WOMEN AS CHARACTERS, PLAYERS AND DEVELOPERS An educational perspective

Master Degree Project in Media, Aesthetics and Narration A1E One year Level 60 ECTS Spring term 2020

Emma Arltoft

Supervisor: Lissa Holloway-Attaway Examiner: Rebecca Rouse

Abstract There is a lack of female representation in video games, and women are often ignored as characters, as players, and as developers. This thesis investigates how the University of Skövde works with gender diversity in the second game project within those categories. A content analysis was carried out, and a total of 102 documents collected from the course site were coded. It was complemented with additional information from instructor interviews and a student survey. It was found that while there is an emotional commitment to diversity from the students as well as the instructors, there is a lack of clear guidelines and resources to create more nuanced portrayals of diversity. There is significant potential for improvements and a need for a continuous effort to follow up on the content produced.

Keywords: gender diversity, representation, ambivalent sexism, objectification, stereotypes Table of Contents

1 Introduction ...... 1 2 Background ...... 2 Women in video games ...... 4 2.1.1 Harassment and assumed incompetence ...... 4 2.1.2 Damsels in distress and sexy companions ...... 6 2.1.3 The construction of ‘gamers’ ...... 8 Video games and education ...... 10 2.2.1 Swedish games education ...... 12 The future of women in video games ...... 15 3 Problem ...... 16 Method...... 17 4 Results ...... 21 Education ...... 21 Creators ...... 23 Characters ...... 25 Players ...... 29 Student survey ...... 30 Interviews ...... 42 5 Analysis ...... 45 Content analysis ...... 45 5.1.1 Education ...... 45 5.1.2 Creators ...... 47 5.1.3 Characters ...... 48 5.1.4 Players ...... 51 5.1.5 Conclusion ...... 52 Student survey ...... 54 Interviews ...... 56 6 Conclusions ...... 58 Summary ...... 58 Discussion ...... 59 Future work ...... 61 Bibliography ...... 63

1 Introduction As the video game industry continues to grow, women face hostility through ambivalent sexism, stereotypes, and objectification. Dismissed as incompetent and reduced to stereotypes of damsels in distress and sexy companions, women are frequently marked as ‘others’ and seen as intruders in the video game industry. The hostility towards women and the industry extends to games educations, where women are frequently harassed for teaching about diversity and educational institutions often lack adequate support networks. Women continue to be underrepresented and ignored in gaming spaces, despite there being direct benefits of a diverse team, and with a lack of meaningful representation of women in games it becomes important to educate privileged groups so that the burden of diversity can be shared instead of shouldered by women and marginalised groups. Turning to games educations in Sweden, this thesis examines how the University of Skövde works with gender diversity. This was done through a content analysis of the second game project course, with additional interviews and a student survey to complement and validate the analysis. By looking at the games produced as well as the educational material, themes such as support for marginalised students and discussions about gender diversity in terms of objectification and stereotypes were coded and analysed. The student survey investigated the opinions of the students regarding gender diversity and topics such as support, harassment and commitment. The interviews gathered additional data from the instructors involved with the course and investigated the course as well as the instructors’ and institutions commitment to gender diversity.

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2 Background Worth over 120 billion dollars (SuperData, 2020), the video game industry is outpacing other forms of entertainment; it has surpassed both the movie industry and the music industry (Mitic, 2019) in terms of revenue. In the US alone, over 164 million adults play video games (Entertainment Software Association, 2019), giving games an increasingly broad cultural reach. While games have historically been considered an activity for young boys, the image of games and ‘gamers’ is shifting and diversifying as it becomes more mainstream. Thus, there is much that the industry as a whole, as well as individual developers, must be aware of to avoid sexist content in the games they produce, as women still face resistance as developers, as characters, and as players. Before we can discuss women in games, we must consider the impact of ambivalent sexism, objectification, and stereotypes. To elaborate on this, let us first define these terms and concepts. Ambivalent sexism was coined by Glick and Fiske (1996), describing two forms of sexism and the relationship between them: hostile sexism and benevolent sexism. Hostile sexism is the form of sexism most are familiar with; the oppression of women through prejudice and hatred. It is a form of sexism that punishes women. On the other hand is benevolent sexism, a seemingly loving form of sexism. Through paternalism, gender differentiation and heterosexuality, benevolent sexism demands a woman must perform conventional gender roles; she is considered purer and more empathetic than men, so it is only natural that she takes care of the children while he deals with issues demanding logic. She is weaker than him, but loved and cherished, and must thus be protected by a father or a husband. And her love is what he needs to be complete, so she should accept him with open arms. Benevolent sexism serves as the carrot for women to do men’s bidding as she will be rewarded with a loving, protective husband while hostile sexism is the stick, punishing women who stray outside the roles benevolent sexism establishes. The aspects that make up benevolent sexism become sinister; she is more emotional, and thus unfit for roles of power. She is weaker, and thus worthless. She is what a man desires, but she can deny him her attention, and thus she is a seductress. Objectification, as defined by Nussbaum (1995), takes on seven different forms: 1. Instrumentality: The objectifier treats the object as a tool of his or her purposes. 2. Denial of autonomy: The objectifier treats the object as lacking in autonomy and self-determination 3. Inertness: The objectifier treats the object as lacking in agency, and perhaps also in activity. 4. Fungibility: The objectifier treats the object as interchangeable (a) with other objects of the same type, and/or (b) with objects of other types. 5. Violability: The objectifier treats the object as lacking in boundary-integrity, as something that it is permissible to break up, smash, break into. 6. Ownership: The objectifier treats the object as something that is owned by another, can be bought or sold, etc. 7. Denial of subjectivity: The objectifier treats the object as something whose experience and feelings (if any) need not be taken into account. (Nussbaum, 1995)

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The presence of one of these forms does not necessarily imply the presence of any of the others. Nussbaum stressed the importance of context when considering whether or not something is objectified: none of these forms of objectification, save perhaps instrumentality, are inherently negative. Yet even instrumentality can be non-problematic; it is once someone treats another as “primarily or merely as an instrument” (Nussbam, 1995), that it becomes harmful. But while objectification and consent can exist at the same time, there are plenty of times when objectification takes on a sexist form. Using the magazine Playboy as an example, Nussbaum (1995) states that the message given by the pictures and captions is “whatever else this woman is and does, for us she is an object for sexual enjoyment.” Stereotypes, according to the APA Dictionary of Psychology, are “a set of cognitive generalizations (e.g., beliefs, expectations) about the qualities and characteristics of the members of a group or social category” (VandenBos, 2015). They tend to be exaggerated, and often resistant to change, even when perceivers are confronted with individuals possessing qualities contradicting the stereotype. But much like how objectification is not necessarily inherently negative (though it certainly has a tendency to be), but rather dependent on context, so are stereotypes. They are used to “simplify and expedite perceptions and judgments” (VandenBos, 2015), and thus there are times when using stereotypes is necessary in order to communicate information quickly, such as when creating a background character of little importance, or to manage social expectations. However, excessive or exclusive usage of stereotypes often reduces a person or character to nothing more than a stereotype - and when the stereotype in question has a negative impact on the perception of the relevant social groups, it becomes problematic. When considering these terms and concepts, we can see how they connect and affect each other. Objectification is crucial to hostile and benevolent sexism: it is the denial of subjectivity and instrumentality that tells her she must appeal to men since he needs her to be complete, it is the denial of autonomy and inertness that tells her she is weak and must be protected, it is the fungibility that reduces her to a predetermined role, such as a mother or wife. If she resists this benevolent sexism, it is through violability and ownership, along with the rest of the forms of objectification, that hostile sexism tells her that she is worthless and nothing more than a sexual conquest. Through this, or perhaps preceding this, we are given stereotypes that confirm these behaviours: women are perceived as mentally and physically weak, emotional, vain and lacking intelligence. Furthermore, what women enjoy is supposedly distinctly different from what men enjoy, and thus these stereotypes may be considered natural and fact by some rather than stereotypes; fashion, makeup, housework and gossip is for women to enjoy, while beer, sports, work and war are for men. Pink is for women, blue is for men, and so on and so forth. First, let us remember the distinction between gender and sex; being a ‘woman’ is not the same as being ‘female’, and one can be a ‘woman’ without being ‘female’, just as one can be a ‘man’ without being ‘male’. Sex is a category of physical bodies (and it is worth noting even biological sex is just various combinations of chromosomes we have assigned categories to, and may be more fluid and diverse than one might first assume), and gender is often based on, and equated to, sex: when one is born, it is based on one’s physical body that one is assigned a gender, and these genders are often limited to the binary genders of ‘boy’ and ‘girl’. However, Judith Butler (1988) argued that “what is called gender identity is a performative accomplishment compelled

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by social sanction and taboo.” Instead of considering gender as something that is natural to our identities, and something that is simply true about us, Butler considers gender to be constructed through repeated acts of the body that are compliant with societal norms. Thus, we are not acting our gender based on a script, nor are we even aware we are acting a role, but the script of gender is written by our acts, both of which are restricted by historical conventions of what gender is meant to be. Our acts of gender appear to be a personal choice; she does not enjoy makeup because she is a woman, but she enjoys makeup and happens to be a woman. But if gender is a set of repeated acts, it is not restricted to the binary genders of man and woman (Butler, 1988), for they are no longer a natural fact, and any other act may construct a different gender or a different expression of gender. This does not come without restrictions and consequences, as any act challenging or subverting societal norms is met with harsh punishment. Returning to ambivalent sexism (Glick & Fiske, 1996), this is clearly illustrated with how women who conform to societal expectations of womanhood are rewarded while those who break those expectations are punished.

Women in video games In 1980, Pac-Man (Namco, 1980) was introduced to the US market. Standing out compared to previous popular games, its bright colours and nonviolent content made it a success with a wide audience (Wolf, 2008, p. 74) - including women. Pac-Man went on to sell 100,000 machines in the US alone, paving the way for the sequel to the game: Ms. Pac-Man (Namco, 1981), “the most successful game in the history of the American arcade industry” (Kent, 2001, p. 167), selling more than 115.000 machines in the US. However, soon after the success of Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man, the video game industry in the US came to an abrupt halt during the video game crash in 1983 (Wolf, 2008, p. 105; Kent, 2001, p. 239). It was after this, during the revival of the market and the release of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1985, that games were rebranded as toys (Kent, 2001, p. 298) meant for young boys to play with. With the release of Super Mario Bros (Nintendo, 1985), the stereotypical depiction of female characters reared its head in video games. In the game, Mario sets out to rescue Princess Toadstool, later known as Princess Peach, from the villain Bowser by fighting enemies in the side-scrolling platformer. Due to the popularity of the game in Japan, Nintendo made the decision to package it with the NES (Kent, 2001, p. 300), ensuring it spread in the international market as well. In 1987, Nintendo released another success: The Legend of Zelda. This time it was Princess Zelda who ends up kidnapped by the villain Ganon (Nintendo, 1986), and the male protagonist of the game, Link, has to rescue her. With this, the treatment of women in the video game industry was off to a bad start: women were largely ignored as players and reduced to damsels in distress as characters to make space for men.

2.1.1 Harassment and assumed incompetence In late 2012, a conversation began. Under the hashtag #1ReasonWhy, women on Twitter described one reason why there were so few women creating games. Despite the myriad of women adding their stories to the hashtag, their experiences were not unique. Examining the tweets, Ochsner (2017) found that there were three main themes that the tweets centre around. First, women are held to different, often impossible standards when compared to their male

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colleagues. Their appearance, clothes, and relationships to men are judged, and their professional contributions and accomplishments are often overlooked in favour of them being women - instead of being a game developer, they are female game developers. Secondly, women are mocked, sexualized, and ignored instead of recognized for their status and expertise; assumed to be lost instead of in the right class or at the right conference, and a boost to diversity statistics or a piece of eye candy instead of a professional game developer. Finally, women are often ignored and silenced, facing harassment in online games and communities, in school, at conferences and events, and at work - with sexist behaviour being dismissed as jokes. This, Ochsner (2017) notes, means that “women often choose not to speak up about negative experiences for fear that it will risk their jobs and professional status.” These issues were further proven during the events of #GamerGate. In August 2014, Eron Gjoni published the blogpost The Zoe Post (2014) after his and game developer Zoe Quinn’s relationship ended, detailing her alleged infidelity. This marked the visible start of the harassment campaign #GamerGate, where women and feminists in gaming were targeted, leading to women quitting their jobs (Jason, 2015) and fleeing their homes (Stuart, 2014) after receiving death and rape threats. Initially aimed at Zoe Quinn, the GamerGate movement grew, lashing out against any individuals who criticized the male-dominated gaming industry, ranging from journalists and designers (Mortensen, 2016) to game studies scholars (Chess & Shaw, 2015).

Within minutes, a friend warned Quinn that someone had altered her biography on Wikipedia. It now read, “Died: soon.” When the friend deleted it, someone else immediately wrote, “Died: October 13, 2014”—the date of Quinn’s next scheduled public appearance. Quinn’s friend futilely worked to counter the attacks all night. Strangers sent Photoshopped images of her covered in semen. There were hundreds of tweets demanding she kill herself. (Jason, 2015) Part of the GamerGate movement claimed to be frustrated with a lack of ethics in video game journalism, dating back to 2007 (Gamergate Wiki, 2014, as cited in Mortensen, 2016) when Jeff Gerstmann was fired from his position at GameSpot, allegedly due to a negative review of a game. Thus, when Gjoni claimed Zoe Quinn had used her relationship with game journalist Nathan Grayson to secure positive reviews (Gjoni, 2014) on Kotaku for her game Depression Quest, those already critical of video game journalism became vocal (Wingfield, 2014; Stuart, 2014; Jason, 2015); and with them (or, perhaps, they were all the same people) came those who wanted to push women and other critics out of the gaming industry at all costs. These problems are not simply a relic from the past. In 2017, gender gaps were still a large problem in the video game industry: only 21% (Weststar, O’Meara & Legault, 2018) of game developers identified as women. Bailey, Miyata & Yoshida (2019) found that while the gender gap has narrowed over time, it still remains wide, and the women that worked on the top-selling console games are overrepresented in low paying roles and excluded from leadership roles, which might be contributing to sexist work cultures. This gender gap makes itself known in all aspects of the gaming industry. While some may consider the events of #GamerGate a solved issue, women continue to face sexism in the gaming industry.

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2.1.2 Damsels in distress and sexy companions While the representation and amount of female characters in video games have improved since the start of the industry, they are still underrepresented as well as subjected to ambivalent sexism, stereotypes, and objectification. At the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) 2019, only 5% (Sarkeesian & Petit, 2019) of the games presented featured a woman as the exclusive protagonist, while 25% had a man as the exclusive protagonist. The top ten best-selling games of each year between 2001 and 2017 featured no woman as the exclusive protagonist (Bailey, et al., 2019), whereas 69% featured a man as the exclusive protagonist, and 31% had protagonists of unspecified genders or both men and women as protagonists. When they are present, women are often placed in secondary roles (Lynch, Tompkins, Driel & Fritz, 2016), objectified and subjected to hostile sexism (Summers & Miller, 2014). Many of the early video games that still have an impact on the video game industry featured damsels in distress (Sarkeesian, 2013a) such as the previously mentioned The Legend of Zelda (Nintendo, 1986). The trend of damsels in distress continues in later games of the series, such as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Nintendo, 1998) and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (Nintendo, 2002). In these games, Princess Zelda plays a more active role while in disguise, helping the protagonist Link during his adventures. However, as soon as said disguise is cast off, and she takes on her more stereotypically feminine appearance, she is reduced to a damsel in distress (Sarkeesian, 2013a) and is swiftly kidnapped (Nintendo, 1998; Nintendo, 2002), with Link rushing to her rescue. This is exactly why the trope is problematic; the damsel, no matter how strong or capable she has been shown to be previously, is reduced to a victim (Sarkeesian, 2013a), and nothing more. Despite the fact that Zelda is the wielder of the Triforce of Wisdom (Nintendo, 1998; Nintendo, 2002), a part of the Triforce that empowers her perpetual rescuer Link and her perpetual kidnapper Ganondorf, she is constantly shown to be inferior to them, rarely more than a tool used to further their narratives and motives. The damsel in distress stereotype is an example of benevolent sexism and objectification, as it builds on the idea that the woman in question is too weak and fragile to rescue herself, and that not only has the male protagonist failed to protect her, but he must save her in order to redeem himself and be complete again. Furthermore, the woman is reduced to something akin to a trophy; placed on a pedestal as the ultimate price the male protagonist and antagonist compete for (Sarkeesian, 2015). A tool for the male characters’ power struggle, denied agency, interchangeable with any other princess, and something that can belong to another person; indeed, a damsel in distress fits many of the forms of objectification Nussbaum (1995) defined. Benevolent sexism can still be seen in modern games, as exemplified when Perreault, M., Perreault, G., Jenkins & Morrison (2016) analysed female protagonists from 2013, finding that while they were more progressive and nuanced than their predecessors, they still fell victim to benevolent sexism. However, the industry has increasingly moved onto subjecting women to hostile sexism (Summers & Miller, 2014) in place of benevolent sexism. Instead of putting women on pedestals where they are regarded as pure and worthy of protection, games are now putting them under the spotlight - and said spotlight focuses heavily on their sexualized bodies (Summers & Miller, 2014; Lynch, et al., 2016; Fisher, 2015) rather than their personality and skills. Furthermore, instead of being kidnapped and saved without coming to harm, some women are killed or brutalized (Sarkeesian, 2013b) in order to motivate the (male)

