Women Outnumber Men In Video Game Design Graduate Program

Megalith

Megalith

24-bit/48kHz
Staff member
Joined
Aug 20, 2006
Messages
13,000
The typical game studio will be delighted to hear that their new prospect hates guns and wants realistic, average-looking characters.

The women in the USC program, ranked by Princeton Review as the nation's top place to study game design, are enrolled not just because games have changed their lives. They want to change games. "There's not enough stuff that I would want to play," student Stephanie Henderson says. She's not a fan, for instance, of shooters, the gun-based games that have dominated home video game consoles.
 
Now women will make sexualized women in games and Anita Sarkeesian will have nobody to blame. Like Beyonetta.

ur-vidya-is-muh-sojiny-donations-plox---anita-sarkeesian_o_4258605.jpg
 
I wonder how they will act when people don't buy their games? Blame piracy?
Most games I want to play are shooters. If there are women in them, I prefer them to be idealized, just as the men always are. I don't mind realistic, but I don't prefer it. Games are about fantasy.
 
Gorankar said:
I wonder how they will act when people don't buy their games? Blame piracy?
Most games I want to play are shooters. If there are women in them, I prefer them to be idealized, just as the men always are. I don't mind realistic, but I don't prefer it. Games are about fantasy.
Click to expand...

Come on man, you're not even trying! They will obviously blame it on men not wanting to support products made by women. Just like all the racist white people that didn't vote for Obama, and all the Nazi anime masturbators that make up Trumps support base. If you want to live it a progressive hipster world, you have to learn to think like a progressive hipster!
 
Shockingly enough the woman in the industry understand market mechanics and just like movies both sexes like seeing idealized images of themselves. Even in books we create "perfect" or "perfect with just this one flaw" type characters to establish a fantasy of the story. Very few story arcs involve "normal" people because in "normal" situations with normal people all you get is a sad tragedy and a ton of death and pain. Real life can be terrible.. its the whole reason we created heros and fantasy.


The only people complaining about it are doing so for the same reason your 2 year old complains when you don't buy them that candy they really want.
 
Nafensoriel said:
Shockingly enough the woman in the industry understand market mechanics and just like movies both sexes like seeing idealized images of themselves. Even in books we create "perfect" or "perfect with just this one flaw" type characters to establish a fantasy of the story. Very few story arcs involve "normal" people because in "normal" situations with normal people all you get is a sad tragedy and a ton of death and pain. Real life can be terrible.. its the whole reason we created heros and fantasy.


The only people complaining about it are doing so for the same reason your 2 year old complains when you don't buy them that candy they really want.
Click to expand...

It's true, these are an escape from reality just the same as books or movies have been. If I was a designer for a video game I damn sure wouldn't design a character to look like me. Because no way in hell is someone going to believe that someone like me is going to be jumping out of exploding airplanes and killing aliens.

Life's not fair, most people aren't pretty.....that's why the word exists.
 
westrock2000 said:
Come on man, you're not even trying! They will obviously blame it on men not wanting to support products made by women. Just like all the racist white people that didn't vote for Obama, and all the Nazi anime masturbators that make up Trumps support base. If you want to live it a progressive hipster world, you have to learn to think like a progressive hipster!
Click to expand...

You are prolly right. :D
 
Any article that mentions women doing things makes me swallow my own head out if impotent rage. I blame Obama, SJWs, and Statists.
 
Why does anyone care more about the physical characteristics of game developers than the content and quality of the games themselves?
 
Megalith said:
The typical game studio will be delighted to hear that their new prospect hates guns and wants realistic, average-looking characters.

The women in the USC program, ranked by Princeton Review as the nation's top place to study game design, are enrolled not just because games have changed their lives. They want to change games. "There's not enough stuff that I would want to play," student Stephanie Henderson says. She's not a fan, for instance, of shooters, the gun-based games that have dominated home video game consoles.
Click to expand...

Realistic doesn't necessary mean average. I'm all for realistic in case of female characters. That's why I'm looking forward to hellblade

It pained me greatly while playing Tomb Raider, that I saw a character doing all kinds of stunts and feats of strength without any kind of muscular definition. It was really hard to keep my suspension of disbelief thought the game.

