[Feedback] JHB Community Meet

edited in General
Just wanted to check with the folks who're coming to the Joburg meets what they expect from them, and what we can do to make them better.

Comments

  • Less advertising.
  • I was personally super disappointed with how we treated zX last night, and with how we didn't have time to see Rigormortis's game. I felt as if I didn't have any time to absorb what was going on, and therefore I didn't have a chance to engage with what they were showing us, and therefore I couldn't give meaningful feedback, nor could I ask any meaningful questions. (I did check their games out afterwards, but I personally find that I can see lots of other things when I'm watching someone else play, especially a player who'd have the same xp as me (i.e., not the game's developer). The feedback then just still feels much less awesome than it could be when I'm trying to playtest when the meet has "ended".)

    I get that we don't have unlimited time in which to cover lots of stuff. Are we under tremendous time pressure? It feels as if we're ending the presentation/demo part of the meets waaay earlier than before. Last year, we'd go way late sometimes, but if people had to leave (family, other engagements, whatever) they were free to leave whenever they wished. It was super relaxed, casual, and I felt as if we really got the chance to engage with games and wrestle with them some more, and get chances to try and offer something valuable.

    I feel it's not good enough only to show games. There's no point in that. The value is in how seeing that stuff makes me a better game designer, or makes the person who makes it a better game designer, and I feel we can only grow by taking the time to try and understand what's going on, wrestle with design challenges, and talk about them. I'd like to think that showing my art portfolio stuff was valuable to people who're interested in applying for game art work in the future. And I think Matt's talk, even if stuff didn't go as smoothly as we'd have liked, was something many of us needed to hear about to help our projects develop with way fewer headaches. But seeing a game demoed in front of me and not having the time taken to identify design problems and try and solve them is super frustrating for me.

    The bar closes at 9 or something, but so what? The room itself only gets locked up at after 10 anyway (from what I saw last night, and in the many nights in previous meets when I've stayed late to socialise and meet new people).

    I'm just posting these as feelings. I've been pretty stressed preparing portfolio stuff, so it's totally possible that I'm just generally more irritable and frustrated and over-sensitive. Maybe in future meets I should just be like "Shut up and go away and stop trying to network with me -- I'm trying to playtest a game here."

    What do you guys think?
    Thanked by 2mattbenic Bensonance
  • From the sounds of it, there's just too much stuff going on to cram into one evening. This is waaay cool if you ask me.. a sign that the community is growing from strength to strength. Perhaps 1 meet a month just doesn't cut it anymore?

    And please don't ever stop speaking your mind, this kind of constructive feedback is invaluable.
  • @Tachyon it's not really a fulling up on content thing. I typed out a long boring math post against the videos from October, where we had more time and more content. Last night was just really cut short.

    ===

    I don't feel that last night was well done, and I am saying this from the perspective of I have been to meets where there was just one table of people, and where we have had people standing because we didn't have enough seats.

    Last night was just weird. The vibe was totally different. I mean the in between every talk with the join us on MakeGameSA, and be sure to sign up on meetup made it feel rather corporate, like I had entered the AAA dev scene by accident.

    Compared to last month where after the talks we had the new people come up and introduce themselves it was a much more community orientated feeling.

    ===

    In terms of presentations themselves: speaking as someone who has given a talk and did a demo last night.

    I think Dawie focused a bit too much on warning us that the game had just started being worked on, and that we were going to be sick of it. But there was tons of cool concept art to comment on, and I think this was the talk that had the most form of community engagement with a back and forth between the presenter and the audience.

    (Though Dawie if you are reading this, I believe the vast majority of us have at least attempted to start a game, we know it is crap in the beginning. Play to your strengths get people excited!)
    -

    Jon's Tech art portfolio was super rad. Though it is kind of hard for me to comment as an audience member or artist (Jon taught me everything I know about art that isn't pixel art, and I keep up with what he is up to) but I think just the feedback he got from Dawie was really helpful!

