 So yes, as I said before, I'm Maddie Reyes, and I also have content warnings for past and sexuality. It's not gonna be too explicit. I won't be showing any words that should be triggering or whatever this is the most explicit picture you'll see. But I also, I realized, this is the first talk I've given after a whole bunch of difficult things that happened, and I realized I've been emotional this entire evening. So I also might have an emotional reaction and if that's too much for you, I won't be offended if you have to get up and leave, so don't worry. And I also noticed that I think I'm the first person to be talking about games in particular. I am not the first person who comes from anywhere in computer science, and I know almost nothing about the tech industry besides what I hear in the news. So we're gonna take a turn for the artistic and I think some of this applies for technology as well, but I will be talking mostly about the games industry. So if I make any some wide generalizations that I can find completely just offensive, it's probably because I'm talking about the games industry. So we'll just leave it at that. And so because of that, yes. It's too late for me when it comes to the games industry. I recently left the games industry. I don't feel comfortable being in the games industry and I will not contribute any more to the games industry. This doesn't mean though that I don't create games and play experiences that I talk about them or I talk about advocacy issues within games and play. And I wanna make that distinction because I feel like right now, especially with kind of our first few speakers and also with a whole bunch of other kind of diversity in games topics, we're talking about how to get more diverse people into the industry. And I know that's a passion for a lot of people. I know that's important for a lot of people and I wanna hold that at the same time as this. But know that if I seem overwhelmingly dismal or fed up with things, it's because my personal journey has ended. But it doesn't mean yours in the past too. So there's just a little bit of who I am. For the past over about three years, I've been mostly a games critic, meaning I wrote a critical analysis of games and very often about social justice issues within the games industry. I've also become a game designer and I created both digital and non-digital games. And I've done a lot of speaking and I've also done a lot of conferences as well as hosting conferences and things. So I actually come from a unique perspective actually and which is why this title is called D.Va Ex Machina because I think the things that I've done in the games industry while I was in it was intervention. It was from a perspective that was very divergent and interdisciplinary. As you can tell, I was both media and development and event organizer at the same time as well as having some, a little bit of a toad in academia. So this is kind of what, from my perspective, how things are and are not working with diversity in games initiatives. And that's kind of what is gonna be the basis of my talk is the idea of what is diversity in games and maybe this is also applicable to diversity in tech. And kind of what I think people who are actually on the ground floor, grassroots activists are actually doing and what they kind of actually need as opposed to what's happening. I also wanna give a bit of a disclaimer on myself. You see this, and I know a couple of us in the audience probably thought about this picture, but I do want to call myself out. I am kind of seen as one more visible people when it comes to diversity in games. I am an exception, I am not the rule. And I say that because I don't want people to think that everyone has the ability that I do. And that my process is what others should do to obtain some sort of success or whatever that may be. Because my journey, as you can see, has been a very painful one and one that I feel like others should not go through. And I also want people to, because I put my Twitter up and if you didn't see, so you can go ahead and live tweet me to keep me honest, is that I do speak from a place where things I say are very often tokenized and it's spread about to be the opinion of all people who are not white men. And I don't want anyone to leave this talk thinking that I speak for a group of people. I speak for myself. And if I make any of those generalized statements to definitely hold me responsible for them. So first, a first problem is that I want to say that diversity in games tend to try to tackle is how do we get more diverse voices in games? And this is kind of like the number one thing that has already been talked about, like how do we get recruiters out or are there people interested in whatever? And so first, this is gonna be kind of a trend and I'm gonna pose a question, then I'm gonna pose the answer that the diversity in games tend to put forward and then I'm gonna put the answer that my work has probably has signified. So for diversity in games, their answer is STEM, like, you might notice that I don't like this, the prom find creative way of expressing this. Basically, the answer is, start STEM education out of the womb, get it out into college, get women in their fifties into STEM, it's just like everyone get STEM education, get into the tech industry, and then games will be better. And so what this argument is, to kind of, as you can see my wonderful slide making skills, is that a whole bunch of things, what's that argument of get people into STEM really means is one that numbers are ethics. It means once the numbers, however they change, do change and get to a place you want to, we've arrived to an ethical society. It also means that the way that money is that money as in the way that people get to these numbers, which is what