A student raised her hand, and the moderator handed her the mic. “Hi, Melody, I’m the president of the esports club, Jessie. What do you think is the hardest part about being a woman in gaming?” Jessie had dyed jet-black hair with purple streaks and wore black leather head to toe. Her bright red lipstick suited her. Such contrast and boldness.
“This is a great question. Does everyone have a few hours? It may take me a while to answer!” I took a sip of water to buy some time. The room fell silent. I could hear people breathing. Dozens of young men and women at this event waited to hear my response.
“For women in gaming, you’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t. Let’s take an actual game play example. A question for the female gamers in the audience, how many of you have been told that you’re good, for a girl?”
A few hands crept up, from a dozen or so female gamers.
“Okay, now for those women here who aren’t good at gaming. I’m one of them. How many of you have been told you aren’t any good because you’re a girl?”
Half the women there raised their hands. More than I expected.
“So it’s sort of like that, working in games. Women working at game companies have to constantly overcome perception barriers. I argue a lot about how women are portrayed in the games we produce. Gaming is very white, and bro heavy. And the more nonwhite nonbros we have at companies like mine who can interject opinions and different perspectives, the more diverse the gaming offerings will be in the future. I would love to see more of this happen.”
I looked at Jessie to see if I’d answered her question. She smiled back at me and nodded.
Whew.
“If it’s okay to shamelessly plug my company’s diversity internship program, I’d love to do that now.” I passed out our recruitment flyers. With the help of Sue from HR, Seventeen Studios established a paid diversity summer program, created by yours truly. The board of directors approved our plan for broadening our recruiting efforts in all levels of hiring (*cough* more women *cough* people of color *cough* LGBTQ *cough*). The beauty of this program was that we weren’t just limited to new college graduates. Underrepresented professionals who wanted to switch industries and work in games could apply too.
Sue and Tope, our new, wonderful studio leader, asked me to be the company’s diversity show pony (okay, maybe not in those words), but I was fine with that. Nonwhite, nonmale game producers were uncommon. We needed more. With the number of female gamers growing exponentially each year, gaming could go the way of American college admissions, where the number of women surpassed the men. In just a few months, Sue and Tope had overhauled our entire hiring process, revamped our diversity and sexual harassment employee training, and implemented mandatory manager inclusivity coaching, with the goal of helping teams foster community with new diverse group members.
After the Q&A ended, students and community members wandered to the back of the room to hoard the free cookies, crackers, cheese cubes, and soda. It reminded me of the Seventeen lunchroom after a board meeting, when all the vultures swooped in to forage the sandwich and cookie trays. The board of directors always left soggy chicken salad pita remnants, and oatmeal raisin cookies. I don’t know why anyone would ever bother to order oatmeal raisin cookies. Who would ever pick oatmeal raisin over a chocolate chip cookie?
Jessie skipped the free food frenzy and beelined over to me. She handed me her résumé. “I would love to work at Seventeen. I love games, and I have As in all my CS classes.”
She had the grades, and the right background. I skimmed her cover letter and résumé. “This all looks great. You have an outstanding academic record and you’ve had some impressive internships already.” I couldn’t wait to pass her information to Sue and the recruiting team. I’d even send it to Nolan at Epicenter so she had more than one company in play.
She handed me her business card. “Jessie Alvarez, Games Enthusiast.” I flipped the card over. A simple logo embossed on a plain white background: “13.13.”
“It would be a dream come true for me to work with you,” she said, adjusting her horn-rimmed glasses on her nose.
My face beamed. “Same for me.”
WHEN THE EVENT came to an end, I went down to the parking