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protagonists. The women are now treated as something the antagonist, and sometimes even the player, can harm and break, no longer invaluable. Returning to the matter of sexualized women, many hours and words have been spent arguing whether or not sexualized female characters, such as Bayonetta (Sega, 2010) or Lara Croft (Eidos Interactive, 1996), are simply eye candy for a presumed male audience, or if they are strong characters reclaiming their sexuality that women in the audience should celebrate. Wearing tight, revealing clothes (Summers & Miller, 2014), there is no doubt that these characters are meant to be sexy, but are they truly strong, well-written characters? The problem is not whether or not a woman is sexually appealing, but rather whether or not there are other women who are given power outside of sexuality, and how said sexuality is presented. First, what a woman may consider sexy for herself and what a heteronormative society informs her is sexy for the men around her are not necessarily the same. Echoing benevolent sexism (Glick & Fiske, 1996), this idea of heteronormative ‘sexiness’ states that the only power a woman can have over men is her sexuality, as long as her sexuality is confined within a rigid set of roles that men can control. Just as Nussbaum (1995) argues that Playboy tells the audience that the women on display are for the male audience’s sexual enjoyment and nothing else, games that only show these types of women tells the male audience that she is only there for their sexual enjoyment. This is not to say that there are not parts of the audience that are not heterosexual men, whose sexuality may allow them to appreciate said women, nor that there is anything inherently wrong with heterosexual men exploring their sexuality – but it does not negate the fact that these objectified women were designed with heteronormative values in mind in order to cater to heterosexual men, and this is important to remember when labelling them as ‘strong characters’. Furthermore, recalling Butler’s arguments (1988), there is nothing that makes these values inherent to gender and, in this case, sexuality. When additionally considering Glick and Fiske’s theory of ambivalent sexism (1996), it becomes clear that these values exist to ensure women are kept under control. Should she gain agency, either over her own sexuality and how she chooses to perform it, she would become a threat to the idea that women are beneath men and meant to serve them emotionally and sexually. Thus she would be perceived as a threat by any person that supports this notion. I shall stress here that this is, again, not a demand that no woman in any game from now on may be sexually appealing by heteronormative standards, but that it needs to be remembered that it is not a harmless depiction of women, but rather one that reinforces sexist notions. Ultimately, there is nothing wrong with a female character who works in the sex industry, gets kidnapped or is otherwise placed in a situation of distress, or who uses traditional feminine signifiers. Those characters could indeed represent very real women. The problem is that once those traits have been placed on a female character, there is seemingly no space left for any other character development, resulting in poor representation of women in video games - or little to no representation (Fisher, 2015; Lynch, et al., 2016) at all. Thus, it is important to break out of stereotypes and promote varied, well-written female characters that are given as much attention as male characters. Game developers would, in fact, benefit from it; in a constantly growing market, it becomes increasingly important to stand out, and challenging stereotypes not only improve social harmony but also bolsters an individual’s creativity (Gocłowska, Crisp

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& Labuschagne, 2013). Additionally, being a counter-stereotype (such as a female game developer) might increase flexible thinking, meaning it would directly benefit game studios to have diverse teams. Returning to Ms. Pac-Man (Namco, 1981), the protagonist sharing her name with the game, Ms. Pac-Man, illustrates another issue with female characters. In her video series Women vs Tropes in Video Games, Sarkeesian (2013c) poses a question; how does one tell a character such as Pac-Man (Namco, 1980) from a character such as Ms. Pac-Man, when they both consist of only a few pixels in their respective games? Asides from names, the answer lies in “feminizing gendered signifiers” (Sarkeesian, 2013c), where stereotypically feminine design elements are added to a character to differentiate them from their male counterpart. These include such things as makeup, a red or pink bow, long eyelashes, high-heels and exaggerated chests, among other things. Female characters are frequently marked as different from male characters (Sarkeesian, 2013c) simply for being female. As their design stresses that they are indeed female by using these gendered signifiers, other interesting design elements are removed to make space for these gendered signifiers. This becomes more obvious when combined with the Smurfette Principle, as coined by Katha Pollitt (1991), where a range of characters consists of men with a sole woman, who then is often given gendered signifiers to differentiate her from the men. The main design element and character trait of a female character thus becomes her gender and nothing else, while male characters, unmarked by gender, can use a plethora of different and interesting designs. For example, in New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Nintendo, 2009), this can be seen when examining the Koopalings; seven cartoonish humanoid dinosaurs or turtles. At first glance, their designs are varied, clearly giving each character a unique personality and traits. On closer inspection, we spot Wendy, the sole female Koopaling. She is marked as female by long lashes, jewellery, makeup, heels, and a bow, all of which are pink. None of these traits are present in the other Koopalings, whose designs instead revolve around various personality traits, such as intelligence, cheerfulness or toughness. Following that logic, if the norm is for all female characters to use these stereotypically feminine traits, any character not using those signifiers may be assumed to be male, if one believes gender to be binary. Thus, if a female character with gendered signifiers is introduced to a game that has a range of characters with varying, interesting designs, the remaining cast is implied to be male, as they do not share the gendered signifiers that have come to be expected of female characters. As such, there are games and there are girl games. There is Pac-Man, and Ms. Pac-Man. There are gamers, and there are girl gamers - one assumed the norm, the other marked as a deviation from the norm.

2.1.3 The construction of ‘gamers’ This marking of women as “others” is present when looking at women as players. As previously discussed, they are often excluded from being represented in games at all, and if present they conform to a very rigid notion of gender. Just as the games themselves, the marketing of games often featured sexualized and objectified women (Fisher, 2015), if any women at all (Fisher, 2015; Cote, 2015a), targeted towards a white male audience (Chess, Evans & Bains, 2016). Additionally, women are often excluded when taking genre and playstyle into account. Women between the ages of 18-34 prefer casual and action games

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(Entertainment Software Association, 2019), with most women enjoying racing games, puzzle games, and party games. Men in the same age group preferred action games, first-person shooters and sports games. In a study where people who played games were given the option to create gamer motivation profiles, self-identified female gamers preferred completion and the fantasy of playing someone else, somewhere else (Yee, 2016), whereas self-identified male gamers prefer competition and destruction. Despite this, 85% of the games presented at E3 used combat as the main game mechanic (Sarkeesian & Petit, 2019), clearly aligning the playstyle of the games to the preference of male players. I do wish to note that Butler’s argument that gender is performative (1988) complicates this matter slightly; if these preferences are not inherent to gender, then why would women not be able to enjoy games produced for men? While there is a certain truth to that, and while there are several women who do enjoy the same genre as men, there are several problems with that idea. First, making games for men does not mean making games for everyone, it is distinctly picking a gender to market to and should be considered a conscious choice. The idea that men are the norm and women are the deviation from the norm, as previously mentioned, is at the core of this. Attempting to design a game for all genders by ignoring gender is playing into the idea of men being the norm, while attempting to design a game for all genders by staying aware of gender would, most likely, provide a more nuanced game in terms of gender diversity. It is hard to break stereotypes and norms unless one is aware of what those stereotypes and norms are, and acts to counter them. Second, since these games are designed for men and not women, regardless or not if these preferences are inherent to gender, real women are punished for playing these games. This point will be discussed shortly. This treatment of women in games, both as developers, as characters and as players could reasonably lead to the assumption that women do not play games, nor do they express an interest in games; why else would the medium be so dominated by men? However, nearly half of the people who play games are women (Entertainment Software Association, 2019; Duggan, 2015), though not all of these women consider themselves a “gamer”. Only 6% of women identify as gamers (Duggan, 2015), which can be compared to men, where 15% identified as gamers. The largest group that identifies as gamers are men aged 18-29, where 33% identified as gamers. Even if women are gamers, they are more likely to be ‘casual’ gamers, defined as not meeting five or more of the criteria (Kapalo, Neigel, Rupp & Szalma, 2015) that ‘hardcore’ gamers “played for 60 minutes or more in a single gaming session, played for two hours or more per day, played three or more days during the week, spent 15 minutes or more researching games, owned at least 20 games, and purchased at least two new titles within the past six months”, and may be considered abnormal (Tiercelin & Remy, 2019) should they prove themselves to be a hardcore gamer. This definition of a ‘hardcore’ gamer may seem reasonable at first, but women consistently do more unpaid work such as household chores than men (OECD, 2019b), leaving less time than for leisure activities, and earn less (OECD, 2019a) for doing the same job as men. Thus basing the criteria for ‘hardcore’ gamers on time and money puts women at a disadvantage. Players of any gender may reject the constructed identity of a gamer if they view games as unimportant (Shaw, 2011), either to their own identity or to the mainstream media culture. The definition of male players as hardcore gamers and female players as casual gamers, which may be in part due to women not having the same privileges of leisure time and money as men, does

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indeed express an idea of how important games are expected to be in the lives of women. It is no surprise then, that women may reject the gamer identity. Even women who do identify as gamers often hide their identity (Tiercelin & Remy, 2019; Cote, 2015b) when playing games in order to protect themselves, and should a woman be open about her gender when playing games, she may find herself being harassed. In online gaming, harassment has “a significant impact on their continued participation” (Fox & Tang, 2016), and women often develop coping mechanisms in order to continue to function within these spaces, including avoidance and pretending they do not feel hurt by the harassment. By being forced to hide their identities as women to protect themselves from harassment, women may be avoiding games that would force them to be exposed, such as games requiring voice chat (Fox & Tang, 2016; Cote, 2015b). This limits women in what games they can play, and how they can play them, making them less visible within gaming spaces (Cote, 2015b). In short, there is a paradox at play; women are not identifying as gamers because the gaming industry does not see them as an audience worth targeting, and the gaming industry does not see women as an audience worth targeting since they are not gamers. Much like how female characters are, due to ambivalent sexism (Glick & Fiske, 1996), punished for stepping outside their expected role in games, women who play games are punished for existing (Ochsner, 2017) in a role supposedly belonging to men. This treatment of women is present in the gaming industry as well: #1ReasonWhy, and the events of #GamerGate illustrates this. As game developers and players, women are already considered trespassers; they are in the domain of men and must be punished for stepping outside of their expected roles. Ambivalent sexism, objectification and stereotypes continue to affect the video game industry, putting women in danger. This is a problem with the idea that gender is constructed and can thus be deconstructed; while sexism and the construction and deconstruction of gender are very much intertwined, and one can discuss gender on a theoretical level as Butler does (1988), but it cannot be done while ignoring women facing abuse and harassment. Similarly, the video game industry cannot expect women to carry the weight of diversity alone, as it puts them at risk for harassment and abuse.

Video games and education Zagal and Bruckman (2006) found that teaching about games may not be as easy as one may first assume; students come from a variety of backgrounds, both academically but also in terms of video game experience, and this results in a variety of complex issues. First, the wide variety of academic backgrounds and previous experience makes it hard to establish a baseline for games programmes. While the heterogeneity of the students’ backgrounds means they can present different and interesting perspectives, it also means that the education cannot prioritize everyone: does one focus on the basic theories to ensure students new to the field are given sufficient information or does one move to more complex theories to stimulate those who may already have previous experience? Second, the students’ passion for games may serve as a great motivator for their studies, but may also interfere with the students’ ability to reason critically about games. When students are experienced video game players, it is “that much harder to take an objective step back, because they just have so much fun playing games” (Zagal & Bruckman, 2006). Not only do

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they struggle with accepting new ideas about games as their judgements may be affected by false assumptions (that, for example, there is no point in studying older games), they are often more limited in their experience than they might initially think. Zagal and Bruckman (2006) write that “it is typical for students to have a specialized understanding of a particular game genre, like first-person shooters, but be completely ignorant, in terms of experience, of other genres like puzzle or sports games.” Furthermore, students have to approach games as cultural artefacts that have meanings, something that can clash with their previous interaction with games as an enjoyable pastime. Students confuse playing a game for entertainment and playing a game to critically analyse it, mistakenly believing that mastering a game is synonymous with understanding the game and the ideas within it. They also lack the vocabulary to properly express their ideas and experiences with gameplay, meaning students who are expert players are not by default expert games researchers. When games educations challenge their experience and expertise by discussing other genres and phenomena from a variety of angles, students often react strongly, and negatively. Students may antagonize their instructors (Zagal & Bruckman, 2006); they question their gaming credentials, once again conflating games as entertainment with games as research. The article written by Zagal and Bruckman (2006) does not touch upon whether or not diverse instructors, or instructors discussing diversity, faced more hostility than other instructors, but does confirm that students who may have anchored their identity in games (that may indeed be identifying as ‘gamers’) often react with hostility when confronted with the impact games can have as cultural artefacts. This echoes the culture of harassment previously discussed, where women, both as players and as developers, were excluded from the identity of ‘gamers’ and continuously had their experiences and expertise questioned. In a GDC talk, Bonnie Ruberg (2019) approaches this topic and reinforces how students are resistant to games being culture, and particularly hostile towards diversity – whether that diversity is diverse instructors or topics of diversity in the classroom. Ruberg discusses how students often consider themselves purely technical and resent the idea of games being culture to the point of harassing the instructors teaching the course. Reiterating on the hostility noted by Zagal and Bruckman (2006), Ruberg (2019) clarifies how the hostility instructors’ face includes “cred checking”, where the students challenge the instructors status as a ‘gamer’, but additionally includes things such as bad-faith questions, disruptive behaviour, inappropriate comments about the instructor and walkouts. But the hostility in games educations is not limited to classrooms, and sometimes escalates to the point where instructors are subjected to threats, physical intimidation, and coordinated efforts of harassment. In their talk, Ruberg (2019) mentions that diverse instructors often find themselves without support when dealing with this toxicity; colleagues that are not marginalised may not understand the problem, nor the severity of it, and there may be a lack of resources for how to deal with disruptive students. This lack of support means marginalized instructors are left dealing with the extra labour that goes into dealing with harassment, both emotional and physical, and there can be negative feedback on evaluations that directly affects their career. As a defence mechanism, the instructors step away from talking about diversity and culture, resulting in a less diverse education, and a less diverse student body. Ruberg encourages privileged colleagues to consider their role in this, and to act as advocates for diverse instructors and diversity. For programs and institutions, Ruberg lists several suggestions for improvement:

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hiring multiple diverse instructors, offering multiple courses that address culture and diversity, recognizing instructor labour, having resources before a problem arises, and actively supporting the instructors. Ruberg makes a point to stress that this is not the problem of an individual instructor, but rather a widespread problem present in all games programs to some extent.

