereotyping and uh end violence and hyper masculinity going on in the in the in the characters that are being played uh you've also touched on uh what's the study revealed about the sexualization of women as well because that was another thing that comes up quite frequently oh yes well yes uh there's definitely of the few female characters there are they are uh they are tremendously uh

uh sexualized hyper-sexualized and uh uh you know this also has a tremendous impact on uh both uh the concept of women feeling comfortable to to join in and play these same games and uh and how um women are viewed from a sort of hyper-masculine lens that um that sees them more as sex objects rather than um than uh equal partners female characters are ten more ten times more likely to be shown in revealing clothing than male characters definitely a large problem um what effect are we feeling this is having on the audience receiving the game i imagine it's similar to what violence that effect has on like the males were receiving these games let's open up kind of open up both of you um i mean i can feel that one um you know in terms of you know just the experience we know across like all kinds of media and this is obviously you know

this is why it's so exciting to have gina head like talk about this because obviously the work that you've done across like uh other other sort of types of media representation also shows this like representation matters we know that um i've felt that in my own life um you know being uh being a little brown girl growing up playing video games from as long as i can remember um you know you sort of learn and especially you know and you know this this is why i was as i was saying like intersectionality is important we need to look at gender representation together with race representation because often um you know for someone in my position like for instance taking i don't know like street fighter as an example just because i remember playing it when i was young and you know um seeing the uh that classic dilemma that i think a lot of us faced of like oh do we uh are we the female character are we chen lee or in my case like you know am i am i doll sim like the the one like you know the indian character which is like not great representation right and so it's like oh who is like close enough to um you know how i feel like i'm

represented and i think the thing that i i i often say about this is i actually even though i was making those decisions it didn't actually hit me for the longest time that that was a decision i was making like i didn't when i was like young and even in my teens often like playing video games i wasn't like oh you know if only i could see myself because that wasn't even represented as i was like presented to me as an option right and so when you're sort of taught over and over that you're not going to be represented you sort of internalize like oh maybe i'm not maybe i don't deserve to be represented and that is sort of this uh really you know it's something that a lot of us carry and it's it's in the work that i'm now doing um through my company glow up where we're explicitly setting out to directify that you know like myself and my co-founder lachlan peterson you know as as uh as women and women of color we you know we think about this a lot like we've had these experiences and so

that's why we want to you know we want to do better yeah yeah i think it's important to be able to kind of see yourselves in these play experiences and it's important for the cis males to also see other people out in the world like it's it's gives you this uh this closed world view to see no one but the same white males doing the same white male fantasy power fantasies all the time so they're they're limited in kind of what they they even accept with the world for sea of the world they don't see that these people even exist out there so um i kind of want to ask from the development side too um how does this affect uh developers who are like creating these kind of like sexualized versions of women are like these like nasty stereotypes and things like that because i feel that must have an effect on like a development team that spends months and years like crafting like something frankly gross well i mean i think the one thing i want to speak to is um the experience of marginalized folks at these companies

right so whether you're women um or you know on non-binary or you know from from any other marginalized access under represented access within games um often you know folks do want to be especially if you're a big team where you don't have that decision decision-making power like you know this is if this is none of this is stuff that developers don't already know right but what will often happen is folks in leadership positions will um you know we'll we'll just you know like cut uh so you know even if you i've got just count the stories of friends etc who've worked on games where um you know you start you start including more diverse representation but then as soon as as games often do as i said making games is hard so they come in you know you run up against time and budget and all these things and often because of the values of folks in leadership positions the first thing to get cut is those diverse representations and i think that is the thing that has

the effect on on on folks um because they're being told like oh your experiences don't matter we can also take that further right like today is um as we were talking about a little bit before this job like today is a really interesting day to be having this discussion um because you know as as bloomberg reported um the uh the lawsuit by the state of california against activision blizzard um for the sort of alleged as they call it the frat boy culture um within within that space um like the experience of being a marginalized person within games is often a traumatic one um and that's something that we also need to rectify definitely and if if you're thinking of reading this in the audience like looking at the uh the articles in the uh the lawsuit um please please take care of yourself it is probably one of the most awful ones i've read in a good long time in this industry so please take

