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Hearing "Lady Game Creators" Tweet: #1ReasonWhy, Women and Online Discourse

in the Game Development Community

Bridget M. Blodgett Anastasia SalterSimulation and Digital Entertainment

University of Baltimore

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Industry Background● Game development remains a male dominated industry

both in actual composition and public perception● Women comprise:

○ 3% of programmers○ 13% of artists and animators○ 11% of designers ○ 6% of audio developers○ 5% of QA testers

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Industry Background● Discussions about why this occurs tend towards one of

two conclusions○ A leaky pipeline in which women drop out of the either the educational

pre-career or early career○ Women don’t naturally enjoy games and shun the academic studies

that lead to that career path● According to a 2013 study by the Entertainment Software Association, 45%

of game players are women○ This is an increase of 3% since the 2011 survey○ Women account of 46% of all game purchases

IR 14.0 @bblodgett #1ReasonWhy

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● It’s sad how many people in my company think I’m a secretary… and still do

● Because men still ask me if I play “real” games after knowing I’m a developer

● A manager in a full meeting said, “This character needs to be fuckable”

● My feedback is dismissed on games actually targeted at women because i’m not “normal”

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Methods● Tweets were collected using the Twitter Archive Google

Spreadsheet (TAGS) template (Hawksey, 2013). ○ A google spreadsheet scripted with a time based trigger automatically

collects twitter data from an owner-defined hashtag○ Used 1.0 Twitter GET Search API to pull all the data available

● The data was collected hourly from November 26th through November 30th○ ~8,000 messages were archived during this period

● TAGS Explorer creates an explorable visualization of Twitter interactions○ Allows for replay of conversations over time

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Methods Limitations● Twitter API does not necessarily return all tweets

between data collection calls● Tweets which exclude the hashtag are not collected● Google spreadsheet has a limit of 400,000 cells

requiring splitting collection between several spreadsheets

● Collected data excludes the March resurgence that resulted from GDC panel

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Mentions

One-sided messages were common

Intense conversation arose between dissenters and supporters of the hashtag

Overall there was little discussion among participants uninvolved with dissenters or news media

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RetweetsAs the hashtag took off RTs of news articles became common

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RetweetsDissenters talked and RT’d heavily amongst one another

Overlapping groups of supporters engaged with the dissenters

Others ignored dissenters and focused upon sharing as many messages as possible

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Women’s Invisibility

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Women’s Invisibility● One major point raised repeatedly by dissenters within

the hashtag was that male nerds also have difficult lives and face adversity○ Within this viewpoint women speaking out regarding their experiences

was seen as whining or expectations of special treatment● Game spaces were framed as men’s retreat from the

stresses of their lives and as a form of deserved escapism○ The anticipated escape not only meant a lack of women’s voices but

continued inclusion of sexist and misogynistic content

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Women’s Invisibility● Rejection of the developer’s lived experiences in the

industry or false equivalence to male gamer’s experience of rejection help to render the lives of women in the game development industry invisible

● The strong reaction and echo chamber like support of dissenters underscores the desire by this group for a lack of women’s participation○ As an acceptable “compromise” women are allowed to exist but

should remain silent

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Resistance

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Resistance● The attempts by dissenters to end or derail the

conversation were met with heavy resistance by supporters of the hashtag

● Critiques were addressed in detailed responses and more obvious trolling behaviors called out

● New hashtags include #1ReasonToBe and #1ReasonMentors were created to answer more substantive criticism

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Resistance● Women and supporters connected and emphasized

their messages ○ Either through the use of alternative hashtags like #1ReasonMentors

or through Twitter actions like retweets● The interconnected graphs of retweets show that many

people were interested in supporting women’s voices even if they did not have a story of their own

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Patching the Pipeline● Themes including dismissal of skills, questioning of

legitimacy, sexualization/sexual hostility, and implied violence show that many issues arise not with the women

● Multiple messages of support from male developers and players began after the rise of dissension ○ “The ugly #1reasonwhy? Men are often guilty of silent complacency.

We need to speak up and tell others that sexism isn't cool.”

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Conclusions● #1ReasonWhy showed that reports of bad experiences

weren’t related to one individual, time period, or company but systemic to the industry○ Helped to counter traditional methods used to rhetorically minimize

this view and cause those who speak up to doubt their experiences● Structure of communication over Twitter not only

allowed for amplification of messages but quantified support and resistance through mentions and retweets