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New York University Videogames Explorations Floor

One of the many hats I wear is working as a Resident Assistant at New York University. In the past few months, I've been pushing the university to accept a videogames floor to their Explorations program. The Explorations program gives students a wide variety of themed living options based on their interest. The programs, which encompass entire themed floors, range from movies to leadership to bohemian lifestyles. It's a very good program, especially when students get involved.

The good news is that most indications point towards a videogame floor happening. The bad news is that there has been some concern expressed over a lack of "female interest" in the program. I want to prove them wrong.

Here's what I need you to do: if you happen to know of any women entering New York University and are interested in videogames for the 2005-2006 school year, please tell them about the Explorations program. It's fun. It's well funded. And the more diversity you can bring to the floor, the better experience everyone will have. There will be museum trips, conversations with professors, and the works. Almost everyone in the other Explorations programs fall head over heels in love with it.

And the floors for Explorations in my residence hall are by gender, so don't be concerned you'll have your privacy violated by us seedy gamer guy types.

Harvard Psychology Professor on Gender Differences

The New Republic Online is carrying an article by Steven Pinker, a Harvard Psychology Professor, on the reality and myths of gender differences. Related very much to Harvard President Lawrence Summers' comments on the subject that he has appologized for since.

Mao and the New Games Journalism

You may remember early Christian game reviews. Endless rants against every game that came out for either being too violent, or having less Jesus than a Jack Chick comic. While this sub-community has matured in recent years to more coherent review methods, I invite you to revisit the glory days of weird-ass reviews. Stand and bear witness to Maoist game reviews.

Unfortunately, these guys haven't been keeping their reviews up to date, but they cover some of the classic PC games from 3-5 years ago. From the review of Fallout 1 & 2:

"...in the opinion of this reviewer, Fallout is more of a Maoist Role Playing Game than "linear" RPGs such as Myst. Just like there are many roads to socialism, where some are better than others and some are false turns, the player in Fallout will discover ways to do much better or play the game from an entirely different perspective the second, third, and further times through the game."

Gear for the GamerGirl

Valentine's Day is fast approaching (hint: it's february 14th, clueless one) and a geek girl's fancy turns to shiny pretty things... not diamonds, silly; DS! If you've got a special gamer girl in your life, or maybe if you're trying to woo one, we've got the sleek and the sexy, the silly and the sublime, to tickle her heart.

Some of these can be acquired through Amazon - if you choose to get them that way, we get a few cents! Happy shopping.

Women First! Children can be saved later.

Despite being two whole years older than I am (and I'm dating myself), one of my consistently favorite games of all times is Robotron. The hectic arcade shooter (which can be played for free here) features a scientist who must shoot wave after wave of killer robots while saving men, women, and children from almost certain doom. Just a regular game that I can play for a few minutes without using any brain cells.

At least, that's what I thought it was until my friend noticed a curious pattern while watching me play a game.

After five waves, she said, "You realize you save all the women first before you save anyone else, right?"

Huh?

Lessons from a Voyeur

I've watched a lot of porn in my day, enough so that it's gotten just a little boring. Maybe you have to be male to appreciate the super-genital close-up cam? Or just a fetishist? What I liked about porn was, and I know this makes me a stereotypical girl, the story. The situations the girls would get themselves into - oh my! The anticipation, the (sometimes) danger of seduction - but so few films focus on those aspects. In any case I admit I'd grown a bit disenchanted with the genre.

And then I discovered the Voyeur series. Needless to say continuing to read this will take you into very un-worksafe territory.

Luminosity and Obscurity

Tokyopia has an interview with Mizuguchi up. Is it just me or is it difficult to get Japanese game designers to talk about their art? Of course part of it is the language barrier - the interview, it says, used both English and Japanese but most of Mizuguchi's answers sound like they were in English, rather than translated from Japanese. There are gems of ideas dropped in here, but not fleshed out the way I *think* many Western developers would have elaborated. I've noticed this also in lectures given by Japanese game designers, even in Japanese. They don't say much, and when they do, it tends to be almost naively simple, self-deprecating, or very, very practical.

The Title Pretty Much Says it All

Whle doing a random google search for games and female-related stuff, I came across Women in Games a little while ago. They didn't have anything posted on it besides the tagline "A voice for women in games." BUT apparently they are going to have a conference this August, and they are still accepting papers.

So what are you waiting for! Don't you want to go to Dundee this summer? Want to co-chair a panel with me? Come on, it'll be fun! And after the conference we can go to my boyfriend's parents' summer home in the south of France and kick it over a bottle of rosé. God I miss the summer.

Doesn't that sound good? Who's in?
[via my friend Ludology].

The Woman Track GDC 2005

This year there are a LOT of panels and roundtables that will be of interest to women in the industry. I've gone through the conference catalogue to pick out the ones that jumped out at me.

GDC 2005 - Namedropping

Only geeks care that you stood next to WILL WRIGHT at an afterparty, but boy will they care. That's another way to see GDC - as GGA Guide to GDC continues - follow the big names! Smart people are just smart, and sometimes the topic of the panel doesn't even matter. Here are some of those speakers who have inspired me in the past.