2.2.1 Swedish games education As the global gender gap narrows, four Nordic countries top the list having closed at least 80% of their gaps: Iceland, Norway, Finland, and Sweden. With over 5000 developers and 280 companies (Dataspelsbranschen, 2019), Sweden has the largest gaming industry, outpacing the other Nordic countries. However, despite the narrow gender gap when compared globally, only 21% of game developers in Sweden identify as women (Dataspelsbranschen, 2019), echoing the statistics (Weststar, et al., 2018) of the international video game industry. As the video games industry and games educations in Sweden continue to grow and gain international attention, instructors teaching students about diversity in games become increasingly important in order to continue and accelerate the rate at which the industry diversifies. By using the keyword ‘dataspelsutveckling’ (‘game development’ in Swedish) and the same category for programmes on Antagning.se, a Swedish website for applying to universities, 29 programmes were identified. Vocational schools are not included in these numbers as they focus on the practical skills of making games rather than contextualizing games as cultural artefacts. Out of these 29 programmes, 12 are taught at the University of Skövde. The second-largest amount of programmes taught at the same university were five programmes at Linköpings University, which had a weak connection to video game development when compared to the University of Skövde. On its website, the University of Skövde (2020b) states that the institution is “a centerpiece of one of Europe's, and one of the world's, largest and broadest game education hubs”. Returning to Ruberg’s earlier statement of how no games program is an exception to the difficulties instructors may face when teaching about diversity in games, it becomes of interest to examine the University of Skövde and the games programmes, and how diversity is worked with at the institution. The programme documents that describe the programmes and their purpose and specify what the students are required to learn describe that the students, to graduate, must demonstrate the ability to make judgments with regards to relevant scientific, societal and ethical aspects. Furthermore, it states that the education is governed by various policies, and that the aspects that should be particularly noted in the University’s education according to the policies include ethical issues related to research and education, gender perspective and equal treatment. A brief look at the website for the University of Skövde reveals three points of interest: a page describing the students’ rights to equal treatment (University of Skövde, 2020c), the description for the games programmes (University of Skövde, 2020b), and DONNA (University of Skövde, 2020a). All of these sites are in Swedish, and the page describing the students’ equal rights as well as the page describing DONNA, which will be defined and discussed later, do not exist on the English website. The page describing the students’ equal rights (University of Skövde, 2020c) is not specifically tailored to, nor does it mention, the games programmes, and applies to all students studying at the University of Skövde. It describes how the university is working to make sure

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all students have equal opportunities, based on the Discrimination Act (SFS 2008:567) and the Work Environment Act (SFS 1977:1160). These forbid discrimination based on age, gender, ethnicity, religion, disabilities and sexuality, and acts that are offensive or lead to bullying. The page goes on to briefly discuss how the reader can work with diversity in practice, by questioning norms and encouraging the reader to treat the people around them with respect. The page finishes by stating that any student that is subjected to harassment or discrimination should contact their Head of Division (University of Skövde, 2020c), or alternatively the coordinator for the students’ equal rights who is listed by name. Who exactly your Head of Division remains unclear, however, as searching for this keyword in Swedish does not yield any result with information about who your Head of Division is. Once found, it becomes apparent that the title is shortened, but a page that clearly lists who the student should contact with relevant contact information attached is hard, if not impossible, to find. Furthermore, while this page can be found by searching for keywords such as ‘discrimination’, the page is not sorted under the category that discusses the available support for the students, where mental health and disability support can be found. Instead, on the Swedish website it is found by navigating to the Education page, and then, in the sidebar, selecting ‘Inför ansökan’ (transl. before applying), ‘Så här fungerar högskolestudier’ (transl. how university studies work) and finally selecting the page for the students’ equal rights. On the Swedish page that describes the games programmes taught at the University of Skövde (University of Skövde, 2020b), it is mentioned that several games produced at the University have won or been nominated to the Swedish Game Awards. In 2019, all games nominated for the category “Best Diversity” were produced at the University of Skövde. The page goes on to describe how the games programmes work actively with diversity and equality in game development, and that the students will be part of this through inclusive game topics and discussions regarding games’ role in society. Additionally, the page briefly mentions DONNA and its role in diversity topics at the University, providing a link to a page listing more details about the network, which I shall return to shortly. Finally, it states that the programmes have passionate instructors working with the topic, which is often mentioned in the evaluations for the programmes. While the page exists in English, none of the information about diversity, nor the link to DONNA, is available on the English page. According to the page describing it, DONNA is an interest group (University of Skövde, 2020a) working with diversity in game development, consisting of students and instructors at the University of Skövde. Founded in 2011, DONNA aims to increase the number of women in game educations as well as in the video game industry in order to give men and women equal opportunities in the video game industry. The page describes how important a diversity and inclusion perspective is in order to achieve this, and that DONNA is working to change the view of the medium, the culture and the industry in order to make it more inclusive. In the games programmes taught at the University of Skövde, DONNA works with integrating diversity topics, and how diverse content in games can be used to reach a broader target audience. DONNA is split into three subgroups; DONNAstudent, DONNAstyrgrupp (transl. Steering committee), and DONNA NETWORK. What these are, and how to contact them, is not made clear on the website. The presence of an interest group specifically looking at diversity in video games is positive, but the question remains if students can use this network for support and if there are

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sufficient attention drawn to it. An internal report from 2016 (Brusk & Dannberg, 2016) reveals that in a survey from the end of 2015, 36% of new students knew of DONNA. Overall, the students felt positively about the efforts made in the programmes to include diversity, and the female students were more positive to DONNA’s efforts than male students. According to the report, the most negative responses came from male students studying programming or game design, which is theorized to be due to the lack of female peers in said program. The male students felt they were ignored by DONNA, and thus felt like they neither wanted to nor could contribute to diversity efforts. Some of these students voiced that they feel forced to work with diversity and that such things were unnecessary, stating that it would be better if learning about diversity was optional. Of the students participating in the survey, 8 reported they had been subjected to harassment (Brusk & Dannberg, 2016) at the University of Skövde: 5 women, 2 men, and 1 person who picked the ‘other’ option when selecting their gender. The men reported being harassed by their instructors but did not clarify in what context or situation. The remaining students were subjected to harassment by other students. Some of the situations described mentioned the second game project, which takes place in the 2nd year, and how they faced hostility in the project groups. The report states that the obstacle for the course instructors is to know when harassment occurs so that appropriate measures can be taken. When asked, a majority of the instructors reported that they wanted additional support in order to properly address diversity. Some suggestions were: tools to identify discrimination, forums for the instructors, practical tips and external experts, stressing how important support from the institution was. Reporting several challenges, such as the student body as well as the instructors being homogenous, retaining the female students, student culture being non-inclusive, and prejudices in games and society at large making recruiting female students difficult, instructors additionally listed suggestions for solutions. These included working more actively to recruit female students, retain female students and improve the working environments for the students. For example, they mentioned showing role models, opening up for discussions among the instructors, offering a welcoming and inclusive environment for students as well as instructors, and highlight master suppression techniques. When students were asked what could be improved in regards to diversity, some students mentioned wanting more lectures about diversity in more courses, and one student expressed that they felt the 2nd year was repetition rather than more advanced topics. Some students wanted more support for female and non- binary students, with more information provided to the students. The existence of this report is, by itself, an indication that the University of Skövde takes diversity seriously and wants to improve their diversity efforts. However, the report does showcase certain areas that were lacking in 2016, echoing the challenges described by Ruberg (2019) and the lack of diversity in the video game industry as a whole. While there wasn’t any particular focus on marginalized instructors, which perhaps was due to a lack of them, it is clear that instructors, marginalized or not, required more support and practical tools in order to make the education more inclusive. The student-to-student harassment (Brusk & Dannberg, 2016), especially in group projects, is concerning. While there is support for students in general, as a result of the Discrimination Act (SFS 2008:567) and Work Environment Act (SFS 1977:1160), and there is support for female game students through DONNA, the current website lacks easy ways to report harassment. When considering the previously presented

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literature, it becomes even more vital to offer a clear, and perhaps optionally anonymous, way to report harassment, as the more barriers are put in place (intentionally or not) the less likely women may be to speak up due to fear of losing their status and being subjected to additional harassment. The lack of a clear way to report harassment and to get in contact with support networks may be a result of the University of Skövde recently launching a new version of their website, but the fact that the new website was launched without these vital parts, and the fact that these parts have yet to be added as of writing this (April, 2020), speaks for itself.

The future of women in video games Over five years have passed since Gjoni published The Zoe Post, starting the landslide that was GamerGate, yet it may appear that little has changed in terms of the representation of women in games and as developers, even when taking into consideration the time it takes to develop a game. Following GamerGate, the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) of 2015 was seen by many as a turning point (Sarkeesian & Petit, 2019) for women in gaming, indicating that perhaps the times were changing for gaming to become more inclusive and diverse. But as described before, at E3 2019, many games still favoured men (Sarkeesian & Petit, 2019) over women. Perhaps the E3 of 2015 was not the turning point many hoped it would be, but the industry is slowly changing. The image of “gamers” is beginning to shift (Chess, et al., 2016) as games become more diverse, and the gender gap in game development (Bailey, et al., 2019) is slowly closing over time. While perhaps not yet as varied as their male counterparts, strong female characters (Perreault, et al., 2016) are slowly becoming more prominent, and while the AAA gaming industry may be a bit slower to catch on, indie games such as Celeste (Matt Makes Games, 2018) and Night in The Woods (Finji, 2017), and many more, allow female characters to be complex and full of personality. It is clear that it is becoming increasingly important to be aware of the state of diversity in video games and to include women and other minorities when creating games; not just as characters, but as developers and players as well. Whether it is done intentionally or not, excluding one of these aspects affects the other two, and thus it is not enough to conclude diversity efforts after one has added a female character, or hired a female developer. In order to develop diverse games that are inclusive regardless of gender, video game developers must stay aware of the matter of gender and how it is represented in the content they produce. As the video game industry continues to grow, it is no longer feasible to ignore sexism and poor representation of marginalized groups.

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3 Problem The representation of women in games has historically been riddled with sexism through stereotypes and objectification. While the representation of women in games and the treatment of female developers is slowly improving, there are still problems to address. Women are being subjected to threats (Jason, 2015; Stuart, 2014; Wingfield, 2014) for wanting better representation in games. It is not sustainable to have the responsibility of diversity be carried solely by women and other marginalized groups. In order to change the gaming industry, it is important to educate privileged men in the matter of diversity, so that the burden of talking about diversity does not fall upon the marginalized groups that may be unable to do so (Ochsner, 2017) for fear of losing their jobs, their professional status or being subjected to harassment (Cote, 2015b; Fox & Tang, 2016; Mortensen, 2016; Ochsner, 2017; Tiercelin & Remy, 2019). With not enough meaningful representation of women in games (Fisher, 2015; Lynch, et al., 2016), and especially popular games (Bailey, et al., 2019; Sarkeesian & Petit, 2019), it becomes clear that the video game industry has a social responsibility to challenge and subvert sexist and harmful norms and notions that are prevalent. Male-dominated game companies and male players alike must take an active role in supporting and listening to women and other marginalized groups in these spaces instead of dismissing and silencing them. It may lead to improved creativity (Gocłowska, et al., 2013), but ultimately, it is the right thing to do. Here, there is significant potential for universities and other educational institutions focusing on game development to help with these efforts as they are not only educating the next generation of game developers, but they also do not operate under the same sales expectations that guide commercial video games. Based on the literature discussed previously, it becomes clear that female representation must be encouraged, if not required, and characters, narratives and designs, must be critically examined to ensure they do not contribute to the reinforcement of harmful norms. Students must learn to take full responsibility for the content they create, to examine it and what message it sends, both individually and contextualized in the gaming industry as a whole. Women must be actively supported by peers and instructors to take leading positions. Sexism must be spoken out against, not only by women but by all members of a team. Games education can help raise the bar set by the video game industry, and directly contribute to a more diverse and equal video game industry. Turning to the University of Skövde, the most comprehensive games education in Sweden, it becomes important to examine how the programmes educate their students about gender diversity and if they actively encourage, or even require, gender diversity in the games produced. The bachelor’s degree games programmes at the University of Skövde all collaborate during two game projects, one during the first year of the programmes, and one at the end of the second year, with the second one focusing on the quality of the finished game. Both courses span half a semester, giving the students roughly 12 weeks to develop a game as

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well as complete various theoretical assignments. With this in mind, the research question for this thesis is: How do the game development programmes at the University of Skövde work with gender diversity in the second game project when considering women as players, as creators, and as characters?

Method In order to answer the research question presented above, a qualitative content analysis will be utilized, as outlined by Krippendorff (2004). By examining material in the form of assignment descriptions, lecture PowerPoints, team compositions and course descriptions produced by the University of Skövde, as well as the trailers and promotional material produced by the students for the second game project 2019, this thesis hopes to come to a better understanding of how gender diversity is worked with at the University of Skövde. In total, 102 files were coded. Out of these, 12 were educational material in the form of assignment descriptions, course descriptions, lecture PowerPoints, articles, and other documents produced by the university. The remaining 90 files were various material produced by the students during the course, consisting of PowerPoint presentations, trailers, gameplay videos, screenshots, posters, preparatory information for the live interviews, and the live interviews recorded by the University of Skövde. The video was split into 10 files based on the groups presenting for more accurate coding. Some material did not present any new information, but rather just confirmed previously coded material, such as the screenshots since these were often just still images extracted from gameplay material that was shown in either the trailers or the gameplay videos. Based on the previously presented literature, the content was split into four main categories: characters, players, creators and education. These were then split into variables that were coded. The categories ‘characters’ and ‘players’ were coded per game in order to better contextualize certain variables and provide a more comprehensive view of the content produced by the students. All variables and categories focused specifically on women, regardless of which aspect it examined. ‘Characters’ had four variables that were coded: gender ratio, objectification, roles, and stereotypes and norms. For ‘gender ratio’, the characters present in the content were coded as male, female, non-binary and ambiguous based on pronouns, names and appearance, in that specific order. If content existed that confirmed the character’s gender based on pronouns, this was prioritized over names and appearances, and similarly, names were prioritized over appearances. This was done in an attempt to avoid misgendering characters that had a non-stereotypical gender expression, but unfortunately, there were still times where physical appearance had to be used when coding the characters, such as when no other information was available in the sampled content. The distinction between ‘non-binary’ and ‘ambiguous’ exists in order to determine if gender diversity was intentional or not; non-binary characters are of a marginalized gender, and thus the inclusion of them counts towards gender diversity for this thesis. This is not to say that non-binary characters (and people) are the same as women, only that women and non-binary people, as well as other marginalized gender identities, are important for gender diversity. Characters coded as ‘ambiguous’ were characters whose gender was seemingly intentionally ambiguous,

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or undeterminable from the available information, but not confirmed as non-binary. As it was impossible to determine if these were meant to be non-binary or simply non-gendered, which as previously discussed may be mistaken and defaulted to ‘male’, ambiguous characters were not counted as characters of a marginalized gender. The characters were then tallied per game in order to determine if female characters were a minority (below 40%), equal in numbers to other genders (between 40% and 60%), a majority (above 60%), or absent. ‘Objectification’ determined if the seven forms of objectification described by Nussbaum (1995) were applicable to the female characters or if it was absent by examining the themes surrounding the characters in the games. ‘Roles’ defined the female characters’ roles, coding them as primary, secondary, tertiary or absent. Primary characters included main characters or characters that were reoccurring and vital to the progression of the game, such as the antagonists, secondary characters included characters that were relevant to the plot and the primary characters’ progression but not present to the same degree, and tertiary characters were background characters that had little or no impact on the progression of the game. Additionally, primary characters were coded as ‘protagonist’ or ‘antagonist’. ‘Stereotypes and norms’ coded the stereotypes surrounding a female character, and whether or not her storyline, personality or appearance contained negative stereotypes or positive stereotypes, based on the previously presented literature. Positive stereotypes included counter-stereotypes, and could for example be a female character in a position of power (such as a pirate captain) or a female character with positive attributes (such as a female hostess portrayed as intelligent and cunning rather than vain and petty. Negative stereotypes involved female characters who were subjected to sexism, either benevolent or hostile, and objectification. This variable could additionally be coded as ‘unable to assess’ if there was limited or no information available regarding the stereotypes surrounding a female character, or if a game lacked female characters. Players had four variables: genre, playstyle, aesthetic, and target audience. ‘Genre’ coded the games’ genres based on statements made by the students when describing the games. ‘Playstyle’ coded the gameplay as competitive, cooperative, explorative and destructive based on the themes present in the trailers and gameplay videos as well as keywords used in presentations. ‘Aesthetic’ coded the graphics of the games as bright, dark, neutral, stylized and realistic. This uses fairly broad strokes when examining the visuals and is not intended to provide a detailed analysis of the graphical style, but rather looks at the colour choices, shapes and textures. ‘Target audience’ coded the intended target audience as women, men, everyone, or unable to assess. This was done by examining the keywords used by the students during presentations when describing the target audience. Initially, the category players had a fifth variable that coded stereotypes and norms, but this variable was discarded as there was not sufficient material that could be used to code this accurately. Creators was the category with the least amount of variables, as many were removed or shifted to another category as the creators, in this case, are the students, who are not separate entities in the same way characters are, but rather relate and overlap a significant amount with the category ‘Education’. The variable that remained relevant for this category was gender ratio, which coded the gender ratio of the students that produced the games. Drawing inspiration from Bailey, et al. (2019), and as it was not a viable option to personally ask each student for their gender identity, this variable coded students as male or female based on names and coded each project group as minority, equal or majority depending on the percentage of

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female creators. Similarly to how coding the gender ratio of the characters is problematic, this method of coding, unfortunately, does account for the nuances of gender and may misgender students whose gender does not align with the stereotypical gender identity connected to their name. The final category, education, had the largest amount of variables: gender ratio, communication, stereotypes and norms, criteria, roles, and support. ‘Gender ratio’ coded the gender ratio of the instructors and guests of the course in the same way creators were coded. The remaining variables examined different aspects but used the same coding: explicit, implicit, and absent. Content coded as explicit contained direct references and keywords relevant to an aspect, whereas content coded as implicit had a possible interpretation that included the aspect. Content coded as absent contained no information relevant to the aspect. ‘Communication’ coded whether or not communication was encouraged or discussed by the instructors or the institution. ‘Stereotypes and norms’ coded whether or not stereotypes and norms were discussed in the educational material provided to the students. ‘Criteria’ coded if the criteria for assignments mentioned gender diversity, either in a broader context or specific parts such as stereotypes and norms. ‘Roles’ coded if women were encouraged to take on leadership roles or if roles and power were discussed. ‘Support’ coded if women in the project groups were given any specific support by the university and instructors, and if they were informed of any available support. To validate the content analysis, semi-constructed qualitative interviews were held with four faculty members involved in the second game project course. Motivated by Ruberg’s talk (2019), an additional category that would examine the support instructors received was tested for the content analysis, but as the unit of analysis is a course meant to educate students, there was no information available relating to the support networks of the instructors. Instead, this was investigated during the qualitative interviews, which is further discussed in the results section. An additional survey containing mainly qualitative questions was sent out to the students who participated in the second game project course last year. This investigated their perception of how much they worked with gender diversity and how important they consider it to be, while the interviews provided insights on a general level of how the faculty members think about and work with diversity, both in the chosen course and outside of it. While looking at written submissions from student assignments would help provide a better understanding of how the students discuss diversity, these assignments are not public, and thus they cannot be examined in this thesis. Instead, surveys and qualitative interviews will be held with some of the students to supplement the information gathered from the various materials analysed. This will allow for a deeper understanding of how the students think about diversity, but also a better picture of their perception of the university’s efforts. Examining a single course might lack the full context of the material the students are required to learn throughout the full programme, and should thus be problematized as such. However, the second game project is currently the last game project the students participate in during the programmes, and as such the knowledge they have acquired and choose to utilize, or to not utilize, in the projects is highly relevant and should function as a sample that may answer the research question. Of course, unless more courses are analysed, this thesis will serve as an indication of how the University of Skövde works with diversity rather than a full insight, but will nonetheless be useful. Despite these shortcomings, it is ultimately still appropriate to

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utilize content analysis to examine the attitudes and communication (Krippendorff, 2004, p. 76-77) regarding gender diversity at the University of Skövde as it is largely unobtrusive and replicable. There is significant potential for additional research in this area to fully chart the state of diversity at the university.

