Women are 52% of this Year’s Gen Con Industry Insider Slate

[Independent voter]

I know Gen Con from it being the big annual convention for pen and paper games. If you played D&D at one time, you've heard of it. Not sure what they are doing now or how they are doing for that matter.

They made a point of having women make up 50% percent of their panels, panels are discussions where players sit as audience and 4 or 5 industry people from the game companies give a presentation.

I think its the wave of the future, gender parity.



http://jessicalprice.tumblr.com/post...n-con-industry




Of the 25 Insiders, 13 (52%) are female.

I don’t think I can emphasize enough how big of a deal this is. Gen Con last year had over 60,000 attendees. I can’t think of another gaming convention that size that had a featured speaker lineup with actual gender parity. (Five years ago, the ratio of women to men in the Insiders was 1:16 (6.25%). Two years ago, it was 4 out of 25 (16%). So this happened relatively fast.) Gen Con’s record on this is not good, but this looks to me like a good-faith effort to make real change–dramatic change, instead of the teeth-pulling, incremental change characteristic of the industry.

Does this magically fix all of tabletop gaming’s misogyny problems? No. But women being recognized as gaming authorities, our work being highlighted, our input being sought, and just our presence in equal numbers with men helps. It relieves the pressure on us as individuals to Speak For All Women In Games. It allows us to be people first and representatives of a demographic second. It normalizes our presence, our expertise, and our authority.

It’s not going to prevent another Bill Willingham debacle, but it’s a big step toward creating an environment where that sort of thing is less likely to happen.

It also represents an embrace of new blood, and the present/future of gaming rather than a focus on the past. Historically, a lot of the focus of the Industry Insider slate emphasized long tenure in the industry, and a history of significant contributions. That’s great, and there are still representatives of that group of people present among this year’s Insiders. However, that sort of focus also tended to ensure that the people being featured as Insiders were people everyone already knew about (and exacerbated the problem of newer people getting recognition).

This year’s slate recognizes people who are doing important things now, and helps raise their profiles. It has indie tabletop publishers, indie LARP designers, event organizers, activists, critics, academics, and community managers in addition to designers, writers, and artists. The Insider selection this year is much more reflective of the spectrum of people who are shaping games right now, and of what’s actually going on in the gaming world. Who gets asked to speak is important, and the Insider program this year is boosting voices that need to be heard.


There’s still a long way to go, however–we’re still a pretty white bunch of people. It’s important to get more people talking about accessibility. It’s important to get more LGBTQIA (especially the BTQIA part of that) people heard.

People of color are represented, but they’re still massively underrepresented. (Friends, if you are a person of color who works in games, or know someone who’d be a great featured speaker, please send them my way. It’s not too early to start working on who gets invited next year.)

However, and I think this is important:

This year’s Guest of Honor is Mike Pondsmith. He’s a great choice, because in addition to being an expert and an important figure in tabletop gaming, he’s also an example of the presence of people of color in gaming from the old days. He founded a game company in 1985, and has been involved in pretty much every aspect of gaming since then. (He’s currently collaborating with the makers of The Witcher on an RPG video game.)

I also want to highlight a few of my colleagues who are Insiders this year:
●Wes Schneider (@wesschneider): Paizo’s editor-in-chief and general all-around awesome snarky gothic psychopomp.

●Amanda Hamon Kunz: Paizo developer and rising star in tabletop.
●Crystal Frasier (@amazonchique): Paizo developer, fan-favorite author, and graphic designer/artist.
●Katherine Cross: journalist, critic, and thinker who’s continually raising the level of discourse in games.
●Anna Kreider (of Go Make Me A Sandwich): one of the most insightful writers about issues of representation in games and someone who regularly brings the juicy data to the discussion.
●Donna Prior: community manager extraordinaire and founder of OrcaCon.

You can hear all of us speak (and come chat with us one-to-one!) at this year’s Gen Con.

I really want to compliment Peter Adkison (Gen Con’s owner) and Adrian Swartout (Gen Con’s CEO) on this. It’s great when conventions and companies step up to lead in ensuring that new voices – especially those from underrepresented groups – get heard.

Here’s to a diverse and rewarding Gen Con 2016. :-)

[Kraenen]

Do they actually have diverse ideas (the point of the convention, I presume), or diverse skin colour and genitalia and sexual persuasions?

