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SMNTY Classics: Bored with Boardgame Sexism · Stuff Mom Never Told You

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