MAGfest 2017 — the Panel Wrap Up
On Friday, January 6th Legendary Women had the opportunity to lead a panel on Women in Games at this year’s MAGfest. Our audience was brilliant and there was a TON of thought-provoking discussion. My only “regrets” were a technical snafu that rendered my laptop notes useless, and the short time period in which to answer everyone’s questions and comments. To that end, I respectfully submit for your reading enjoyment: MAGfest 2017 - further thoughts.
— Questions I would have liked to have had more time for:
What recent games would you recommend for women? I choked on this one. I played over a thousand hours in 2016. Not a single one of those games came to mind at the right time. Standouts from the last year for me included Banner Saga 2, The War of Mine: The Little Ones, Overwatch, The Witness, Stellaris, Overcooked, and Civilization VI. I also played a ridiculous amount of Heroes of the Storm, leveled up and ran the first raid of the World of Warcraft: Legion, and was crushed (like everyone else) that No Man’s Sky was not as amazing as I’d hoped. In particular I think Banner Saga is beautiful, and This War of Mine will break your heart a little. I’m literally tabbing back and forth playing Virginia as I write this (I’ll likely write more on this one in the future) and I’d definitely recommend it.
Have you ever had a bad con experience?
I go to 4 or 5 cons every year and for the most part I’ve been pretty fortunate. With the exception of the gamergate conspiracy theorist who came up to the mic during the panel this weekend, I can say I’ve only had one other standout disappointing moment. My Player Two and I attended a board game conference in 2012 — four days with thousands of people sprawled out across several ballrooms rolling dice, pushing pieces, flipping cards, etc. At one point we wandered into the library and found something he really wanted to try, but it required four people. We set it back down and started to move away, then heard two guys behind us exclaim that they’d been dying to play that game and if only they had two more players. Player Two immediately turned around to address them and mentioned that we’d be happy to join them. They were enthused, until I stepped out from behind P2. After an awkward pause and look up and down, they shoved the game back on the shelf and declared they were only looking for 2 player games and immediately left. Besides the occasional “I bet you’re someone’s girlfriend” I haven’t endured a lot of deliberate, obvious sexism at a convention and this instance stuck with me in particular because it was right in front of me and BOARD gaming.
Are there some developers you’re going to talk about?
We didn’t manage to squeeze in everyone I wanted to highlight.
*Robin Hunicke, who produced Journey and is the CEO of Funomena.
*Siobhan Reddy, Director of Media Molecule (the studio that gave us Little Big Planet).
*Rhianna Pratchett, writer and story lead on several games including Mirror’s Edge, Tomb Raider, and Overlord.
*Corinne Yu, until recently of Naughty Dog, responsible for the Quake 2 code base and the Unreal 3 engine’s modifications, and principal engine architect for 343 Industries(Halo).
*Jade Redmon, founder of Ubisoft Toronto and now in charge of Viseral Games.
*Amy Henning, head writer and director of the Uncharted franchise (and joining Redmon at Viseral to help produce the new Star Wars games.)
*Alyssa Finley, director of production at Telltale games.
To name a few. I’m proud to say that this list is just a fraction of the incredible women producing, developing, and creating for games right now. To be honest, I’d hoped to touch more on this Friday and maybe hear from you guys about people working on games I haven’t heard of. (Please add to the comments below, I would LOVE an excuse to check out some new games and studios :D)
The amazing people we met…
- The young artist who told me this was her first year gaming — you literally made my night.
- The guy who helped me out of an awkward post-panel conversation — dude, thank you.
- The lady that asked about talking on mic online — I hope you’re totally gabbing away in whatever game you play now.
- The people who came up afterward to talk about games and to recommend ones for me to try — that evening resulted in 8 new games being added to my Steam account.
- The incredible cosplayers, the enthusiastic game fans, the introspective questioners — I got something special from each and everyone one of you.
- The carpet in the Gaylord Hotel. Seriously, what is going on with their rug choice? I have a habit of looking down while I’m thinking and I know at least twice I got completely distracted by the “mother of all that is holy, I think the floor is summoning cthulhu” of it all. Much thanks to the fabulous Morgan Barker for pulling my bacon from the fire.
Overall, I had an enormous about of fun and I feel like I learned as much as anyone else in the room (likely more.) I’m definitely looking forward to the next convention and panel (AwesomeCon, cross fingers), and we hope you are too!
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