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How do you make a game feel fun and fair? By understanding that players have implicit expectations--a sense of their rights within the games we create.
For the next twelve days, I'll add one item a day to the Player's Bill of Rights.
Laralyn McWilliams
27.2K posts
Laralyn McWilliams
@Laralyn
Game designer and leader since 1994: Free Realms, Full Spectrum Warrior. Many awards including Lifetime Achievement. Also speaks about game dev wellness.
- Tales of women in game dev, chapter 14: I was reminded in a chat today that I was asked during at least 3 different E3s whether I played the game... that I was demoing at our booth... while wearing my badge that clearly read "Creative Director" or "Lead Designer" + company name.
- One of the unspoken taxes of being in game dev is having to move frequently, especially in AAA. Since I started in pro game dev, I’ve lived in Raleigh, Ann Arbor, Seattle, Chicago, LA, Austin, San Diego, San Francisco, LA again, and Seattle again. That’s 10 moves in 27 years.
- We've known about this for at least 25 years, since the first large-ish commercial MMOs. People who are creeps in real life--or afraid to be creeps in real life--will find ways be creeps in a virtual world. This is not something that should have to be rediscovered.Meta is implementing a "personal boundary" feature to try to curb creepy behaviour in their social VR spaces - rockpapershotgun.com/meta-adding-pe…
- One of the biggest mental shifts in a non-game CD role after 25 years as a woman creative lead in game development is that every little thing doesn't have a to be a fucking fight. I don't have to enter every day, every meeting, every moment girded for battle.
- We need a "50 over 50" list of game devs. It's a challenging career for the long haul, and also not always great at valuing experience.
- A reminder: when someone talks about their negative experiences in the game industry, replying with simply "I never experienced that" is just as helpful and welcome as running into a cancer center shouting, "I've never had cancer, woo hoo!"
- If you've been in game dev any length of time, you've almost certainly had games cancelled, or live games taken down, or games on platforms that no longer exist and aren't (or can't be) emulated. We all have these game graveyards in our hearts and souls.
- Tip for women in tech: You probably already do a quick scan of emails to look for typos and other mistakes. Use that same time to edit out phrases that soften your points, excuse something that doesn't need to be excused, apologize when no apology is needed.
- Many women in game dev (>20 of them) have told me they miss recruiting or networking opportunities because going to events means being harassed, hit on, and groped. It’s the kind of discrimination and lost opportunity overlooked when people try to address industry gender issues.Replying to @LaralynSign me up as not a fan of industry events with alcohol. Times I've been inappropriately touched in the industry mostly happened around drunk people (nothing too serious in my case). Makes me want to avoid parties.
- Replying to @LaralynThere was zero chance anyone would ever confuse me with a booth babe... but it was 100X worse for other women. It was infuriating to have endless male coworkers argue FOR booth babes when my female coworkers literally had to forcibly remove hands from their butts every E3.
- Replying to @LaralynThe discussion around booth babes and "strippers" at big publisher GDC parties became toxic for almost any woman trying to participate, regardless of their personal POV. Somehow saying "I'd like to attend a professional event without getting groped" was a controversial stance.
- Replying to @LaralynWhile demoing Full Spectrum Warrior at our first E3, even after the Director had lost his voice and explicitly pointed me out as Lead Designer and asked press to talk to me, they would go to anyone BUT me, including the male models dressed as soldiers.
- Replying to @LaralynIt was so bad one year that I bailed on the company "women's sweater" after 30 minutes on the floor and changed into the men's tee shirt. Wearing the women's sweater created a 75% chance I would be ignored and a 25% chance I would be asked to intro the press to a "real dev."
