What? She's not pretty! Who cares what she thinks!?

Ok, in all seriousness, after reading the interview I can see that her experiences are about what we'd expect them to be from a pro. woman in the industry, but I'm about getting to the point where I feel that to really see how far women have come, we need to stop giving them the gold star for doing their job. It's quite the accomplishment to penetrate the boys club that is games, but now it's time to get to work.

I do agree though that hey all unfairly aren't taken seriously in the beginning. Jade Raymond is a producer on what was prediceted to be the hottest new IP in games, and I don't think a publisher like Ubisoft would give her that gig just becasue she's pretty. Now the marketing of her with the game, that's another story. But I'm sure her intial job is due to her qualifications and skills. Don't pervert that with italics later.

Also, I take it back. This Elspeth Tory is kinda pretty.

Thinking Portal, I think there should be more women in gaming and video games.

@lethalphoenix: ......what?

@Kai_: He's clearly saying that when you put your mind through a Portal, it becomes obvious that gaming needs more women.

The Portal is all knowing.

@swirldude: No-no-no. The portal is clearly a metaphor for the... god I can't even say it. There are some things that are just too BS for me to say.

@SwirlDude: You Win!

Amy Hennig is by FAR the most potent woman in video games. Legacy of Kain, the Jak Series, Uncharted... need I say more?

Jade and Altair can eat it.
That is all.

Interesting read, as are the others. I simply don't understand the mentality, apparently earlier on in this industry's life cycle, of men having difficulty taking orders from their administrative superior, who happens to be a woman.

We all went through grade school and high school where 90%+ of faculty were women. I would hope after twelve years of schooling with four years of college and possibly a few years of post-graduate education one could control that self-serving id a little and do your damn job.

@NumberONE: Oh and by the Jak Series I mean Jak 3.

It would be nice to see an article on women lead in qa testing.
I've been in Qa Localisation for some time, and we had more than fair share of women there, but in Qa functionality there were not as many, and not many were lead or seniors...

As an older woman, I have to say that the prejudices one faces as to ability are less apparent when one is young, cute and not threatening to the males in one's profession. Stereotypical behavior starts appearing as you grow older, have a family that competes with The Job for one's attention, and are more of a threat as a competitor.

I'm hoping this is a generational thing that folks in their 30s won't experience, but I am not about to put any money on a bet that this'll be the case. Prejudice is very hard to eradicate, either in oneself or others. It appears when you least expect it.

It's not so much women have to prove themselves in particular industries, but that in certain industries, the men are not used being around women, period, never mind attractiveness.

@Dead Air ummm Dead Air: I know you're trying to be funny, but why even mention your opinion on a woman's attractiveness? Maybe if her job was modeling it would be a part of the business, but putting someone on the hot-or-not scale is generally objectifying and demeaning. If would be more fair if you also objectified men in the gaming industry ( for example, Myamoto = not hot) at the same time, oh and also if you put your own picture up and invite comments about your attractiveness.

@Chilly Hollow: The generation that is currently entering the work force (i.e. Mine) is probably not very different from yours. The issue is that the current people in upper management positions are people from your generation who have been brought up with their prejudices intact. Once they retire, there will likely be some change in how women are viewed in the workplace - but I think it's safe to say that prejudice is going to hang around for at least another generation.

Wait, more than one woman works at Ubisoft?

@Kai_: I think he is reffering to the lead character in Portal being female and that there should be more lead female characters.

I sometimes wonder if anyone ever reads the credits for a game they like. Because most games consists of dozens of persons with various duties, and it seems to me that the credits are filled with female names. The unfortunate thing for Jade Raymond is that she became a very visible female in charge of a very important and really hyped game that put her in the uncomfortable position of being both a game project director and a spokesperson for the company. But, if any of you know gaming history, you will know that one of the scariest and best-done series in a horror genre was done by a woman.

As far as a lead character being a woman, there are many examples, Shamus, Lara Croft, etc. And, of course, any character I create in a game is a woman, because I simply prefer women to men. Quite frankly, if Lara Croft had been "Larry Croft" I wouldn't have had any interest at all in the game.

Most people are unconfortable of new ideas. And womens on gamming are totally new. Well.. my sisters played with me in the commodore64, but for everything else, the gamming scenes is a Guys Club.

@Chilly Hollow: you bring up a good point. Prejudice is not easily eradicated. I do think that discussion and articles such as these are a definite step in the right direction though. The recognition of the continued existence of prejudices and their discussion is the best way to come up with creative answers to these problems.

@Automageddon: As a female ex-QA lead (on the developer side; functionality testing) I can say that NOBODY cares about QA, it doesn't even matter if you're male or female. QA workers get the shit end of the stick and it's a very unglamourous, thankless job. But it's so insanely important. It does irk me to know how many other awesome women I worked alongside (yes, as testers and leads!) that will never get any kudos for what they do.

But then, I also worked with amazing men in QA that likewise will never get a minute in the spotlight. I think it's an aspect of game production that would do to have more attention paid to it. And the funniest, snarkiest, most creative people I have met were also in QA. ^_^

@gozirah:

Seems to me a lot of men had mothers growing up ...

@Chilly Hollow:

No offense, and I don't mean to single you out, but it's curious to me how often you hear women complain about age and sex prejudism as they get older whilst saying that men get more attractive as they age. You never hear them complain from 15-40 when they absolutely run shit ...

