WiG Student Blogger

*** NEWS FLASH ***

Women in Games are in need of a UK-based student blogger to cover this year’s events at both Develop 2009 in Brighton in July and DiGRA 2009 at Brunel in September. In return for live blogging, photographing and general networking at both these events, the WiG steering committee are able to offer free student passes to both events. In order to apply for this unique opportunity please email enquiries@womeningames.com asap (i.e. before June 28th) with a 250-word reason why we should choose you.

Women in Games 2009 @ DIGRA 2009

Please forward to interested colleagues and related networks..

In partnership with DIGRA 2009, Women in Games are honoured to issue a
general call for papers to be presented at this year’s DIGRA event at
Brunel. All information about submission available at
http://digra2009.newport.ac.uk.

Women in Games 2009 @ DIGRA 2009
Call for Abstracts
Submission deadline: Friday April 3rd 2009

Currently in its fifth year, Women in Games (http://www.womeningames.com) is
an annual conference with the distinct aim of highlighting the most recent,
groundbreaking work in computer game research and development to both
academic and industrial worlds. WiG has consistently addressed the
empowerment and professional development of women working in, and
researching into, games and the games industry. In 2009 with the objective
of widening the audience and reach of the initiative WiG is running a series
of activities in parallel with key games events, both academic and industry,
to deliver focussed work to the wider community.

To date the themes addressed by feminist game studies can be broadly themed
in work on gendered activity in digital games and feminine preference in
play style and game characteristics. Other key studies look to gender equity
in game making and to the wider context of access to games. From Brenda
Laurel’s work in the early 90s onwards (long pre-dating any such thing as
games studies); critics, commentators and the academy have offered theories
and observations on the difference in play habits, styles and consumption of
digital gaming exhibited by women and girls. Yet well into our second decade
of work in this area what can we say we have learnt?

We believe that the time is ripe to return to core values in discussions
around histories, difference and generation in game space.

For more information please contact enquiries@womeningames.com.

Global Game Jam 2009 on January 30 – Feb 1

WiG2008 workshop leader Fiona French recently reminded me about the forthcoming Global Game Jam event to be held simultaneously around the world at the end of this month. The intention of this excellent  IGDA Education SIG initiative is to bring people together to make games over a weekend. We encourage anyone interested in games development to contact your local event and sign up. UK-based events are due to take place in Glasgow, London and at my own institution in Newport, Wales.

I’m looking forward to seeing the results of the weekend’s work, good luck everyone.

Ada Lovelace Day 2009

The wonderful Celia Pearce forwarded me an invitation to a facebook group setup for this initiative, it looks really interesting and I’d urge you all to get involved.

http://findingada.com/2009/01/05/ada-lovelace-day/

Happy New Year to everyone.

All my best xx ems

Women In Games Panel Discussion at BEV 2008

Women In Games Panel Discussion

Originally uploaded by Birds Eye View

I recently came across some photos from the Women in Games Panel Discussion at 2008’s Birds Eye View Festival. I thought it would be useful to post the link for posterity.

A University of Wales Newport Games Design graduate endorses Women in Games

The annual Women in Games event provides unique access to some of the best game developers in the country. WiG is one of the few UK-based events to provide such an opportunity for students interested in working in games. I recently caught up with a University of Wales, Newport graduate to see how the event had helped him.

“I attended the Women in Games conference in 2007, and the organizers were kind enough to give me a slot to demonstrate my student project ‘Reunion’. I also did some one on one demoing on the show floor. The experience helped me get word out about my game, and build a number of industry and academic contacts that were a great help in job hunting. I also received a lot of very useful advice from attendees, which in turn made the game better and increased my confidence. Women in Games covers a wide range of industry and academic led topics, which were incredibly useful to an aspiring game developer. There was also a fresh take on gender issues in videogames, which I now apply to my professional work. I now work at Blitz Games Studios, a company who have not only been very supportive of the conference, but actively work to encourage more women to work in game development. I feel that Women in Game’s support of my student game, and the confidence boost I received from taking part directly contributed to getting a great job at a fantastic company.”

