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Let me talk for a moment about the narratives we tell around how game designers enter the industry.
Its just a theory but maybe there is some truth in it.
Its just a theory but maybe there is some truth in it.
I hear (particularly male) game designers say they've been making games since their childhood.
We love the narrative of the young passionate boy, making platformers on his scrappy PC, who becomes a game design legend and fulfils his dream.
We love the narrative of the young passionate boy, making platformers on his scrappy PC, who becomes a game design legend and fulfils his dream.
I never identified with that narrative.
Firstly because I wasn't a boy. Secondly because the stuff I was making didn't look like the mainstream games of back then at all.
Firstly because I wasn't a boy. Secondly because the stuff I was making didn't look like the mainstream games of back then at all.
At age 9 I was making my website on geocities. But it was also a house. Every page was a room and you could navigate through it, finding trap doors and faeries and characters in the kitchen that told you secrets.
I never thought it then but with hindsight it's blindingly obvious:
I was making a point and click adventure game come walking sim.
I was making a point and click adventure game come walking sim.
It wasn't until over a decade later I was reading an article on Roberta Williams' Mystery House that it hit me.
That geocities page I did was like her game. I had made a game!
If I had known who Roberta Williams was when I was 9 my career path would have looked quite different.
That geocities page I did was like her game. I had made a game!
If I had known who Roberta Williams was when I was 9 my career path would have looked quite different.
Around the same time and throughout my teens I was designing scavenger hunts for my friends in our neighbourhoods, creating puzzles, designing storylines and acting out scenes.
If only I had known about ARG and pervasive games.
If only I had known about ARG and pervasive games.
Women have been developing their game design skills and making games in childhood too. They just were never framed as games at the time.
Look at old rolepaly forums. Those communities were 90% women and we were all playing a "feminised" version of DnD together cause we couldn't find people IRL we could DnD with. We created worlds and DMed for each other.
Neopets is another classic example.
Neopets is another classic example.
We were still passionate about making games as kids. It's just the community told us they weren't games. So we never knew to say "I want to be a game designer".
How a job is marketed directly influences what children feel like they can aspire to fill that role.
The first programmers were all women until it was marketed as a masculine job.
The first programmers were all women until it was marketed as a masculine job.
Either way, it shouldn't matter if you made "games" as a kid. Whatever you were doing then gave you the skills to make games now.
No matter your background, you have value as a game designer.
No matter your background, you have value as a game designer.
