Women In Games

I've begun posting my notes from WiG 07. More to follow shortly.

Greatest Sex Symbol

I just watched a programme on channel 4 about the top 100 sex symbols in film.
Not only did "Lara Croft" come in at number 6, but Angelina Jolie, who hit the big time playing Lara in 2001, came in at number 1.
Regardless of what you think about these results, it certainly says something about media and contemporary culture.

For further discussion, see this paper.

Substitute Lecture

Despite being ill last week and unable to physically be present, I came across a virtual lecture from Helen while at HUMlab, which makes for a good substitute and also features robot ludologists!

Videogames == bad

An older (August 2005) article which illustrates the use of videogames as a negative cultural value.

65 out of 490 young ladies who attend Timkin High School in Canton, Ohio are preggers, and video games may be to blame

I also present a comic from the brilliant Penny Arcade videogames blog, and the corresponding Gamasutra article,

A controversial new academic study has suggested that playing violent video games can lead young men to believe it is acceptable to smoke marijuana and drink alcohol

Game Boys for Play Girls!

An interview (August 2006) with one of my friends, Babsi Lippe, who completed her PhD on girls, Japan and games last year.

Scriptwriting for videogames

Videogames industry website Gamasutra are running an interview with Susan O'Connor, a scriptwriter for titles such as Star Wars Galaxies, Dungeon Siege II, Act of War, and Gears of War. In this article she discusses the construction of narratives, which are clearly at least part of what defines videogames.

She also has some (tentative) things to say about being a woman in a male-normative sector,

I want to be careful what I say here, but men and women are probably, in some ways, wired a little bit differently.

Shocking!