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4 Results

Education Let us first examine the gender ratio of the education to contextualize the education the students have received. In total, 12 people were mentioned in connection to the course: 7 instructors, 5 game testers, and 1 guest lecturer. Of the instructors, 5 were men and 2 were women. Out of the game testers, 3 were men and 2 were women. And finally, the coded guest lecturer was a man. In total, there were 4 women involved in the course, and 9 men, meaning roughly 30% of the people involved with the course were women. The students were in total provided with 12 documents in the course: 4 articles, 4 lectures, and 4 documents providing information about the course, the project groups and recommended tasks. The students had a total of 8 assignments that were graded, 2 of which were individual. To begin with, the course had a seminar about societal and ethical aspects, afterwards which the students had to submit a written summarization of the discussions to be graded. The students then had a group meeting with the instructors to detail their goals and project plan, requiring a PowerPoint that the students would update to reflect the feedback provided during the presentations. Midway through the course, the students are meant to be finished with a prototype of their game; at this point, the game is played by four guest game testers. In connection to this, the students have to prepare a presentation that summarizes their work covering details such as unique selling points, themes, target audiences and whether or not there is a potential market. After this point, the students are required to write individual reports reflecting on their work and planning up until this point, tying back to the previous assignments. The students have yet another group meeting with the instructors, similar to the first one, but this time describing their work and updating their planning based on previous feedback. At this point, the students additionally prepare for individual presentation seminars, where they present a chosen topic relevant to their work in the project group. Finally, the students prepare PR-material for an exhibition at the end of the course where they showcase their games. As the submission of the PR-material is optional but highly encouraged, it is grouped with the game when it comes to grading, meaning the students submit their final game as well as the optionally produced PR-material. The participation in the exhibition is mandatory and includes a live interview where two chosen students from each group discuss the game, as well as a final game testing opportunity. Out of the four lectures, one was an introduction lecture describing the course and informing the students of the project, one was about the previously mentioned individual presentation seminars, and two were about planning projects – one of which were held by the guest lecturer. The four articles provided to the students all connect to the first seminar about societal and ethical aspects and are relevant again for the individual reports as it connects back to previous discussions. The articles provided were: Dressing Commander Shepard in pink: Queer playing in a heteronormative game culture (Krobová, Moravec & Švelch, 2015), Keeping Abreast of Hypersexuality: A Video Game Character Content Analysis (Downs & Smith, 2010), Avatars of Whiteness: Racial Expression in Video Game Characters (Dietrich, 2013), and Includification – A Practical Guide to Game Accessibility (The AbleGamers

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Foundation, 2012). Note that three of these are academic articles, whereas one is a practical guide to designing games for disabled players. Moving onto the coded variables; ‘communication’ was absent in the 4 articles, explicit in 3 course documents and absent in 1 course document, and explicit in 2 of the PowerPoints, implicit in 1 and absent in 1. In total, communication was explicitly mentioned in 5 documents, implicitly mentioned in 1 and absent in 6. Most of the documents coded as ‘explicit’ discussed project planning and the importance of communication when working on a group project. No discussion of ‘communication’ was made in connection to gender diversity, nor is there any discussion about how specifically to communicate effectively. ‘Stereotypes and norms’ was explicitly discussed in 1 article, implicit in 1 article and absent in 2. Of the course documents, 1 was coded as explicit while 3 were coded as absent, and 1 PowerPoint was coded as explicit, 1 as implicit and 2 as absent. In total, 3 documents were coded as explicit, 2 were coded as implicit, and 7 as absent. Overall, ‘stereotypes and norms’ was mentioned in connection to the target audiences as well as the game characters, but never the developers themselves. However, although coded as explicit in three documents, there is never any extensive discussion about stereotypes and norms, what they are nor how to use counter-stereotypes. ‘Criteria’ was not explicitly discussed in any documents. Of the articles, all were coded as absent as they, due to them being articles, did not actively discuss criteria, and while some articles discussed gender, they were not required reading, only recommended, and thus not part of any assignment’s criteria. Of the course documents, 2 were coded as absent while 2 were coded as implicit, and out of the PowerPoints, 1 was coded as implicit and 3 as absent. Important to note here is that although certain documents did not discuss criteria as they were not assignment descriptions, they were still included in this coding process as they all related to the previously described assignments in some capacity. In total, three assignments implicitly discussed ‘criteria’, one of which was the seminar about societal and ethical aspects. This seminar requires the students to discuss societal and ethical aspects, but while gender is mentioned as a possible topic during this seminar, it is never stated to be a mandatory topic, thus coding it as implicit. The other two assignments were the individual report, which referred back to the societal and ethical aspects seminar, and one assignment was the individual presentation seminar, where gender was listed as a potential topic, but again without it being a requirement. ‘Roles’ were explicitly discussed in 2 PowerPoints, implicit in 1 and absent in 1. Of the course documents, 1 was coded as explicit, while 3 were coded as absent. All four articles were coded as absent, as none discussed ‘roles’. In total, 3 documents were coded as explicit, 1 as implicit, and 8 as absent. The documents that explicitly or implicitly mention roles do not connect it to gender and diversity, but rather discusses roles relevant for project planning, and recommends the students to elect one person to lead each discipline in their project groups. ‘Roles’ is not mentioned in connection to characters. ‘Support’ is absent in all 12 documents, as any specific support networks for women, or for any student for that matter, is never mentioned in the documents coded. Whether or not verbal reassurances were made is unfortunately impossible to determine at this point.

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Creators For the category ‘creators’, the variable ‘gender ratio’ was coded as minority or majority by coding 155 students as either male or female based on their names. Overall, there were 53 women, and 102 men, meaning women were a minority, with a ratio of 34.2% women to 65.8% men.

Gender ratio per discipline 35 100% 90% 30 80% 25 70% 60% 20 50% 15 40%

10 30% 20% 5 10% 0 0% Gamewriters Programming Sound Music Graphics Design

Men Women % Women

Figure 1 Gender ratio per discipline

In Figure 1, the gender ratio between the different programmes is detailed; at 43,5% and 60% respectively, Game Writing and Graphics were the only programmes coded as ‘equal’, and overall Graphics had the largest number of women, with 30 students coded as female, meaning over half of all the female students studying game development attended the Graphics programme. The remaining programmes were all coded as ‘minority’; the program with the smallest ratio of women compared to men was Programming, with only 10% women to 90% men. Sound was 13% women, with the smallest number of female students with only two female students. Music was 19% women, and Design was 25% women.

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Gender ratio per project group 16 100% 14 90% 80% 12 70% 10 60% 8 50% 6 40% 30% 4 20% 2 10% 0 0%

Men Women % Women

Figure 2 Gender ratio per project group

As can be seen in Figure 2, the gender ratio varied in the project groups in the course. In total, two project groups were coded as ‘majority’; Galactic Dance Off with a ratio of 64.3% women to 35.7% men, and Secret of the Old Ship, with a ratio of 62.5% women to 37.5% men. One project group was coded as ‘equal’, Delightful Dungeon, with a ratio of 43.8% women to 56.2% men, and the remaining groups with ‘minority’. The group with the smallest ratio and number of women was re:Surge, with 2 women and a ratio of 12.5% women to 87.5% men. During the final presentation, a total of 20 students participated in the interviews. Of these, 6 were coded as women, while the remaining 14 students were coded as men. Of the groups being interviewed, Secret of the Old Ship stood out with all-female presenters. While this may in part be due to the fact that women were a majority in that group, Galactic Dance Off, the only other group with a majority of women, had one man and one woman present for the interviews. MOR, Swedish Meatballs and Delightful Dungeon also had one woman and one man presenting, while Enceladus, Miss Eyesore, re:Surge, Rubio and Tidslåset had all-male presenters.

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Characters

Character gender ratio per project group 10 100 9 90 8 80 7 70 6 60 5 50 4 40 3 30 2 20 1 10 0 0

Male Female Non-binary Ambiguous % female

Figure 3 Character gender ratio per project group

For the variable ‘gender ratio’ of female characters, one group was coded as ‘majority’, 5 as ‘equal’, 1 as ‘minority’ and 3 as ‘absent’. However, as can be seen in Figure 3, one of the groups coded as ‘absent’ had only non-binary characters. A total of 46 characters were coded, with 15 female characters, 15 male characters, 3 non-binary characters and 13 characters of ambiguous gender, thus meaning there was an equal amount of male and female characters. If one were to code ‘ambiguous’ characters as male, however, based on the concept that non- gendered characters (or characters with a similar appearance as gendered male characters) default to ‘male’, there would be 28 characters coded as ‘male’, and only 13 characters coded as ‘female.

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Character gender ratio

Ambiguous 28% Male 33%

Non-binary 6%

Female 33%

Male Female Non-binary Ambiguous

Figure 4 Character gender ratio

Overall, female characters made up 33% of the total characters. As can be seen in Figure 4, even if marginalized genders (non-binary characters and female characters) were combined, they would still be a minority when compared with male and ambiguous characters. Had the ambiguous characters been clearly defined as ‘non-binary’ or ‘female’, marginalized genders would have been a majority.

% of female developers and % female & non-binary characters per project group 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

% female developers % female & non-binary characters

Figure 5 Percentage of female developers and female & non-binary characters per project group

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When examining the gender diversity among the creators and characters, Figure 5 shows how the two groups with the largest ratio of female creators to male creators were responsible for the two games with the largest ratio of female and non-binary characters to male and ambiguous characters. However, the group with the smallest ratio of female creators did not create the game with the smallest ratio of female and non-binary characters. Both games that had no female or non-binary characters featured characters of ambiguous gender; Rubio had 2 characters confirmed as male based on name and pronouns, and 2 additional enemies that had a similar appearance as one of the confirmed male characters, thus coding them as ‘male’. The remaining characters were coded as ambiguous, but could reasonably be assumed to be male unless the game specifies names or pronouns. Swedish Meatballs similarly had 2 male commentators, and 4 characters of ambiguous gender, but as there was no clear counterpart to the gendered male characters, one could reasonably assume the ambiguous characters were male as well. The introduction of some gendered components that are male sets the game up to be interpreted as all-male if one does not define the other gender identities, whether they be male, female or non-binary.

Roles of female characters, per group 3

2

1

0 Delightful Enceladus Miss Eyesore MOR re:Surge Secret of the Tidslåset Dungeon Old Ship

Primary Secondary

Figure 6 Roles of female characters, per group

Of the 7 games that had female characters, as can be seen in Figure 6, there were no female characters that were tertiary characters. In total, 9 of the 15 female characters were primary characters, and 5 characters were the protagonist. Miss Eyesore featured 1 female character coded as an antagonist, Tidslåset featured 2 female characters coded as antagonists, and Secret of the Old Ship featured 1 female character coded as an antagonist. The remaining characters were secondary characters; Delightful Dungeon featured a village elder and a shopkeeper, MOR had the protagonist discuss her mother and her role in the story. Secret of the Old Ship had two additional female characters beyond the protagonist and antagonist that were present on the ship the game takes place on, and Tidslåset had a hostess the protagonist returned to in order to find the true antagonist. Tertiary characters in the games mainly took the form of enemies to defeat: in Delightful Dungeon the player fights a reanimated skeleton, and in Rubio the player defeats various insects to reach the antagonist. All of these background characters were coded as male due to

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their physical similarities to male-gendered characters. MOR featured a tertiary background character seen at the beginning of the game providing the protagonist with a way to get back home. As it is impossible to determine the character’s gender in the coded content, this character was coded as ‘ambiguous’. For the variable ‘objectification’, based on Nussbaum’s 7 forms of objectification (1995), there were 3 coded instances of inertness, 5 of violability, 4 of fungibility, 2 of denial of autonomy, 2 of denial of subjectivity, and 1 instrumentality. Most characters had few coded forms of objectification, and some had no apparent objectification, although this is partly due to a lack of information. Of the games with female characters, two stand out in terms of objectification: Miss Eyesore and re:Surge. Both games feature only one female character, yet Miss Eyesore was coded with denial of autonomy, fungibility, denial of subjectivity and violability, while re:Surge was coded with instrumentality, fungibility, violability and denial of subjectivity. In the case of Miss Eyesore, this was because the only female character present in the game is the antagonist, and a monster attempting to kill the protagonist. In the case of re:Surge, this was due to the fact that the game takes place in an arena, where the protagonist (and implied other characters) fights in order to be the last one standing. The commentator and backstory of the game showcase these fights to be arranged for (others’) entertainment, thus resulting in the objectification listed above.

Table 1 ‘Stereotypes and norms’ per game

Game Code Delightful Dungeon Positive stereotypes Enceladus Unable to assess Galactic Dance Off No female characters Miss Eyesore Negative stereotypes MOR Positive stereotypes re:Surge Positive stereotypes Rubio No female characters Secret of the Old Ship Positive stereotypes Swedish Meatballs No female characters Tidslåset Positive stereotypes

For the variable ‘stereotypes & norms’, each game was coded as either ‘negative stereotypes’ or ‘positive stereotypes’, based on the overall impression of the stereotypes presented in the game. In total, out of the 7 games that had female characters, 5 games were coded as ‘positive stereotypes’, 1 as ‘negative stereotypes’ and 1 as ‘unable to assess’ due to a lack of clear information. All games and their coding can be seen in Table 1. Miss Eyesore sticks out as being the only game with clear negative stereotypes, and this is very much related to the mentioned fact that the only female character is a monster and the antagonist. Despite the monster being dehumanized, there are still visible feminine gendered signifiers such as breasts.

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The setting and gameplay of the game also raise questions regarding the narrative of the character; the game takes place in a prison in Siberia during the 1960’s, and the player uses a Geiger counter to avoid the monster, implying the monster is radioactive. There are several dark themes implied by this narrative, such as the monster being the result of human experiments, thus clearly coding the game as ‘negative stereotypes’ due to the themes of violating women’s autonomy through medical abuse.

Players When coding the target audience of the games, 9 games were coded as ‘everyone’ for their target audience. Only one group explicitly mentions gender in relation to the target group: Secret of the Old Ship, stating their game was created mainly for female players, thus coding the game as ‘female’ in terms of the target audience. Most games mentioned genre in relation to their target group; if a game was a horror game, the target audience was stated to be fans of horror games, for example. Whether or not the students analysed and identified who the people in those target groups were is unclear, as there are no documents available that discuss this. It must be noted that the variable ‘target audience’ only coded the intended target audience identified by the developers in the coded documents, and does not take into account the remaining variables coded under ‘Players’.

