The Problem With The PlayStation 4

February 22, 2013 in Daily Bulletin

Sony recently unveiled its next generation console and the event has drawn a fair amount of criticism for failing to show what the device will look like. Russell Brandom wrote that there’s something far more important that Sony was missing: women.

  • Sony’s event lasted more than two hours and involved 20 different speakers. Not one of them was female.
  • It’s not just Sony. There weren’t any women during the launch of the Wii U, HTC’s phones, or anything that Apple has ever released in recent times.
  • The problem runs deep – only 11% of employees in the game industry are female.
  • Yet women make up almost half of all gamers.
  • The industry is continuing to alienate women by abusing those who play games online or releasing ads like this.
  • If women were given a chance to truly shape the industry it’s likely that they would make new types of interesting and enjoyable games that the male dominated industry has yet to consider.
  • There is some hope. Microsoft is expected to release the next version of its Xbox soon, and the Xbox development team has a high proportion of females.

Read more about the gender politics of games, some shocking examples of sexism in the industry, and why women don’t get the voice they deserve over here.

Source: The Verge