Latest / Stuff Mom Never Told You / Monday Mini: Bored with Boardgame Sexism

Transcript

Monday Mini: Bored with Boardgame Sexism · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Stefphone.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: Never told you a production of iHeartRadio, and we are
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: coming to the end of the year, of the end
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: of twenty twenty three, if you're listening to this, whenever
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: you're listening to this, and I was looking for some
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: feminist games, both video games and board games, and women
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: developers of these games for some potential topics and gifts
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: maybe when I ran across the story from May of
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: twenty twenty three. So this is a bit dated, but
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: I totally missed it, and I bet a lot of
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: you did too. I think it's worth talking about because
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: the accidental casual sexism in the exchange is very telling,
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: and I don't think it's gone away, and in fact,
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: it kind of haves some proof. But it hasn't gone
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: away because before you came along, Samantha and I was
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: co host list and I had a lot of very
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: kind people who were very giving in their time come
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: on to do topics.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Tracy V.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Wilson of Stuffie misson History Class came on and talked
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: about board game design. So you can listen to that episode.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: But a lot of the things we're talking about in
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: that which was several years ago, are still here of course.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: And yeah, we also talked to some women board game
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: designers about their experience, so you can check those out
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: for more context. But yeah, a lot hasn't changed. And
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: so Samantha, I'm just going to tell you about this thing.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: I'm sure you're gonna have some thoughts. Oh my gosh. Okay,
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: So here's what happened. Back in May twenty twenty three,
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: Elizabeth Hargrave, who is the designer of the tabletop game Wingspan,
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: posted on social media about some data around the demographics
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: of the board game industry, and she was pointing out
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: that they weren't enough games that were winning awards or
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: even being nominated that were being made by women. And so,
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: from a chart about nominees from Shield de yais the
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: biggest board game awards in the whole industry since nineteen
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: ninety nine, five women, I saw four women four or
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: five women had been nominated compared to one hundred and
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: three men, and there had been no women nominated in
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: the last two years at that time. So Hargrave concluded
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: that this wasn't a problem with SDJ as these awards
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: are called for short, but with the pipeline of the
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: whole thing, like who makes a game, who pitches a game,
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: and whose game gets chosen by publishers. And she also
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: said that the numbers are overwhelmingly white men, usually like
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: United States European white men, and this restricts our game options,
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: which seems pretty clear.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Well.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: The COO of Aldroroch, which is a big board game company,
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: Ryan Dancy, responded directly to her and this this is
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: some of his response quote. I have taken more than
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: one thousand game pitches since twenty sixteen. I would say
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: less than ten percent of these were from female designers. Effectively,
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: none of them were games AEG would publish. We did
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: a call for submissions from female designers. Specifically, we got
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: one publishable design. There have been a couple of pitches
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: that came close, most commonly where a female pitched with
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: a male designer. There is one team of two female
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: designers that pitch great, but their games are too light
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: for us. I know why we didn't proceed with those pitches,
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: but they were at least in the ballpark. Typically, when
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: I am pitched by a female, the game tends to
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: fall into one of several broad categories. It's a game
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: about politics. In general, we don't publish games about politics.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: It's a party game. In general, we don't publish party games.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: It's a pitch from a designer very early in their
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: design journey, and the game isn't competitive enough in their
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: modern market. It usually is either too much like another game,
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: are very generic, or it's more of an idea than
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: a game design I've never been pitched a war game
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: by a female. I've never been pitched a two player
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: fighting game by a female. I've never been pitched a
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: giant fighting robots gain by a female. I actually don't
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: think there's much of a market in those categories because
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: there is so much competition. But I wonder if a
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: game designed by a female would be orthogonal to the
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: existing designer patterns and produce something remarkable. I think there
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: is a significant gap between when someone decides to try
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: and become a game designer and when they produce their
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: first publishable game. Life in that gap consists of a
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: lot of rejection and negative criticism. I wonder if that
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: gap accounts for a good part of the missing female
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: design cohort. Females are socialized in the less to avoid
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: situations where they're subjected to fairly harsh criticism of their
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: abilities and creative ideas. Males are socialized to take the
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: punches and keep moving forward. Getting across the gap is
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: how you turn someone into a real game designer who
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: gets paid for their work and who makes designs that
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: are attractive to publishers. So far, we haven't seen much
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: award consideration go to games that exist almost entirely as
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: crowdfunding projects. I know there are many more females doing
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: game design and production via clowd funding who just don't
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: connect with publishers. The nature of the SDJ is that
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: a crowdfunding game is effectively shut out from consideration. Okay,
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: so there's a lot to unpacking this. First, he is
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: completely dismissing Hargrave's point and kind of proving her point
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: about how they're not being enough women designers. He is
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: not asking why women designers only made up ten percent,
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: but of seemingly blaming women for not pitching more, but
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: also he's blaming the content of their pitches, which he
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: turned down. He comes back to reemphasize this point later,
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: saying that women are more likely to get crowdfunding and
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: therefore don't make the connections in the industry, but once
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: again fails to give any consideration as to why that
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: is and why that maybe they had to go to
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: ground funding because they kept getting turned down, right mm hmmm,
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: which brings us to the second big issue here. He entirely,
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: entirely dismisses games women are typically pitching as to political
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: or to light like party games, which blows my mind.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: And then he follows that up with how women don't
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: pitch games about war fighting or robots, which is comically generous.