Table 2 Genre and playstyle per game

Game Genre Playstyle Aesthetic Mobile, action Explorative, Destructive, Delightful Dungeon Bright, stylized adventure game Cooperative First person Enceladus Destructive, Competitive Dark, realistic shooter Galactic Dance Off Rhythm game Competitive Bright, stylized Miss Eyesore Horror Explorative, Competitive Dark, realistic MOR Horror Explorative Dark, realistic First person re:Surge Destructive, Competitive Bright, stylized shooter Rubio Platformer Explorative, Competitive Bright, stylized Secret of the Old Point-and-click Explorative, Cooperative Bright, stylized Ship Third person Swedish Meatballs Destructive, Competitive Bright, stylized shooter Visual novel, Tidslåset murder mystery Explorative, Cooperative Dark, stylized game

When coding the variable ‘genre’, most games were coded according to how the creators defined the genre of their games in various presentations. These can be seen in Table 2, along

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with the coded playstyle and aesthetic for each game. Delightful Dungeon was coded as both ‘explorative’ and ‘destructive’ due to the two playstyles present in the game; one part involves defeating enemies in a dungeon, whereas the other part involves helping the people outside the dungeon. Galactic Dance Off was not coded as ‘explorative’ or ‘destructive’, as the game does not feature content that can be coded as such; there is little to no apparent narrative or environment to explore, nor is there any indication that the player’s actions are harming anyone or anything in the game. The same principle applies to MOR, as it is not coded as ‘cooperative’ or ‘competitive’ due to the lack of cooperative or competitive gameplay, which may in part be due to the genre of the game. Although Miss Eyesore is, similarly to MOR, a horror game, it has more competitive elements as the player has to hide from the monster stalking the various corridors, as is coded as such, whereas the story in MOR appears to be more linear thus slowing the pace and changing the coding. When examining the gameplay styles presented overall, there were more games coded as ‘explorative’ than ‘destructive’, with 6 games being coded as ‘explorative’ and 4 games being coded as ‘destructive’, keeping in mind that Delightful Dungeon was coded as both. However, more games were coded as ‘competitive’ than ‘cooperative’, with 6 games being coded as ‘competitive’ and only 3 games being coded as ‘cooperative’. The final variable, ‘aesthetic’, was mainly split into two groups: ‘dark’ and ‘realistic’, and ‘bright’ and ‘stylized’, with Tidslåset as the exception as it was coded as ‘dark’ and ‘stylized’. In total, 4 games were coded as ‘dark’, 6 games were coded as ‘bright’, 3 as ‘realistic’ and 7 as ‘stylized. In most part, it was the games with horror elements that were coded as ‘dark’ and ‘realistic’, which may indeed be due to the nature of the horror genre relying more heavily on realistic graphics than other genres.

Student survey Discipline

Design 13% Programming 20%

Game writing 17%

Sound 3%

Music 7% Graphics 40%

Programming Graphics Music Sound Game writing Design

Figure 7 Respondents’ discipline

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In total, 30 students responded to the survey over a two-week period. As can be seen in Figure 7, students from the Graphics programme made up 40% of the respondents. Compared to the overall composition of the students during the second game project, Graphics students were overrepresented, while the Sound programme and Music programme were underrepresented. Due to the low response rate, the Sound and Music programmes will be grouped together in the following data.

Gender

Other 7%

Man 36%

Woman 57%

Man Woman Other

Figure 8 Respondents’ gender identity

As can be seen in Figure 8, women were overrepresented when compared to the coded students, making up 57% of the respondents, while men made up 36% of the respondents. The survey had, beyond the options ‘Man’ and ‘Woman, the options ‘Non-binary’ and ‘Other’ in an attempt to better capture the various gender identities present at the University of Skövde. However, due to the low response rate, with a total of two students picking these, the options ‘Non-binary’ and ‘Other’ were grouped in the data. Additional data were gathered regarding which project group the students belonged to, and students from Secret of the Old Ship was overrepresented, being 23.3% of the respondents. 16.7% of the respondents worked on Enceladus, and similarly, 16.7% worked on Swedish Meatballs. Three groups had only one respondent: Rubio, re:Surge, and MOR, and two or more students from the remaining groups answered the survey.

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How important do you consider gender diversity in games to be?

Game writing

Graphics

Design

Sound/Music

Programming

Other

Woman

Man

Total

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

1 2 3 4 5

Figure 9 Results of ‘How important do you consider gender diversity in games to be?’

When asked how important they thought gender diversity in games was on a scale of 1-5, 1 being not important at all and 5 being very important, 76.6% of the students considered gender diversity in games to be important or very important, as can be seen in Figure 9. Overall, women were more likely to consider it important than men, with an average value of 4.6 and 3.5 respectively. On average, students from the Programming and Sound and Music programmes had the lowest score, with a value of 3.2 and 3 respectively, while students from the Design programme had the highest value of 5. The Game writing and Graphics programmes similarly considered it to be important, with an average value of 4.6 and 4.5 respectively.

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How familiar are you with stereotypes and how they affect video game characters?

Game writing

Graphics

Design

Sound/Music

Programming

Other

Woman

Man

Total

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

1 2 3 4 5

Figure 10 Results of ‘How familiar are you with stereotypes and how they affect video game characters?’

Estimating their familiarity with stereotypes and how they affect video game characters, most students considered themselves familiar with the topic, as can be seen in Figure 10, with an average value of 4.5. Game writing was the programme that estimated being the most familiar, with an average value of 4.8. Men answered exclusively with 4 or 5, while two women answered with 3.

How familiar are you with hypersexualisation and how it affects video game characters?

Game writing

Graphics

Design

Sound/Music

Programming

Other

Woman

Man

Total

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

1 2 3 4 5

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Figure 11 Results of ‘How familiar are you with hypersexualisation and how it affects video game characters?’

Students were additionally asked to estimate their familiarity with hypersexualisation. As can be seen in Figure 11, all Game writing students considered themselves very familiar with hypersexualisation, but overall all programmes had an average of 4 or higher. Men were slightly less familiar with the topic than women, and in total the average value for all students was 4.6.

Do you know who to contact at the University of Skövde if you are discriminated against or harassed?

Yes 40%

No 60%

Figure 12 Results of ‘Do you know who to contact at the University of Skövde if you are discriminated against or harassed?’

When asked if they knew who to contact if they had been discriminated against or harassed, 60% of the students said no, as can be seen in Figure 12. Of the 18 students who replied with ‘No’, 11 were women. Of the thirty asked, six students reported having been harassed due to their gender identity, all of which were women. Two of these students clarified in an optional comment field that the harassment had not taken place at the University of Skövde; of the four remaining, two students did not know who to contact.

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Do you feel supported by the University of Skövde and its faculty members?

Game writing

Graphics

Design

Sound/Music

Programming

Other

Woman

Man

Total

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

1 2 3 4 5

Figure 13 Results of ‘Do you feel supported by the University of Skövde and its faculty members?’

No students responded negatively when asked if they feel supported by the University of Skövde and its faculty members, but as can be seen in Figure 13, several students answered neutrally. Men felt slightly less supported than women, and Game writing and Sound and Music felt less supported than the other disciplines, while Design felt the most supported.

Do you think the University of Skövde should increase, decrease, or not change the number of courses, lectures and assignments related to gender diversity overall in the education? 20 18 16 14 12 1 1 10 6 8 6 11 4 6 2 4 0 1 Decrease Don't change Increase

Man Woman Other

Figure 14 Results of ‘Do you think the University of Skövde should increase, decrease, or not change the number of courses, lectures and assignments related to gender diversity overall in the education?’

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As can be seen in Figure 13, when asked if the University should increase, decrease or not change the diversity efforts overall in the education, 13 students responded with ‘Increase’, 13 students responded with ‘Don’t change’, and 4 students responded with ‘Decrease’. Of the students wanting an increase, 11 were women, and all students who wanted a decrease were men.

Do you think the University of Skövde should increase, decrease, or not change the number of lectures and assignments related to gender diversity specifically in the second game project course? 20 18 1 16 14 12 11 10

8 1 6

4 7 6 2 3 0 1 Decrease Don't change Increase

Man Woman Other

Figure 15 Results of ‘Do you think the University of Skövde should increase, decrease, or not change the number of courses, lectures and assignments related to gender diversity specifically in the second game project course?’

When instead asked if they wanted the University to increase, decrease or not change the diversity efforts specifically in the second game project course, a majority of the students responded with ‘Don’t change’, as can be seen in Figure 15. Similarly to the results seen in Figure 14, a majority of the students who wanted an increase were women, while all students who wanted a decrease were men.

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How much did your project group consider and work with gender diversity when working with your characters, your target audience, and your team dynamic?

Characters

Target audience

Team dynamic

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

1 2 3 4 5

Figure 16 Results of how much the students work with gender diversity when it comes to characters, target audience and team dynamic

The students were asked to estimate, on a scale of 1-5, how much they worked with gender diversity when working with their characters, their target audience, and their team dynamic. As can be seen in Figure 16, students worked more with gender diversity for their characters, with an average of 4.3, than their target audience and team dynamic, with an average of 3.4 and 2.9 respectively.

Average of 'How much did your project group consider and work with gender diversity when working with your characters, your target audience, and your team dynamic?' per gender 5 4,9 4 4 4,1 3,8 3 3,1 3,1 2,9 2 2

1 1,5

0 Characters Target audience Team dynamic

Man Woman Other

Figure 17 Average per gender of how much the students work with gender diversity when it comes to characters, target audience and team dynamic

As can be seen in Figure 17, men reported working more with gender diversity than women and other marginalized genders on average, especially when working with their characters and target audience.

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Average of 'How much did your project group consider and work with gender diversity when working with your characters, your target audience, and your team dynamic?' per discipline 5

4,7 4,7 4,4 4 4,25 4,2 3,9 4 3,7 3,5 3,6 3 3,2 3,2 2,8 2,7 2 2

1

0 Characters Target audience Team dynamic

Programming Sound/Music Design Graphics Game writing

Figure 18 Average per discipline of how much the students work with gender diversity when it comes to characters, target audience and team dynamic

When examining the same questions but split by discipline, we can see that Programming and Sound and Music reported higher values when it came to working with their characters than other disciplines, and Programming reported working more with gender diversity when it came to the target audience than other disciplines. For the team dynamic, Sound and Music reported the highest value. Graphics reported the lowest value for both characters and target audience, with values of 3.9 and 2.8 respectively, while Design reported the lowest values when considering the team dynamic, with an average of 2. It’s worth noting that students from the same project groups reported different values.

How comfortable did you feel expressing your opinion about gender diversity?

In the project group

To instructors

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

1 2 3 4 5

Figure 19 Results of ‘How comfortable did you feel expressing your opinion about gender diversity?’

When asked how comfortable they were with expressing their opinion about gender diversity, a majority of the students felt comfortable or very comfortable, as can be seen in Figure 19, both when expressing their opinion in their project group as well as to instructors. Men were

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slightly less comfortable expressing their opinion about gender diversity in their project group than women and marginalized genders, with an average value of 3.2, 3.8, and 4 respectively. When expressing their opinions about gender diversity to instructors and other faculty members, men had an average value of 3, while women had an average value of 3.9, and other marginalized genders had an average value of 4.5.

How comfortable did you feel expressing feedback and thoughts about the game?

In the project group

To instructors

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

1 2 3 4 5

Figure 20 Results of ‘How comfortable did you feel expressing feedback and thoughts about the game?’

Compared to expressing their opinion about gender diversity, students felt slightly less comfortable expressing general feedback and thoughts about the game in their project group, as can be seen in Figure 20. Similarly to opinions about gender diversity, women on average felt slightly more comfortable expressing their opinions to instructors than to their project group. Overall, men felt slightly less comfortable expressing their opinions, regardless if it was about gender diversity or general thoughts and feedback about the game, to faculty members than women and other marginalized genders. Women felt slightly less comfortable expressing general thoughts and feedback about the game in their project group than men, but more comfortable expressing their opinion about gender diversity, regardless if it was to their project group or to faculty members, than men. The students were also asked if they had any general thoughts about gender diversity, the second game project course, or the games education at the University of Skövde. In total, 11 students left comments, one of which simply said ‘No’. The others provided more details, and are presented below. Note that two were originally in Swedish (respondent 2 and respondent 5), and have thus been translated.

“It’s been hard for me, a person with a disability (autism) and social difficulties to take space and feel included in the game projects, I feel like the groups haven’t received that much support when it comes to the group dynamic and communication and by leaving the groups to their own devices with that, at least I have had to suffer and struggle through the projects. I would have liked to have more guidance and more present teachers. When it comes to gender, we had a large (and horrible) discussion in my group about which genders our characters would be. It was really difficult and I didn’t say much. In Game

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writing we thought it would be fun to have all female characters since all of them had very masculine jobs, but some others in the group though it would be a “statement”, and they didn’t want to do that. I thought it didn’t matter if all of them were women, but others seemed to think so and I didn’t say what I thought. It felt like an infected and polarised topic. In the end, we had three female characters and one male. We could’ve also had more androgynous characters, that would’ve been cool, but nobody suggested that.” Respondent 2

”It feels like the teachers (mainly the men, in Graphics) doesn’t really care about gender representation, or at the very least doesn’t present it as something important. Would be good to incorporate it more. Although, I think much of my own experience was caused by the group I ended up in, where we had several men who were vocal about their opinions, and the group leader sharing these opinions despite being genderfluid. I think it matters if you were raised as a man or a woman. I think if you were born as a man, regardless or not if you’re genderfluid or trans, there can be underlying sexist opinions. That’s at least what I experienced, and it was a shame. We had a male/old man character, and one that was meant to be androgynous, but it feels like it didn’t have that effect since the main character was so obviously stereotypically male.” Respondent 5

“Some thoughts about the project: So my group were very open about pretty much everything and were comfortable with each other. The whole deal with the game was to be inclusive and try to include as many as possible so we focused a lot on inclusion and to prevent players from feeling excluded. We didn’t really work with diversity within the group because it was never really a problem, I believe we were pretty much split 50/50 in gender, not that it mattered in the group anyways. I do believe though that it is important to have diversity between the genders because we are all different people and different perspectives are very important to not be blind to obvious things.” Respondent 6

“There seems to be a common mindset in the education that diversity needs to be enforced and that all stereotypes needs to be removed from games. It would be better to just let diversity be a part and not the centerpiece of games. Enforcing diversity only results in dividing and alienating players and students. Minorities get a lot of focus and the more common groups is looked down upon and devalued throughout the education.” Respondent 7

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“Our game had only female characters, when I say that we put much work and consideration when we created our characters, I mean that we pushed for gender diversity in games in general.” Respondent 11

“One of the hardest things to change, I've found, is the unspoken assumptions about gender that permeate all aspects of the games education at the University of Skövde, as well as in society in general. In addition to the problems with gender determining who is allowed to take up space, time and attention in classrooms and similar issues, the content of the education is based on faulty, culturally normative knowledge about what a man versus a woman is. The teachers generally try not to voice these assumptions out loud, presumably because it isn't considered politically correct, but they are of course clearly implicit in all assignments that in one form or another are about human beings. I obviously can't write much more here, but it does make it impossible to speak up about things when it seems like everyone agrees about this knowledge” Respondent 12

“The previous year our group encountered a situation where we could have tackled a problem a bit better. A person in our group felt harassed because he/she didn't identify as cisgendered, and someone made a comment about cisgendered people (that wasn't directed towards this person). Nobody in our group kinda knew how to deal with that other than saying "It's okay" or "They didn't mean it". Even though I wish that the amount of lectures etc. about marginalized group were the same, I feel like we needed to learn how to deal with harassment against that group within our own group (The harassment might even be unintentional).” Respondent 14

“You shouldn't force gender diversity, although it is important to discuss why some things look like it does. For us, we had an all-female cast in our game. The only "male" mention was the parrot that was haunted by a female ghost. We wanted to be different in our representation and offer a cast of women that were not sexualized. Of course I sometimes found it weird that we had no men in our game, but it felt nice to do something a little bit different for a change too.” Respondent 16

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“I don't remember having any lectures about gender diversity during the second game project course. I feel like the structure and content of the lectures actually given need to be better, the people who need to be taught about gender diversity doesn't learn from them. Perhaps some exercises with discussions and seminars could help” Respondent 19

“The faculty member should put a lot more effort into giving team leads better skills and tools to actually lead, and work to encourage, not discourage creativity and ambition. From my perspective all the faculty did was undermine our internal structure and hamper our progress by constantly questioning our ability.” Respondent 26

Interviews In total, four of the seven instructors involved in the second game project course were interviewed; two Graphics instructors, one Game writing instructor and one Design instructor, with an equal amount of women and men. Note that all will be referred to with gender-neutral pronouns. To begin with, the interviewees were asked how familiar they are with gender diversity overall as well as specifically in games. All agreed that it is difficult to self-assess such a thing, but nonetheless consider it to be an important question. None of the interviewed instructors had any formal education related to gender studies or diversity, but three specified that they consider themselves familiar with the topic, while another discussed experiences implying some level of familiarity. When asked how their discipline worked with gender diversity, and whether or not it differed from other programmes, all stated different ways of working with diversity. Game writing tended to focus on the effect of stereotypes in the narrative of the characters, their personalities and roles, whereas Graphics focused on visual stereotypes, how to use them for a desired effect, and break them to create unconventional characters. Design was noted as maybe focusing more on gender diversity in relation to target audiences than other disciplines. One instructor additionally said that the Graphics programmes had an advantage over other disciplines due to the heterogeneity of the students, making it easier to bring up matters such as representation and gender diversity. Overall, all disciplines try to work with norms and stereotypes throughout the education, but these instances are often focused on diversity in general rather than gender specifically, and do not go in-depth. One instructor mentions that a heterogenic group makes it easier to discuss diversity, and tries to show the students that the male perspective is often incorrectly assumed to be unbiased. Another instructor mentions that while their discipline works with norms and stereotypes in the programme, they believe students are often stressed by the second game project course, and as a result, the students do not work with and consider these aspects as much as they would like to. Some mentioned that the Programming, Music and Sound programmes might not work with gender diversity as much, as those disciplines do not work with the representation of characters in the same way other disciplines do.