[Deleted]

So what is the purpose of this?

[Forgettable]

What is the % of women who play tabletop games? What is the % of women who work on tabletop games? Somewhere between those two percentages should be the amount represented as presenters here. I doubt that value is even remotely close to 50% for either of those numbers.

[Independent voter]

What is the % of women who play tabletop games? What is the % of women who work on tabletop games? Somewhere between those two percentages should be the amount represented as presenters here. I doubt that value is even remotely close to 50% for either of those numbers.

That might be part of it, D&D has more female players I think. I couldn't find any numbers other than about 200,000 people attended it in 2015.

[oxymoronic]

That might be part of it, D&D has more female players I think. I couldn't find any numbers other than about 200,000 people attended it in 2015.

lmao hell no, no study will ever convince me of that

[Forgettable]

That might be part of it, D&D has more female players I think. I couldn't find any numbers other than about 200,000 people attended it in 2015.

My anecdotal evidence says approximately 10% of DnD players are female.

[Hooked]

Women like crossword puzzles, crafts and all that other horseshit, makes sense more would be on the committee.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Do they actually have diverse ideas (the point of the convention, I presume), or diverse skin colour and genitalia and sexual persuasions?

I dunno dude, 25 people probably have different points of view, all coming from different backgrounds. But that's just assuming. For all we know some of them could be borg, zerg, feminist or some other hive mind. You might be on to something.

[May90]

Do they need to keep adding letters to the abbreviation? LGBT is clear enough, don't need to add every single letter of the alphabet to include everyone explicitly.

[Deleted]

Is a thick neck and a dirty, plain T-shirt a requirement?

[Goondicker]

There’s still a long way to go, however–we’re still a pretty white bunch of people.

Why does it matter? It's not a KKK meeting or something.

Actively looking to replace whites with non-whites simply because of race is racist.

Promoting someone to a position based on gender or race instead of merit will utimately hurt the community.

[GreenJesus]

WTF IS a LGBTQIAOIDFNIOQWE?? Can we just put it in the other category? Jesus christ.. And why the hell do we need equal representation at a Dungeons and dragons con meeting? Pretty sure 90% of people who play it still are Otaku males. I never understood the whole 50% and 50%. I.e. We really want Mr. Dinkleburg who directed the [insert good movie here] and Robert Downie jr, but since we only have a spot for 1 male I guess we will have to go with Rob downie.. For the female spot I guess lets find one that could fit with the subject.. Sarah palin. She was on TV once right?

[Deleted]

Of the 25 Insiders, 13 (52%) are female.

I don’t think I can emphasize enough how big of a deal this is. Gen Con last year had over 60,000 attendees.

How many of the attendees were male?
because i'm going to go out on a limb here and say that 50% of the audience is not female.

Here’s to a diverse and rewarding Gen Con 2016. :-)

Yeah diversity if dangling protrusions is what is important.

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I dunno dude, 25 people probably have different points of view.

you don't understand what those words means apparently.

[Mormolyce]

Do they actually have diverse ideas (the point of the convention, I presume), or diverse skin colour and genitalia and sexual persuasions?

On pen and paper RPGs?

[Deleted]

On pen and paper RPGs?

Like in favor or not of guide books?

[Devilyaki]

Are they doing such to try to promote the games that are heavily played by a males to try to sway and possibly convince some women to try them out. I hope that is the reason, nothing wrong with that at all, but it most likely just a manifestation to stave off criticism from social media about it being "sexist" or offensive to females. What this stuff usually revolves around now a days sadly.

[Super Kami Dende]

This isn't too weird to me.

My regular 4 player DnD group is 2 guys and 2 Girls. Funnily enough the 2 Women are also Scientists.

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why are these people putting so much importance on gender it sounds sexist to me

Because people seem to have this idea in their heads that Women are underrepresented for some malicious reason, rather than them just having different interests.

[Saucexorzski]

Sounds like forced diversity. The oppressed gain power and turn into the very thing they fought against. Human nature never changes.

[Mormolyce]

Like in favor or not of guide books?

Hey now, they're trying to start a discussion not a war.

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Because people seem to have this idea in their heads that Women are underrepresented for some malicious reason, rather than them just having different interests.

Apparently they don't if they're half women at a pen and paper RPG conference. That's about as neckbeardy as it gets.