Press Play: USC Game Design promotes gender parity, innovation


Sports, science and games are three fields often considered to be “boys’ clubs,” but not at USC, where the gender split in the game design program is equal.

Although there has been a noticeable increase in female gamers, the majority of game designers remain male, leading to overwhelmingly male characters in games. Many believe that the gaming industry is not female-friendly, but the game design programs at USC are shattering this misconception one student at a time.

“In recent years, all the incoming classes have improved in terms of gender split, most notably the B.A. and M.F.A. in the Interactive Media and Games Division, which are 50-50 men and women at both the graduate and undergraduate level,” said Tracy Fullerton, the Chair of the Interactive Media and Games Division at the School of Cinematic Arts.

Fullerton has been a game designer for 25 years. Other than chairing the game design program, she is the Electronic Arts Endowed Chair of Interactive Entertainment, director of the USC Game Innovation Lab and director of USC Games. She also teaches in the School of Cinematic Arts.

The USC Games program is made up of four degree programs — a bachelor of arts in interactive media and games, a bachelor of science in computer science with an emphasis in games, a master of fine arts and master of science in the same fields.

According to Todd Marten’s recent article in the Los Angeles Times, USC admitted 15 men into its graduate track and five women in 2011. In 2015, however, USC admitted 12 women and seven men. In the undergraduate program, seven out of the program’s 27 freshmen were women in 2012. But in 2014, freshmen women outnumbered men 14 to 7, and in 2015 there were equal numbers of men and women.

In 2015, USC also retained its number one spot in the Princeton Review’s “Top 25 Undergraduate Schools to Study Game Design,” followed by University of Utah and Digipen Institute of Technology.

“Students come to USC Games to learn the fundamental design and development skills that it takes to become a world class designer of games,” Fullerton said.

She also said that students learn basic skills such as programming, visual design, interactive design, narrative design, creative and technical direction, audio design, production management and entrepreneurial skills, usability and quality assurance.

USC is number one primarily because of the type of games the students produce. Unlike the games currently available in stores, the USC program’s focus lies in innovation.

“In terms of our student games specifically, there is a real range,” Fullerton said. “Many of them use cutting edge technologies or techniques, others take on innovative ideas and mechanics.”

Part of the reason why students are able to innovate is because, according to Fullerton, they are more willing to take risks.

“We are always working with the students to get them to innovate, to express ideas, and to take risks,” Fullerton said. “Because they are in school and not out in the commercial world, these risks can produce quite imaginative and interesting results that make the games very different from those available commercially.”

Martzi Campos, a masters student in the game design program, echoed Fullerton’s sentiments.

“There’s a big emphasis in the program to push the boundaries of what’s out there,” Campos said in an email to the Daily Trojan. “Even the more traditional video-game projects can and do explore new game mechanics and subvert known themes and genres.”

In Campos’ experience, students are encouraged to pursue creative solutions.

“I have never heard ‘no’ when it comes to an out-of-the-box idea,” she said. “My own thesis is focused around entirely physical puzzles, not digital ones, and while most of the work in the program is digital, I never felt like I was out of bounds for perusing work outside that scope.”

Campos earned a B.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design, where she studied painting and installation art. Prior to enrolling at USC, she taught preschool art for several years.

Currently, Campos is working on her thesis project, “Beautiful Corner.”

“It is a physical installation built out of two stage walls and a partial ceiling,” Campos said. “Inside of the space are interactive sculpture puzzles, which, as the player solves them, reveal a story about childhood and magic. As the player explores and solves the mysteries of the room, the room itself reacts though sound and lighting.”

Campos drew inspirations for “Beautiful Corner” from room escape games and interactive theater.

“I wanted to create a tangible, reactive, magical world that gives the player a chance to not only observe it, but to become a character in it,” Campos said.

As is the case with many historically male-dominated fields, gender is a major factor in video game development. The USC program had more female students than males in previous years and currently boasts even numbers of both genders.

In recent years, male gamers have often acted as gatekeepers to the gaming world, often perpetuating the harmful stereotype of the “fake geek/gamer girl.” Additionally, the recent incident of Gamergate, where Twitter users harassed prominent female figures in the gaming world, left the gaming community at odds regarding sexism.

“I think that Gamergate was a tragic aberration in the development of the industry towards a more inclusive culture,” Fullerton said. “It’s important to note that this was not coming from inside the industry but from a very small, misguided group of people on the Internet who have no real involvement in the industry at all. The less attention paid to them at this point, the better.”

Women and other student minorities will be able to be agents of change in the future, Fullerton hopes.

“Our environment is extremely open and respectful, so the students are learning in an environment that we hope is how the industry will eventually become,” Fullerton said. “Of course, everyone has worries about their future. I think that our young women and otherwise diverse students hope to be agents of change. They realize that where there is change, there is opportunity.”

Campos also felt that such a bias did not exist in USC’s program.

“I have been lucky enough to never have to face such attitudes in person — I think that means I must keep good company!” Campos said. “The stereotype of a fake gamer girl is still a bit of a specter that can haunt you.”

Campos said that there is an outside societal pressure for women to understand games they are not interested in.

