Latest / Mini Scroll / LET THE GIRLS GAME: The History & Impact of the 1990s 'Games for Girls' Movement

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LET THE GIRLS GAME: The History & Impact of the 1990s 'Games for Girls' Movement · Mini Scroll

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  Hi everyone, welcome to Let the Girls Game.
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  This is a podcast miniseries that will run for the next 5
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  Wednesdays on the Infinite Scroll podcast feed right here.
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  In this series, I explore the challenges, the successes, and
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  the history of women in gaming. And to help me explore these
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  topics, I'm bringing you interviews with five amazing
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  women in the space. Some of them are streamers, game
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  developers, scholars, journalists.
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  It will be a really good time. So these episodes will be
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  between 10 to 15 minutes long, just like a mini scroll episode.
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  And if you like these episodes and you want to hear me dive
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  into them a little bit more in depth, please do let me know.
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  And thank you so much to let Sing for sponsoring this mini
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  series. So without further ado, welcome
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  to Let the Girls Game. In the mid 90s, the gaming
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  industry decided that it was time to expand its audience
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  beyond just boys and men. Enter the games for Girls
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  movement. The goal was simple, to reach a
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  new audience and to spark young girls interest in computers and
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  tech. It all kicked off with her
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  interactive release of Mackenzie and Co in 1995, a game following
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  a junior high student as she hopes to find a date.
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  Building on this success, her interactive hit gold with the
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  Nancy Drew Gaming series in 1998.
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  Sensing an opportunity, Mattel also jumped on the bandwagon
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  with Barbie Fashion Designer in 1996, the dress up computer game
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  featuring the iconic Barbie doll.
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  Mattel continued to ride this wave through the 90s, later
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  creating titles like Magic Fairy Tales, Barbie as Rapunzel, and
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  Barbie Story Maker. As Mary Kenny notes for Harper's
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  Bazaar, on one side were the pink games such as the Barbie
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  titles, and on the other were the purple games by developers
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  like Her Interactive and Purple Moon.
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  Ultimately, Kenny goes on to note how this divide came to
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  reflect, quote, what was feminist versus what was
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  feminine. Having said that, the legacy is
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  mixed. Critics argue that it
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  perpetuated stereotypes about gender and play, offering a
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  narrow view of girlhood, whereas others highlight how successes
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  like Barbie Fashion Designer proved that girls were genuinely
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  interested in computers and video games.
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  Despite its controversies, the Games for Girls Movement was a
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  pioneering effort that invited women and girls into the gaming
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  world, laying the groundwork for a more inclusive industry.
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  Welcome to Let the Girls Game, a podcast miniseries where we
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  explore the history and stories of women in gaming powered by
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  Let's Sing. I'm your host Lauren Meisner,
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  and today we are discussing the history of women in gaming with
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  a focus on the games for girls movement.
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  And to help me explore this topic, today I am joined by
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  Allie Hennessy. Welcome, Allie.
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  Hi, thanks for. Having me.
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  Thank you so much for doing this.
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  So for anyone that doesn't know, Allie is a game developer,
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  author, illustrator and advocate for underrepresented groups
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  across the gaming industry. She fell into gaming through
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  cosplay and has since worked on many different projects.
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  Currently, Allie serves as the game director and writer for
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  Mystiques Haunted Antiques through the Sydney based studio
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  Lemonade Games. Allie has also conducted
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  extensive research on the Games for Girls movement, focusing
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  specifically on Magic Fairy Tales.
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  Barbie as Rapunzel. Amazing.
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  I'm so excited to have you here today and chat with you about
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  like all of your work through the industry and your research
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  specifically. So I wanted to start with your
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  interest in games for girls and magic fairy tales.
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  Barbias Rapunzel. Can you kind of talk me through
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  how you became interested and your research in that area?
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  Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I played magic fairy
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  tales. Barbie is responsible.
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  It's such a long name. Yeah, yeah.
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  It is. It's a mouse full the.
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  Full legal name. I played it when I was a kid and
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  then promptly forgot about it completely.
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  And then it wasn't until during lockdown, I was actually working
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  at a AAA studio doing some research into different UYUX
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  interfaces, and I really accidentally stumbled upon a
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  screenshot from Barbia's Rapunzel.
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  And suddenly it was like all the flashbacks.
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  I was like, man, I remember the cake decorating.
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  Like, I remember The Cave troll. Yeah, the mermaid.
