17 minute read
Women of Xbox
LIVESTREAM EVENT 25th November
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WITH THANKS TO
Join us for an inspiring livestream awards on November 25th
We’re very excited to announce this year’s Women in Games Awards shortlist, opposite. Congratulations to everyone who made it out of many, many, many entries.
This year’s event will be livestreamed. The decision was somewhat forced upon us, but the outcome is looking brilliant. We’re now working with game event production experts ADVNCR on the awards, and thanks to them we’ll be doing a full live production.
We’re super excited to have two incredible hosts for the event, with Charleyy Hodson (Xbox) and Elle Osili-Wood (BBC), both of whom had made our shortlists before coming onboard for the event. We’ll also have some special guests in the studio on the day, and plenty more joining us remotely. All of our shortlisted nominees will have the option to join us live. It should be an incredible event to celebrate the contribution of women to the UK’s games industry. And we‘re hoping you can all join us too on the afternoon of Wednesday the 25th of November, we’re expecting the event to run for under an hour, exact timings TBC.
The shortlist is opposite. A big thanks to all of our judges for putting in the time and eff ort to choose our winners. We’ll be featuring them all in an upcoming feature on the state of play for women in the industry
Finally, we’d like to thank our sponsors for this year’s event, without whom it would not be possible: Rare, Facebook Gaming, Unity, EA, ADVNCR, Amiqus, Creative Assembly, Hangar 13, OPM Jobs and Splash Damage.
WOMEN IN GAMES AWARDS SHORTLIST 2020
Rising Star of the Year – Development Sponsored by Creative Assembly
• Hannah Rose, Bithell Games • Inês Filipa Brasil Lagarto, Lab42 • Jasmine Moore, Sumo Digital (Nottingham) • Jessica Sham, TT Games • Julia Shusterman, Sports Interactive • Vicky McKelvey, Supermassive Games
Rising Star of the Year – Business Sponsored by EA
• Christie Moulding, Team17 • Emily Horler, ReedPop, UK • Emma Withington, Bastion • Eva Poppe, Unity • Shazina Adam, SIEE • Katie Laurence, Ubisoft
Creative Impact of the Year Sponsored by Splash Damage
• Anna Hollinrake, Mediatonic • Helen Kaur, Rocksteady • Jess Hyland, Wonderstruck • Julie Savage, Supermassive Games • Karoline Forsberg, nDreams • Lily Zhu, Splash Damage
Technical Impact of the Year In association with Made with Unity
• Amy Phillips, Media Molecule • Anastasiia Tsaplii, Bossa Studios • Cheryl Razzell, Polystream • Michelle Chapman, Sumo Digital • Mohrag Taylor, Creative Assembly • Nareice Wint, Lucid Games & Party
Llama Games
Comms Impact of the Year
• Amy Hughes, Square Enix • Charleyy Hodson, Xbox UK • Haley Uyrus, Mediatonic • Taylea Enver, Frontier Developments • Sola Kasali, EA • Zuzanna ‘Zee’ Inczewska, Team Adopt Me
Businesswoman of the Year Sponsored by Amiqus
• Gemma Johnson-Brown, Dovetail Games • Korina Abbott, Neonhive • Maria Sayans, Ustwo • Nusrat Shah, Exient • Tina Lauro Pollock, Brain and Nerd Ltd • Lauran Carter, Liquid Crimson
Journalist of the Year
• Elle Osili-Wood, Freelance journalist and presenter • Jessica Wells, Network N • Lara Jackson, GameByte • Louise Blain, Dialect/Freelance • Vic Hood, TechRadar • Vikki Blake, Eurogamer & NME
Career Mentor of the Year Sponsored by Hangar 13
• Caroline Miller, Indigo Pearl • Korina Abbott, NeonHive • Melissa Phillips, Silver Rain Games • Romana Ramzan, Glasgow Caledonian
University • Tara Mustapha, Code Coven • Anisa Sanusi, Limit Break Mentorship
Games Campaigner of the Year Sponsored by OPM Jobs
• Cinzia Musio, Splash Damage • Fey Vercuiel, Studio Gobo • Lauren Kaye, She Plays Games • Marie-Claire Isaaman, Women in Games • Michelle Tilley, Sony Interactive Entertainment • Roz Tuplin, Games London
Outstanding Contribution Sponsored by Rare
The recipient of this award will be announced during the livestream event.
WWW.WOMENINGAMESAWARDS.COM
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Exclusive Media Partner In association with
Event Sponsor
Award Sponsor (Businesswoman of the Year)
Award Sponsor (Rising Star – Development) Award Sponsor (Career Mentor of the Year) Award Sponsor (Games campaigner of the Year) Award Sponsor (Creative Impact of the Year)
Meet the Women of Xbox
Xbox’s UK studios and office have banded together to create a new, officially recognised, group that campaigning for greater diversity, representation and support of women in the games industry. Seth Barton talks to Rare’s Louise O’Connor about the initiative
Xbox has been a progressive force in the industry of late. Its dual-tiered console strategy is innovative, the EA Play deal furthered its ambitions to change the way games are distributed, and the ZeniMax acquisition is the most exciting in years, potentially redefining the term first-party.
