Episode 9: Ladies Love Bejeweled

Welcome back everyone! In this episode we dive a little bit more in depth into women in the industry. We discuss some stats of women gamers, games we women are into, and highlight a leading woman in the video game making industry.

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sweetie_potat
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Transcript

00;00;10;08 - 00;00;17;21
Gabe
Hey, guys. Welcome back to another episode from I don't believe In Side Quests. I'm Gabe.

00;00;19;00 - 00;00;19;20
Lauren
I'm Lauren.

00;00;20;03 - 00;00;26;04
Gabe
And, yeah. I don't know. Do we have a whole lot of catch up to do? I'm pretty chilling.

00;00;26;05 - 00;00;28;22
Lauren
I don't know. We've. We've been chatting a lot.

00;00;29;00 - 00;00;29;13
Gabe
That's true.

00;00;29;15 - 00;00;30;08
Lauren
We've been recording.

00;00;30;08 - 00;00;31;03
Gabe
That's true. We have.

00;00;31;13 - 00;00;33;02
Lauren
Just seen each other a lot more often.

00;00;33;08 - 00;00;33;27
Gabe
Which is good.

00;00;33;28 - 00;00;34;09
Lauren
How was your weekend?

00;00;34;09 - 00;00;43;21
Gabe
Which is good, I've missed you. Um, so I might have a herniated disk in my back. So we'll see. We'll see.

00;00;44;16 - 00;00;49;23
Lauren
This could be a drinking game of, like, every time we check in with you, like, what's happening?

00;00;49;24 - 00;00;54;27
Gabe
Mm hmm. Mm hmm. A drinking game. I love it. Oh, no.

00;00;55;25 - 00;01;03;00
Lauren
I feel like I need a drink every time. I'm like, Oh, my gosh, what's happening?

00;01;04;01 - 00;01;12;25
Gabe
Nice. Yeah. That for you. Thank you. I love that for me, too. I had a bit of a cry yesterday and I was like.

00;01;13;03 - 00;01;13;15
Lauren
Mm hmm.

00;01;13;18 - 00;01;24;08
Gabe
I don't want to be my dad. I don't want to be five back surgeries deep and still in pain and can't wipe my butt. And I was like, okay, I can chill. We're -

00;01;24;25 - 00;01;28;17
Gabe
We're not quite there yet, but yeah.

00;01;30;03 - 00;01;32;04
Lauren
How is that going to affect your work?

00;01;32;09 - 00;01;33;21
Gabe
Um, well.

00;01;34;09 - 00;01;39;13
Gabe
Today I struggled a little at the cots, but, uh.

00;01;39;17 - 00;01;39;29
Lauren
Mm hmm.

00;01;40;08 - 00;01;54;03
Gabe
My coworkers stepped up to help. Um, I think she gets it because she was in a car crash, and she had back issues after that. And like the main teacher kinda gets it cause she had a lot of sciatica issues when she was pregnant.

00;01;54;21 - 00;01;55;23
Gabe
But, um.

00;01;56;16 - 00;02;14;24
Gabe
I. Yeah, I don't know. We'll see. We'll see what happens I thought it was sciatica at first, and then I was like, this hurts in a way I've never hurt before. And I don't. I don't know about that one, chief

00;02;14;24 - 00;02;16;16
Lauren
What happened? Like.

00;02;17;01 - 00;02;38;00
Gabe
I don't know, I. I woke up. Okay, so my back has started to hurt worse than usual. Last week, but I thought it was just kind of strained because I've been working out and we did like a big back and arm workout. And then Saturday I got out of bed. I was like, Oh, something ain't right. Hmm. But it.

00;02;38;12 - 00;02;58;07
Gabe
It wasn't bad, but I was like, okay, maybe it's just the sciatica. And then by the end of Saturday, it was really bad. And at like 1:00 at night, I was debating if I should go wake up my dad to got to the ER. Like, I don't know. I don't know about this. I slept through. And then Sunday, it didn't hurt quite like that.