    But! And I do mean but there were some people who had a bit of a side discussion in the middle of the presentation; during the open floor I know things get on a tangent, but during presentations I really think that is not cool!
    -

    Matt, had a really good concept, and I know it got through to some people — Mike was really talking about it after the presentation — to me it was rather old hat I've spent enough time at Luma and used what 3 different version control systems and 5 or 6 clients — but it was really important information which needed to be out there. But without the demo it was rather messy, but we've had a tech mess up often enough to be used to it.
    -

    And the zX, not xZ :P I think we might have had a 15min presentation, I didn't really time it. We didn't really put too much planning into it since we kind of believed that the game would speak from itself. I think the plan of one person playing and the other doing — most of — the talking was good, and we were able to communicate the game. I would have really liked to have some back and forth with the community, because zX is the game it is because of the community. It is how I met Mike and got involved with making the game.

    For us we weren't presenting at the meet to get a bit of exposure or have a chat about our ideas, since we are in the press-and-polish phase where we are trying to get on as many sites as we can to try and make it through Greenlight. We really want people to see the game, play the game. Mike and I are good at playing it we know what and where things will spawn. Seeing other people play (ye know, playtesting) is an important part of the polish process. Which we kind of missed out on.

    ===

    So I kind of have a question: why was the meeting so short? I know for a fact that I have sometimes only walked out of MS at 11 and that is not including my normal chat in the parking lot. And if we now have less time why weren't we told? I mean I think all of us giving presentations would have gone in and tightened things up a bit if we knew [i]ok so we really only have 10min to do this in.[i]
  • I really feel I owe a massive apology for my part in the games getting so little showtime (and Andre not getting a chance to do his talk), my stuff was dismally underprepared. You're right @Karuji, it's an important thing to deal with, but in retrospect there were probably muuuuuch better ways to go about it :)

    That said, I agree that the feeling is much, much more rushed overall than before. There was such atmosphere in the room while zX was being shown, and it was clear tons of people wanted to comment, ask questions, etc, but then the call came to end it. As Jono pointed out, people have always had other commitments (I've often had to leave early to get back to the wife or take a concall), but that's never stopped the rest of the crowd from sticking around and carrying on.

    Surely as long as all announcement type stuff is handled at the start, the rest of the stuff -planned and unplanned presentations, impromptu discussions, pretty much anything- can carry on until MS boots everyone out?
  • First off,
    Karuji said:
    But! And I do mean but there were some people who had a bit of a side discussion in the middle of the presentation; during the open floor I know things get on a tangent, but during presentations I really think that is not cool!
    I don't like this either but I was unfortunately one of the culprits last night. I apologize for that.

    On to more productive things though, I think that the whole reason we go to these meetings is to learn more about making games. I love seeing art talks, it teaches me about art. I love seeing tech talks, it teaches me about tech. I LOVE SEEING GAMES...because games :P. So as long as we are holding to this ideal of always learning I think the talks are fine. Maybe just a general note on talks...I think they should be more interactive, meaning that we should try and structure them so that there isn't so much to say, but rather a lot to talk about. So if the talk goes on long, then it's because everyone is joining in on the discussion...and if it's not something that interests the crowd there that evening, the talk will be over quickly because there will be less discussion(does that make sense?)

    The one big(gish) issue I have is that there was no welcoming for new people. This might just be my bugbear...but we need to show new people love if we are to grow the community. And no, telling them to join the (very active) forum is not showing them love. So just start of the night asking if there are any new people, give them a round of applause because they are awesome and encourage them to come up and introduce themselves in the open floor part of the evening. That goes a long way to making someone feel part of the community......!

    Speaking of which....what happened to the open floor part of the evening?

    So that's my 2c. Hope it made sense, it's kinda late....

  • edited
    Thanks for all the feedback and don't stop giving it; it only makes people aware of what to do better next time.

    I don't know why I was so worried about time other than I wanted to make sure we got through all the content to zX (again my apologizes for tongue-tied slip up) (and i don't care about the bar) and Dawid's and Matt's talk felt to me like they were dragging on. I even cancelled my talk so we could go straight to something fun and exciting to see after PowerPoint.