care before you read it all right it just shifts over a little bit um the findings in the study indicated popular stream games often promote hyper masculinity through violence or personal gain and aggression like you said earlier um do we have any suggestions for developers and how to better frame their game experiences to move away from this better shape their characters to move away from this behavior even if violence is kind of the focus of the game right well uh it would be important i think for developers to consider examining do the male characters have to be aggressive all the time and repress their emotions and to fight anytime they feel threatened uh which then results in more violence and more risky behavior um you know uh perhaps they can think about um what are ways that the characters can face these challenges in the game more creatively what other more creative and mentally challenging ways can they address these problems or more clever things that the characters can do

rather than just uh shooting guns um and and therefore uh you know acknowledge that they have a role to play uh in reinforcing positive ideas of manhood uh and uh and i i think that's very um important jump in on that as well yeah um i think uh sorry i guess that's what you're gonna ask uh i mean i think that i think that um you know the there is such a rich landscape of uh types of uh of types of game design that you know have yet to be have yet to be explored and to be funded as well because these are types of things that you know like lots of designers i know um have have sort of experimented with etc looking at ideas of vulnerability right um among male characters like looking at um there was a wonderful talk uh by uh the developer bree code a couple years ago at gdc about sort of tendon befriend mechanics in games um so

like that's what that's an area where there are there are folks doing work but you know we need we need those ideas to be sort of like given the platform and and you know those ideas to be pushed further so i think that um yeah and to speak to what gina was saying about you know what other actions can there be um as a game design teacher so when i teach game design at nyu you know one of the lenses we have for thinking about um game design is thinking about um verbs that characters have right like or or um that you can do as a player so what are the verbs that uh you know like actions like doing words that characters or or the player is able to enact within a game that aren't necessarily just um you know combat related um so there's you know the there's there's yeah there's all kinds of things that uh that we can be sort of exploring further through games for sure um you know the idea of like friendship mechanics the idea of uh the uh you know just

exploring exploring more vulnerability um and i think you know part of the part of that uh is also um thinking about like pro-social design right so a lot of game design is often competitive or a lot of games you know in terms of the sort of subset of games you're talking about there's um you know like competitive uh competitive gameplay versus like thinking about like oh how do you design for sort of more um pro-social interactions between players like how does the game design actually help bring that about um and reward those kind of behaviors so i think that's kind of what i found really interesting about the study is that it points to the sort of necessity of creating these spaces for for um for players of all genders really but especially for those who are sort of affected by this like or limited by this man box idea yeah there's definitely some proof out there that shows like different experiences in games like not the hardcore pure violent shooter is

like they're not the most popular things they're still immensely popular don't get me wrong but these other experiences that push us to be more social or that can uh bring a little bit of fun together or less focus on like harming other human beings and like more different styles of stories are starting to gain a lot of like power or power may not be the best word but they're getting their audience they're getting their audience people are seeing them and they're starting to be made like there is some different stuff finally coming out there yeah there was some wonderful stuff um we were talking a little bit earlier joel about the um the igf awards last night right so we can see uh within that space the sort of plethora of interesting like new types of games that um that are popular and that have uh that you know that are being made of course yeah and now the talk of a community kind of like brings you to my next uh my next question for you gang um research has indicated that many males find game to be a connection with peers and community like so even we're seeing it there like they're fine there's a

connection with those twitch streamers or with their friends so and they're also saying according to your study gina that it's a place that can be their true selves um gaming also seems to connect these players with too many damaging stereotypes and visions of masculinity so what sort of work do we feel game developers can do in trying to use this feeling of connection and community to build something more positive like build on that natural like that desire to be together but like if this like and to build a better true self right right well we we found uh a tremendous evidence uh for how important the the connection with with peers and friends and community is to people who game uh our survey showed that um the uh in the gaming culture 91 of boys and 86 percent of men say that playing video games is a way an important way for them to connect with their male friends uh but unfortunately young gamers experience a tremendous amount of bullying and harassment in online gaming