00;02;59;07 - 00;03;28;12
Gabe
But I have definitely been like around the clock taking my nerve pain medication and I upped it. So I have a doctor's appointment next week, ironically, which I made to deal with my prescriptions because I changed insurance and try and get my prescriptions shipped or not shipped like, you know, changed to the new online pharmacy I have because I do, you know, the mail order.

00;03;29;16 - 00;03;34;15
Gabe
Sure, sure. It's been a yeah, it's been the thing. So what about you?

00;03;35;22 - 00;04;14;02
Lauren
Um, I've been good. One of our good friends was in town from India and so we haven't seen him since pre-COVID. And so we've been pouncing around with him and played some board games with him and a couple of his friends. And Mike and I were on our way home from that and we were like, Excellent. Because now we have reached the point in our adulthood where we've started collecting adult couple friends who want to play board games, which is just very exciting for us.

00;04;14;10 - 00;04;24;21
Gabe
That is! We have always had a family friend group that that does game nights and stuff. So that's awesome. That's always so much fun.

00;04;24;21 - 00;04;53;06
Lauren
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because he used to or like all of his friends really loved playing video and board games, but we're a state away from all of them. So we always play a lot of board games when we go down to his place, but we don't have those same board game connections and friend groups around up here. So we've started to find people kind of either friends or friends or friends we haven't seen in a while.

00;04;53;06 - 00;05;04;10
Lauren
And um, yeah, started rebuilding those connections and finding those friendships so we can go and play board games and.

00;05;04;21 - 00;05;05;14
Gabe
That's awesome!

00;05;05;14 - 00;05;06;12
Lauren
have all sorts of fun on that front.

00;05;06;20 - 00;05;08;05
Gabe
That's awesome. I love that.

00;05;09;04 - 00;05;11;25
Lauren
Yes, yes. Adding them to the roster.

00;05;12;11 - 00;05;24;22
Gabe
To the roster. That's funny. We're belatedly celebra- celebrating International Women's Day like very, very belatedly.

00;05;24;22 - 00;05;25;26
Lauren
It's still the same month.

00;05;25;26 - 00;05;36;07
Gabe
That's true. Still the same month. But, you know, we wanted to honor women in the industry. So, you know, developers, the players, the streamers.

00;05;36;27 - 00;06;19;03
Lauren
Yeah. One of the main things in our podcast that we really wanted to spend time talking about in addition to Nancy Drew was talking about women in the industry. And so this is our first step really to get back into that. And so Quick Hits some stats of women in the industry. So percentage of players, there's so much debate on this like if you look up the what percentage of video game players are women, everyone will say anywhere from, you know, 40% to 49.

00;06;19;11 - 00;06;30;22
Lauren
So it's in the forties somewhere is what everyone always says. I think the stat kind of doesn't matter. I think it's a boring stat.

00;06;30;26 - 00;06;31;16
Gabe
I think it's silly

00;06;31;26 - 00;07;09;11
Lauren
Because it it's so definitional on "oh are we counting everyone who plays mobile games and like PC gamers and console gamers and switch gamers?" And so I think it's much more interesting to look at what percentage of each gender play games and consider themselves gamers is what I think is more interesting because yeah, I would say if we're looking at all the gamers in the world, how many are men, how many are women, it's going to come out a wash.

00;07;10;09 - 00;07;15;08
Gabe
I think is just like a fake stat, to be honest. I feel like it's the societal

00;07;15;08 - 00;07;16;12
Lauren
There's no way to quantify it.

00;07;16;18 - 00;07;50;15
Gabe
Well, I just even if there was, I feel like it's the societal thought of what it is and people thinking that it's not quite equal, like there isn't a 50% of women in it. And I just it's not true. I firmly believe that's not true. I firmly believe it's a solid 50/50 for, you know, especially going on to twitch like twitch really was, was like, oh, there really are all these other, you know, female gamers.

00;07;50;26 - 00;07;58;20
Lauren
And I think that's interesting because I know that 35% of Twitch users are female.