    I'm sorry I sounded like a broken record between presentations; I should rather just shut up and let the audience chat amongst themselves.

    I completely forgot about the newbie introductions and we must definitely add it as a regular feature to each community night. Open floor is also normally a regular feature and only because of my time warp did I worry we didn't have time for it.
  • Firstly, I think it's good that it's not always the same person running the evening. Gives people time off and actually allows them to enjoy themselves. But I think there are two core things that need to be understood by the person running the show:
    1. You are guiding the process along but flexibility is needed. The evening is about what the community wants - not just a single individual. And it is supposed to be relaxed.
    2. The session runs formally until 9, not 8. But flexibility is necessary and it doesn't matter if we run a bit over. People are welcome to leave at any time. This is not school/university - you have to attend the entire session. I mean in the past we have run over by like half an hour... It's awesome - shows that our community is growing.

    I think it was very poor form that we culled the OPEN FLOOR and that Ed was not allowed to show his game. What is the point of the community if there is no freedom to share.

    Thanks to everyone that presented and please don't be discouraged by technical difficulties/demo fails... everyone just appreciates your efforts at volunteering your expertise.
  • Rigormortis said:
    So just start of the night asking if there are any new people, give them a round of applause because they are awesome and encourage them to come up and introduce themselves in the open floor part of the evening. That goes a long way to making someone feel part of the community......!
    Yes please! I'd really love to see a "Hi I'm Joe and I'm an alcoholic" sort of start for new people at the events. It helps those of us that have been around a while get to know people more quickly as well. It helps keep things fresh and prevents the "old boys club" feeling.
    Rigormortis said:
    Maybe just a general note on talks...I think they should be more interactive, meaning that we should try and structure them so that there isn't so much to say, but rather a lot to talk about.
    Again yes.. mine was an excellent example of what NOT to do :)
  • I really enjoyed it. Most of my exposure to the gamedev community is online so it's nice to be able to meet other developers and artists in the flesh and learn from them. This is my second meetup and there was a lot more being shown which was nice. I also felt like the section about version control was really good, kind of like a short class on something really helpful. not only hat, but because it comes from someone in the industry it's practical advice
  • Yes please! I'd really love to see a "Hi I'm Joe and I'm an alcoholic" sort of start for new people at the events. It helps those of us that have been around a while get to know people more quickly as well. It helps keep things fresh and prevents the "old boys club" feeling.
    We've been doing something similar at all the CT meetups: The tradition is that everyone has to say their name and what they do/would like to do so that people know who they are. If anyone comes in late they have to say it too, just to break the ice.
  • edited
    Hey all :)

    Let me just summarise my experience/thoughts:

    1) It seemed rushed - although we finished WAY early in comparison to most other evenings. I'm not sure why it was - but yeah it's been mentioned that technical difficulties in demos may be a culprit, I think it may be in the way that big talks were just too big. And also I think we didn't need to "call time" - people can go if they needed/wanted to.

    2) What may help is to have a little "program" of sorts displayed on the side on the little paper board, with whatever's done crossed out, to see what's to come/what's been done. I saw something on the board that night but I wasn't sure what it meant. That may assist people to see what's still to come/has been done instead of a feeling of "am I gonna miss something I wanted to see" and facilitate less "tension".

    3) Some talks can be kept to a shorter show and tell rather than a demo of every single detail ever. I feel that the time spent on those details could be much better spent getting the gist and spirit of it through rather than being almost operational. That's my 2c.

    4) What did happen to all our open floors and demo time? I think overall we can just let the time roll on without calling an official close. Maybe some people needed to go - but we can easily still be showing stuff. Like Ed's game - he still managed to show it - but the fact that "time's been called" meant that people weren't engaged. I didn't like that.