And now, just as crucially, the platform is making another positive progressive move, with the announcement of Women of Xbox – United Kingdom.
The new group is formed of women from right across the Xbox family in the UK. With representatives from across all disciplines of games development at Rare, Playground Games and Ninja Theory, as well as other Xbox teams. We caught up with Rare’s Louise O’Connor, executive producer on Everwild, to discuss the founding and aims of the new group.
“I’ve been working at Rare for a long time, and I’ve been a part of the Women in Games group at Rare,” O’Connor tells us – she also gave a brilliant keynote at last year’s Women in Games Awards. But recently the Rare group found new allies with the huge growth of Xbox Game Studios which started in 2018.
“We wanted to use this opportunity of partnering with our sister studios, with Ninja, with Playground, with the Xbox teams in London and Reading, and just build a community of women, a support network for the women that are already in the industry, but also as an inspiration for girls and women who want to get into the industry. To offer them our perspective on what it’s like to be in the industry.”
A BREATH OF FRESH RARE
That’s something which is much needed at present, as the media discussion of women in games has had a decidedly toxic air about it during 2020. And while there are issues, O’Connor explains, there’s space for celebration as well.
“This group of women have come together to celebrate the diversity that we have, the way the industry has changed and grown. And there is a celebration in that, we have to be proud of all the work that we’ve put in. And we have to be proud of the fact that we are willing to put more work in to continue to drive diversity across our studios. And so we have to celebrate that.
“There’s no room and no space for toxicity, or bad behaviour in our business and in our communities. And so I think this is a great opportunity for us to talk about the fact that this is a great industry to be a part of, there is nothing to stop any woman thriving, to have a great career. And to feel included and be creative, to have an opportunity to do anything that they want to do in the games industry. “And I will climb to the top of the highest “A long time ago, it was mountain – well maybe not the highest mountain a boy’s world. And that’s because I’m not a very good climber,” she laughs, “but I will go so not true right now – somewhere really high. And I will shout it from the top of it, that this is a girls are pirates, too” great industry to be in.”
Our feeling is that women’s standing in our industry has improved immensely over the last 20 years – from a low bar admittedly. However, to make more progress it becomes necessary to shine a light on some pretty ugly stuff. Which in turn could make some outside think that things are getting worse rather than better, when overall the opposite is true over the long term.
“I think that’s very true,” replies O’Connor. “It’s certainly a very different place to what it was, a very different industry. I actually feel quite privileged to have been part of that journey, to see first hand how it’s evolved, I hope that I can inspire people coming into the industry to know that it’s ever changing. And it’s so willing to grow and learn and continues to want to do that.
“We’ve worked really hard, and this is my personal take, but I think it’s because our audiences have changed. A long time ago, it was a boy’s world. And that’s so not true right now – girls are pirates, too,” quips O’Connor in reference to Rare’s own Sea of Thieves. “And I think that that’s the important change. It is our audience. And I think our industry needs to change to reflect our audience. And that’s what’s happened over the last 20 odd years.”
Now that may sound like a long, slow grind, but O’Connor thinks that games are actually transforming faster than many similar industries.
“When you think about us as an entertainment industry, I think the games industry is so fast paced, compared to things like the WE’LL BE CELEBRATING the priceless contribution that movie industry, it’s women make to the games industry at our Women in Games one of the many Awards on Wednesday 25th of November – with our headline reasons that I love sponsor this year being Xbox Game Studios’ Rare. Join us to be working online for a fantastic livestream event. For more information in it. see page 48.
“What I see now is an industry that is willing to self reflect and make changes, they want to diversify, they want to see representation in games, and they want to be inclusive, they want to be accessible. I feel that as an industry that we’ve evolved, like this idea of gaming for good. Really thinking about our audience and our players and trying to get as many players into our games, giving them the opportunity to play the things that we’ve worked so hard to build and make. That’s what I love about what we do.”
A PLAYGROUND FOR ALL
It’s still early days for Women of Xbox, but the very fact that Microsoft has chosen to champion what could have been a wholly inward-looking
initiative is very promising. So what does the organisation have planned?
“The initial idea was that we really wanted to do an event and have people come and meet up. But obviously we can’t do that,” explains O’Connor. “So instead we’ve decided to start with a series of videos, letting the Women of Xbox talk openly about their industry, with the first being, naturally, how they got started in games.
“We wanted it to feel like a panel discussion. So we’ve got a group of women from across the studios, from a variety of different disciplines, and all at different levels, who have come into the industry in lots of different ways.
“And they are just talking about their own experiences getting into the industry and
hopefully sharing some useful nuggets of information and insight.
“We’re very lucky to have a great amount of support from people around the different studios to help us create this,” she adds, “We’re all together in one group.”
Future topics are currently still up for debate: “We want to work with all the women across the studios to really think about what kinds of topics we’d like to talk about in the future.
“And then we’ll continue to make videos and do panel discussions and hopefully talk about things that you don’t normally talk about in the games industry because they’re coming from very different perspectives, and can hopefully give some insight into just being in the games industry, which are relevant to everybody.”