00;07;59;10 - 00;08;05;16
Gabe
Only 35%. I don't know if I believe that. That's interesting.

00;08;05;16 - 00;08;06;11
Lauren
That was...

00;08;07;02 - 00;08;09;07
Gabe
Yeah. Do you know when that stat was done?

00;08;10;16 - 00;08;18;25
Lauren
That stat was according to the website called backlinkgo and it was 2022 numbers

00;08;18;25 - 00;08;19;20
Gabe
Interesting.

00;08;21;02 - 00;08;30;29
Gabe
I wonder how accurate that is. Because like think about all the bot accounts there are and all of that, it just feels like a wash number.

00;08;32;05 - 00;08;34;29
Lauren
Yeah, I'd be interested to know active users. Yeah.

00;08;34;29 - 00;09;05;06
Gabe
Yeah, active users. I could see if maybe there is slightly more male because early days of twitch was, you know, more of the FPS competitive kind of e-sports, not e-sports but like that kind of stuff and not to say women don't play those games and can't be into those games, but having played those games a lot, it is definitely, in my opinion, a very male dominant genre.

00;09;06;03 - 00;09;08;08
Gabe
So yeah, I could see

00;09;08;08 - 00;09;09;20
Lauren
I'd say out of all the genres.

00;09;09;20 - 00;09;10;01
Gabe
Yeah.

00;09;10;03 - 00;09;18;18
Lauren
Yeah. FPS games, especially like community games. Yeah, it's very male dominated

00;09;18;18 - 00;09;18;29
Gabe
Right

00;09;19;06 - 00;09;36;28
Gabe
So I feel like probably the beginning of Twitch was very much male dominated because of that. And so I could see if, you know, because of that being its origin, maybe it's still being slightly more males, but I still think womens definitely at least in the 40% for Twitch.

00;09;37;15 - 00;09;38;00
Lauren
Yeah.

00;09;38;14 - 00;09;40;19
Gabe
But yeah. Active users would be super interesting.

00;09;41;22 - 00;09;42;11
Lauren
Mm hmm.

00;09;42;15 - 00;09;49;08
Lauren
Because how many of these accounts. Yeah. Were created in 2011 and haven't been touched since 2015, you know.

00;09;49;24 - 00;09;56;02
Gabe
Yeah. Or the bot accounts just being like yeah I'm whatever to just get it done and take care of.

00;09;57;11 - 00;10;06;00
Lauren
Yeah. Was this a snapshot or were they looking at, you know, what, what were they looking at for their - to build out this stat?

00;10;06;00 - 00;10;06;20
Gabe
Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

00;10;06;29 - 00;10;49;08
Lauren
Yeah. So we were trying to answer the second question, which we were talking about is the percentage of women who would consider themselves a gamer, as well as the percentage of women who play games, because those two stats are different. And so there was a study by a company called Newzoo where they looked at 1500 women from the U.S. and U.K. and 1500 men in the U.S. and U.K. And 75% of women in this study played video games during 2022 of any type, only 35% of that 75% identified themselves as a gamer.

00;10;50;01 - 00;11;00;18
Lauren
So the vast majority of women played games, and less than half of those people who had played a game identified themselves as a gamer.

00;11;00;18 - 00;11;02;12
Gabe
Yeah, only a third. That's crazy.

00;11;02;21 - 00;11;35;24
Lauren
Yeah. Which is opposed to 51% of men who had played a video game identified themselves as a gamer. And so I think this goes again into the, you know, are they what kind of games are they playing if they are playing phone apps or doing games like Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley, do they consider themselves a gamer? Or if they do consider themselves a gamer, do they think, well, but no one else would consider me a gamer.

00;11;37;02 - 00;11;43;21
Lauren
So why? What is their definition of gamer? I guess in that sense...

00;11;43;21 - 00;11;53;09
Gabe
yeah. And we're looking at that. Okay. Before I say what thought that gave me, I want to talk the other stat we did because I think like it just correlates.