    Personally I had to go early cos my girlfriend was with me and we hadn't had dinner yet, but that's just us, we would have left at our own leisure/good time. So... Yeah, less rush, more relax :)

    But yeah it was over all very well structured and presented minus these timing things :) Well done everyone and thanks as ever for organising! :)
  • One this that I would like to throw in about the meets in general. It would be really appreciated if we could organize a table at the back so that people game play games.
  • @Duvo, if I remember correctly the February meetup was just about the Board Game Jam and Global Game Jam feedback right? It was a bit thin on stuff to learn. But that's not usually how the meetups go...I think we just eased into it as it was the first of the year :P

    @Mattbenic, Don't worry about the talk, happens to the best of us. Which reminds me, any chance you can upload the slideshow you had at the meetup. Would love to look through the stuff again and start using it.

    I would also like to see a table somewhere in the room to set up some games to play. :) Even if it isn't for actual feedback purposes, it could be fun to just sit and play some games. :)
  • @Rigormortis careful there that might prompt @Tuism to bring Netrunner, and then MS security will have to drag him out ;)
  • @Mattbenic, Don't worry about the talk, happens to the best of us. Which reminds me, any chance you can upload the slideshow you had at the meetup. Would love to look through the stuff again and start using it.
    Yeah, thanks for the reminder. I'm actually hoping that will also open up a discussion on the topic a bit, I'm curious to see what other devs' experience has been with VC and Unity.
    Karuji said:
    One this that I would like to throw in about the meets in general. It would be really appreciated if we could organize a table at the back so that people game play games.
    Agreed. I for one much prefer the round tables layout to what we had last night, but I understand that doesn't allow for as many people. Just having one table at the back make s a ton of sense, people don't have to try and hover around the podium.

  • +1 for tables round the back, I promise not to illuminate the masses with the light of Netrunning :)
  • I've already spoken to Dave about moving us to Auditorium 2 which has double the space, and I got told no problem cause we're the biggest group on Community Night.

    We don't get asked what configuration we want (I presume it's just left from whatever was the last event to use the room) but I have no problem asking for some round tables.
  • edited
    Again, like @Dislekcia said, at the Cape Town meetups we all introduce ourselves at the start. I think it really works to introduce the oldtimers to the newcomers and introduce the newcomers to the oldtimers in return. Although it does devolve into a bit of "I am chief nunchuck/beard expert at Studio X" nonsense occasionally.

    Also cheering newcomers is encouraged.

    We've kind of stuck on a format when demo-ing games. People other than the developer play the game, and while this is happening the developer introduces what they're doing and then has a conversation with the audience. Sometimes the person playing switches to get other players' perspectives.

    I don't think having the developer play their own game is going to get gameplay feedback that is as valuable. The aesthetic can still be discussed if the developer plays their own game, but the experience of a freshly minted player cannot.

    This isn't maybe such an issue for a game near completion (in which circumstance a post-mortem format is maybe more interesting). But for games in development, at quite a few of the Cape Town meetups, we've found major problems with the gameplay (like it was unintuitive or unreasonably difficult) and the developers then got actionable feedback.

    I know I've benefited from this approach when my own games. I also think I learned more about other developers' games when we were all seeing an authentic player experience.

    Also, @Karuji, I don't know how many times Dawid stressed the unfinished nature of his game. But my feeling is that you really can't criticize your own work too much (if you are looking for feedback). Allowing people to be critical of your work, so you hear the good feedback, is obviously super important, and acknowledging your own shortcomings is a way to give the audience permission to do that.

  • Great idea for a thread @Elyaradine :) I think this should be commonplace after every meetup to be honest.

    As for the recent meeting, yeah, it felt pretty rushed to me for some reason. What struck me as the worst part is that the questions for zX were actually cut off at the end, which pretty much defeats the purpose of having these meetups IMO. If not for people sharing feedback and opinions and knowledge, then what are they actually for?
  • BTFtS: with 30+ people and our new found time limit it might make it hard for everyone to introduce themselves ;) Although I am looking forward to introducing myself as the head of cake research at retroFuture.

    With Dawie's game it was really early production there was movement and enemy interaction with placeholder graphics. When talking about the game every other sentence was 'Ok we just started on this so this is shit," but when he started talking about the art he was a lot more confident and didn't talk about how early it was in development. The confidence that he had in the art is what made me more excited in the game.
  • Oh also, forgot to mention, given the freak monsoon outside at 18:15, I felt that a bit of a wait before starting would have made some sense too.
  • I'm curious what IS the time limit anyway? What's going on with that?