And more women in game design doesn't equal less men in game design either. I don't care, they can make casual games that would appeal to women who dislike shooters. It's not like there is a quota for games every year, and if women produce 50 girly games, then there is no space left for shooters and action games.
 
Personally, I can relate to and identify with Duke Nukem. He's a strong and like-able role model.
 
This matches up fairly well with the rest of university classes across the country outside of Software Engineering being dominated by women and... wait what, games development graduate program?
 
Kuraudo said:
This matches up fairly well with the rest of university classes across the country outside of Software Engineering being dominated by women and... wait what, games development graduate program?
Click to expand...

No it's not game development, it's game design. The program in question is a Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) in Interactive Media from USC's art school. Not really surprising women are outnumbering men there.

The CS and Engineering programs at USC are no doubt still a sausage party.

Which is unfortunate I might add because we do need more female engineers in the world. Preferably single pretty ones.
 
Megalith said:
The women in the USC program, ranked by Princeton Review as the nation's top place to study game design, are enrolled not just because games have changed their lives. They want to change games.
Click to expand...

Most of the world believes that the product should be designed to meet consumer needs/wants. Usually, you say "We want to bring XYZ to market to meet consumer demand", not "We want to bring XYZ to market because of social-engineering ambitions."

Somehow in Western society we have decided that the consumer is always wrong, and they need to be told what they like and derided and told there is something wrong with them if they don't like it. *bangs head on table*
 
Great now I guess every game from here on out we will be able to take a selfie and use it as our character, wait that would actually be cool.

I think it's a great idea to have more women involved, we just might see some real story development and intelligent games that make you think. We badly need something new in the game world.
 
You think they would do that any better then men would? Or will they just do what the publishers tell them to, same the men do?
 
It's good to see more people taking initiative to be the change they want to see. I hope they just don't get upset when they go out into the real world and find out that the people who control the money still want a return on their investment, relegating these social engineering students to indie gaming hell.
 
I don't think this is going to change the frequency of "games straight dudes crave." It's possibly going to open gaming to a new set of people to which you can sell even more games.

I think it is great. The gaming market will simply become larger. Some of the women's games will flop. Some will probably do better than anyone could expect. Look how much money was made with casual games like Candy Crush!
 
Maybe when this batch of graduates hits the real world, we can FINALLY start seeing some creativity back in our games! ENOUGH with Halo 5, Gears of War 4, CoD 16, etc...

Even "new" IPs are just dredging up gameplay mechanics from tons of other games and just mixing and matching...

Between this news and the upcoming VR revolution, I am VERY excited about the future of games and gaming!
 
Gorankar said:
I wonder how they will act when people don't buy their games? Blame piracy?
Most games I want to play are shooters. If there are women in them, I prefer them to be idealized, just as the men always are. I don't mind realistic, but I don't prefer it. Games are about fantasy.
Click to expand...

Yep a lot of the people who complain about videogames objectifying women seem to not notice that most of the male characters in videogames have been taking giant doses of steroids. Some games even allow the player to create their own characters that are fat or ugly but most people still create idealized characters. Most movies and TV are the same way and lead characters are usually attractive enough to be models. The things you are doing in most videogames are completely unrealistic too, so I don't know why there is an expectation that character appearance would be realistic. I don't think realism should be the goal of most games (outside of simulators). The goal should be fun and interesting experiences.

For me good gameplay trumps anything else, so I don't really care either way if characters are idealized or realistic, but it's clear that most people prefer looking at idealized/attractive people, whether it's in movies, TV, or videogames.
 
M76 said:
Realistic doesn't necessary mean average. I'm all for realistic in case of female characters. That's why I'm looking forward to hellblade

It pained me greatly while playing Tomb Raider, that I saw a character doing all kinds of stunts and feats of strength without any kind of muscular definition. It was really hard to keep my suspension of disbelief thought the game.

