I'm Depressed

I am starting to get a migraine as I read the latest wage survey. According to surveys by Dice.com, a career placement site for technology professionals, and Computerworld the wage gap is growing between men and women in the technology sector. This means that women are making even less than men at the same job than last year. I could spit nails.

According to Dice.com the gap widened from 9.7% in 2006 to 11.9% in 2007. The wage gap varies depending on the type of job, but at every level the wage gap is still significant, according to this survey. Computerworld found similar gaps with the gap narrowing significantly in upper management, but not disappearing.

The fact that in 2007, almost 100 years after we were granted the right to vote, after all the work women have done to highlight this gap as a problem, the fact that a gap exists let alone grows, makes me very angry. No matter who you are you should be paid the same for the same job. It is not simply unfair, it is unreasonable.

It Really Is In the Details

When game makers are creating a game the designers want the game to have a certain feel, the artists give it a certain look, and the writers think about the story. What most of these people are looking at is the big picture. They are thinking about things like, how can the player navigate through the game and have fun. They think about the overall feel and tone they give the game. Sometimes the details are ignored.

This is often where the trouble starts. The producer doesn’t have the time to look at all the little nit-picky bits of the game, the designer is thinking about how to translate their idea to reality and then we end up with something weird, like the morphing of Judy Nails into a bar brawling slut with a boob job. Or sometimes we end up with things so small, so minute that to the eye of many gamers they would wonder what I was on about.

I was at a game showcase where games in development were shown so that the developers could get feedback. I went over to play a game that looked like fun, if not similar to older games like Army Men. It was where the player is a toy navigating a teenager’s room. There were lots of objects strewn around the room to give the player the feeling that they were immersed in a true teenage space, things like dirty socks and pizza slices. I was happily navigating the world and playing the game when my character walked past an adult magazine lying on the floor. This sent an immediate signal to me that this game was not intended for me. I had lots of things on the floor of my room as a teenager, but a magazine with a topless woman on the cover was not one of them. It brought me out of the world enough that I paused from play.

Since the creator of the game was sitting next to me I was excited to have the opportunity to ask why he had placed the magazine there. He told me that he wanted to make the game edgy. I asked him if he realized instead of edgy he was signaling that this game was created for boys and men with this one detail. He was truly surprised that such a simple thing would have a big impact.

The thing is, it really does. It is the subtle cues that we read when we walk into a restaurant or store to decide if that is a place we are supposed to be. A strip club may be open to women as customers, but there is a pretty high barrier to entry for a woman to go in. This can be the same for games. The game designer could have put a gun magazine or a skater magazine in, which would also be edgy, but not send a gendered signal. The odds are good that a woman or girl who would want to play that type of game would also be the type of person who plays FPS games or skates.

Gamers are always looking for cues from a game. That is the only way to find the hidden ammo or the good gear. It also keeps us from getting killed. Because a gamer has to pay so much attention to the world, the small subtle cues that women and girls don’t belong are felt even more than in some other context. Skateboarding magazines are full of cues that the readership is male, but those can be skipped past for the cool articles. When I am immersed in a world, the subtle messages are inescapable.

Yet again, it’s one of the many things I like about Rock Band. When playing a solo quick play I don’t know who my band mates will be and I am usually supplied with an equal slit between men and women. I particularly like one of the characters who shows up to play the drums in a hot pink skull and cross bones mini with a big bouffant.

The game industry needs to do a better job of looking at the details of a game. I really dislike being immersed in game play only to run across a cue that I don’t belong. Those cues are often subtle but they can have a huge impact.

The Numbers Are In

Kotaku has the 2007 console numbers up and, not surprisingly, the winner is Nintendo. The Nintendo DS sold the most, followed by the Wii. Proof positive that when a game company decides to target an audience larger than 18 to 30 year-old guys with limited social skills everyone wins.

Why the Wii Wins

As I was shopping in my local Best Buy store I noticed a demo station for the Wii and I stopped to take a look. I smiled as I watched a demo directed at both children and families and amazingly enough, both boys and girls. The demo starts with a mother sitting down with the Wii remote and writing a note to someone using the Wii’s internet mode, then the daughter comes in and the mother and daughter start to play a game, they are eventually joined by the father and son and all four family members are playing the Wii. The demo shows the entire family having fun playing the Wii. It also shows a group of girls playing games on the Wii and a girl and a boy playing the Wii together. Here is where the success of the Wii lies. While the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3 were getting attention from the game industry insiders that they had faster, better, sleeker game play, Nintendo was quietly doing what would guarantee huge sales. They were making the Wii look like fun for EVERYONE! Not just the hard core gamer who the majority of the industry blindly insists are the REAL gamers.

When the Wii was first discussed within the video game industry Nintendo was considered a bit foolish for not implementing the dramatic upgrades that were being implemented by Microsoft’s Xbox and Sony’s Playstation 3 as Next Generation machines. The trouble with thinking only about the technology is that both Sony and Microsoft forgot that the market could be much broader than the gamers who play the shooters and are driven by technology. They forgot that video games didn’t just need to be better looking and have more bells and whistles, they should also be fun.

When Nintendo designed the Wii they remembered the people who just want the games to be fun, maybe even dorky, but always fun. This was played out by the massive sales numbers for the Wii since its release. And this past Christmas, it was almost magical if one appeared on the shelves, they were flying out the door so fast.

Personally, I wanted a Wii for the same reasons I wanted an Atari 2600 when I was a kid. It looked like a really fun game console that I could play with my family. And it is.