Competitive gaming is making it to the mainstream! Competitions are selling out venues like Madison Square Garden and online streaming of Esports is as popular as viewing of professional athletic events. Colleges are starting to provide scholarships for competitive gaming. It is time to build the pipeline to prepare students for these opportunities while honoring their interests and valuing their skills. This chat is aimed at building a community around the growth of Esports in grades 6 though 12 which will naturally feed into the college programs. Join us for the weekly #EsportsEDU chat at 7:30 pm ET. It is a 30 minute chat that will have one question / topic each week to guide the discussion. Use the hashtag #Esportsedu or join us via participate.com at participate.com/chats/EsportsEDU
Welcome to #EsportsEDU, our weekly chat happening every Thursday night 7:30 - 8:00 pm ET. Please introduce yourself: Name, location, role, and share your initial thoughts on the issues around #sexism in #gaming.
Steve from NJ - I teach game design and development at a middle school and have a well established game club. Looking to bring #Esports to our HS this year as well! #EsportsEDU
I feel that we have a gender bias in gaming to begin with where it seems like it's more for boys. This makes me sad. The problem is perpetuated in the game design industry and the #Esports culture. This needs to stop. Character models in games are objectify women #EsportsEDU
Our format for the #EsportsEDU chat is ONE topic / ONE question per night open discussion. We are trying to tackle the big issues and help grow the K-12 to College #Esports pipeline by building community!
Tonight's topic: #SEXISM in #Esports - How can we raise awareness, combat issues, and truly create an inclusive culture? How can we work with publishers to change the culture? #EsportsEDU
We really need the developers / publishers on board to tackle the issue with us from in game culture, in studio culture, to character models, and beyond. #EsportsEdu
Agreed though I will say we are starting to see more female characters being rendered in ways that are not sexualized which is a good thing, some devs are even placing females in strong roles in the games narratives
We also need to encourage more woman to enter the field (it think this could help a lot) and work to make that environment safe for them, which will also require dev on boarding #EsportsEdu
SO true - but the very sad truth is that many women who have entered the field have been victim to the behavior and as a result sometimes leave the field :( #EsportsEDU
This is a good article on the topic. Games were made for everyone - until marketing stepped in and said "let's target boys." #EsportsEDUhttps://t.co/azzeiTjTkN
CS is a tough field to be a woman in still. But we do need to keep trying. Also, as consumers, supporting games by companies with good culture and games made by woman is a simple way to show we care. #esportsedu
My PhD involved work on games. An initial idea during it was, actually creating a game to help people with chronic depression. This ended up getting pushed aside, because the bigger problem is there is not enough diversity in game characters across more than gender. #esportsedu
While male characters have more body shapes than females, they're still usually presented as overly masculine. Almost all characters are given the same walk animation. We still default to very little clothing / tight clothing on females.
#esportsedu
Everyone needs to be able to see themselves. We need characters that not only show diversity of body shape and race, but also abilities (and not just magical). Same way we think about this when choosing books, we need to think of this when choosing games. #esportsedu
See, what worries me when we go down paths like this, is that if you aren't "like most girls" then the message you receive is you're "abnormal." What if we just made really fun games with diverse chars? Where playing as a female didn't automatically = a weaker char? #esportsedu
Outro: Thanks for joining us tonight! Please re-introduce yourself (Name, Location, Role) and share your thoughts on future topics for the #EsportsEDU chat!
But marketing doesn't choose the largest group - usually considered too diverse to hit - can't easily "target" the message. The largest group would be all kids, not just boys. Most devs don't have much say. Need brave Marketers/Designers/Companies #esportsedu
I hate that my gut reaction when I talk to a company that wants to allow free form text and/or chat in an #edtech product is to wince knowing that I have to raise the above. How are you going to moderate it? How do you keep kids safe? #esportsedu
In reply to
@thechocmoojoo, @MrMillerCodes, @mr_isaacs
While I say that I also realize that we really are making a push for #SEL so let's bring this to the surface if we really want to work on empathy... #EsportsEDU
In reply to
@thechocmoojoo, @MusingsOnEdTech, @MrMillerCodes