funding nine year old girls summer camp coding is the ethical thing to do. And that throwing money at all these other programs while not doing other things is a way to reach the standard. And also the companies themselves are our ethical standard. They are the ones with the money and the need to fill numbers. And so therefore they are basically the gatekeeper, the ethical standard that we need. And that is, I find that whenever I see things in the news now like Intel gives money to women and gains, and I'm like, oh my goodness, you know? So, I don't know about it. So now for my work, one of the main things that I want to article that I wrote is that technology itself is not the answer to getting people, more people into games is actually spreading and broadening the idea of what play can be is what is going to involve us. People are playing and creating games all the time, but it's not always a triple A game that is about shooting zombies, right? Like we don't need that population, we need our parity in electronic arcs for us to finish this problem. And so a couple of them, I just want to read something like as a quote from this article, it's low-fi digital games that do something other than fun. We can, I think that people are creating things that are not necessarily fun and consumer friendly that are not included that I think should put it through a valid game. Communal play, non-quantitative relationships, empathy, hidden stories in reality, and populating arc exhibits and things like that. And there's a whole bunch of things I wish I could get into, but I have way too much information. And so one solution that I, I'm just gonna read this out loud is the solution is needing more weird personal accessible game making tools, this is specific for technology. To broaden our artistic culture is to include people who make tools and give room for expression in them. And so right now, I'm pretty, people who are familiar with like DIY tools and things probably know about community and things like that. I looked at unity and like I probably cried for a week trying to use it and then stopped. And I can imagine that I was actually one of the people who stuck it out the longest, you know, doing that. But what it found is that there's a lot more room for tool creation to be an act of expression and to help broaden what games are going to be. Things don't need to be, you know, technically impressive. But that is such like a, you know, like a Nintendo magazine, 1996 type, you know, thing. You know, we're in 2015, you know, technical excellence does not have to be an aspect of video game creation culture. And so I think there just needs to be more ways that we allow people to get in, but not to get in doing the usual things. You know, how about like getting them to do weird things, you know, create tools that they have to wrestle with creatively and that they want to wrestle with, not, you know, trying to figure out how to do some multi-use purpose thing that, you know, even typical programmers can't wrap their heads around. So I think that that's a really important thing is that because I operate this because people who do have a technical background can help. You can make weird little tools in your spare time, hopefully, you know, to help people who can't. You don't have that technical background like me. If it wasn't for people who made tools, I would never have made a game ever. And that would be sad. So the next question is, how do we increase visibility of diverse voices? You know, how do we get more people to, you know, more people on stage speaking? How do we get them in headlines? How do we get them in all these things? And so there's two ways that I see that diverse voices are highlighted in the media and in the industry. One is when they're harassed and the other is when they are financially, so I found this time was powerful women in gaming. And my favorite part is like the little caption that the most powerful women have felt is like a category as if powerful women are trapped in some quantifiable way. You know, and things I do know people and have friends who are apparently powerful women, but as noted by this publication, but it's always by industry standards. It's who's founded a company and made a whole bunch of money or who's basically risen up quicker through the tech field than anybody else. Or, you know, just a whole bunch of other things that someone like me would never be a, I will never be a powerful woman according to the standards that are put up here. And I like to think I am a powerful woman in my own right, but I just don't go by these standards. As well, we only allow people to have space in our culture when they're harassed. Here's a good list of being a woman against because first of all, being a diverse woman, being a diverse person in games means you're a woman in games first. I don't know what that means for everyone else who's not, but basically here are kind of common things that I kind of see, interview requests about your abuse. For the last couple of months I've had just, you know, reporters just really want to know every bit of detail I've had about the abuse I've had for the past year and kind of the trauma that I have and the things that I'm just in this gory details of things. And that is the majority of, you know, the kind of presence I would have in the media if I was to allow that to happen. This is a powerful, also equals makes a lot of money. I haven't sold anything. Like my entire involvement in games has been selling nothing. Everything I have is for free and successful to everyone. And so my zero dollar sign is never gonna make it into 30 out of 30 or whatever, you know? Because that's what matters. And even if you try to diversify, you know, those sorts of, you know, listings and things, you're