    Plus the introductions in CT really don't take very long, the only problem is that sometimes people aren't sure when they should be talking (when the intros hit the end of a row, for example) so I'm considering bringing a stuffed toy called the introducer.
  • edited
    The confidence that he had in the art is what made me more excited in the game.
    Well that would be valuable if 30,000 people saw his demo. Surely the point of demoing at the meetups is not to sell games to the people there (and get them excited about the game) but instead get feedback for their games? (which could lead to better South African games)
  • BSFtS: There isn't much to crit on when the game is just two blocks moving with numbers in the top left showing health, and two buttons being attack which seem to magically decrease the numbers. Hence in my initial comment I said that we know what it's like when a game in fresh in development, and at that state there isn't much we can crit on: simply because there isn't much. I felt like Dawie was apologising more from the lack of content for us to critique rather than giving us room to critique by acknowledging there are flaws.

    There is a contrast between this and when he was showing the concept art. He was less apologetic since there was something to show and critique. The main thrust of the presentation was to try and get people involved in the testing of the game which is to be posted on the forums on a regular basis, which is why I used getting excited: since he wants people to actively be a part of the development by routinely playing the game and giving feedback.

    ---

    On a more general note. I like the idea of non-devs playing the game while the devs talk. With zX I played the game due to our time limit. As much as I would have loved feedback, there was just this sense of 'hunker down get through it we need to be done' and with that I went for a speed run through as much of the levels as I could.

    Also is there a chance we can get some official directive on this time issue. We have a council with what 7 members on it? And at least 4 of those in JHB. A statement of this it what happened, and this is what should have happened. Would be appreciated so we can use that to plan the next meeting. It is nice to talk about what went wrong, but ultimately pointless if we do nothing to fix it.
    Thanked by 1EvanGreenwood
  • I don't think we need a "ruling from the council". I suggest we just take every evening as it comes. Obviously Microsoft will kick us out at some point, but that should be the only time limit we need to worry about. I think if we just have a rule of thumb that talks run for around 5-10 minutes and then answer all the questions the audience wants to ask we should be fine.
  • with 30+ people and our new found time limit
    Time limit? I didn't know there was a time limit, we always sat till midnight before, so what has changed this time?

    I guess food is a situation as some people will get starving and want to go, but that's individual prerogative.
  • Tuism said:
    Time limit? I didn't know there was a time limit, we always sat till midnight before, so what has changed this time?
    That is what I am asking here: is there now a time limit?

    @Rigormortis I'm not asking for a ruling from the council where they gather in their hooded robes and decided the future of Game Development in South Africa, but simply someone — who the members of MGSA have given authority — goes and looks into things and gives us a definitive answer about the existence of a time limit so we can better structure and plan our meetings.

    We know how the meetings normally work, and we know this one was different. What we don't know is why, and I am keen to harp on like this every time someone posts the obvious which doesn't help get us the answer of: why, and how we will proceed from here on.

    ---

    I assume this process would be as simple as someone getting Dave's email, and asking Dave if there is a time limit for our use of the MS offices, and then telling us yes or no. It might not be that simple, but this is what I assume we need to do.


    So on a completely unrelated note, would anyone mind sending me Dave's email address?
  • edited
    I spoke to Dave and while the local Community Night is until 21:00 but we are free to continue as long as we like until we're kicked out.

    Again this all stems from a mess-up on my part for which I apologise and we have all the time we need to go through all the content, calls from the floor and introductions by newcomers.
  • Should I bring my plaque saying Video Games 24/7 Because I can Always Sleep In School as a "I am the person introducing myself right now so everyone else shut up"?
  • edited
    Any ideas for getting more women involved?

    And more sound guys? (We seem to have more sound-people "around", but I'd like to learn more from them.)

    And game designers? Like, this is where I love seeing games people have made, because I want to ask about the reasons they made certain decisions, but I feel as if our group as a whole generally lacks experience here. It's so easy to say "just make more games!", and I do intend to when I've returned from GDC. But maybe there are other things we can do to encourage growth? I sometimes feel as if we're the blind leading the blind. Thoughts?

