Women in the Project W community are changing the face of gaming by putting women in the C-Suite, making play safer and more inclusive, building community, and telling stories with strong female protagonists. By doing so, they are putting women at the forefront of the multi-billion-dollar gaming industry.
According to a recent study by Deloitte, at least half the gamers in the United States are women, and it appears that the same is true globally. But as Deloitte found, women gamers shy away from multiplayer games and are more inclined to play solo, story-rich games or simple mobile games. With brand building and advertising driving significant revenue in multiplayer games, the opportunity to engage women gamers in that genre presents a huge opportunity for expansion and revenue growth. The gaming industry is a multi-billion-dollar business with potential to grow exponentially. Much of that growth may be dependent on tapping into the market of women gamers.
Yet women have been woefully underrepresented among the game developer community, within senior management in gaming companies, and in the characters portrayed in games. Additionally, women and girls playing online live games are often subjected to sexual and verbal harassment and have to resort to using masculine sounding names or voice-changing headsets.
A number of women in the Project W community are poised to change the face of gaming and are already making great progress. Here's how.
Developing Career Opportunities
With the billions in revenue generated by the gaming industry, women need to take their seat at the table. Brett Abarbanel, a tenured professor at University of Las Vegas William F. Harrah College of Hospitality, is the Executive Director of the International Gaming Institute (IGI). In addition to research, the IGI focuses on education and innovation, developing the next generation of innovators and C-Suite executives through its Center for Gaming Innovation and Executive Development Program. Approximately 40% of the students in the innovation program are women, and approximately 50% of the participants in the Executive Development Program are women. Seven of the 20 patents that have been issued to students in the innovation program have been issued to women. Under Brett's leadership, IGI is on a mission to foster "all-in diversity" in the gaming world.
Similarly, Project W alumna Rebecca Dixon founded her company, the*gamehers, to elevate women in the gaming industry. As Rebecca noted, "We launched [the company] as a response to the fact that there are approximately three billion gamers in the world, and half of them are women. The opportunities for women are so wide, we wanted to be part of it, supporting and empowering women in their professional lives. We do that through education, professional development, and entrepreneurship."
Building Community Among Women Gamers
An important part of the*gamehers mission is building a community where women in the field can support and mentor one another. Rebecca Dixon's mission is to build the "foremost community for women in gaming, full stop"—a community where girls and younger women can see themselves in the established women in the community and where women leaders in the industry are celebrated through the annual *gamehers Awards. Through the company's Ambassador Program, women in the community serve as role models, advocate for inclusivity, and amplify the voices of women in the industry.
Eliminating Bullying and Harassment in Multiplayer Games
Making gaming safer for all players—including girls and women—is the mission of another Project W alumna, Maria Oliveira Tamellini. Maria's company, GamerSafer, has built tools to, among other things, block abusive behavior including hate speech, bullying, and harassment. Minecraft, one of the first and most popular multiplayer games, was the first to leverage GamerSafer's core technology to protect players and staff members. Currently, GamerSafer's solutions protect over 20 million players in over 200 countries and engage with more than 20,000 Discord Communities. In furtherance of its mission to scale safety and fair play, the company has also collaborated and participated in initiatives with the Anti-Defamation League, Take This, Inc. and Safe Online.
Making the multiplayer environment a more diverse, inclusive, and safe place will enable game developers to unlock the growing market of women gamers. As Maria puts it: "At GamerSafer, we recognize that women represent nearly half of the gaming world, and we celebrate this diversity. We take the lead by developing technology that empowers multiplayer games to create spaces where female players feel welcomed and valued, understanding that this is not only the right thing to do but also a strategic advantage, leading to increased retention and lifetime value."
Creating Games That Resonate With a Broader Audience and That Promote Positivity
One way to leverage the power of the women gaming market is to empower the women creators. They are more likely to build multiplayer games with strong women protagonists which have the potential to appeal to the women gamers whose play is otherwise limited to solo and mobile games. An article in the UK edition of Glamour listed 15 of the best video games made by women for women, noting that "the games themselves … are placing women front and center with strong, female protagonists for gamers to play as."
Simply having women in decision-making roles moves the needle in terms of more diverse and inclusive content. When one of *gamerhers' mentors who led an independent game development company for over ten years was asked by the press why she decided to have female protagonists in all the games released that year, the executive responded that the decision was not intentional. But as Rebecca Dixon notes: "When women are in the room, it's intuitive that decisions—whether regarding content, hiring, or otherwise—will reflect their demographic."
Game creator Jess Murrey, CEO and co-founder of Wicked Saints Studios, is drawing on her background in storytelling and peacebuilding to create games rooted in cognitive and behavioral psychology to help young people overcome anxiety and depression and to thrive and feel confident. Through her work in conflict zones like Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, Myanmar, Burundi, and Colombia and with gangs in cities like Boston and Chicago, Jess used storytelling to shift attitudes and behavior. As Jess says: "behavior change doesn't happen by just giving people information—it happens through experiences." And it is through experience and role-playing that Wicked Saints' first game World Reborn aims to prepare gamers—particularly Gen Z—to accomplish something in the real world and create social impact.
As Jess described in a Project W Q&A, World Reborn takes place in a graphic novel style story world where there has been a cataclysmic event. A player is encouraged to exercise their core character strengths—like discipline, inquisitiveness, optimism, social intelligence, or civility—and join with other players from around the world to crowdsource missions to save the world. With every step of the mission, the player builds her character and becomes stronger. The stronger she becomes, the more successful she is at navigating social conflicts and repairing communities.
Why it matters
Even if you aren't a gamer, we should all care about the position of women in a multi-billion-dollar business. Just as in any field, women should have equal career opportunities, be treated with respect and dignity, and be portrayed as smart, powerful, and effective.
Brett is promoting those career opportunities; Rebecca is empowering women gamers through community; Maria is making game-playing safer and more inclusive; and Jess is flexing her creative and storytelling muscles to build games that empower and inspire.
Watch these women to see how they are changing the face of gaming.