“I think I put pressure on myself sometimes to understand games I am not terribly interested in, just to make sure I can’t get called out for not knowing something,” Campos said. “No one’s putting that pressure on me, but I feel it all the same. It’s more than just the desire to be up-to-date or simply knowledgeable in my field. There is a self-inflicted social pressure to make sure I don’t ‘embarrass’ myself, which is ridiculous, but there it is.”

For Campos, USC’s inclusive program is working to dispel the stereotype of women in the industry.

“As a student you can feel that the program is focused and committed to not only fostering new women into the field but also bringing in inspirational women in the industry to share and learn from,” Campos said.

The program is also groundbreaking in that, soon, USC Games will be publishing the games that students create.

“This first-ever academic publishing label will curate important independent and experimental titles,” Fullerton said.

These games will then be published by USC students on consoles, PC/Mac and mobile.

“USC Games is already known for turning out the highest quality of young game developers and innovative projects, and now we are taking that reputation and extending to the realm of publishing,” Fullerton added.

USC Games will facilitate the launch of student-developed games.

“The publishing process will be independently funded by their developers, and USC Games will offer guidance and quality assurance in getting the projects onto consoles, PR around the launch and a relationship with players built on our existing reputation,” Fullerton said.

Similarly, for Campos, the best aspects of the program are the faculty and staff, a sentiment she believes is shared by her fellow classmates.

“[The faculty and staff] are so talented and truly care about the students the work that they create,” Campos said. “I have had such inspiring and encouraging mentors in my three years in the program.”

 

8 replies
  1. Ras5555
    Ras5555 says:

    I am really confused at what the latest popular thinking is as it relates to gender issues. On the one hand many claim gender preferences are a purely socially constructed phenomenon and that males and females would think exactly alike if not for these social forces at work. Well if there isn’t such a thing as a “female brain” and a “male brain” why does it matter the gender makeup of the video game community?

  2. Kevyne-Shandris
    Kevyne-Shandris says:

    It’s important that woman gamers also have choices in what genders they would want to play, as well. I play a male in WoW simply to get away from the pettiness of boys in that I-hate-girls-stage in their bonding rituals, but I also like to have the option to play either/or (especially in RPGs). I feel that gender specific roles will just be as splitting as only male characters in games, too.

    What’s needed is more women in game development to have games OTHER than the CoDs and Battlefields. Really like to see long-term building games in the future, where you build cities and complex societies and work to build communities … things that were touched upon with MMOs that didn’t pan out (as games became more action oriented). It’s now 12 button mice and macros playing, not so much as spreadsheets; thinking strats; or trying to be neighborly anymore. To me, as a woman, that boring. Want to create, design, not simply destroy (100000000001 games already does that). How about PvE version of EvE? You know run complex economies; explore all the stuff being removed from traditional games (like the puzzles; the foraging; the long-term character development)?

    I’ve been playing video games since 1976 (Pong on a Sears portable B/W TV in the day). So any idea that women don’t understand gaming or Johnny-come-lately is patently wrong, too. It’s just we came BEFORE Nintendo and their marketing to EXCLUDE girls and women in gaming (as they were into that 15 year-old TOY market sales).

    The industry has a lot of work ahead to correct the sins of it’s past. Hopefully, all this will be the past and the small screen medium can shine as the big screens in content and fun, too.

    Here’s hope to all you younger gals: let’s see gaming show it’s full potential, not just 50% of it. ^-^

  3. Parrikle
    Parrikle says:

    It sounds like an excellent program – I’ve been faced with the difficulty of encouraging gender parity in my own teaching, both at high school and university level, as women only account for 5% of the students involved in our game design courses. To increase that ratio would be a great outcome, and I’m incredibly impressed that USC is achieving these results.

  4. hurin
    hurin says:

    I am consumer and I am king. Developing games costs money, and if people like me won’t buy your games, your company dies. I don’t care if your company is inclusive or not, all I care about if you make good games. The company that made Superhot are all white and male, and their game is selling like super hot cakes, the team that made Sunset were super diverse and ended up in bankruptcy court.
    You think Gamers will buy your products if you tell them they’re sexist and harassers? Good luck with that, see how well that strategy worked for Tales of Tales.

    • Braden League
      Braden League says:

      It’s nice that you think you are king. You buy games because we make them good, we don’t make games good so you can buy them.

      • hurin
        hurin says:

        What games? I’ve seen your webpage, there is nothing to suggest you got any marketable skills, and if you did you wouldn’t be playing with beer cans.

        Bachelor of Fine Arts Baaahaaahaha!!!! Yes I will have fries with that.

  5. Guncriminal .
    Guncriminal . says:

    “a very small, misguided group of people on the Internet who have no real involvement in the industry at all. The less attention paid to them at this point, the better.”

    – I suspect Fullerton is saying this to convince herself.

    • ChaoticWin
      ChaoticWin says:

      Quite right. It’s actually the other way around. Gawker is about gossip, not the video games industry. Intel is about microchips, not the video game industry. Anita is about feminism, not the video game industry. None of the prominent anti-Gamergate people are IN the video game industry, they just want a slice of the economic pie.

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