And more women in game design doesn't equal less men in game design either. I don't care, they can make casual games that would appeal to women who dislike shooters. It's not like there is a quota for games every year, and if women produce 50 girly games, then there is no space left for shooters and action games.
Click to expand...
try imagine lena dunham/chanty binx in battlefield lmao hell no it will kill the realism in shooters they should stick to girly game like candy crush saga,
 
I don't get the idea that your game avatar has to be a reflection of reality, either. Especially in a 3rd-person game, I don't want to be staring at my fat ass for 10+ hours. The point of immersing yourself in a fantasy like a video game is to escape reality, not rub it in your face. And personally, I enjoy playing as a roided out muscle man made for the female gaze.
 
We are fast approaching the point when being a SJW will be a professional liability. Replacing one set of bigoted ideals with even less popular bigoted ideals is not a winning ticket...
 
What I don't get is what a graduate degree in "game design" is supposed to actually accomplish.

It smells like a masters in "entrepreneurship."
 
evilsofa said:
Perhaps it would help if you looked at a list of game designers. Gabe Newell, Hideo Kojima, Peter Molyneux, John Romero, Chris Taylor.
Click to expand...

How many of them went to Generic-For-Profit-Game-Designer-School?

The best in the industry were creating games in high school and honed their skills in college IF they go to college.
 
I can't say I really care. When I'm looking at a game I can honestly say that "What is the sex, race, religion, ethnic background of the developers?" isn't a question I've ever considered. It pretty much boils down to "is it a good game? or is it a shit game?.
 
westrock2000 said:
It's true, these are an escape from reality just the same as books or movies have been. If I was a designer for a video game I damn sure wouldn't design a character to look like me. Because no way in hell is someone going to believe that someone like me is going to be jumping out of exploding airplanes and killing aliens.

Life's not fair, most people aren't pretty.....that's why the word exists.
Click to expand...

You got a point. FO4 isn't the first or the last game to allow character development that is good enough to make reasonable likenesses of yourself in game.

Now show of hands, how many of us, make likenesses of ourselves for our characters?

I don't, my first toon in FO4 was a chick. I did my best to make her look like Scarlett Johansson, and I named her Natasha Romanov. (artistic license: I prefer this spelling of the name).

Even the guy toon I made doesn't look anything like me.

Maybe it's an Iid thing. Maybe I don't want to be myself in a game cause one, I want to leave myself and my problems behind, and two, I don't want to conquer the world and loose it all every night when I log off :rolleyes:
 
Besides, if my wife saw me playing a game as myself, with these three hot women following me around everywhere, she might read more into it then I would be comfortable with :D
 
Dekoth-E- said:
I can't say I really care. When I'm looking at a game I can honestly say that "What is the sex, race, religion, ethnic background of the developers?" isn't a question I've ever considered. It pretty much boils down to "is it a good game? or is it a shit game?.
Click to expand...

Absolutely, I don't give a shit who's making it. It's a good game and interests me or it's just another title I won't be buying. It's not like I am going to boycott a fucking game to save the tuna dolphins :D
 
GaryJohnson said:
No it's not game development, it's game design. The program in question is a Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) in Interactive Media from USC's art school. Not really surprising women are outnumbering men there.

The CS and Engineering programs at USC are no doubt still a sausage party.

Which is unfortunate I might add because we do need more female engineers in the world. Preferably single pretty ones.
Click to expand...

But if they're smart, as well as attractive, they have far better options for potential romantic partners than some ill-mannered, socially inept pizzaface who lives in his mom's basement.

;)
 
lilbabycat said:
How many of them went to Generic-For-Profit-Game-Designer-School?

The best in the industry were creating games in high school and honed their skills in college IF they go to college.
Click to expand...

Depends. Unless the place they're going to is simply some diploma mill, they're also getting at least a few business courses and management classes in there as well.

Sure, all of the people named earlier essentially built their cred from almost nothing. But that doesn't mean newer crops need to do it the same way or repeat the mistakes that some of these guys made on the way up.

The people mentioned earlier, for them, gaming was a passion, that they turned into a business. But they had to learn the business end of things too.

