Girls in Gamdev: We dispel myths and stereotypes
According to information from Sergey Gallenkin, there are more girls in domestic gaming development, but still few. The total number is 16%, but there are already 26%among newcomers, that is, the girls go to the industry, but do not delay. Women with experience of more than five years only 9%.
Sergey Volkov, head of GamedEV practices in Spice Recruitment, told why some companies support the ratio in favor of men, and explained what they are mistaken in.
The experience of selecting employees in gaming companies suggests that it would seem an obvious thesis that “all people are equal, and gender, skin, age, etc. does not matter”, does not cancel the fact that when hiring personnel are divided into boys and Girls still exist. The employer will not refuse the entrance to a girl who is obviously better than a man in professional qualities, but with a high probability will reject her candidate, all other things being equal. The basis of all failures are four main myths.
Myth one: girls are on average stupid boys
Few people admit (especially when it comes to work), but this reason is more common than it seems. Explained very simply: bias of assessment. Often, employees are selected by people who are not sophisticated in working with staff: they cannot highlight the main qualities and professional skills, so the substitution of concepts is being replaced, and the first impression in the end plays the main role.
In this case, a beautiful girl has much more chances to get to work than an ordinary guy. How a conditional unemployed evangelist is preparing for an interview? At most – it will cheat a beard before the meeting. The girl will carefully pick up clothes and makeup, and at the meeting the charm will be exuded. If a pretty woman choose among equal candidates, and in the process it turns out that she is a weak professional, then henceforth, recalling the bitter experience, they will give preference to the bearded gospel, since the girl will doubt the default.
Myth second: girls get a job to go on maternity leave
The biggest difficulty is that this myth cannot be checked or refuted. It is worth the tenant manager to once hear the story of how someone hired an employee, and she suddenly went on maternity leave, and he involuntarily begins to think: what if we happen to this? And takes a guy to work – just in case.
In fact, a huge number of factors can affect the employee, often much more sudden than pregnancy: illness and death of loved ones, revaluation of life values, disappointment in the profession, and after all. All these risks bear the nature of the errors: taking a “random noise” for the pattern is a big mistake that can prevent the employer from collecting a truly professional team.
Myth Three: Girls – Bad Leaders
Among many men of those who have not happened to work under the control of a woman (and for Gamdev and IT this is more likely a classic), there is an opinion that the girl is a priori is a sweet, kind, family and sincere person, and her hardness in decisions is not peculiar to her at all. Practice shows that this judgment is not only obsolete, but, perhaps, has never had a reason. Girls effectively manage both individual teams and processes, and entire corporations, not only showing the necessary decisiveness in business, but sometimes using the very “female softness” that is more effective in solving some problems more effective than all other approaches.
Myth fourth: girls are capricious, and their behavior is unpredictable
Not all men are subject to uncontrolled attacks of rage, not all women are used to being capricious. A professional controls his emotions if they do not benefit the result. Nevertheless, many have noticed that when women gather in large groups, there is a strange one: the best specialists separately, together they suddenly turn into schoolgirls with all the ensuing. The trick is that this problem is relevant only for spheres, which is considered to be “feminine”, and in Gamdev with its sixteen percent, it is hardly possible to manifest itself.
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We talked with girls who have achieved success in various areas of Gamera, and learned how the “masculinity” of the industry affects their work.
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RESSA Schwarzvald , Audio producer , TinyBuild Games
I have never worked in the office throughout my career – all freelance and outsors, so I will not say for the male team and the number of girls in the company. But if you look at familiar colleagues, then among the soundtracks there are very few girls, five percent of the total number.
In the West, by the way, women in playing sound are more often known – take the same Winifred Philips, Jessica Curry, Penka Cuunem and others. They also sometimes have campaigns to popularize women in the industry: on Designingsound.COM published articles and interviews with sounding girls, and thematic round tables are held at large-scale conferences. Although the ratio of the sexes is the same as in the CIS.
There were never doubts about the "male" sphere of activity. If you want and can do it – do it, it doesn’t matter what gender you are. But the reality is such that if you are a woman, you have to try more in terms of image, break stereotypes. Often, developers think that a girl can only voce a way on a rainbow, and it is better to order the battle of robots from a man.
I think that along with the number of girls, the number of men who come to the industry is growing-after all, the sphere is interesting and promising. It's great: every year you get acquainted with new people, find friends and rejoice that all are so smart and creative.
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Elvira Trofimova, concept artist, Project triforce:
One fine day, a friend wrote that in the company where she works, they are looking for artists. A test task, interview, test period, and voila-I am a 2D artist in a small game company (games on social networks are also games, yes?). At the beginning of his career in his native Samara there were social and mobile games, then the beautiful “Zeptolab” in Moscow, then moving to New York, where I am now in the position of concept artist invented the concepts for figures and characters for games.
At the current place of work of girls, two, counting me.
It somehow turns out that men prevail in technical specialties, and in humanitarian duties are divided between men and women approximately equally. But there are exceptions, of course.
I hope that the arrival of girls to the industry only affects positively. But, in general, does this have this value? Boy, girl … What is the difference? We work with our heads and hands, not gender accessories. The main thing is skill, not the floor.
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Alexandra (Alfina) Golubev, folder of letters in words and events in history, Ice-Pick Lodge:
Some time ago there was a LJ, and almost all good people got to know there. I, for example, dirty abuse in the comments brought me up with star representatives of the domestic playworm. From there, the curve of the path was already directly into the player (to the "country of games"); The player became an occasion to sign about IPL.