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  And so I ended up, you know, I had nothing to do in lockdown.
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  So I watched a, a YouTube playthrough of the entire game.
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  Oh, my God. And it was so, I mean, that's
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  just like a beautiful thing to do if you have a game from your
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  childhood to go back. And a lot of these games aren't
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  preserved, so we can't play them.
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  But there are like YouTube playthroughs that you can watch.
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  But it wasn't until it hit the credits and I saw it, how many
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  women worked on the game that I was really inspired to then take
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  a little deeper into the history of it, started looking up all
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  their names on LinkedIn, just saying, like, are you still
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  around? Like you still, what?
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  Will you talk to me? And I really didn't have any
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  intention of doing anything with that.
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  I just thought it would be nice to connect with these people and
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  maybe get the chance to tell them that that game had had an
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  impact on me and how how fondly I remembered it and the fact
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  that I was making games now. But it just sort of spiralled
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  into this rabbit hole of learning all about Mattel Media
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  and how that game was made and all the different people that
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  worked on it. What were some of your most
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  interesting findings in conducting this research?
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  I mean, it was a wild development.
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  And, I mean, if you read the article, there's a lot of things
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  that happened. We could talk about it, yeah.
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  Yeah, I think. Probably the big take away for
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  me was I guess when I imagined them making Barbie games in the
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  90s, I imagined like, I don't know, like they like they would
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  have this beautiful pink office. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  That they would have all this Barbie and money to just kind of
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  like figure it out. But of course that's never the
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  case. Like with any game development,
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  it's always difficult and it's always against all odds, and
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  particularly being some of the first people to make games like
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  that, that was really quite an uphill battle for them.
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  They weren't even in the Mattel building.
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  They were like down the street. Oh my God.
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  Different office. So they were really a skunk
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  works and they really had to prove themselves to Mattel.
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  Even like internally, as this is something that is going to make
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  money, this is something that there's an audience for, which
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  really resonated with me because that's been a lot of my career
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  as well. Yeah, that kind of scrappy
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  startup vibe, I'm sure. I'm curious to hear your
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  thoughts about how the games developed through this movement.
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  Like the Games for Girls movement encapsulated the
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  experience of girlhood. In what ways do you think that
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  these games reflected or influenced the identity of their
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  young women audience? Yeah, it's it's an interesting
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  one, Hey, because girlhood is not a monolith, as we know,
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  everybody has a different experience of life and of
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  childhood. And so I don't think that
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  there's one thing that we can point to that we can say this is
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  what games for girls did or this is what Purple Moon type games
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  did. This is what Mattel type games
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  did. I think for me, like the, the
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  biggest influence it had on me was that I had a sense of
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  ownership over these games. I grew up with two older
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  brothers, a lot of women who work in games.
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  This might be an oversimplification, but a lot of
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  women who work in games grew up in households where other people
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  were gaming. And so they weren't necessarily.
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  I don't know if that's so true of like younger women now, but
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  certainly of like. So old.
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  Oh my God, I know anytime I say anything about the generations
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  I'm like, I sound like a boomer. But so I had two older brothers,
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  and so I was exposed to gaming mostly through them.
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  And it wasn't until Barbie games and games for girls that I felt
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  like I had something that was mine to own and mine not only to
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  play, but to form opinions about.
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  And also to just have like, basic Computer literacy, like to
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  learn what ACD ROM is like, how it works in the computer, all of
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  that stuff. Like we kind of take it for
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  granted now, but at the time that was really special.
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  Yeah, absolutely. There's a debate that I kind of
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  mentioned in the intro as to whether these games were
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  reductionist or not. I'm curious where you stand on
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  that. And do we owe it to developers
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  at the time to give this movement some grace, given, like
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  you said, it was kind of the beginning and they were trying
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  to prove themselves? Yeah, I mean, I don't think that
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  any of the, I mean, that there was a very broad variety of
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  games made within that period. I don't think that any of them
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  are any more reductive than like other media being made at the
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  time. Like I don't think that like
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  Mary Kay and Ashley, Magical Mystery more was any more
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  reductive than like Legally Blonde.
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  So I think it's very of the era. And I do think, yeah, we need to
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  be understanding of the cultural context in which things were
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  made. Yeah, absolutely.
