According to washingtonpost.com, Girls Make Games CEO Laila Shabir is encouraging young girls to make more awesome games. According to Shabir, the reinforcement of strict gender roles and who is allowed to enjoy certain hobbies inspired her to start Girls Make Games, a summer camp where girls learn all of the basics of game development, including coding, and concept art illustration. The camp is hosted by LearnDistrict, an educational media company founded by Shabir and Ish Syed. During the camps three week run, they work together in groups with the goal of producing their own video games for publishing. This year, GMG offered three on site camp venues in San Mateo, Seattle, and Bellevue, Washington. Every year, GMG selects the best student project to get crowdfunded, developed and published. Shabir said GMG so far has published 11 student games.
The camp came about from Shabir’s own experiences within game development. Prior to cofounding LearnDistrict with the intention of making educational video games, she worked in another male dominated industry, finance. However, Shabir said the biggest gender disparity she noticed was in the video game industry. When she put out hiring notices for her small indie game studio, almost all of the applicants were men. Shabir said, “When I put up the job apps, it was like 90 percent men and boys applying, saying this is my dream job to do this, But I never had women applying, saying I’ve been dying to make an educational game.” LearnDistrict eventually grew but Shabir remained the only woman.
This year, some GMG students attended camp at the Crystal Dynamics offices in San Mateo. Crystal Dynamics is the current developer of the Tomb Raider franchise. Two of Crystal Dynamics cofounders were women, Judy Lang and Madeline Canepa. GMG students are encouraged to make whatever they want to as a core part of the curriculum. Shabir is quoted in saying that, “Continuously reminding them that there aren’t many women in the industry can go the other way, No, it’s more like, you know what, women make awesome games. So we want your game. That gets them excited.”
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