going to miss, you know, huge swaps of people who are doing so much work and, you know, of course you're gonna miss, you know, cool people. You know, and then of course after that is interview with us about how you're totally fine with the games industry. There's another kind of like counterpoints, you know, I'm pretty sure it's having the tech culture too, where someone's like, I've never been harassed, I don't get it, you know? And, you know, they're just waiting, you know, begging for those. So if you have those stories, I mean, just get some dollar bills for that because people want it, you know? But everyone's not idle. People are like, yeah, like, you know, they just seem like a happy, wonderful person. How about you tell everyone how wonderful the games industry has been? I am fortunately trying to get those people away because that's not true. The majority of speaking as an expert is our for being women, a woman in games. And that is having the majority of my speaking invitations at professional conferences have been about how I am a minority in games. Not necessarily about my work and not necessarily about things I do or a whole bunch of things. Just how is it to be a woman in games, you know? And after being some, like, I've been only in the industry for three years, but my three years has been a little bit different than other people. I've totally, you know, sped through it. I've been at many speaking gigs over the entire period of my short, I guess, career. You'd like to have the money. But it's tiring because that's all other people can see you as, as that woman in games. And you know, and you become this, like, like this object of like, okay, we need to get you, women, in games into these demographics and we're gonna put you here and you guys can find these things, yay, no, whatever. I know it's just, it's just this weird way that you are, you know, positioned and treated once you are identified as a woman in games. Oh yeah, don't ever mention race, class, disability, and other things that could possibly, you know, make life harder for you because that's uncomfortable, you know, for a lot of people. So I mean, you can only be a woman in games while you're in it. You can't be, you know, a woman and then, you know, have it keep coming. And of course, bikini armor, yes or no. Yeah, and that's insane. They don't let you have the ore, you know. I tried to do the ore. I said ore ones and they wouldn't let me. And it's always like this kind of, you know, hot button-topping of like, oh, you know, this game, is it bad or good? Please, through, you know, the, put down the feminist sword on, you know, Bayonetta or something, you know. And it's just always kind of like this weird, you know, kind of like, what's it called? Kind of like, like, Arbiter. A judgment on things. So people can don't have to think about the things that they're engaging with. Instead, they just ask you, woman in games, is this good, you know? And, you know, that's never, never, never like, I'm so salacious, oh, no, no. Yes, okay. So salacious, so through a piece on game making and local communities, I wrote, instead of answering through some larger, some larger phenomenon, like the neutral industry development, we can look at people around us. You know, the city and country we live in and the spaces we inhabit for a source of identification. I think the things that happen to us, like women in games, is because we're trying to have this abstract thing for a field. But I can tell you that the East Bay game developers are radically different from San Francisco game developers and all of us are radically, radically different from New York game developers. And it's just the people around us are already a source of difference and celebration. And I actually find what was so comforting to me about like, you know, events like these, is that we invite local community members who are having local problems or local solutions to be answering because, you know, then we can actually all understand each other and understand our issues. But I think this is a really important thing because very often we go to conferences or we're expected to go to conferences that are considered like central locations. We have a games developer conference which is happening the first week of March. It is the largest game developer conference. Everyone's supposed to be there. And it means something whether you're there or not and speaking or not. And the thing about it is that it's in San Francisco but it's almost the least Bay area like games conference that there possibly can be. We have a vibrant outdoors and pervasive games culture here that is completely absent from the games developer conference. Artists who are more well known for doing, you know, stuff on the margins and who live here like in the East Bay are primarily absent from the conference. And so it kind of, this larger culture kind of erases local culture. And I think that's a shame. And so for a solution I actually co-organize an un-conference. I'm not sure how universal that term is but basically it's where everyone kind of gets to speak and is not vetted. You just come up and speak for five minutes and you get your five minutes and it doesn't matter who you are. This is for last year. Actually this year we're doing it again not there but like completely for free but basically it's completely, let's say, a free conference. You don't have to have any credentials to speak at it. And as long as you follow our space rules you belong to this event. And I've heard so many things, so many different things at these sort of looser conferences and it's helpful connections between people that you can't have when you're speaking. Like right now you and I are not connecting because I am speaking and giving you knowledge from up high up