Meanwhile, men are represented as complete and utter child-like idiots in the media. Every other commercial and sitcom has the knowing, omniscient mother and the moron father who couldn't wipe his ass without her help. Why is this an acceptable stereotype? If there were commercials or shows showing women barefoot, pregnant and ditsy, locked by ball and chain to the oven, I'm pretty sure they would be overwhelmed with complaints.

I guess it's the same sort of thing for clubs and institutions. You can have a women's club, a women's college, a black college, but no men's clubs, no white colleges, and there are only a handful of men's only colleges. Why is that? I'm not arguing that there should be, but the whole concept of reverse-discrimination just irks me. There's no such thing! Discrimination is discrimination, regardless of the impetus.

Maybe I'm getting old, but I just don't see why there are always uplifting news stories about women trying to go to the Citadel or whatever, while the guy who wanted to play female field hockey was crucified. I'm really not a misogynist, I'm just wondering why there's a shifting double-standard instead of its elimination. (And, yes, I realize that historically, and even currently, women have been oppressed. But does that mean that the opposite is warranted?)

I met my ex doing QA for Xbox.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrr.

@Eville1: Can be wrong. Imagine meeting your ex doing QA with the Xbox360 thermal diffusion subsystem.

@killerbear: I had lots of fun in Qa and I'm still going out with that assorted bunch of loser (like me by the way).
It's not well paid, too much overtime and the loss of the ability of enjoying a videogame...
Where were you working?

I met her doing hardware testing. Doing cold/warm boots of six xboxs for eight hours.. yeah not fun. I blame her.

..Better than playing Barbie's Horse Adventure or that god awful Superman game. Ugh.

@Automageddon: The loss of ability to enjoy video games is what hit me. That and being way WAY under paid.

Good interview - and I think I'm in love. She's smart, and an english-lit major. Mmm. Smart lady who's well-read and makes video games?! Ayieee!

Why is everybody suddenly getting up in arms about the presence of women in gaming?

There's always been plenty, best example? Roberta Williams.

@Eville1: I'm so happy I'm no longer a tester.
But I worked for six months with my ex, then they had to choose between one of us. I decided to leave. Rumours say that we settled the thing with a game of burnout 3 and I lost.
So my work and my pride gone at the same time.

@Eville1: Gotta agree, the pay was lousy without the overtime, but the experiences were amazing when you had a good bunch of folks to work with ^^

There was always a fair chunk of women there (though not much, maybe at least one every project), and although it surprises the guys in the group at first, after the first month of testing you're all just comrades shooting at each other and counting the kills while keeping track of the bugs in the end. (CRC flunkie after QA testing)

I've worked with women in the game industry before. You know what? They do their jobs just like everyone else.

Isn't it time to stop talking about this?

@NumberONE: Fail.

Roberta Williams is the #1 woman in gaming.

@zoesch: Agreed 100%

I'm all for more people in gaming.

Alls I care about are mo betta games.

@zoesch: Everyone isn't up in arms about it, it seems to me. Only the women that keep pointing out that there are women in gaming, over and over and OVER.

Fahey! Gender is not biological. Sex is. Sorry to chide, but as a Gender Studies major I'm trained to notice these things.

@zoesch: There haven't always been "plenty" and there still aren't plenty.

The common thread in all of these women's experiences illustrates the fact best - quoting from Tory, "it was more difficult at first than it would have been for a guy coming in. I really do genuinely think that."

She is only describing discrimination she felt. Most discrimination happens behind closed doors. It's why women are much less likely to hold positions of power in companies. Clearly, it is not because of incompetency since competence can be found in equal numbers across all genders, but because of conscious and unconscious bias from people in charge (who happen to not be women).

Mtv is tedious and just put garbage

@typeofbreastcancer.info:

this is English?

I'm so sick of reading this pissing and moaning over "there ARE women in gaming." Where are they, really? Are you talking about the only 7% female readership of this blog? The fact that all the games geared towards females are still either Barbie or Mary-Kate and Ashley? Because as many articles like this as I read, with many groaning (male) commenters talking about how there are tons of women in gaming and we should get over it already, every time I walk into GameStop I still get put-upon when the employees there try to help my boyfriend and not me. That's why we need the Frag Dolls (sexist eye candy though they are), and I'm still happy to read articles like this. GAMING IS STILL A BOYS' CLUB, and anyone who says it isn't is in denial.

@rhinestonedarling: Absolutely. Just look at the crap that gets posted on Kotaku... the editors don't even consider how some of that will make their female readers feel. All this "jubblies" bullshit. Like, what the hell? Grow up!

I work at EB and before the regular customers knew me they admitted that they thought I would know nothing. It's frustrating, extremely.

where's the patches for my Splinter Cell so I can actually play them without it tearing up another dvd burner?

Couldn't they do an Ubisoft employees interview without pimping off Jade every time? The more I read or hear these interviews mentioning Jade, the more Rule 34 is going to come out of her. Now its beyond a joke the fault lies in both Ubisoft and Jade Raymond.

@rhinestonedarling: Beautifully spoken.@CallmeMongoose: As well.

@hikkifan1986:

Maybe you have some weird definition of "biological" or "gender", but whether a person is male or female (what I call gender) is definitely what I call biological.