    Like, if you're offended (then I'm sorry!), and you think you're a strong game designer, then please do more presentations. :P
  • @Elyaradine, I think we need to involve more women as well. I unfortunately have no idea how to go about this.

    As far as the design stuff goes...I'll do a talk at the April meet that has to do with design. I'm going to rip it off from someone else, but at least it's something and we can discuss it. :)
  • Any ideas for getting more women involved?
    I'll ask someone I know from the publishing industry that battles with exactly this, she might have some suggestions.
  • I kind of have to wonder about this explicitly getting women involved.

    While I don't think that gender should ever stop people from making games, simply saying we need more women at our meetings feel like a form of tokenism. That we want women at the meeting simply because we are women. You are placing a high value on a person's gender. I think, and I stand for correction here, that would it not be better to place no significance on the gender of the person and simply be welcoming to everyone?

    ---

    Design wise. I would feel really comfortable giving a talk, there are vast areas of game design that I could talk about, and do some extra research and hopefully bring something new and interesting to the table on the subject matter. I am also sure that @hanli also could.

    But as you said it would be better if there was a game to go with it. Though I don't feel the explicit need to present game design at the meeting the internet of full of resources videos and talks. And honestly, no matter how good any of our talks are going to be it would simply be dwarfed by going to the GDC Vault and watching George Fan's talk about plants vs zombies.
  • @Karuji, I understand what your saying. Allow me to rephrase then.

    Any idea how we can get the message out there that women can, and do, contribute greatly to making games and should come to the meetings to learn and/or teach more about it?

    The thing is that I don't want to include women for the sake of having women there. I want there to be more women to show that there can be more women, if that makes any sense? I want to get rid of the stigma surrounding games that says "games are for boys". Also I want a healthy balance of people at the meetups. That includes women, men, young adults, older adults, hobbyists, proffesionals, gamers, coders, artists, designers....and many, many more. :)
  • I think it's a really relevant issue actually, not having enough input from women. The industry at large has been struggling with it for years.

    I get what you're saying @Karuji, but unfortunately just saying "hey everyone is welcome" doesn't end up having the desired effect. Again, the gamedev (and IT generally) industry has been trying that for years and it just hasn't worked. The gender imbalance is huge.

    It would actually be nice to see more diversity in general :)
  • I'm not contending the gender imbalance. I just think that it is really off that a bunch of guys are going: hey we need more women involved. Without involvement from women it won't really mean anything, I mean we can ask some of the more influential women involved in the local industry to see what we can do, but as a bunch of guys sitting around going we need more women just feels like we are trying to force them in, which would be tokenism.

    Without working with women to see what we an issue may or may not be it would be little more than a play at tokenism, or worse we might end up doing something to actively discourage women from attending the meetings or participating in game development in general.

    So I when in doubt that our actions may hinder or help an effort I think that it would be best to do nothing and focus on researching what can be done. And without actual involvement from women how can we have any idea about these actions.

    We've identified an issue, and @mattbenic has reached out to some people which is great! I think this would be an excellent topic for @hanli to weigh in on. And I think we should see who else we could speak to about this issue.
  • @Karuji, were not a bunch of guys going "hey we need more women involved". We are a bunch of guys going "HOW do we get more women involved?". My post seemed a bit like the former, that's why I rephrased.

    I don't really buy the "if I'm not sure, don't do anything" argument. I understand what you are saying, and I don't want to hinder the effort either. But at this point I feel that doing nothing is hindering the effort. I would rather just try to get women there, even if it is just the on the basis to have more women there. It just think that a good start to getting more women(or any minority) into making games is to actually get them involved. That includes a lot of other things on top of just getting them there, like making them feel welcome.

    That's not to say I don't think getting opinions and suggestions from other people is a great idea. I just don't get why I need to research how to get people there if we can just get people there...
  • edited
    How can we get more <whatever group of people that's currently poorly represented at the meets> involved?