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When asked if they, as instructors, felt they received adequate support from the University of Skövde and their colleagues when it comes to working with gender diversity, they all felt that the university and their colleagues consider gender diversity to be important. One noted that they can rely on the statutes governing the university regarding discrimination should a student make outright sexist statements; while the student is entitled to their opinion, the university does not allow discriminatory statements. However, it was noted that there is no baseline of knowledge about gender diversity. One instructor commented that it is easier to discuss diversity with some colleagues, while it is more difficult with others. Another notes that there are those who are more familiar with gender diversity that can contribute to a more nuanced discussion, but they are not that many, and there are some that have less experience with norms and what oppression means. One comments that, should they ask directly for support from their superiors, they probably would get it, but adds they do not know for certain. There is also a lack of direct paths to support, and no clear way of dealing with gender diversity should a conflict arise. Relating to conflicts, the interviewees were asked if they felt comfortable discussing gender diversity with their students, to which most replied that it differs between individual students, similarly to how it differs between their colleagues. None have necessarily felt threatened by a situation, but one instructors mentions an example of an incident where a student had entered their office to tell them the University of Skövde (and the instructors) were too political, after a lecture about gender in the first year. Another incident took place during a lecture relating to gender diversity where the situation got so out of hand they had to bring in additional support the next year to avoid it from repeating. All instructors mentioned there being situations that were uncomfortable or difficult when discussing gender diversity with the students, as it is a polarising topic and it often gets very personal. One instructor acknowledges that while they did not feel threatened, that does not mean others did not, and acknowledged that privilege plays a part. Overall, however, the instructors mentioned that conflicts between students were perhaps more common than conflicts between an instructor and a student, particularly as, due to how polarising the topic is, the students sometimes have discussions that others do not dare to enter. When asked if they are given opportunities to learn more about gender diversity, some instructors discuss DONNA and mention that the organization invites people, including the instructors, to various events that can be used to further their knowledge about gender diversity. One instructor mentions that some staff days bring up gender diversity, but are not necessarily in-depth or useful for learning more, but rather to get a feeling for where the University of Skövde stands and how advanced the discussions are. However, all instructors agree that it is up to each individual instructor to develop their knowledge about gender diversity, as none had been offered any formal opportunity to learn more about gender diversity. When asked if they wanted more opportunities, all expressed an interest in learning more, and that it would be good to raise the level of knowledge among the instructors to establish a common baseline. When asked how the University of Skövde works with support for the students during the second game project course, one instructor mentions the statutes the university operates under that does not allow for discrimination. However, several instructors mention that there is no specific support for marginalized groups and should a student feel harassed it is often dealt with on a case-by-case basis rather than there being clear guidelines on how the instructors

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should address the situation. One notes that it has occurred that students contact the instructors in order to avoid being in the same group as another student, and it tends to be women avoiding men. The instructors try to accommodate students’ wishes to avoid certain people, and values students comfort over perfectly balanced groups. One instructor discusses that while they do their best to support the students in cases of conflicts, either by mediating or by directing the students to other sources of support, the students are adults and, as it impossible for the instructors to keep track of what goes on, it is up to the students to contact the instructors. However, they note that even if they do not support specific people without prompting, if they notice a group with a negative attitude, they try to keep an eye on it. Another instructor mentions it is an issue that the students have to contact them in order for them to act, since it can be difficult for the students to spot subtle acts of harassment and oppression – it often has to go overboard before the students address it. Some instructors were additionally asked if the students receive information about what to do if they are harassed in the second game project course. Overall it is often assumed that the students know who to contact as they are in their second year and are supposed to have received information about this in previous courses, but one instructor mentions there might be more general reminders before the start of the second game project. When asked, as a follow-up question, how communication, leadership and power are discussed in the second game project, all mention that it is not really discussed. It is mentioned that it is up to the students to discuss gender diversity in relation to the team dynamic in the second game project. Two mention that the team dynamic, in general, is discussed more in the first game project course, and thus it is assumed that the students already know how to discuss and work with their team dynamic. One instructor mentions that they added more texts specifically about various norms for the students to read in 2019, but that it is still up to the students to decide how much they want to work with and discuss diversity, including gender diversity. Another instructor mentions that they hope the students know they can turn to the instructors for help, but that the question becomes how equipped each individual instructor is to handle various situations related to gender diversity. All interviewees were asked if there was anything they would like to change regarding how gender diversity is worked with at the university, and all wanted to work more with it. It was stated explicitly that they wanted more time for it, and for it to be reoccurring throughout the education, in order to discuss gender diversity more in-depth. One specifically mentions wanting to discuss bias and which perspective is the norm. Another mentions discussing toxic masculinity and hyper-masculinity, as a majority of the students are male and it could do them good to discuss these topics. They stress that women are still oppressed, so discussing sexism and women is still important, but that it would be good to address intolerance and male stereotypes as well, especially in the context of game development. When asked if they had any final thoughts or comments, one instructor commented that it felt as if students are afraid of creating bad representation, and as a result, they avoid representation altogether and instead rely on androgynous characters in an attempt to appease everyone instead of picking a side.

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5 Analysis

Content analysis When examining the results, it becomes clear that the way the University of Skövde works with gender diversity is better than the standard set by the industry. There are more women studying game development at the university than women working within the games industry, less sexualisation of female characters, and mainly positive stereotypes surrounding female characters. However, the image of gender diversity presented through the education and the games produced is still shallow, and there are some major flaws.

5.1.1 Education The educational material used in the second game project course indicates that there is a lack of deeper discussions about gender diversity in the education. Of the four articles used in the second game project course, three are academic articles while one is a practical guide to accessibility, and one of these academic articles talks about gender – specifically the hypersexualisation of women in video games (Downs & Smith, 2010). If the education is following the trend of ambivalent sexism in the industry (Summers & Miller, 2014), it will have moved away from benevolent sexism and moved onto hostile sexism – which involves sexualisation of women, violence against women, the absence of women, and so on. Instead of showing female characters as pure and innocent damsels in distress, games would then feature these stereotypes. As such, it is indeed important that the University of Skövde discusses hypersexualisation with its students. But the lack of articles discussing the background of ambivalent sexism present in the industry, and how that informs the sexism present today, as well as other topics that can provide a deeper understanding of gender diversity is concerning. There are several mentions of stereotypes in relation to (mainly) characters and the target audience in the educational material, implying students have at some point in their education discussed stereotypes in relation to games. Which stereotypes have been discussed, and to what extent they have been discussed, is hard to know based on this content analysis. Gender diversity is a complex matter, and it is more than hypersexualisation and stereotypes. Furthermore, one may argue that hypersexualisation is relatively simple to correct and perhaps does not completely change a game’s premise, as it is most commonly a matter of physical representation of female bodies. It should be noted that it can certainly stretch to the writing of the game and mechanics as well, but it is nonetheless a highly visible matter due to its nature and it is thus hard to miss. Challenging gender norms and dissecting gender while staying aware of the impacts of objectification and the nuances of ambivalent sexism, especially should the game already be in development, is perhaps not as simple. Additionally considering women as an audience, and deciding to cater to them, may indeed drastically change the playstyle and aesthetic of a game (although this is not to say that all women only enjoy one type of game). Discussing women as developers, and bringing to attention the small, and large, acts of aggression and oppression they face in not only everyday life but their professional roles, may certainly be uncomfortable for the students. Male students may not want to confront a reality in which they may, intentionally or not, be complicit in harassment (especially if they are of the opinion that such harassment does not exist), and

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female students may wish to avoid such discussions in hopes of protecting themselves from harassment, much like the women participating in #1ReasonWhy (Ochsner, 2017). It may additionally be difficult for the instructors, following the same line of thought. The bottom line is that sexism in games is more than the sexualisation of women, and the education should discuss more topics to deepen the students understanding of gender diversity and the forms sexism may take. However, beyond the lack of depth to the education about gender diversity that the educational material implies, a major flaw in the educational material is the lack of explicit criteria regarding gender diversity. Gender diversity thus becomes an optional topic, and sexist representation might be included in the games produced at the University of Skövde. While gender diversity can take different forms in each game project, meaning it might be difficult to create a checklist with criteria for it, a discussion should take place, and the students should be held accountable for the content they produce. This topic ties into two others: the (non-existent) support of women, and the faculty members’ (potential lack of) familiarity with gender studies. To begin with, the lack of explicit criteria speaks for a lack of explicit commitment to gender diversity at the University of Skövde. As a result, students in favour of gender diversity may be hesitant to commit fully to discussing and working gender diversity, since the education itself does not commit to it explicitly. Students not in favour of gender diversity may use the lack of commitment and explicit criteria to avoid working with gender diversity completely, and to discourage discussions about it in the project groups. Implicitly endorsing gender diversity may not necessarily encourage the students to independently choose to work with gender diversity, but might rather put the burden of it on the (marginalized) students. Much like how the discussions about gender diversity in the video game industry are often led by women, thus exposing them to harassment, this non-commitment risks doing the same to marginalized students. When considering the infamous toxic culture surrounding video games, which is present in- and outside of games educations (Fox & Tang, 2016; Cote, 2015b; Ruberg, 2019), it is important to clearly commit to gender diversity in order to, at a base level, support women and other marginalized identities. Due to the lack of explicit criteria, the lack of explicit support for the female students becomes even more troublesome. Gender diversity is not discussed in relation to soft skills, such as communication and leadership roles, nor are the female students encouraged to take on leadership roles. The lack of explicit support, unfortunately, reinforces existing norms in the video game industry, where women are excluded from leadership roles (Bailey, et al., 2019) and positions with creative power. Not only are female students not encouraged to take on leadership roles, but there is nothing else in the course that showcases female role models that might otherwise inspire them to do so. Out of the seven instructors involved in the course, only two were women, and out of the four play-testers the students met halfway through the project, only one was a woman who was also the designated expert on gender diversity. Having a woman talk about gender diversity is, by itself, a good thing and should be repeated not only during playtesting but throughout the entire education. Having the only female play-tester mainly discuss gender diversity, with no other women offering alternative expertise when it comes to the playtesting, is unfortunate. As noted by Ruberg (2019), instructors teaching about diversity are often subjected to harassment and poor attitudes from students, which then can be argued to apply to this situation as well. While it is not apparent

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from the course site how the playtesting was carried out, there is a significant risk that the female play-tester was alone when providing the students with feedback, and the only one to provide the students with feedback regarding gender diversity. This results in two problems: one, the female play-tester is put at risk, perhaps especially in groups where a majority of the students were men (which was most of the groups). Two, it again speaks of a lack of actual commitment to gender diversity, as the play-testers do not present a unified front on the importance of gender diversity. These issues are, in the second game project course, slightly alleviated thanks to the inclusion of a final female interviewer, but women were still a minority in the course as instructors and play-testers. Additionally, these problems are most likely relevant for the instructors themselves. While there is no guarantee the instructors who participated in the survey and the head of programmes that were interviewed in the report written by Brusk and Dannberg (2016) are the same instructors present in the second game project course during 2019, Brusk and Dannberg reported that the instructors wanted more support when working with gender diversity. There is a possibility that the lack of support for women is in part due to the (non-marginalized) instructors not feeling confident enough in their knowledge to make sure the discussion about diversity is nuanced and covers more than superficial stereotypes and norms in relation to characters. This may put female and marginalized instructors, especially those working with gender diversity or discussing games as culture, at significant risk of harassment as students may take the non-marginalized instructors’ silence as disdain for diversity. This thesis does not compare the second game project course that took place during 2019 with the one that took place in 2016, and thus it is impossible to tell if instructors have received additional support and knowledge since the report written by Brusk and Dannberg (2016). However, the lack of a discussion about gender diversity in connection to women as developers in the coded content indicates that whatever the state of diversity was in 2016, there is still much to improve from the state of diversity in 2019. The instructors interviewed considered gender diversity to be important (Brusk & Dannberg, 2016), meaning there is certainly an emotional commitment to diversity in games - but there may be a need for more dedicated efforts to turn the emotional commitment to a practical commitment.

5.1.2 Creators As previously mentioned, the games education at the University of Skövde has a higher ratio of women to men than the industry standard, with 34% women to 66% men as opposed to the industry’s ratio of 21% women to 74% men (Weststar, et al., 2018) (with the remaining percentage being transgendered developers and developers who selected ‘Other’ as their response). While the coding method was not able to account for transgendered students, it is safe to assume there are transgendered students studying game development, and thus there may be groups that are more gender diverse than previously assumed. The overall larger ratio of women to men is an indication that the games education at the University of Skövde is diversifying at a slightly quicker pace than the industry. However, 40 out of the 53 female students studied Graphics or Game writing, which raises some questions. Do the students in the Graphic and Game writing programmes have a fair amount of power in the projects, and how exposed to harassment and unfair treatment are the women in the other programmes? Are there more nuanced discussions about gender diversity present in the Graphics and Game

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writing programmes than the other programmes? Overall, does the higher percentage of women in Graphics and Game writing affect the view on these programs, either positively or negatively? These are questions that are impossible to answer from this content analysis alone, but nonetheless it would be interesting to see a discussion about this in the education, either among faculty members alone or faculty members and students alike. There was no discussion in the educational material about gender diversity in connection to roles. There is a lack of information regarding what power women as creators had, which becomes troublesome as the different roles present in the game project groups all hold different levels of powers. A project lead may be doing mainly administrative tasks, while a creative lead holds creative power over the game and project group. A discipline lead certainly has power in the specific discipline they belong to, but may not have as much power when compared to the project lead or creative lead. Perhaps an indication of the distribution of power can be gleaned when examining the gender ratio of the students interviewed during the final exhibition; 30% were women, while 70% were men. Of the groups being interviewed, Secret of the Old Ship stood out with two women presenting. While this may in part be due to the fact that women were a majority in that group, Galactic Dance Off, the only other group with a majority of women, had one man and one woman present for the interviews. MOR, Swedish Meatballs and Delightful Dungeon also had one woman and one man presenting, while Enceladus, Miss Eyesore, re:Surge, Rubio and Tidslåset had all-male presenters. The fact that the ratio of women to men present during the interviews roughly matches the ratio of women to men in the education is a good start, but without more comprehensive information about the roles these students had (especially the gender ratio of the creative directors), it is hard to know if women had any significant power in the project groups. Furthermore, the report written by Brusk and Dannberg (2016) mentioned the game projects in connection to female students reporting being treated unfairly, such as having their expertise ignored, or harassed. This, should it still hold true in 2019, would indicate there is a need for greater support for all students, but especially marginalized groups. The report additionally reported the Design programme and especially the Programming programme being more negative to diversity, likely due to the lack of women and other marginalized genders in these programs. Project groups where these disciplines were all men were perhaps at a greater risk than those that also had female students. It is important to consider the impact of creative and administrative power in this context, and how it may set a precedent for how women are treated in a project group. If the University of Skövde is serious about promoting gender diversity in video games, this information might be worth evaluating and following up on in order to ensure the women studying game development are given equal power to the men studying game development.

5.1.3 Characters At a first glance, the gender ratio of the characters present in the games produced during the second game projects is equal: there are precisely 15 characters coded as female, and 15 characters coded as male. Compared to the industry standard where there are few or no women in popular games (Sarkeesian & Petit, 2019; Bailey, et al., 2019), the games at the University of Skövde are far ahead. However, there is a large portion of the characters coded as ambiguous which complicates this matter.

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There is a pattern in which ‘gender-neutral’ is seemingly taken to mean ‘the absence of feminine markers’, and as thus human gender-neutral characters are often thin characters, with no hips or breasts that would otherwise mark them as ‘female’. While, for example, Delightful Dungeon features a protagonist that can use a combination of different features (such as sparkly eyes or long hair, which may all be read as more feminine, with a beard or other features that may be read as more masculine), the body is still easily read as ‘male’. Swedish Meatballs feature ambiguously gendered children, which by itself may be a situation in which there was a good combination of ‘male’ and ‘female’ gendered signifiers that broke norms and created a more gender-neutral impression, but also features commentators with male voices. Do note that voices (much like names and bodies) are not inherently gendered, and thus these commentators could be of any gender. But these games do not exist in a vacuum, and they will be read in a social context where voices, names and bodies are still being gendered. By adding in voices read as male without presenting names or pronouns that break this expectation, the previously ambiguous characters are put in a new context. It would indeed be easy to interpret the setting of the game as ‘boys having a food fight’ – especially should one apply stereotypical values regarding gender where boys are allowed to be rowdy while girls should be more proper and restricted. Despite their best intentions and efforts, adding something that reads as ‘male’ into a previously gender-neutral situation may, unfortunately, impose (a male) gender upon the characters. The lack of female signifiers is by itself a good step in the right direction as it has the potential to open up for refreshing takes on (especially non-human) characters. For example, Rubio features a frog with thick eyebrows, a stout body and an overall lack of feminine signifiers as the protagonist, sharing the name of the game. The game additionally features a large fly, similarly lacking feminine signifiers, as the antagonist. Unfortunately, this character has a name that is distinctly read as male, not only coding this character, but also the smaller enemies with a similar appearance, as male. The protagonist, Rubio, is additionally referred to with male pronouns by the creators. A way to break gender norms would be to keep these designs the same but introduce some part in which both of these characters are referred to with female pronouns. Suddenly, there is a non-human female character without female gender signifiers, with an interesting shift in the dynamic between the characters. Similarly, this may apply to Swedish Meatballs. While non-binary does not necessarily mean gender-neutral, committing to making non-binary characters, or a mix of female and male characters, or only female characters, by pronouns alone, would be a step in the right direction by eliminating stereotypical readings of the characters that default ambiguous characters to male. The only confirmed non-binary characters are the characters present in Galactic Dance Off. The fact that the group decided to commit to making non-binary characters by including gender-neutral pronouns referring to them shows more commitment to gender diversity than games including ambiguous characters. However, it is less fortunate that the characters are not only non-human but literal aliens that are not of this world. This is not to imply that Galactic Dance Off erred by including non-binary characters. Rather, it is the opposite, as previously noted; it is simply the lack of confirmed non-binary characters in the remaining game projects that thus implies a lack of awareness about the signals that are being sent when the only non-binary characters are not human, nor of this world.