and uh older respondents uh said they routinely witness homophobia and racism and online gaming so uh the the culture is providing valuable human connection and there's certainly a space to do that but the ongoing concern is that the culture often normalizes violence and hate and so the thing to think about is since there's such a positive aspect that you can gain from developing community and sharing time special time with their friends uh through gaming how can we make it a more positive experience and and subject you to less uh bullying harassment and uh and violence there has to be positive things that um ways to make the experience more positive and and creative and uh you know we know that what happens in the fictional world fictional world does have a real life impact and uh

the online gaming provides incredibly important opportunities for boys and young men to connect but uh you know we need to we need to make it so as as you said they can feel like they're uh being their true selves online and not having to reinforce toxic uh prejudices and toxic masculinity yeah your study brought up that they mentioned true self came up a lot i wonder how much true self is um i i i this is me without rules not this is is this who i really am or is this who i am when the boys all want to be bad and i want to be bad together like does it just feed that kind of nature and do the males just kind of assume that's their true self because this is what i am with the rules and when i think of me like i know you're saying this is just me this is just me speculating but but uh but you do have to wonder can they be their true selves when there's so much emphasis on being hyper

masculine and um and embracing violence uh you know is is some of it posturing especially with young boys you know um are they really feeling that or is that or do they have to effort emphasize hyper masculinity in order to feel like they belong yeah it's definitely uh it's definitely a problem and i mean like you said with the bullying being an issue and all the homophobia and slurs getting thrown around like are you you're being your true self or have you been kind of cowed into this position so it's feeding a lot of like negative stereotypes to your point um i think i think just to jump in on that as well um it seems like you know one of the things that the study um you know it seems to point to is like yeah just these spaces being opportunities for um for male identifying folks um and cis men especially like being being able to connect right and you know and i wan and and to some extent is because like the parameters

that the rest of society has set is like oh these are the ways in which you like number one can connect um you know in this in this like very limited kind of in this very limited kind of way so that's kind of one part of it like oh if there's sort of if there are sort of other types of um sort of uh like more pro-social environments which you know which and this is like this is beyond a game's problem right because this is again like this is what the this is like a societal problem writ large as we know as many things are um so i think that's that's sort of one part of it the um the other thing that i thought was really interesting about like the study to speak to that kind of power fantasy element of games uh is and i think you touched on this earlier gina when you said um that in terms of sort of representations of like aggression etc um it's white male protagonists who are enacting those without um without sort of like other reasons

and i think one of the things that i found interesting about the study is looking at like oh when there are characters of color who are also being um you know being violent in some way or being arrested in some way often it's for this like larger social good which is sort of like a trope in itself right um but it's just interesting like i just thought that was an interesting finding uh from the study mm-hmm definitely a little piece that came out of it sorry oh no i was just going to say it i i did find it very interesting that that uh uh white characters were so much more violent than than uh characters of color um it's not like we say hey let's make it equal let's get the kinds of color more violet let's let's get the white characters less violent all right um so i know we kind of we're heading towards the talk about management but i want to ask and maybe this is unfair to ask me to but um what do you feel that individuals working at

game development companies like all the way down the ladder can push and do to help often like work for better representation and deter toxicity sexism of those things and i mean we've seen again those gross allegations go all the way up the ladder we've talked about how it's that change really needs to come from up top i mean what can your white guy in the office do we need you yeah i mean yes woof again what a day to be yeah i think this is my i think we need today absolutely and you know and i think the um firstly you know just reiterating that ultimately these problems go up to leadership right like that is ultimately like it's these things start from the top so companies and leaders need to have values where they care about these issues and often you know and the way that i look at it and often yeah it's it can be complex as well because it's not to say that uh folks from marginalized backgrounds can't also you know if they've bought into these hegemonic ideas they can't also perpetrate this

but i think you know it really does come from a question of values from the top because that's also like who gets to listen to at the company who gets supported at the company what is the overall culture at the company and um so that's definitely one part of it in terms of sort of every like you know just folks who are not uh in leadership positions necessarily i mean firstly you know we as an industry need to support marginalized folks being able to get to leadership positions because it's not just a pipeline problem this is what i said you know i'm i i'm lucky enough to be like a um if then stem ambassador like i do all kinds of work to sort of help get more folks into the industry but the biggest problem is that once they're there they're not being supported um and and able to stay and that's because they're not you know it's at the at the least worst end of the spectrum it's because they're not being listened to and as we've seen in the worst end of the spectrum it's you know stuff like what's coming out in the allegations um which is like