In the end, I naturally met Dybovsky. For some time we just talked on Skype friendly, and then, releasing " Tuk-tuk-tuk ", ICE-Pick Lodge found that she forgot to write a press release for this remarkable event. I was glad to help, then help with additional materials, and then write a pitch for Kickstarter, updates, translate the old “mor” … In general, do everything that is supposed to do to a person who loves and can put the letters in words and explain confusing thoughts simple words. Now I was completely in the design department – the same cherished place where mechanics compose and make conceptual decisions. There I propose one of the points of view on these.
I don't work in a team, I work with the game. If sometimes third parties participate in this process, their gender, right, does not care.
No, seriously. Friends love to make fun of me because I went to study at school. Not because it was a tough and a hidden, just the opposite; But still, if something interesting for me in these walls was located, then the knowledge. I had no idea who is in love with whom, to whom teachers belong, who is a friend, and who – a chest. It didn’t even occur to me that you can generally be interested in this. For what? After all, I was not going to get acquainted with these people, we were just by the will of fate in the same class.
https://sister-site.org/fitzdares/
Of course, with ICE-Pick Lodge everything is completely different. The workflow is arranged as follows: everyone has their own segment of activity, a kind of spatial pocket, and there he is a king and God, free to pour out his individuality and creative aspirations. In such a situation, relations with the game in a certain sense are equal to relations with the team, because the game is woven from the impulses of the soul of its creators.
But still, the common cause is in the first place for me, and people – even the most remarkable and deeply pretty – are perceived only as projections of themselves in this matter. Such projections retain many features of character and personality, but it is hardly the floor.
The wider circles of the population are entered into one or another sphere, the less closed the club this area seems to be, which means that the more healthy it functions (at least in case of entertainment, this is definitely so). However, I would be more happy if I would have been in Gamdev in an influx of elderly employees. In the end, at the age of God he tells the play (or entertain his grandchildren) and work at the computer. That would be cool!
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Anna across, Game Producer, Innovecs Gaming Bu:
When I was finally tired of working in my specialty, that is, to write a code, I collected all my drawings in one portfolio and sent them as an answer to all the vacancies of artists in the city, without applying my resume to the portfolio. To my surprise, I did. And genuine interest in the development process did not go unnoticed and brought to the role of the producer. Since then it’s still interesting, for more than six years now.
At the moment, four girls work directly on the games directly on our games, the rest mostly live in the purely female departments of the company – accounting and HR. In general, according to experience, girls in Gamdev accumulate in the artist: artists, textures, modeliers. A lot of game designers. Less often – in positions directly related to programming, very rarely – testers.
Previously, the world seemed unfair to me. At every interview, I saw a biased attitude towards myself as a girl bursting into the "male" world.
Then I grew up and realized that this is my level of knowledge was insufficient.
Now I am familiar with many excellent girls who know and can in any near -the -theite area no less than guys. Interest in the industry burns in all!
I looked at the room and introduced a girl in the place of each guy, and in the place of every girl – a guy (no, not in the sense that you thought). During the virtual change in the sex of the conflict in the mind, no. Girls can perfectly be programmers, art director or bosses; Boys are also suitable for artists.
Another thing is if suddenly there are more girls ..
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Irina Pedash, Texture Supervisor, Game Stream, Minsk Wargaming Development Center:
I must say that since childhood I have been friends with the boys more, I liked their interests. And now nothing has changed: we are all one team united by the general idea of creating a cool game, so loved by many.
There were no doubts, I just wanted to do what I really liked, and still “buzz” from my profession. When you do all day at work by the fact that you really like it, you can probably call yourself a happy person. Of course, there are difficult tasks that require perseverance and many hours of immersion in work, but at the end there is always satisfaction from their own result.
In Gamdev, I do not feel divisions into "female" and "male" professions in general. For all the time in this area of girls I met among programmers and among 3D artists.
I somehow talked about this topic with the director of one small 3D studio. For several years of working with girls, he came to the conclusion that they are more disciplined and neat in work. Often even perfectionists. All this, of course, has a positive effect on work and the final product.
► Irina Pedash.
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Maria Kravtsova, screenwriter, Royal Troupe, author of the Narratorika blog:
We have a small indie studio, but historically there are more girls in it than boys. Artist, animator, marketer, UI artist, composer-all girls. Programmer, game designer, still composer and sound, PRA – boys. And I.
Before Gamdev, I worked in a purely men's team: the only girl is among more than a dozen men. The company was very warm, only I had to drink vodka, because I was not bought a separate type of alcohol for corporate parties, alas.
But seriously, in Gamdev I saw the disgusting examples of the most dense sexism, and, conversely, are brilliant examples of a human attitude that is not dependent on gender. Now in an indie test this aspect suits me. I don't know how much the fact that I am a woman affects me. As if we live in an advanced society, where stupid gender stereotypes finally remained in the past.
I was immediately taken to the unisex-debt of the screenwriter. And, having come to my first studio, I saw that there are many women there and they feel great.
We girls bring new topics to games, we increase diversity. And this is always good.
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Girls prove with their example: they want to make games, know how to and – most importantly – do. And the fact that women were ordered to be the path to Gamdev is just another industry myth.