Beyond that there’s an awful lot more that the group could undertake of course, connecting the initiative to in-game content for instance, or launching paid internships to proactively improve diversity.
“This is exactly the kind of stuff that we’re discussing. At the moment, we’re just in that ideas gathering phase. There’s a selection of things that we’ve started to target, that we feel are achievable, right now, and then as we grow this group, and we build, the goal will be to really think about how we can use our games, our platforms, and our communities, our social platforms to really make a difference in our industry and in our products.”
Rare and Ninja Theory both have been exemplars in terms of engaging with women through their games, and it will be interesting to see how they both, along with Playground Games’ upcoming Fable, continue to evolve in that respect in the years to come.
“With my project [Everwild] and what I do in my studio, I believe in the power of diversity and the teams because I think we represent our audience far better in that respect. And that’s how we make great games. And that’s how we make different things.
“I believe in the power of being creative with a diverse team, to really think differently about what our audience wants and needs and expects. I get really excited about the future of the industry. And I’m someone who’s, you know, I’m old school. But the future is bright. There’s so many opportunities for new experiences that we could present to our players and new audiences that we can bring into our platforms.
“And we’re thinking not just about the workplace and how essential it is to have a diverse workplace environment. But also about the amazing communities that we create as a result of these games that we’re releasing –and I get really excited about all of that. The future is ours to take! Let go do it! Let’s go diversify our teams. Let’s go build our industry up, let’s go shine a light on the great things that we do.”
Will Game Pass fund indies?
With Microsoft making aggressive, headline-grabbing moves with its subscription service, Chris Wallace finds out what Game Pass’ recent developments mean for smaller creators
Game Pass”
Douglas Flinders Director of Bit Loom
Mike Rose Founder of No More Robots
It seems, if Microsoft has its way, that we’re about to have a very Game Pass Christmas. The company has been focusing its efforts on its subscription service for some time now – It even seems to be prioritising Game Pass over selling its own hardware. Matt Booty told us last year that Microsoft first-party titles would still play on the Xbox One for the first couple of years of the Series X and S’s lifespan. It was an unconventional, headline-grabbing promise, but it shows Microsoft’s clear commitment to keeping players in the Microsoft ecosystem via Game Pass, regardless of the hardware under their TVs.
Game Pass goes beyond the Xbox too – It has been available on PC for some time now, even featuring PC-exclusive titles such as Crusader Kings III. And Microsoft has been expanding beyond even that, recently linking its live streaming platform xCloud into the Game Pass service, expanding its reach to Android phones (though it’s having some issues with Apple’s App store rules, so don’t expect it on iOS just yet).
It isn’t enough to just make the service available if there’s nothing to play on it, of course. So Microsoft has made some major additions to its rolling 100+ game library in two bombshell announcements.
First, the announcement that EA’s own subscription service, EA Play, would be joining Xbox Game Pass, bringing mammoth franchises such as FIFA, The Sims, and Mass Effect to Microsoft’s service at no extra cost. It was, we thought at the time, the biggest deal in gaming. Our own MCV/DEVELOP editor Seth Barton remarked: “it makes us wonder, if this, then what next?”
Well, “what next” turned out to be an even bigger bombshell, with a $7.5 billion purchase of Zenimax – Bringing the The Elder Scrolls, Fallout and Doom franchises, plus many more, into Microsoft’s toybox.
It’s still unclear if Microsoft intends to share its toys with Sony or not – sure, having the next Elder Scrolls exclusive to your platform is a good way to shift consoles. But with next-gen games set to increase in price, the offer of “£70 on PS5, or ‘free’ via Game Pass” is still an incredibly tempting one.
The consumer argument for Game Pass looks pretty clear cut, then. But what about developers? Game Pass currently boasts over 15 million subscribers, which is likely to increase as EA Play and Zenimax’s library are added to the service. That’s a lot of eyeballs on your game, and it’s particularly tempting for indie developers – there’s no longer a need to produce time-consuming demos if players can try out your entire game via a subscription service.
But does appearing on Game Pass help or hurt sales of your game? And while xCloud brings more potential eyeballs to your title than ever before, does the incoming triple-A deluge of titles run the risk of drowning out smaller creators?
THE GAME PASS BUMP
First things first, how useful is GamePass to indie developers today? How much does the service actually drive discoverability and sales?
“It’s been very dependent on the game for us,” notes Mike Rose, founder of No More Robots. “For Descenders, it has been immense. Sales across all platforms increased after we went into Game Pass – for example, Steam sales tripled since Game Pass – and Xbox sales themselves quadrupled after Game Pass.
“For Hypnospace Outlaw, Steam sales have doubled since we entered Game Pass, although it’s tricky to say that’s definitely Game Pass causing that, since we also launched on Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 that day too. For Nowhere Prophet, we haven’t really seen increased sales or discoverability anywhere. So it’s definitely been a bit all over the place.”
“Unfortunately PHOGS! hasn’t released yet so we don’t have any data to share,” says Douglas Flinders, director of Bit Loom, who’s twin-headed dog simulator PHOGS! Is set to launch on Game Pass (as well as PC, Switch and PS4) later this year.