    Whether it's women, or black folks, or sound designers, whatever. I'm a little annoyed that you'd jump on gender issues over anything else.

    All I'm saying is that as a group that meets for learning to make better games, I'd love to have people from a bunch of different demographics to lend their opinions and experiences about gameplay, or even whether they find something offensive/unengaging/whatever that I wouldn't have considered. It'd suck if the only people I could ever get to playtest my games were straight, white, males in their teens and twenties. Similarly, if a sound designer played my games, I'd likely get valuable feedback that I wouldn't get from a tech artist, or a gardener, or an economist, and vice versa.

    Whether it means having to do research first, or whatever, that's fine. It's just worth thinking about, and worth aiming for, imo, hence my bringing it up.
  • @Elyaradine I think that it is a good notion to be discussing: I have already sent out some email to people whom I believe have invaluable advice to offer.

    Also the gender issue was, quite literally, listed about all other issues.

    If you want sound guys to speak about stuff you should ask them. I'm sure @retroFuture can try and persuade Nick to give a talk. But between two sound guys how many talks can there be?
  • Karuji said:
    But between two sound guys how many talks can there be?
    I would say at least two. :P
    Thanked by 1Bensonance
  • If you want to increase the diversity of the group there are two things you need to do.

    1) Identify if the target "groups" currently exist in the market place, and then invite them to come. So you want more women game devs/artists/sound-dudes whatever, first go see if there are any out there, then go and actually invite them to come.

    2) Foster those groups at the grass routes, and this means going to schools (for the most part targeting the Uni/College level is too late, but it should not be ignored). We need people to see these options as valid careers paths/hobbies and get them excited.

    In the end it is about actively marketing ourselves, and as has been said before, it is not enough to say "Hey we're open for everyone".
  • I think a better way to go about it may be to ask women who are already part of the group how they thought about it. Is saying "we need more women involved" like trying to change an entire industry? Is it a yoga class asking "how do we get more men in our yoga class"? Is it:

    a) Getting a disproportionate (compared to the industry mean) number of females into the industry? This seems to assume we can recruit people into the industry through what we do, and correcting the industry activity skew to attract said audience. This assumes we know (or will research) what aspects of game dev will attract women. Somehow this seems off of our scope.

    b) Getting more of the female participants of the industry into our meetings? This assumes there are women in industry out there who either have not heard of our group, or have heard but are not interested in joining. Thus we must change our presentation to be more attractive to women, and hit new areas of exposure where women game dev are hanging out that we haven't exposed ourselves to.

    I dunno, the former is noble, but a bit lofty. The latter makes assumptions on things we probably should research more on.
    Thanked by 1LexAquillia
  • b) Getting more of the female participants of the industry into our meetings? This assumes there are women in industry out there who either have not heard of our group, or have heard but are not interested in joining. Thus we must change our presentation to be more attractive to women, and hit new areas of exposure where women game dev are hanging out that we haven't exposed ourselves to.
    In about a decade of working in the industry, I I've worked with exactly 4 women that did either art or code. Four!? Similarly I've worked with 2 black and 3 asian individuals (neither intersecting with the set of women ;)). I don't know about CT and other areas, but in Joburg at least the industry is absolutely dominated by pale males :) This is actually why I'd personally like to see this kind of diversity happen at the community level, I think it's a place that has a much lower barrier to entry than actually working in game dev, and is safer for those interested to try out without committing to. I'm not implying they would necessarily struggle more or less than anyone else to get into the relevant jobs if they just went ahead and applied, I just think it's less risky to try out joining a community than switching careers.
  • edited
    mattbenic said:
    I don't know about CT and other areas, but in Joburg at least the industry is absolutely dominated by pale males :)
    Pretty much the same in CT.

    I've thought of trying to get more involved in the animation community. They have their own meetups and forums and are a lot more established (animation as a career choice is well known for instance). I think having some stronger ties with the animation community might make artists easier to find, and maybe some more artists would come to our game development meetups, and the fact that they have better diversity than the game development community doesn't hurt.

    Well, anyway Free Lives might be trying that out. The first step would be us going to them.
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