Some of these game design curricula actually do give their students a leg up in that arena. Especially with so many high profile failures out there,

TALENT is still massively important, but talent means dick if you don't actually produce anything.
 
They looked at one school and talked to only a few students there, then they made broad extrapolations. Not really a scientific approach, but it grabbed a headline.
From personal experience:
In my household there are 4 gamers. 3 are female and I am the only male game player.
In my daughters art class the ratio favors female enrollees.
In her theater class the ratio favors female enrollees as well.
My wifes favorite games are Arma3, she is currently replaying HL2 and she loves shooters as well as most rpg and other game types. The two other females play Skyrim, Spore, Sims, and also LOTRO mostly, but also like other games.
The games I have played most recently are Dreamfall chapters, Life is Strange, King Arthur's RP wargame, Medieval Engineers, and others.


I can see that there would be a lot of females enrolled in a design class in California. Can I then assume that they will change the face of video games? Not really, it is driven by what the consumer buys, not what the producer wants to sell. Was it women that changed the way Lara Croft looks? No, it was men. Are most movie stars average looking? no. Will most game characters be average looking? no. Consumers like to buy ideals not averages.
Can I assume that women as a general rule don't like playing shooter games? Not at all, in fact my experience shows the opposite to be the case. I am sure there are a large number on both sides in this and I don't think either is the more predominant stance.
The number of games made by mostly male production companies that are not shooter games has always been high, but they generally don't grab headlines with the huge sales like COD BO3 did with $550 mln in it's first 3 days. Was that all male players? No, of course not.
If you look through Steam and see the number of shooters vs non shooter games, most are non shooters.
Since there are so many genres in games now:
Action and stealth, Shooters and competitive action games, RPGs, Action RPGs, MMOs, Strategy and sims, 2D shooters and action games, Fighting and beat 'em ups, Platformer and puzzle games, Exploration and survival, Adventure games, Sports and racing and of course the most popular FOTW genre: Sandbox.
Most of those are not shooter games. So what new genre will these Cali grads create? Most likely none, they will design the games that the company they are hired by is producing at the time.
As is always the case in a free enterprise system, the only vote that counts is the consumers' dollar.
It's nice that they have dreams though.
 
Chas said:
Depends. Unless the place they're going to is simply some diploma mill, they're also getting at least a few business courses and management classes in there as well.

Sure, all of the people named earlier essentially built their cred from almost nothing. But that doesn't mean newer crops need to do it the same way or repeat the mistakes that some of these guys made on the way up.

The people mentioned earlier, for them, gaming was a passion, that they turned into a business. But they had to learn the business end of things too.

Some of these game design curricula actually do give their students a leg up in that arena. Especially with so many high profile failures out there,

TALENT is still massively important, but talent means dick if you don't actually produce anything.
Click to expand...
I can attest to having taken project management and business writing courses during my game development program which have certainly helped in my current career path. More abstractly, the discipline and problem solving skills that were nurtured during my time in this program paved a way for professional development and success. But the program I completed was focused on programming and mathematics (Bachelor of Science), while this particular one at USC looks more like an arts degree.
 
Came for the anti-women comments .... wasn't disappointed.
 
lilbabycat said:
How many of them went to Generic-For-Profit-Game-Designer-School?

The best in the industry were creating games in high school and honed their skills in college IF they go to college.
Click to expand...

This is an example of where an up-and-comer wants to spend his school dollars.

https://www.gnomon.edu/

Every grad has a job, every one. Disney, Pixar, Blizzard, wherever. This is like an in house school where the industry trains artists on what the industry needs and is doing. My kid is going there now, she already graduated from a school in Tucson and all she wishes is that she had been able to get into Gnomon first and passed on the rinky dink she went to first.

But it is what it is.
 
Just so long as they can make the bro girls with size C's or better who bro chest pumps you in victory they will be just fine.:cool:
 
thejokker said:
We are fast approaching the point when being a SJW will be a professional liability. Replacing one set of bigoted ideals with even less popular bigoted ideals is not a winning ticket...
Click to expand...

Yea, as one guy pointed out on YT, sjw are authoritarians and not liberal minded.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top