Last November, a guy posted a blunt question: ‘Why are there so few lady game creators?’ This spawned a big response under the Twitter hashtag ‘1reasonwhy.’ Stories are added regularly including stats about women paid less than men in the gaming industry and ugly accounts of workplaces that seem more like fraternities. As part of our focus on women in tech this week, we reached Rhianna Pratchett in London. Pratchett’s just finished an overhaul of the Tomb Raider game where she set out to bring depth to the famous protagonist, Lara Croft. She worried about hashtag horror stories scaring off people who might want to break into her industry. So Pratchett started a supplemental discussion, hashtag ‘1reasontobe,’ that is, reasons for women to be in the video gaming industry.
Last November, a guy posted a blunt question: ‘Why are there so few lady game creators?’ This spawned a big response under the Twitter hashtag ‘1reasonwhy.’ Stories are added regularly including stats about women paid less than men in the gaming industry and ugly accounts of workplaces that seem more like fraternities. As part of our focus on women in tech this week, we reached Rhianna Pratchett in London. Pratchett’s just finished an overhaul of the Tomb Raider game where she set out to bring depth to the famous protagonist, Lara Croft. She worried about hashtag horror stories scaring off people who might want to break into her industry. So Pratchett started a supplemental discussion, hashtag ‘1reasontobe,’ that is, reasons for women to be in the video gaming industry.