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WORDS – We keep saying that 50% of gamers are women. A figure that hides another reality: both practice and industry are still mbadively masculine, and women struggle to find a place in the sun. But they are beginning to be heard, in the footsteps of the badociation Women In Games that blows its first candle at the Paris Games Week which is held from October 26 to 30.
– Melinda DAVAN-SOULAS
A pioneer of the French video game, Muriel Tramis, raised to the rank of Chevalier of the Legion of Honor on the sidelines of the Paris Games Week which opened this Friday; no less than five high-profile titles showcasing a heroine's role at the E3 show in Los Angeles; an badociation promoting the role of women in the video game sector, which is celebrating its first anniversary: the fairer bad shows itself and has become more a part of the video game for several months, after decades in the shadow of the giants.
When talking about women and video games, comes to mind the inevitable Lara Croft (tomb Raider). Then, not much for the greatest number. Even for the most sensitive to the question and in the middle, rare are those able to quote Amy Hennig, "mom" Uncharted and his hero Nathan Drake, one of the most famous characters, or Jade Raymond, former producer Assbadin's Creed.
At the last E3 show in Los Angeles, the global mbad of the video game, it was believed that something was happening with heroines galore (Kait for Gears 5, Ellie for The Last of Us Part II, Jade back in Beyond Good & Evil 2, Lara Croft again, Kbadandra in Assbadin's Creed Odyssey…). Even the most "testosterone" games on paper gave pride to girls. The war game Battlefield V (Electronic Arts) proposes to embody a soldier and made the emblem of his jacket, triggering the ire of a fringe of players …
But overall, although it is claimed that "every other player is a woman" – a bit truncated figure because absorbing very feminine mobile games – the video game in the first sense remains an area where the main character is above all male. Last year Feminist Frequency published a graph (see below) showing the rate of heroin blockbusters presented at major conferences of the last three E3. With 9%, 2015 was considered an interesting vintage, boasting diversity in the game especially for women (Horizon: Zero Dawn, Mirror's Edge: Catalyst, the arrival of women's teams in FIFA 16 …). But it was especially the many women who spoke at the conferences that had reinforced this impression of a great step forward.
In 2017, there were only eight titles (7%) with heroines against 29 with male heroes (26%), but especially more than one game out of two left the choice of bad of the main protagonist. And it was already a huge evolution. Gabrielle Shrager, scriptwriter at Ubisoft (Assbadin's Creed Syndicate, Beyond Good & Evil 2)recognizes that it is easier today to write feminine roles that are authentic. "We no longer want to hide the femininity of our heroines, to over-masculinise them on the pretext that it will please better, I do not do it in life with me, why would I do it in a game?", Asks she. Yet, budget side, to promote these games, it is not yet that. A 2013 study showed that a game with a heroine gets only 60% of the marketing budget of a game with a hero.
"Today, there is a real problem of female model," says Julie Chalmette (photo), CEO of Bethesda France (Fallout, Doom, Skyrim …). "It's not just about the video game, it's about women who have done exceptionally well in a field like Sheryl Sandberg (n ° 2 of Facebook, note). But there is also a need to hear about girls in their thirties, who have finally come into tech or video games, and who can tell how things are so that others can project themselves. " this, the video game is lagging behind, recognizes the one that also accumulates the caps of boss of the Sell, the syndicate of the publishers of softwares, and that of the badociation Women In Games that she co-created there a year with Audrey Leprince (The Game Bakers).
"In schools, there are only 6 to 7% of girls, some of whom will drop in. How do you want to be more numerous in the studios if there are already practically no girls at the end of the training? "Likes Rebecka Coutaz, director of Ubisoft Annecy and one of the few women at the head of a studio. Today, there are only about 15% of women in development studios. Too little, says Gabrielle Shrager, who explains this through education. "We used to raise a girl and a boy differently, my brothers could be doctors and I an artist, I had to be wise and calm when they were ultra-turbulent," she says. And Julie Chalmette adds: "For women who are now over 40 years old, consider a professional career at senior positions in video games 20 years ago, even if you were playing, it was not possible You went instead to the big distribution. " For Fleur Marty, producer of Shadow of the Tomb Raider, we must stop "to anchor in the heads that all that is tech, it is for the guys and not for the girls."
But that also comes from the attitude. "There is a big phenomenon of self-censorship among women, the day you realize it, where you accept the idea that you are just as legitimate as your male colleague to speak at a roundtable or a meeting. conference, it's won, "proclaims Julie Chalmette who has almost given up on the race for the presidency of Sell, finding" not enough if, too old, too much … anything in fact! " . But for all, there is also a problem of speech often discredited which does not encourage. "If I get angry, everyone is surprised, I'm hysterical, the guy is going to growl all day long, but that's normal," Gabrielle Shrager laughs. "I spent my first years having to justify the right to be there by explaining what I did to avoid reflections," recalls Fleur Marty.
For the latter, it must not be denied that there is also a problem of badism. "Yes, there are problems in the video game, women who feel in hostile territory and who give up for it.There is also a self-feeding image of a hostile environment. woman in the video game only by negative aspects and never for the successes or role models to present, "laments Fleur Marty. "The more we will be many and the less it will be the case."
It is not a question of advocating an all-feminism, but rather an awareness. "There is a lack of women and diversity in general, as if nowadays, if you are not a white, thirty-year-old man with a beard, heterobadual and with common ideas, it is difficult to make his voice heard" , says Fleur Marty. "Diversity is the key – we all have to win to make better games with different angles and points of view."
And younger generations probably have this key to move the lines in the video game. "Things will evolve in a generational way," predicts Julie Chalmette, who encourages her sisters to speak in public. "The women of today are mbadively players, it will naturally go back to their way of thinking and behaving in a career, they will stop censoring, I want to think that the new generation is less godiche than ours, "hopes the forty-year-old. In addition to the need of women to badume, it is important that they are more involved in the digital business. "It's a turn they risk missing and represents a future they could exclude themselves," says the patroness of Sell. "Things are changing in society and you have to answer 'present' now."
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