Kara Brauen has been playing video games since childhood. She remembers playing the mine cart level of Donkey Kong Country for hours. She memorized exactly where to jump, where all the enemies were. As Brauen got older she moved on to other more serious games, but she never quit smashing the A button.
She eventually got into the gaming industry. Mostly point-and-click games aimed at older women. She left the business to work in graphic design, but still plays video games in her spare time.
Although Brauen considers herself an avid gamer, she doesn’t feel accepted in the broader community because of her gender. She knows there are worlds she’s better off avoiding if she wants to enjoy her video games.
“I have a bunch of guy friends who game. Obviously I feel completely accepted with them, but I also don’t play games online,” the 25-year-old St. Thomas graduate said.
When she reflects on the games she’s played, a pattern emerges.
“As a kid what I’d mostly play is Muppets Treasure Island, Pokémon. All the games I played, there weren’t a lot of women characters in them,” Brauen said.
The role of women in video games has come into the media spotlight in recent months due to the Gamergate controversy. Since August, the gaming community has seen many of its vocal female gamers threatened and terrorized by radical members of the online community for speaking out about sexism in video games. These women have experienced doxxing— having personal information like names and addresses published on websites for others to use — received death threats and threats of rape.
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Lauren Cruikshank and Jeff Mundee are professors at the University of New Brunswick, teaching media and culture game courses. Mundee has been in the industry for 10 years, working for AAA gaming companies on games like Godfather, Deadspace, NHL, Madden, Battle for Middle Earth and FIFA. Cruikshank is wearing her green shirt from her Luigi costume while Mundee has a grey EA Sports hoodie on. As we talk in the Tim Hortons in the Student Union Building, students in Halloween costumes walk behind us. One of them is “Link,” the silent protagonist from the Zelda franchise. We’ve entered Gaming County now.
Both Cruikshank and Mundee believe this conversation isn’t anything new. The conversation about the role of women in games has been going on since the beginning of games. What’s new is the perception of the medium.
Cruikshank said we’re seeing this controversy now because games have taken off in public consciousness. They’ve become mainstream.
“There just been a real expansion of the population that plays games. We’ve also seen a generation that’s kind of grown up playing games,” she said. “There’s a real investment here. With that widening comes some debate about who counts, who’s at the core, who gets to own it or who considers to be the ‘in’ group.”
Mundee says every medium has had its growing pains.
“Maybe you used to run a radio station out of your garage, maybe you can’t do that anymore.”
Where people once saw them as merely entertainment, a growing movement see video games as more serious and artistic. And with better gaming technology comes more complex games with more complex characters. When it comes to female characters in games, some use them as strong female protagonists while other use them as props, sexual images or objects to obtain. How many times can Mario save Peach from Bowser before gamers get bored?
“Being refreshing is definitely part of it. The old female trope, all that stuff is been there, done that. Even doing it in a satirical way,” Mundee said. “It’s boring. There’s a lot of opportunity now.”
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The term Gamergate originated in a social media hashttag that emerged after game designer Zoe Quinn was accused of having a sexual relation with a game journalist to get a good review. She was harassed by online trolls, received threats and had to flee from her house. The allegations were false, but many still claim this debate is about gaming journalistic ethics.
Cruikshank said that’s a justification after the fact.
“If you look at the history of even the tweets, you’ll see that there’s very few directed at journalists and a lot more directed at female developers, at women who talk about video games,” she said. “It’s kind of a shield. It’s just a way to reframe the debate to make it look like you’re the good guy.”
But for Mundee and Cruikshank, the games themselves aren’t to blame.
“I don’t think games have created misogynist people,” says Cruickshank. “I do think, like all media forms, games both reflect and shape people’s attitudes; they are both a mirror and a window.”
She said elements in contemporary culture are less favourable to women than men. And those are reflected in games too.
“There are people with misogynistic attitudes, some of which play games.”
Mundee said the Internet has changed everything about games like it has everything that we do.
“Would [Gamergate have] happened in this way? Maybe not. But would we be at this point in the growth of the medium if it weren’t for the inclusion brought about by the Internet in terms of collaboration and distribution and all that stuff. It’s at least a two-edged sword. It has many pointy parts.”
Although the debate of sexism in video games has been bubbling under the surface for years, Cruikshank said it didn’t need to get this vicious.
“In terms of the maturing games as a medium, it’s sort of a teenager at this point. Teenage years are tough sometimes. You are discovering who you are. That’s inevitable,” she said. “So as games mature, as we take games more seriously, which is also what’s happening here, I think games are going to grow up and there’s going to be some growing pains.”
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As for Brauen, when she working in the gaming industry she didn’t run into any barriers because of her gender, but she’s heard stories. She knew who she should only talk to at work.
“It was definitely a male-dominated atmosphere. There was only a quarter to a third of the office where the women were,” Brauen said.
She thinks it’s good that people are talking about these issues.
“If it does anything, it’s bringing everyone’s attention to something broader. The Gamergate hashtag will probably fizzle out within the next year but these sentiments that started it will always be there. There’s always people who just want to be mean,” Brauen said.
“In my experience working, we’ve got some ways to go.”