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Following the discussion above where it is easy for ambiguous characters to be read as male, the previously equal ratio of female to male characters shifts to 61% possibly male characters to 33% female characters. Once again, the games produced by the University of Skövde are far above the industry standards gender ratio, but the lack of actual commitment presented by ambiguous characters is noteworthy. On a brighter note, there is overall little to no sexualisation, few cases of concerning objectification, and overall positive stereotypes surrounding the female characters that exist. Several characters are primary, serving as protagonists and antagonists. Secret of the Old Ship actively uses counter-stereotypes, not only featuring an all-female cast, but presenting women in power with agency, who additionally are physically strong. Tidslåset shows an interesting range of female characters, with counter- stereotypical characters such as a female researcher and a female captain, as well as a more stereotypically feminine female character serving as the hostess of the party. Overall, there is great potential present in the games produced at the University of Skövde, and it is noticeable that some of the students are somewhat committed to gender diversity, and have enough expertise to execute it in an overall nuanced manner. However, there are also times when there are less nuanced portrayals, or outright sexist themes in a game. Miss Eyesore is a horror game, in which the player tries to escape a prison in Siberia during 1964, equipped only with a Geiger-counter to avoid the radioactive monster lurking in the corridors. Due to the concerning themes noted previously, additional material was sought out in order to provide context to ensure the material of the game was not misrepresented. The monster, in-game called Miss Eyesore, is a female prisoner by the name of Lidiya subjected to experiments; when examining an external gameplay video (Neco The Sergal, 2019), it is revealed that several notes can be found throughout the game. These detail how the female prisoner was experimented on as she “wouldn’t shut up, always giving me lip. Others, too. Others that arent [sic] as nice as me” and how an unnamed character “think[s] she’ll scream louder at the sight of a mirror than from dr. utkin [sic] slicing through her nerves”, playing on stereotypes that women are vain and deserves hostile sexism if they do not behave. Furthermore, while the monster is emaciated, there are nonetheless visible breasts shown in the design, in a strange sexualisation which perhaps implies sexual abuse. The character is objectified to a great degree; it can be argued that all seven forms of objectification defined by Nussbaum (1995) are present. This objectification and the themes of violating women’s autonomy through medical abuse is greatly concerning, and a clear showcase of how hostile sexism is present in the games produced at the University of Skövde. There are other, less problematic but nonetheless complex themes of gender in Delightful Dungeon, as it is the only game featuring a character creator. Delightful Dungeon is several times stated to be inspired by Japanese media, which changes the context of the gender presented within. Depending on the cultural context, what is considered ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ can differ greatly, and while the game is technically set in a fantasy world, there are clear references to Japanese culture in the game. In a screenshot submitted as marketing material, a player character named ‘Leif-chan’ has been created. The options the player can seemingly customize are the player character’s hair, hair colour, eyes, mouth, skin colour, and outfit. In this instance, the hair is set to the option ‘Balding’, the colour is red, and the eyes are ‘Shojo’ – the Japanese word for ‘young girl’ – while the remaining options are not attached in the screenshot (but the character has the mouth ‘Gray Mustache’, the ‘Peasant’ outfit, and most

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likely ‘Caramel’ skin). While the options themselves are harmless enough (although comparing skin tones to food is a topic that should be discussed), the inclusion of a character in the marketing material that was created using the –chan suffix (often used for young girls) with such a distinct contrast between features associated with young girls and features associated with older men can be read as mocking non-stereotypical gender expressions rather than subverting gender norms. The inclusion of a character creator was most likely well intentioned and a good idea at its core, but it requires careful examination of what we assume to be ‘normal’. This is affected by the attributes the developers choose to be included and excluded, and how these are presented and situated within a cultural context.

5.1.4 Players As previously stated, most games did not refer to their audience by gender, and instead focused on the genre of the game - implying these groups will adhere to the established norms and principles of the genres in order to appeal to that target audience. The issue with this approach is that it is unclear whether or not the students designed their games with gender in mind, or by ignoring gender while believing this would result in an experience ‘everybody’ could enjoy. As discussed in the theoretical background, the idea that men are the norm while women are the deviation from the norm complicates this matter, and means game designers have to consciously consider the preferences of players of different genders, and which playstyle to prioritize. Take for example the game re:Surge: while no gender was mentioned when discussing the target audience, the choice to create a first-person arena shooter to create a feeling of nostalgia speaks volumes about the implied gender of the target audience. First of all, the genre and playstyle appeal more to men than women (Entertainment Software Association, 2019; Yee, 2016), which might partly be due to how the genre often has online voice chats which women may avoid to protect themselves (Fox & Tang, 2016; Cote, 2015b). Second, the factor of nostalgia mentioned by the group might be a feeling that is more common among men than women due to the gendered history of video games. Thus, one could reasonably assume that the game was created for a male audience – though it should be noted that the game has a female protagonist. This means it may be designed for a male audience, but depending on the narrative presented and the treatment of the female protagonist, it may not alienate women who wish to play the game. There were other games with a similar approach, such as Swedish Meatballs and Enceladus. At the same time, it could be argued that perhaps games combining gender diversity with traditionally male-dominated genres are opening up such genres to marginalized genders. This, however, greatly depends on how gender diversity is utilized. Only having female representation without changing some of the underlying systems that alienate marginalized genders, such as first-person shooter games that require voice chat for example, is not sufficient. Ultimately, one still needs to be aware of the norms associated with a genre, and how to counter these should one wish to create a more nuanced experience. This becomes apparent when examining MOR and Miss Eyesore, both of which are horror games. Comparing the two and how their gameplay experience differs, Miss Eyesore features a system in which the player is constantly being chased; it is a competition between the player and the monster, and losing means death. MOR is seemingly taking another approach, with a

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heavier focus on narrative, and a pace set for exploring. Taking into context women’s preference of completion and the fantasy of playing someone else (Yee, 2016), as compared to male gamers preference for competition and destruction, a game with more focus on narrative and exploration is designed to include women to a larger degree than one focused on competition. Thus it can be argued that while both games had fans of horror as their target audience, Miss Eyesore might have been more appealing for male fans of horror, and perhaps excluding women to a degree, while MOR might have been more appealing for female fans of horror while not excluding men. Other games that included players of different genders to varying degrees included Delightful Dungeon, Rubio, Galactic Dance Off. Delightful Dungeon is an action-adventure game played on mobile, incorporating both exploration and destruction while keeping the aesthetic bright and stylized. Rubio is a platformer with bright and stylized characters and environments, and a playstyle that is both explorative and slightly competitive. Galactic Dance Off is similarly bright, featuring strong themes of cooperation and characters inclusive of marginalized genders. All of these games can be appealing to a more general audience as they are inclusive of women, though it should be noted that Delightful Dungeon might accidentally question those with non-stereotypical gender expressions, and Rubio features mainly male coded characters with a narrative that is perhaps rooted in more traditional values of masculinity. Finally, there are two games that, while not excluding anyone, might appeal to an audience of marginalized genders more so than a male audience. Tidslåset has a heavy focus on narrative as it is a murder mystery with similarities to visual novels. The aesthetics are darker than the previously discussed games, but not realistic. The game builds on cooperation as the main mechanic is talking, and reversing time to unlock new dialogue paths. A majority of the characters are female; three of the four characters that the player can talk to are women, while the remaining one is a man. While the group behind this game did not explicitly identify women as a target audience in the coded material, the overall aesthetic and design of the game seem to prioritize women, while including everyone else. However, out of the ten games produced during the second game project, Secret of the Old Ship was the only game to explicitly gender their target audience, and choosing women as their target audience. This is clearly accomplished in the game, as it features an explorative and cooperative playstyle, with an all- female cast. While it is unclear whether or not games such as Tidslåset appealed to a female audience by design or not, due to the lack of an explicit target audience beyond genre, there is no doubt when it comes to Secret of the Old Ship.

5.1.5 Conclusion While ahead of the industry, the University of Skövde has areas that can be improved when it comes to working with gender diversity. The major flaw at this point in the education is the lack of formal criteria and outspoken support; there might be an emotional commitment to gender diversity present in the education, but the lack of formal criteria and practical commitment is reflected on the games themselves. This risks putting the burden of diversity on students of marginalized genders, and risks enabling those who are resistant to the idea of working with gender diversity. The lack of discussion about women as developers, and the lack of formal support for these women, is concerning. Not only as the second game project was

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pointed out as a risk when it came to student-to-student harassment, but as matters such as power and communication need to be explicitly discussed. There are nuances to sexism that can be hard to spot, and women may be subjected to acts of aggression without being able to speak up against it due to doubts and fear of retaliation. Students may, unintentionally or not, subject others to sexism due to cultural norms, and while perhaps uncomfortable, it is vital to discuss this topic in an open and transparent way throughout the education and especially in courses that have mandatory group projects. Furthermore, women need to be shown as role- models; as instructors and as guests. If guests are brought into the course to, for example, act as play-testers, women in various positions and with various expertise should make up half of these, at the very least, and all people involved in the course should present a unified front about diversity in games. While not present in the coded content, the University is also hopefully asking the people involved in the course about their experience, and how the students react to topics such as gender diversity in order to provide support. Overall, the students at the University of Skövde seem to be aware of the effects of sexualisation, which indicates the education about hypersexualisation is indeed working, and several games feature women as protagonists. On a base level, these games can be argued to be gender diverse. It is positive that the students on some level want to be inclusive by making games for ‘everybody’, but the education lacks a deeper discussion about how to accomplish this. Many games use characters of ambiguous gender instead of committing to representing a specific gender, regardless of which gender that may be, in what may be an attempt to cater to a wider audience. However, due to the fact that games do not exist in a vacuum, these undefined characters are subject to various interpretations that do not necessarily counteract the established norms of gender in the video game industry. Adding gender ambiguous characters does not automatically improve the state of diversity in any given game, as ignoring gender will not necessarily yield the desired outcome, as opposed to creating a game while aware of gender as previously discussed. The articles provided to the students indicated there was no deeper discussion about gender in games beyond hypersexualistion, meaning there might be a lack of deeper awareness of the norms and stereotypes that surround various genders. While this thesis focuses on women in video games, it is worth pointing out that a game with non- stereotypical and varied portrayals of men additionally contributes to gender diversity in games, and the role of men in video games should be considered as well. Working with gender diversity does not have to disrupt the game development process, as there are several ways to quickly improve the state of diversity in any given game – but it is important to remember that the students need to understand gender diversity, and gender by itself, on a deeper level to work with it independently. Are the students considering who they are including in their target audiences and who they are excluding, unintentionally or not, through matters such as genre and representation? Or is there a lack of discussions about the nuances of gender diversity in relation to players and creators as opposed to characters, both in the education and internally in the groups? Of course, the matter of gender diversity may differ between programmes, and it is important to examine the impacts of the different programmes – if a game has a playstyle that alienates women while it has characters that include them, there may be an internal dissonance regarding the importance of diversity and how it may be applied. To summarize the results of this content analysis, the University of Skövde is better at gender diversity than the video game industry, but there are some concerning aspects of sexism

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that are seemingly not addressed in the education. While students and instructors alike might be emotionally committed to gender diversity, there need to be clearer guidelines on how to include marginalized genders in games – as characters, as players, and as creators.

Student survey To begin with, the survey unfortunately had some shortcomings that need to be taken into account. The low response rate, and the unequal balance between the discipline and genders problematize the results. While it is positive that a large portion of the respondents considered gender diversity in games to be important, it is debatable if the results of the student survey are representative of what the entire student body thinks. It can be argued that those who believe gender diversity to be important might have been more likely to participate in the survey than those who consider it to be trivial – or those who have no strong opinion at all. However, the fact that women were overrepresented indicates that women at the education were more interested in gender diversity than men, which in turns contextualizes the results. Should male students be as interested in gender diversity as women at the university, and consider it as important, it is indeed curious that they were underrepresented in the survey. Compared to female students and other marginalized genders, who cannot step away from gender diversity and sexism, regardless if it is in life or in games, male students the privilege to be able to deprioritize these topics. While the survey had a specific focus on gender diversity, the survey asked if the students had been harassed due to their gender identity. This might have affected the results, not only because it excluded harassment that occurred due to other perceived reasons, but also because sexism can be subtle and patronizing (and benevolent), rather than hostile, thus making it hard to clearly categorize as harassment being related to gender. However, this does mean the six students who had been harassed, and the four that were harassed at the university, might have had very clear indications that they were indeed being harassed due to being women. Regardless, there are some results from the student survey that are worth discussing, despite these shortcomings. Students, when estimating their own familiarity with the topics, seemed to consider themselves familiar with stereotypes and hypersexualisation. Considering the focus on this in the texts the students were given in the second game project, this at the very least indicates that the students seem to have read the material, or be aware of the contents to some degree through discussions. Whether or not they effectively worked with these topics in the games, and if they understand the nuances of it, is hard to discern from these results however and would require additional tests. The students’ self-assessments, in all questions that asked for this, do not indicate whether or not they actually were familiar with something, or if they actually did work with gender diversity, only that they thought they did. The fact that the students reported working more with diversity when it came to their characters than their target audience and team dynamic indicates there is a focus on gender diversity in character representation rather than other aspects. It would have been of interest to evaluate whether or not students are aware of how stereotypes and hypersexualisation affects women as players and developers, but this was unfortunately overlooked. It is particularly interesting that Programming and Sound and Music had the highest average value for working

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with gender diversity in relation to characters, as these programmes are the ones most removed from the character creation process. It speaks for a likely lack of knowledge: there might be less of an understanding about what nuanced gender diversity is, or it is possible they were not involved in the character creation process and thus had to guess how much the other disciplines worked with gender diversity. The lack of focus on gender diversity when considering the team dynamic could mean that the students believed they did not have to work with gender diversity for various reasons. As mentioned by Respondent 2, 5 and 6, students could believe they were past such issues as the team already had a good dynamic, or it could be something parts of the group did not care about, or they could be avoiding the topic as it might lead to conflicts. Due to the norms regarding women as game developers, and the trends that are present in the industry, not having a dialogue regarding gender diversity might reinforce the existing (sexist) norms that harm women in the industry (Oschner, 2017; Jason, 2015). Furthermore, if parts of a group express that they have a good team dynamic and thus do not need to take gender diversity into account, those who feel slighted may feel hesitant raising their concerns in order to keep the peace. After all, there was no group without women, and as such, each group could benefit from working actively with gender diversity in relation to their team dynamic. If a group truly had a good team dynamic, an honest and open discussion about gender diversity while staying aware of the team’s composition should be possible, and encouraged. As students lacked tools to have dialogues about gender diversity without it leading to conflicts, as indicated by Respondent 2 and 14, it is highly possible that marginalized genders suffered as a result. The fact that men, on average, thought their project group worked more with gender diversity than marginalized genders, even when they were from the same project group, also indicates that there is a difference in how aware the students are of gender diversity. As women and other marginalized genders are more likely to personally be affected by a lack of gender diversity, they might be aware of the shortcomings of a group, while men might view more shallow gender diversity as sufficient. When taking into account that there were some men who did not consider gender diversity to be important at all, it is concerning that they scored higher in terms of how much they worked with it in the project groups. Considering that women felt more comfortable discussing both gender diversity, as well as general thoughts and feedback about the game with faculty members rather than their project group adds to this. It is curious however that men felt less comfortable discussing gender diversity, both with their groups and faculty members, than women overall. It is highly possible that those with a negative opinion about gender diversity, as men on average considered it less important, felt less comfortable expressing their opinion in fear of backlash. However, there were students who considered gender diversity to be very important, who felt uncomfortable discussing gender diversity with their group, indicating that there might be a mind-set that gender diversity should be included – but only to a certain degree. The differences between genders are particularly striking when students were asked if they wanted to increase, decrease, or not change the number of lectures and assignments related to gender diversity overall in the education. 64% of the women who replied to the survey wanted to see an increase, while less than 10% of the men who replied to the survey wanted to see an increase. Furthermore, all students who wanted to see a decrease, both overall in the education and specifically in the second game project course, were men. Respondent 12, 14 and 19

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expressed a want for a more nuanced discussion about gender diversity, while Respondent 7 explicitly stated that diversity should not be forced and that he felt that there “seems to be a common mindset in the education that diversity needs to be enforced and that all stereotypes needs to be removed from games.” Men are seemingly less interested in gender diversity, yet, when compared to other genders, believe their group worked more with it, and wants to see a decrease of the number of assignments and lectures related to gender diversity. This is troublesome. Not only do they seemingly have lower standards of gender diversity from the start, but they also want to lower the standards of the other students – possibly in order to avoid working with gender diversity at all. This indicates there are students with clear hostile sexism present at the education, confirming Ruberg’s (2019) statement that all games educations are affected by students being resistant towards diversity to some degree. These resistant students become a large concern when combined with the fact that a majority of students do not know where to turn to should they be harassed; 60% did not know, and a majority of these students were those of marginalized genders. Additionally, the students who received and responded to the survey were students in their third year. If 60% of these did not know who to contact, there is a possibility that those in their first or second year are even less likely to know who to contact. As previously noted, sexism can be subtle, and if the students do not know where to turn to when it is clear they are being harassed, it might be more difficult to know where to receive support when facing more subtle acts of oppression. This is particularly concerning when considering the students’ assessment of how much each group worked with gender diversity in relation to their team dynamic.