just uh sort of the tip of the iceberg in a lot of ways in terms of like the what really is going on so um one of the last thing i'll say about that is that it is incumbent upon allies um often likes is white men allies to step up and like intervene when they see these things happen um and like you know there's all kinds of things that can be said about that but you know it's also not on the burden shouldn't be on marginalized folks to drive the change and often it is us who is doing it so that's kind of you know that's another thing where again like who gets listened to where is the locus of power in the industry so that's something we need to disrupt there's definitely a lot of uh marginalized folks literally just thrown to the wolves for a a claim of diversity when nothing is actually changing in management and exactly maybe i'm just speculating on this point but perhaps some of that uh that community um feeling of could be about because like

you know to your point like the males feel there's a sense of community in working with that but there's the people in power who cause these errors feel they're all right in it i mean this is perfect this is again this is just my speculation so meeting those walls of like their their peers saying hey no this is not right what you're doing um uses that sense of community and games to show them no this behavior is not acceptable because when we're silent i think everything's fine all right so let me tell you smash through my next connect question i'm sorry oh no no it was perfect like shoot you're doubling out with my questions all right um another one on let's say like the platform holders for like twitch and that and not not just twitch just came first it's not the one i'm specifically calling it but like streaming platform holders um do we feel they have some responsibility and who kind of who gets pushed to the front as their popular streamers and you know what we can kind

of work with there um gm do you have any thoughts on that uh so so say it say it again sorry i phrased that really funny this do we wonder if streamers uh extreme platform holders like uh what the where you were getting your footage for your study um if they have some responsibility they could possibly work or tools they could possibly work with to promote more positive representation well well right they would have to be they would have to be creative about it in in other words they would have to sort of uh maybe talk about the limitations they feel the game has or maybe you know be helpful if they talked about um ways that they could creatively think of of uh changing getting away from as much violence and getting more creativity and cooperation in the games and um less

less stereotyping and hypermasculinity i mean they're certainly incredible influencers so it seems like they should be part of the conversation if they would like to help um impact the industry um and yeah so to jump in on that as well um yeah i think if your question is like is is do platform holders have responsibility to shift the picture of representation in the industry i my answer is absolutely yes um you know doing more and you know some platforms are starting to do this and certainly the conversations around like race that started last summer uh definitely like pushed more of these platform holders to sort of have those conversations and and push uh push marginalized folks um uh in terms of uh you know in terms of like who gets featured etc um but yeah like shout out like you know we exist like there's you know there's there's plenty of streamers out there from from you know from diverse backgrounds and i

want to shout out to um communities like black girl gamers uh brown girl gamer code um you know the noir network like there are just you know there are communities uh where you know you can find all kinds of you know all kinds of other voices to profile and to sort of give a platform to and yes like if we want uh wider systemic change that is like a really key part of it it's vital for those platforms um gina do you feel there's any aspect of the the study i haven't touched on that you kind of want to like push forward or talk about no you've got you've covered uh you've covered a lot of it oh you've done an excellent job so far yeah i can't think i'm sure i didn't miss any important kind of elements of it right so um is the study going to become available publicly anytime soon yes it

is it's uh it's available on our website which is cjane.org s-e-e-j-a-n-e dot org yes it just got released today right yes yes which is exciting yes like i said i got to have a sneak peek at it um so yeah excited for other folks to see it as well yeah it's very exciting very interesting yeah um is there any has anyone been requesting the study or like uh i guess what what's your next step from here uh well do events like this promote it and uh and bring it to attention uh you know hopefully be in some articles about it and uh um you know move forward uh you know we really value our relationship our partnership with promundo so we can intend to keep working with them on on this type of thing and see if we can make some progress um so so for we're really looking at kind of