Mike Bithell, Junior Designer, Blitz Games Studios

WiG 2008 – 11/09/08 – Karen Brennan, MIT Keynote

I was thrilled to see Karen’s presentation on Scratch, I first heard of this innovative toolset for teaching programming some years ago and was curious to see how the project had developed. Originally conceived by Mitchel Resnick LEGO Professor at the Lifelong Kindergarten group at MIT Media Lab (what a job title!), Scratch was designed to help young people develop modern learning skills. A freely downloadable environment (published under GPL), Scratch has benefited substantially from Web 2.0 community tools and consists of a thriving development community using the tools in a variety of contexts and application. Karen gave a fascinating presentation on a unique toolset that should be more widely used in an educative context.

WiG 2008 – 10/09/08 – Paulina Bozek, Sony Keynote

Paulina shared her experience of developing Singstar over the past 4 years. In discussing the evolution of the product she emphasised the need for inclusion of the target market in the design process. Initially Singstar started as a narrative-based game in which the player sang to bring the world to life, it soon became apart that singing was seen as compelling enough in itself to not need this framing. Singstar is a social, competitive and authentic (i.e. real music) product influenced by media and pop culture. The initial market was imagined as female, but the product appeal was widely seen to be much broader. Music is universal. The development team used music as a way of segmenting target audiences, i.e. through music genres. The key lessons Paulina has drawn from Singstar is that it is all about the user and their experience and that it is central to innovative game design to prioritise what brings most value to the experience.

Paulina then moved to the second section of her keynote and talked to the future of gaming, user generated content (UGC). After name-checking Clay Shirky’s book “Here comes everybody” to lead into her emphasis on social networking potential to allow users to coordinate themselves. Old notions of amateur and professional are changing and access to re-creative tools for distribution is significant. The games industry is rapidly reorienting itself to include the player in the gaming experience.

WiG 2008 – 10/09/08 – Dr Sara de Freitas, Serious Games Institute Keynote

In her opening keynote on Wednesday 10th, Sara presented her work running Coventry’s Serious Games Institute. SGi is building a stable of games, projects and companies that evolve the field of serious games within the UK, taking a world-class position in the sector. Serious games stands for the emergent field of using games as a mechanism to drive non-entertainment sectors, as a starting point do look to the Wikipedia entry. Although initially framed as a research, innovation and business activity, the field of serious games offers a lot of potential to games companies and universities alike to diversify the reach and impact of game form to new application.

WiG 2008 – 12/09/08 – Karen Clark, Bioware Keynote

I am sat in Karen Clark’s final keynote listening to her advice on working in the games industry. Karen is Project Manager at BioWare and is currently working on Dragon Age. She has talked to the common myths about the games industry and reminds us of the importance of IGDA membership for those interested in supporting the evolution of the games industry. Karen is active in the Women in Games International initiative and is passionate about developing the forthcoming Mentor Program. Karen is looking to improve the working life in the games industry, whether it be increasing diversity, evolving process or creating a good work environment.

She points to sites like Glassdoor.com as a way of ranking employers that could be useful in our industry to get a sense of who the best companies are.

WiG 2008 – 11/09/08 – Eileen Brown, Microsoft Keynote

Thursday kicked off with an inspirational presentation from Eileen, a senior Microsoft Evangelist. Eileen emphasised the importance of personal stories in encouraging girls and women to engage in the IT sector. She pointed to the rapidly diminishing female IT work force and stated that Microsoft currently have 13000 job openings! I hadn’t realised the IT skills issue was so massive! The promotion and focus on role models for women in technology is central to opening the area up for women as re-entry to work targets as well as for girls at schools. Microsoft runs a MVP (Most Valuable Person) programme which looks to engage, and indeed employ, product fans in evangelical and support roles for the company. This is one small step in including the community with the IT sector. Eileen talked to the need for us all to act as role models for others on an individual and personal level.