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: It's hilarious, very specific, sir.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: It is very specific, and it's like kid level like
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: it is hilarious, except he's making these decisions and then
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: you're like oh, and then he says he doesn't even
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: think they would be successful if they did pitch those
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: games because it's too competitive.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: Which is wow.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: But yeah, this is very similar to the conversations we've
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: had around the video game industry and how a lot
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: of people are trying to dismiss games that women play,
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: like mobile games, as less serious or not real games,
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: even though there is a huge proven market for them.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: People like these games, women play games, and these games
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: make money, Like.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: I don't understand this, and.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: Then he basically says women can't handle criticism, our rejection
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: while men are able to Men are able to take
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: it keep going. So women don't pitch. Women aren't tough.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: I'm also interested in how you handle rejecting women versus
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: rejecting men. But whatever, right. So, as you might imagine,
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: he quickly came under a lot of fire for those
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: response because he did publicly to the point he did apologize.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: He called it not his finest moment. He outlined some
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: steps that he and the company were going to take
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: to tackle the lack of diversity and ask that we
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: all hold him accountable. But as many pointed out, the
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: fact that he felt comfortable enough applying to one of
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: the few women in the industry who is successful with
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: his original message speaks volumes. Also, her game Wingspan is
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: not a game that falls under the categories. He outlined,
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: It's a very interesting game, but she succeeded with it,
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: it's very popular. And then he sends this response and
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: it is really important during the pandemic the tabletop gaming
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: industry grew. I completely agree with Hargrave about how this
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: lack of diversity negatively impacts our game choices. And if
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: you go back and listen to that episode I did
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: with Tracy, we talk about the health benefits of playing games.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: So yeah, and I do think a lot of the
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: times the things that I love about games designed by women,
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: both tabletop and video games, is the very thing he
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: was so quick to dismiss. So I love a good
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: party game, but I also love games that are different.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: I like games that mess with how we traditionally view
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: games are games that completely flip what winning is. So
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: the Path is one, which is a video game where
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: basically you have to not complete your mission to win Destiny,
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: which is like you're just trying to make friends. It's lovely.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: It's such a lovely game though you like have to
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: sing and you make songs together. It's lovely. And I
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: do really want to play this game. Votes for Women,
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: which I know a lot of you have written in
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: about and I've heard great things about from Polygon.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: Quote.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: Without the context provided by historical advisor and professor Rachel
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: Michelle Gunter, game designer Tory Brown and developer Keather Bertram's
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: excellent work would not be nearly as impact and Tory
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: Brown because I was like, are these both men they're not.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Tory.
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: Okay, I was very confused for a second. Okay, yeah,
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: so that's a board game.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: That is a board game, and it's supposed to be
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: like a lot of the big reviews say like this
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: should be in libraries because it's very educational and cool
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: and people seem to love it. It comes out in January,
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: I think, but I think it already came out, but
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: then it sold out.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: Immediately, so their second run isn't general.
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: Wow, we have so many games that we need to play.
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: You bought me all of those, all the retro ones.
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: We played a one. We try to play one we need.
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: We had such a large crab of people that it
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: was almost impossible. Instead, we just reread through cars. Eaves
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: was a part of that game. Nights we Need. Yeah,
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: we need to bring that back. I still really do
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: want to play with some of the men, like stuff
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: they don't want you to know, or stuff you should know.
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: It would be hilarious.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: Chuck.
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: I know very little of him, but to have him play,
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: but I love that. I mean, we just fun with
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: Lauren from Savor because I'm sure she would have some words.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: Oh gosh, I haven't played a lot of those games
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: I don't think i'd played.
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: Played well, obviously I played every single one of them.
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: We try to bring out that Babysitters one and it
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: was so complicated. I was like, how did I play
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: this as a teenager? I don't remember? And I played
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: it by myself for the most part. Maybe that's why.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: Well I told you my story of the cool kids.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: My mom invited who I viewed cool kids from school
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: when I was playing Polly Pocket by myself to try
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: to figure out the rules when they walked in, and
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: I mean, what have I done to deserve such.