here. But when you have a little bit more of an active, germinating thing like lost levels you start to notice that even if someone is an expert in a field they're talking right after someone who's completely new but their information is, you can't tell the difference of who is the expert and who's not. And I find that those two things are really useful. So what exactly are diverse games? This is where I might get in trouble, the next few questions I'm gonna definitely get in trouble by someone, but this is a question that diversity in games people need to answer. Like what exactly is a diverse game and what does it mean for there to be diversity in games? And so for the games industry it's mostly put a woman character into a usual slot that a man usually isn't in. And so this is from the last of us, we have a young girl who is possibly clear, sorry for spoilers, but she is just think she comes out with a gun and interact with things like that. It's just that same image of zombie apocalypse but now with a girl. And that is kind of tends to be the answer that tokenization is diversity in this way. And I don't believe the right answer because basically we don't get actual narratives or change in any other way. We just see different people and that's great but that means nothing else changes. So here's the way I put another thing that I wrote that I feel like helps change our ideas about games. This death of the player is kind of so much a death of the author. People are familiar with any literature which basically means the author's interpretation of the game does not matter. And I say well a player's interpretation of the game does not matter to you guys. Gamers are trained to expect certain things from games like explicit rules, goals, visual quality and of course agency. To put it frankly gamers are set up to be colonial forces. It is about individuality, conquering and solving feeling empowered and free at the expense of the world. And to me that is not my lived experience as I'm an organized person. I don't get to have those feelings. You're never going to get my experience if those are the things that need to be there in games. And that completely changes design as a concept. If you have these sorts of, if you have that mentality. I made a game, probably a game I made a game, Manichi which is kind of an explanation but not an explanation but a projection of an experience of mine. And it in its design is different to kind of echo the experiences and feelings I feel. Supercality, not having a clear choice, no strong cause and effect to a winning state. No, a whole bunch of these things that are not like I'm a minority and I have it that day and oh yeah, I got my love at the end. It's not like that. It's something in great and different. And finally, how can games aid social justice? And this definitely is very contentious because right now the kind of implication of diversity in games is, oh well if we have a diverse set of games then we will help make society better through this. And we usually see this through games like Gone Home if anybody's familiar or some other ones where people like seeing the narrative or there's like a queer narrative game who's having an exploration game and they're already buying a queer love story. And this is kind of the better of games. There's typically games like Match Three to Save the Rainforest and things like that which I don't agree it is good for impact. And this basically relies on the fundamental eat it. The consumer game, video game design will save us all. And this is not me being extravagant. This is widely pitched to businesses. There's a whole like a, what do you call, I'd spend so much time forgetting the word. Oh, gamification. Gamification is basically a business model. I just really want to just ban the work of my head. So gamification is basically a method of game design which is pitched to other people to say consumer game design is going to save the world. And this is done for nonprofits, it's done for every, you know, yes, let's get people exercising more. Yeah, it is, I don't think it works. And this is actually what I think is really interesting about what is coming out from more of these games. For instance, for my own personal experience, I talk about how like BDSM and Kink and the philosophies that are embedded in some of it kind of expand our idea to affecting other people's every politically. If we understand it play as exercising empathy through engaging context and Kink as a type of a play that deeply confronts life context, then Kink practices stand as a stronger model for engaging people with meaningful play. And then the overly instrumentalized and decontextualized outlook on games propagated by contemporary game design. So this basically means that we can situate games in real life and have a change instead of having some sort of abstracted model. And I did this with a game called Mission which actually you can find on my website that is actually a restaurant and pub crawl through the mission. And it's basically outlined through the lines but those are the bus routes of the mission that bus people from San Francisco to Silicon Valley. And I do it so you can go around and see how gentrification is affecting eating opportunities in the mission because I quickly found when I tried to live in the mission for a short stint that I couldn't afford a lot of options there. And I feel that people were actually on the ground doing things in real life that we can go ahead and do it. And so we're not done. I'm not saying that we are here on the old scene or have solved everything but I wanted to encourage people to continue thinking about these things and to question them because the games industry itself is not going to solve it and neither is our assimilation into it. Thank you.