management as being a central issue here so um and we're pushing we would like to see more marginalized people in positions of management um this is a difficult question to ask but um how do we think that can happen like is there ways we can see the industry like like the the bigger giants in the industry like help make that change so i think from my perspective um it's you know it's multi it's there's multiple facets to it right um as i was saying before it's creating environments where marginalized folks are not leaking out of the industry right like there is a huge leaky bucket problem as we call it um uh there's the old adage that um within games if you've if you've had a career longer than five years you're deemed a veteran because the the dropout rate from the industry is is so high it's high for anybody because you know there's such a like out culture in in many ways but then

that's especially true um you know for marginalized folks so that aspect absolutely like allowing folks to survive in the industry long enough and thrive you know let's just not survive let's like let's create conditions for people uh for marginalized backgrounds to thrive in the industry um such that they can reach these positions of of leadership and management so that's definitely one of them and i think secondly um in terms of because you know one of the things that i'm lucky enough to see um through the work i do as an educator um and just you know just being able to um uh so shout out to organizations like game devs of color um where you know there are lots of um sort of up-and-coming marginalized devs who like have like amazing games and amazing ideas etc but they need access to resources and funding and that is something that needs to also come from the top because one of the things that we see um in terms of like indie studios that get formed often the ones that get funded are the ones who've

come out of the big activision blizzards and the riots and like all of these other places so allowing access to funds for folks um from you know from more kinds of backgrounds is is going to be super important are there any good sources of funding that exist now that you're aware of uh sources of funding yeah um so uh well it's uh you know this is this is something i could definitely speak to but um you know there's i do want to shout out to uh things like wings fund uh which is something that i'm you know on the um on the advisory board for as well which is a fun specifically funding um uh folks from marginalized backgrounds and marginalized genders um there's also um shout out to galaxy fund which is uh run by some of the folks who started glitch uh which is another sort of newer um sort of source of funding who are very interested in sort of pushing forward the landscape

for underrepresented developers as well um so yeah i mean you know there's just not enough and that's the thing and we need to you know disrupt like who uh from more traditional sources of funding because like again those organizations that i shouted out to it's marginalized folks setting those up often right so you know but we need uh we need people who are in existing sort of you know seats of power within the industry to also um you know make those changes and hold those values yeah particularly like we keep saying it comes from up top not that i'm hearing things [Music] all right um you two are too quick you literally burned through questions so we are an uncharted territory here um gina i noticed in your study that there has been a little bit of growth over the years you notice between your study and

i think there was another one done what was it 10 years ago or it was it was quite a bit older oh that we did or uh yeah or at least then some of the numbers have gone up very slightly but they have gone there has been some positive change there's some positive change uh okay sure yeah i don't have i don't have the old numbers uh in front of me but uh but uh yeah you know uh uh the changes is too uh is too glacial you know obviously at this point this has been i mean we could have said all this about games 10 and 20 years ago the same problems uh showing themselves so um it just it needs uh i guess it just needs some enthusiasm to rethink this and see how how can we really make it uh a more positive uh influence on society you know and uh uh and make it even more fun and more interesting and challenging and uh and

uh uh a place to feel uh not only welcome but more supported and safe and um inclusive yeah so we're seeing any sort of like little like to genius point glacial changes and positivity treatments of like marginalized folks and well um there's uh yeah i mean yes things are things are definitely moving forward um you know there are more um again you know there's more marginalized folks coming into the industry than ever before but again you know reiterating we need to create the systems of support to be able to keep them there um there's the work that we're obviously doing here at glow up games which is uh you know just a where we're proud to be like a really diverse studio ourselves like i said um so and you know we've we fought hard to get there as well um we're uh i think the first the first um studio of our

kind like the first all women of color founded mobile game studio to raise over a million dollars in seed funding um so you know there's there's there's change is is happening slowly just we've got a there's a lot of fighting to do to get there and that's something that you know so many of us are working are working to change yeah i didn't want to imply that there was a we're good now because things are doing great now we're getting slightly better but no like it's to genius point again the change is glacial that we're seeing and as we're seeing in places like the allegations that exclusion blizzard uh it's not actually happening probably at all so there's a lot of bad stuff that kind of needs to get dealt with at the moment yeah well i i have oh sorry go ahead i was gonna say that uh i i would also encourage uh people in industry and creators to to use our research you know it's available to everyone and um has some valuable insights in there for everybody so i think it'd be important for uh for the community to look at that