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: Was so fascinating, And because you know I'm all about
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: my phone games that they there are so many revamps
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: of these phone games being board games, and you already
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: know I talked about one. I'm not gonna mention because
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: it's too much, but yes, it is a play on capitalism.
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: We know this game made everyone get into fights and
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: probably was either thrown away and or put up for
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: a month at a time because the parents had had enough.
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: So there's the different variations of this game on the phone.
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: And the one I played is like very interactive in
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: community and very angry and mean. Is no longer Debra
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: It is now a person called Kissy Bear, and I'm like,
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: what the hell, Kissy.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: Bear your enemies? The list grows longer.
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: Some of these people I helped out and all of
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: a sudden they are attacking me. I'm like what anyway,
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: I'm not sorry, But my thought is I wonder because
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: this level of like playing by ourselves of these games
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: like this is to a whole new level. Of course,
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: again the variation is different, but I wonder if there's
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: like a mal madness phone game where you can play
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: by yourself or again this type of game which I've
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: played by myself many times. I used to play a
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: game called Payday. Do you all remember this game? It
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: was like a calendar, it was a search. I do
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: not remember this game completely, and like it was one
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: of our favorite games because it was kind of like
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: this other game, the other big game, but like downskilled okay, interest,
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: But I wonder, like with the phone level, like where
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: we can see that this has nothing to do with
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: the women, but at what we does. Because we talked
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: about the fact though the phone games, which are not
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: being considered as gaming, is the number one money maker
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: and if you are a part of this industry, it's
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: a smart way to go. But yeah, I wonder how
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: many of these games we can play by ourselves and
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: have been fitted for mobile phone games.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: That's true, that's an interesting We should follow up on that.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: And yeah, I do love a game. I love a
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: game you can play by yourself, but I also love
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: a game you can play with two people.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: Those are kind of rare, too.
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: Right, there have been. It's like the rarety is anything
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: beyond six people that much like you can't find many
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: of those unless you find like the large party games
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: such as were Wolf, which we've played many at times,
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: or the two player games are gazing by yourself. Oh anyway,
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: but yeah, that's very interesting. Again, like this is that
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: same level of conversation of what is considered gaming, who
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: deserves the rights, and how much opportunity is there?
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah, it was just a very clear example of
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: like somebody missing the whole point.
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: I bet those games like Girl Talk and all that,
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: And again, I know this is dated, very sexist games,
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: but I'm sure they won awards because they were big sellers.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: Ooh. I was honestly, like, I was looking into this
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: and I wanted a Monday many so I stopped. But
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: I looked into the history of women playing board games,
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: and there's a rich history there. Uh, why did you
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: stop women playing and designing board because that's a whole episode.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: It is not a Monday.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: I was like, oh, my gosh, okay, because apparently at
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: one time it was considered kind of in the realm
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: of domesticity women would make games because they were supposed
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: to be in charge of entertaining children. But all there
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: was the other side of it too though, that was
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: the very political part where they were making games like
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: suffer jetto and so it was really interesting. There's a
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: lot to talk about.
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: I wonder if I came into play with like gambling
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: that men started taking over.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: Oh, it could be. I go back to that.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: The cover of battle Ship from the nineteen fifties that
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: you and I discussed when we went over these kind
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: of very gendered games where it was the men and
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: the husband presumably and his son playing battleship and in
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: the background the mom and daughter were doing dishes. And
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: this was the cover of the game.
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: Oh, I remember the one with the girl watching behind
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: the father or brother as the games happened, But it
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: was definitely the father and the son.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: Right it sort of became like, well, you should be
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: doing a house and we can play, or like maybe
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: you were not competitive enough to you're not tough enough
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: to handle losing or something.
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: Go play with your paper dolls and get rested up.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: It was very bizarre. It's very strange.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: So probably will be a full episode in the new
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: year though, yeah that is a four episode, but yes,
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: that's always listeners. If you have any recommendations for board
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: games or any thoughts about this, that would be great
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: because I was looking for like, Okay, these games.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: What are these games I can play that are different
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: that are made by women? Let us know.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: You can email us a steffant your mom Stuff at
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: iHeartMedia dot com. You can find us on Twitter at
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: mom Stuff podcast, or Instagram and TikTok at Stuff I've
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: Never Told You If we have a tea public store
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: and a book gift ideas or you get you your books.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: Thanks as always to our super producer Christina or executive
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: producer Maya and your contributor Joey.
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: Thank you and thanks to you for listening.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: Stuff I've Never Told You is production of iHeart Radio.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can check
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: out the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or if you listen
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: to your favorite shows