Interviews The interviews conducted with the instructors involved with the second game project course confirmed some previously discussed patterns. Overall, there is a strong emotional commitment, but the instructors lack resources in the form of time and knowledge in order to make more practical commitments, and improve upon those that already exist. When examining the responses from the interviews, it is positive that the instructors felt supported by their colleagues overall, but concerning that conflicts and situations similar to those described by Ruberg (2019) have occurred. Students have entered instructors’ offices to complain that they are too political for discussing diversity, and lectures have gotten of hand to the point measurements had to be taken to ensure it did not happen again the next year. While none of the instructors had personally felt threatened, as of yet, all agreed that discussing gender diversity with the students was often an uncomfortable situation to be in. The various levels of knowledge and experience with gender diversity (and diversity overall, perhaps) among colleagues complicate the matter, and it can be considered problematic that it is largely up to each individual instructor to educate themselves. It not only makes it optional, but it also puts the emotional burden and responsibility of gender diversity on the instructors; especially on the instructors who consider it important. The mentioned lack of direct paths to support and the absence of clear guidelines from the institution for handling conflicts related to gender diversity then means that not only might the instructors carry the burden of diversity, but should

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a situation prove to be too much for an instructor to handle, there might be no easy solution in sight. Furthermore, if the diversity efforts are largely driven by individual instructors, the lack of a common baseline of knowledge means different disciplines may receive different amounts of education related to gender diversity. In the game projects, this might mean some students are more resistant to working with gender diversity than others, polarizing the topic and possibly creating conflicts within the groups. If the gender diversity at the university additionally focuses on characters, some disciplines, such as Game writing and Graphics, might be carrying a heavier burden when it comes to gender diversity due to their impact on the character representation in games. It should be noted that these particular disciplines have the largest ratio of women to men, thus placing the burden of diversity on marginalised groups. As one instructor noted, the students might have a fear of doing representation “wrong”, and in an attempt to appease everyone they create ambiguous characters, even if they perhaps wish to take a stance and work with gender diversity more actively. The lack of support for these students is particularly concerning. As an educational institution, the University of Skövde must be aware of the toxic culture surrounding video games and events such as #GamerGate and #1ReasonWhy. Not only is there no dedicated support to marginalised groups, but the support that does exist might not be mentioned frequently enough as the instructors assume students are aware of the available support from previous courses. As power and communication are not discussed in relation to gender diversity during the second game project, it becomes difficult to know if the students are aware of more subtle acts of sexism and oppression. Since the instructors have varying levels of knowledge and may thus have similar difficulties spotting subtle acts of oppression, it is worrying that discrimination is mainly dealt with on a case-by-case basis. As mentioned in the interviews, this means marginalised students wait with reporting issues until things have gone overboard. If it is indeed a case of subtle harassment, there may be nothing stopping the harasser from claiming they did not have malicious intent and potentially getting away with it if the instructors are less familiar with sexism. Thus, the norms of women and other marginalised groups being harassed and dismissed in the games industry may unintentionally be reinforced, unless the university clearly, and repeatedly, take a stance to support marginalised groups. All instructors expressed a desire for more dedicated resources, such as more time to discuss gender diversity with students, and more formal opportunities for instructors to develop their knowledge. This would ensure all disciplines receive equal opportunities to learn about gender diversity during the education, and could provide more space to discuss gender diversity in relation to players and developers as well. Steps are being taken to iterate upon courses to improve the discussions about gender diversity, and it is important that this continues.

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6 Conclusions

Summary In matters such as objectification and stereotypes, the University of Skövde is ahead of the standard set by the video game industry. There is a higher ratio of women to men, less sexualisation and most of the common stereotypes, both hostile and benevolent, are absent. However, the content analysis shows that there is a lack of formal criteria and outspoken support, indicating an emotional commitment to gender diversity but less of a practical commitment in both the education as well as the games. The games are more diverse than their industry counterparts, but lack nuance and depth as many games use characters of ambiguous gender, seemingly in an attempt to cater to ‘everybody’. As games do not exist in a vacuum however, these characters might be coded as male rather than androgynous, reinforcing norms and stereotypes present about non-gendered characters present in video games. The education as a whole discusses various norms, but the articles provided for the students do not discuss gender beyond hypersexualisation. While hypersexualisation was not a problem in most games, there might be a lack of a deeper awareness and discussion about gender and how it impacts games beyond characters. Furthermore, there was a lack of support for the student, as there were no mentions of what the students should do if they feel uncomfortable with their group or if they are facing harassment. The student survey carried out after the content analysis with a total of 30 respondents raises some interesting, and some concerning, topics. Women were overrepresented in the survey when compared to the gender ratio noted in the content analysis; this, coupled with the students own assessment of how important they consider gender diversity to be, indicates women at the education care more about gender diversity than men. Students considered themselves to be familiar or very familiar with stereotypes and hypersexualisation, and reports having worked more with gender diversity when it came to their characters than when they worked with their target audiences and team dynamics. The lack of working with gender diversity in relation to their team dynamic is concerning, as men were less comfortable discussing gender diversity in their groups than women, and women were less comfortable discussing general thoughts and ideas with their groups than men. Overall, women were more comfortable discussing gender diversity and general thoughts with faculty members. Furthermore, men reported higher values of working with diversity than women and other marginalised groups, yet they were more likely to want to decrease the number of assignments and lectures related to gender diversity, while a majority of the women wanted an increase in the overall education. They seemingly have lower standards of gender diversity from the start and want to lower the standards of the other students. However, the students might be in a need of more education related to gender diversity, and more explicit support, as 60% of the students did not know where to turn to if they were harassed. A majority of these students were marginalised, and all students were in their third year when they received the survey. Four students reported being harassed due to their gender identity at the University of Skövde, but there may be more subtle acts of harassment the students do not know how to spot, and thus do not report.

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The interviews with the instructors showcased that there is a strong emotional commitment from the instructors as all care and wish to work more with gender diversity in the education. However, the instructors lack resources in the form of time, knowledge, and more explicit support. While none of the instructors have felt threatened by the students, they all agreed it was an uncomfortable topic due to how polarising it is. The instructors’ level of knowledge regarding gender diversity directly depends on how interested they, as individuals, are, as the university has not offered formal opportunities for them to develop their knowledge and skills. This means students from different disciplines might receive different amounts of education related to gender diversity, further putting the burden of diversity on those who are marginalised and personally care about the topic. Furthermore, as most programmes work with gender diversity in relation to characters, programmes that are not involved in this process might be more resistant to gender diversity as they do not discuss it, while those with more creatively inclined disciplines carry the burden of making good representation. One instructor noted how the students seemingly have a fear of creating bad representation, and in an attempt to appease everyone they create gender ambiguous characters, even if they wish to work more actively with gender diversity. Marginalised students receive no dedicated support, and power and communication is not discussed in relation to gender diversity in the second game project. Discrimination is dealt with on a case-by-case basis, and students often wait until things have gone overboard before reporting it. The norms of women and other marginalised groups being harassed and dismissed in the games industry may unintentionally be reinforced by this. However, all instructors expressed a desire to work more with gender diversity, and wanted more time to discuss gender diversity with the students to ensure a more nuanced discussion.

Discussion The student survey and the instructor interviews both confirm topics raised by the content analysis while adding additional insights. Overall, the education focus on characters over the target audiences and developers when it comes to gender diversity, and there is a lack of support for students in general but also specifically marginalised students. Both students and faculty members have a strong emotional commitment, but gender diversity becomes optional due to the lack of formal support and criteria. Thus, the burden is put on individual students and instructors to educate themselves, and others, about gender diversity. As the students prioritise what to spend time and energy on during the second game project, nuanced diversity is at risk of being removed. Furthermore, as it is up to each individual to work with gender diversity, marginalised students who cannot deprioritise it without deprioritising themselves are put at risk and might stay silent in order to avoid conflicts with others in the group. While perhaps not as extreme as the harassment present in the industry (Oschner, 2017; Jason, 2015), female students are still subjected to harassment they can identify to be caused by their gender identity. Without dialogues regarding gender diversity in relation to developers, it can be difficult for the students to identify acts of oppression. And without clear guidelines on what behaviour is unacceptable and who to contact when subjected to such behaviours, there is a significant risk that more students than previously thought are subjected to subtle malicious sexism or unintentional sexism caused by a lack of insight and cultural norms.

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As a result of avoiding these conversations about gender, students work with “androgynous” or ambiguously gendered characters (that unfortunately tend to be read as male) in an attempt to appease everyone: it is enough diversity that those advocating for it are silenced, and it is not intruding on the male norm, so those resisting gender diversity are not unsettled. Yet, despite the frequency of these characters, there seems to be a lack of educational material discussing “gender-neutral” characters, and other relevant aspects of gender diversity such as toxic masculinity and the constructed nature of genders (Butler, 1988). All instructors mentioned that advocating for diversity is difficult, as it often leads to conflicts that were similar in nature to those outlined by Ruberg (2019). Adding in new elements of diversity might escalate negative reactions and lead to harassment, and instructors may be hesitant to push further without more formal support in the form of time and resources. It is positive that seminars exist where gender diversity is discussed, but a larger-scale effort spanning across the entire education is needed to give the students the tools to understand and independently work with gender diversity. As men were reportedly less comfortable discussing gender diversity than women, both in their project groups and with faculty members, and as students reportedly had discussions that excluded opinions, it is important to open up for honest discussions about gender in a nuanced way where students do not feel exposed. While program- wide lectures are an efficient way to get a large amount of information to all students, the loss of more intimate discussion might be counterproductive. It is additionally curious that the students discuss gender diversity being forced, despite the lack of formal criteria actually forcing it. As pointed out in the content analysis, no criteria require the students to discuss gender diversity; they must consider some aspect of societal and ethical aspects, but nothing forces the students to specifically discuss gender diversity. The claim that gender diversity is being forced can be read as defensive, and further points to the presence of a rift between students who care and advocate for gender diversity, and students who do not care and resist gender diversity. The lack of time and resources for in-depth discussions about gender diversity means that very visible issues, such as hypersexualisation, are removed from the games, while issues that require a deeper understanding of gender are still present to some degree, such as objectification (Nussbaum, 1995), stereotypes, and ambivalent sexism (Glick & Fiske, 1996). Some of the games produced seemingly adhere to the male-as-default norm, both for the characters as well as the players, as the focus of diversity for characters still partly fails. This is not to say that the University of Skövde should stop discussing gender diversity in relation to characters, but there should be an increased effort to include dialogues about marginalised genders as players and as developers as well. When students do not consider diversity a natural part of video games, it results in games that do not properly commit to gender diversity as it is deprioritised instead of incorporated when creating the games. Furthermore, students may be unaware of the problematic nature of this and instead consider ambiguously gendered characters enough of a commitment to gender diversity. Alternatively, they might be afraid of admitting they are not prioritizing gender diversity, due to the polarised arguments that exist around this, and as they do not wish to face the consequences this brings. Ultimately, sexism, and particularly hostile sexism, is not a resolved issue – not in the video game industry, nor in games educations and at the University of Skövde. There are still games being produced with concerning themes, and while the university should not, and cannot,

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censor these games, it should perhaps be reconsidered if these type of games should be given a platform during the final, and optional, exhibition. This thesis showcases certain concerns that were raised by Brusk and Dannberg (2016); students expressed a want for more dedicated support for women and non-binary students, and instructors expressed a want for more tools and resources to spot sexism and oppression, and to work with gender diversity in a more nuanced way. While the University of Skövde has made great strides and remain ahead of the industry with faculty members who iterate on courses to improve them, it might be time to make larger structural changes that further the discussion about gender diversity. This thesis unfortunately had a limited scope on gender diversity with a focus on women, but other marginalised genders must be given space in this conversation, and it is vital that toxic masculinity and male stereotypes are discussed and deconstructed in order for students to take responsibility and understand their social role.

Future work To begin with, this thesis is not comprehensive and does not map the full efforts of gender diversity at the University of Skövde. Due to scope limitations, it focuses primarily on women, and does not discuss the effects of toxic masculinity and male stereotypes extensively, nor does it discuss genderqueer aspects in any significant way. The student survey and the instructor interviews were both limited and can be expanded upon in order to present a more representative conclusion. There is great potential for future work in terms of evaluating the diversity efforts at the University of Skövde, as well as practical suggestions for improvements. In order to evaluate their efforts, the university should dedicate more time and effort to track various aspects of gender diversity. The division of power and roles in the project groups, the usage of stereotypes, the intended target audience, and whether or not the students have a common baseline of knowledge to support them in these discussions should all be of interest. The inclusion of a practical guide to accessibility is a great step for general diversity, and it would be interesting to see if a similar guide to gender diversity (as well as other aspects) could be produced to give the students a more practical starting point. Furthermore, it would be interesting to investigate if the inclusion of said practical guide means the students are more receptive to working with accessibility compared to other societal and ethical aspects. In terms of practical improvements the university should commit to, the largest one would be increasing the time and resources dedicated to discussing gender diversity. The feminist, dialogic approach taken by Rouse and Corron (2020) is of interest here and could serve to open up dialogues regarding several issues identified in this thesis. By welcoming all voices and teaching students to brave conflicts rather than avoid them through co-facilitating, dialogue becomes more equitable, and “enables us to name and surface the myriad ways in which many kinds of oppression, including patriarchy, racism, homophobia, and ableism are pervasive in the games space.” Furthermore, as noted by Rouse and Corron, this dialogue should not be contained to individual moments, and should ideally rather stretch across the education as a whole. By opening dialogues and providing students with tools and knowledge to handle these in a constructive and productive way, the University of Skövde could help shift the toxic culture within games. Moving through stages of dialogue, the students can learn to understand each

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other and to take responsibility for the content they produce. Not only could this be productive for discussions about oppression and diversity, but more discipline specific knowledge could benefit from open and constructive feedback where the students trust each other to listen. Rouse and Corron (2020) also state that “student achievement is seen both in academic course work, and also in personal and interpersonal capacity to understand social inequality and make meaningful connections across difference to affect change”. Additionally, the University of Skövde should • make structural changes that clarify the importance of gender diversity and enforces this throughout the entire education, • provide the instructors not only with more time to work with gender diversity but more education and tools, • ensure all instructors have an equal baseline of gender diversity in order to avoid it becoming optional in the classrooms, • ensure all students have an equal baseline of gender diversity, and to use assignment criteria to make sure students work with gender diversity, • educate both the instructors and students on harassment, how to spot more subtle acts of oppression and how to actively work against harassment, and • provide clear and structured ways for the students to contact faculty members when harassment occurs. Some of these points were noted in the internal report by Brusk and Dannberg (2016), and it would be interesting to see a follow-up on this report to gauge the progress since. Finally, while it is not the author’s belief that the University of Skövde should censor games, the games presented during the final optional exhibition should perhaps live up to certain expectations regarding diversity in order to be given the privilege of promotion. As the largest and most comprehensive games education in one of the most equal countries in the world, the University of Skövde is several steps ahead of the standard set by the industry and this should be acknowledged. The inclusion of articles and seminars related to not only gender, but ethnicity, disabilities, and sexuality as well, showcases that the university is taking steps to educate their students about these matters. It would be a great joy to see even more dedicated efforts at the University of Skövde, to see more nuanced portrayals of gender diversity and more open and honest dialogues surrounding it, and to see the impact it would have not only on the institution as a whole but on the video game industry as well.

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