um i have a question for gina actually um if i may um so i'm curious because you do so much great work in sort of other types of media and film and tv around representation um what are the sort of similarities you're seeing um and what are the sort of differences you're seeing between those spaces and you know as you've uh sort of set your foot in in looking at this in the games industry as well right well uh yeah our our our first um uh the reason why i started the institute and the and the original uh object was to impact on-screen character representation and what kids see uh because i felt that um there were some uh negative messages coming through especially about uh females and you know a profound lack of female characters in what was made for little kids and why are we teaching children to have unconscious bias from the beginning um

so and we've had some some really uh very good success in making a difference in the 15 years that we've been doing it um and uh and it's really been through the research the research has had the most impact for us in that a lot of times people aren't aware fully of what they're making you know they they they uh they see it one way but with the research shows that it's actually another way so um so just learning about what they're actually showing helps them realize they need to make a change and so we can hope that the research will inspire change in the same way sorry in the gaming industry where they say wow we didn't realize that that that was the case and uh how poor our representation is of uh people of color and uh with disabilities and uh lgbtqia plus so let's try making some changes so i mean that that is a hopeful outcome for

this yeah some difficulties coming up for oh i imagine there are with uh uh showing people data and having them face what uh these unconscious biases right right it's a it's an incredible pro uh uh you know a powerful incredibly powerful unconscious biases um where uh you you literally can't see what it is you're making um and uh uh it was um uh it was so eye-opening to people when we had i mean i suspected that that people weren't adding female characters because they didn't realize that they weren't including enough female characters they thought they were doing right by girls and uh uh but pointing it out to them and helping them see what they're actually making made all the difference and we've actually now the most exciting uh goal that we've achieved is that uh lead characters uh being uh

for lead characters in both children's television and movies made for children we've now achieved parity uh between the male and female lead characters so this is monumental it's never happened before and uh um it's a huge change since we started 15 years ago so um so dramatic progress can be made uh people just have to be aware that it needs to be made yeah i i love that because um you know to speak to one of the reasons why um why i started blow blow-up games my company um is you know feeling simultaneously inspired by but then frustrated by the positive state changes that we were seeing in like film and tv um with creators of color taking the helm more and more and more creators of color starting their own production companies and being able to get like have those opportunities but then realizing like oh like that same change just isn't happening in the games industry and so wanting to really sort of step up and and you know try and

bring that change into effect so um yeah you know for example um you know creators like issa rae um who you know and we're at glo up uh full disclosure where we're working on a tie-in game for her tv show insecure um so you know just but but that to us like speaks to um that difference right between like the changes as you you're saying do you know that have happened in you know in film and tv etc but you know the the games industry basically just has a long way to go gina we really appreciate uh the work you put into giving us some hard data to show the developers like that this this needs to move this needs to change these are the this is the ugly truth on paper like these are the actual numbers and percentages it's undeniable so thank you thanks for putting in that work well yeah and that's our goal is to take uh is to take our study to uh all the leading game developers and and

companies to share with them uh privately and and uh see see what we can encourage to happen uh i wanna thank you both for coming out and uh this is a fantastic talk and i think an important time for it uh gina thank you very much my pleasure thank you thank you so much as well for coming out if you have anything in closing to say the audience i mean feel free uh no just that i love gaming i uh every day every day i play games far too long people say oh you're so busy i'm like really is that why i have uh such a high score on uh candy crush so uh it's uh it's definitely probably a mind beat i uh yeah i love i love playing games and uh it's important to me and so uh so this is all really fun and uh and important to me and i i have two boys uh teenage boys so uh yeah it's all very important to me

yeah i think that's the vital thing we all love games and we want them to be better that's that's that's really what we're asking for at the end of the day or what folks you folks me too and gina you're trying to do here and i think that's fantastic yeah thank you so again thank you so much for coming for uh coming out today to have this talk um thank you to the gdc audience for uh watching us um and please enjoy the rest of your show thank you thanks everybody thank you thank you and thank you gina great to have you at your first gdc thank you very much thank you all right take care [Music]