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  I agree with that for sure. As a game developer today, how
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  do you think the movement has influenced contemporary game
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  design and development? I think probably the the biggest
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  thing that I can point to in terms of its influence on my
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  experience as a game developer is just how many women, and not
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  just women, but mostly women play these games as kids and
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  then fell in love with games and the idea of interactive
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  experiences and even just the idea of computers and then
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  pursued this career. So I think that's probably the
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  biggest legacy. A lot of game development is
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  reference like remember this thing from this game?
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  Remember this thing from this game.
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  And it's really special when you get to be in a design meeting
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  with someone who's like, remember the cake decorating
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  mini game from Barbie's Rapunzel?
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  I think that's the legacy, yeah. How can game developers and
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  designers today better consider the experiences of womanhood and
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  girlhood in video games? Yeah, I think other than the
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  obvious of employing women to work on those games, I think
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  it's it's on us as artists and as creatives to have a really
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  broad media diet. So to look outside of just what
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  are other games doing in their depictions of gender?
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  Go and watch movies, go to the theater, listen to music made by
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  people who are different to you, and just try and have a broader
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  view of the world and like how we can depict human experience.
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  I think that's ultimately the. Way to go.
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  What do you believe is the lasting impact of the Games for
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  Girls movement on the gaming industry, and are there any
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  specific elements or lessons from that era that you see
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  reflected in today's games or the industry practice as a
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  whole? I mean, it's the games industry
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  changes like so fast. I don't know what it's going to
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  be next week, but what it is right now, there are a lot of
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  particularly over the last 10 years, there's been a rise of
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  sort of cozy games and wholesome games.
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  And I think that the cozy games movement wouldn't exist if not
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  for the work done in the 90s by the women who built those built
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  that movement. So a lot of reinterpreting what
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  an interactive experience can be about and and what play is, you
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  know, it's not always about action, it's not always about
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  combat. It can be about the experience
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  of running a shop. It can be about the experience
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  of decorating a cake. It can be just a story.
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  It can be a linear storybook style narrative like and can be
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  anything. Yeah, it can be anything.
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  Yeah, yeah, like Stardew Valley vibes, right?
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  Love that. So given that we're discussing,
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  you know, video games from the 90s, how do you feel that
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  nostalgia influences the video games of today?
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  So many ways. I think that fundamentally it's
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  just a really broad answer. I'm sorry, but no, fundamentally
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  game design is iteration. And so you're always just
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  reinterpreting and repositioning the same ideas over and over and
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  over again. And it's, I think in terms of
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  how nostalgia influences games, it depends on the type of game
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  that you're making. So if you're, you know that
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  there's like the movement of like boomer shooters at the
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  moment. Wait, what is that?
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  It's like, I don't want to be reductionist about it.
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  They're very cool, but they're like retrographic shooters, kind
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  of like Doom, reimaginings of games like Doom.
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  They're hugely popular and like hugely financially successful
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  for a lot of people, which shows you that there's like a huge
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  place for pure nostalgia, but I think there's also a place for
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  taking nostalgic elements and reimagining it into something
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  completely new and completely different.
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  I think it's about knowing what, who your audience is and what
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  kind of game you're trying to make.
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  Like for me, not to like plug my own game, but girlfriend for
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  mistakes. We're trying to make something
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  new. We're trying to make something
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  that is that hasn't been done before.
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  But it is pulling on a lot of references and and riffing on a
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  lot of nostalgic things like Barbie games like purple moon,
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  games like statue Valley, in order to build that experience
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  cause interactive. It's it's just a puzzle of
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  different ways of playing with things.
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  Yeah. Thank you so much, Ali.
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  Where can people find you? Yeah, so you can follow Mystique
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  S game on Twitter and tick tock and Instagram.
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  We're making a game about the four worst women you've ever
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  met. Oh my God, what does that mean?
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  They just suck. They run, they're running a
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  failing antique store. They're all incredibly self
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  involved, dramatic people. I love making games and telling
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  stories about women in all of their flaws.
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  Insanity. So we're making that game and
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  also there it goes. Oh I love that.
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  That sounds diverse. Thank you so much again to Ali
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  for joining me. Thank you to Let's Sing for
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  powering this mini series, and thank you to you for listening
• 13:44
  to Let the Girls Game TuneIn next week, where I'll be joined
• 13:47
  with two gaming scholars and we're going to be diving into
• 13:52
  Gamergate. Please remember to rate, review
• 13:55
  and subscribe. I love you guys and I will talk
• 13:57
  to you next week. Bye.