00;11;54;01 - 00;12;24;27
Lauren
Yeah. So we were looking at this article that was talking about a study that was done by the Entertainment Software Association, the ESA, that was saying that women account for about 48% of video gamers. And that study is what a lot of the articles reference. But when we dug into the data, they only surveyed 4000 people about gaming tendencies, quote unquote, and 52% of those 4000 people were male.

00;12;25;17 - 00;12;43;07
Lauren
So I don't know if they put like a call to action being like, hey, do you play video games? Let's do a study on it. So, I mean, the 48% of video gamers is the 48% of women who participated in the survey.

00;12;43;17 - 00;12;44;00
Gabe
Right.

00;12;44;11 - 00;12;46;09
Lauren
So I think that's funky.

00;12;46;13 - 00;13;12;01
Gabe
It is. It's kind of a joke. I think if they had done it more like the other one where you took 1500 of each. Right, at least you have an even number. But it's so I don't know. But both of those are making me think about this is something I feel like I've seen a lot on Twitch and just in the gaming communities I am is you know what does it mean to be a gamer and like let's be real.

00;13;12;01 - 00;13;54;17
Gabe
If you play games, you're a gamer. That just is what it should be. And it's just what the definition should be. But then you get all these people and they they like gatekeep being a gamer. And so, you know how we were talking about how only what only a third identified as a gamer? Personally, I don't blame them because I mean, I'm a hardcore gamer and sometimes I still like am I a gamer, though, because I play games like Nancy Drew or Stardew Valley, you know, all those, which is so dumb.

00;13;54;17 - 00;14;27;12
Gabe
If you play games, you are a gamer. And I just think it's just such a crazy thing in the gaming community that people want to tell you if you are or aren't a gamer. And and that's also why I firmly believe it's a 50/50 for, you know, female and male gamers. It's just so many women feel like they can't say they're a gamer or they play games because of this weird societal concept.

00;14;27;12 - 00;14;43;27
Lauren
And and they may be in a relationship with somebody who is a gamer that plays a lot of Call of Duty or Pub-G or Counter-Strike, like or whatever. And so them sitting around playing a game on their phone

00;14;43;27 - 00;14;45;02
Gabe
Chilling, playing Animal Crossing

00;14;45;03 - 00;15;16;03
Lauren
or on their Switch, like having a good time, but maybe they don't have a community of other people who also play games. And so a lot of being a gamer is the social aspect. And so I think there's just so many pieces in there that if you're if you don't consider what you're doing to be like a video game, you're like, it's an app game or it's a phone game or it's whatever.

00;15;16;03 - 00;15;18;13
Gabe
It's a game though!

00;15;18;13 - 00;15;20;17
Lauren
Like, That just, I know, it counts!.

00;15;20;17 - 00;15;39;27
Gabe
It counts! Oh, yeah. And then that one too that others that we were looking at too in that other article, almost three quarters of women have played video games the last six months. Only again, only a third identify themselves as gamers. I that's just, that's just. as sweetie would say or Lauren, that's just bananas.

00;15;42;02 - 00;15;45;12
Gabe
It's such bananas.

00;15;45;12 - 00;16;16;20
Lauren
Personally, I think so. I mean, the number of players and women just in the industry in general, there's definitely a positive trend like women are showing up and they are joining and they are playing. And every article when you type it in every single year, there was an article that came out that said "Women are gaming too. There are more women than ever playing games!" like every single year, like clockwork.

00;16;16;20 - 00;16;45;05
Lauren
It's the funniest thing. And I was just like, Yes, guys, we get it. And so the number of developers has also gone up. So if they were sitting at, you know, anywhere from 10 to 15% of developers were women and in 2011 or so and then at this point, they're sitting around 30%. So it's slow, but it's steady.

00;16;45;18 - 00;16;48;08
Lauren
It is improvement. So exciting about that.

00;16;49;11 - 00;17;20;20
Gabe
To circle back quickly before we move on to developers and stuff, I feel that COVID has really helped gaming. It didn't help our gaming content, but it helped get more people like ingrained to it, not just into it but in it. And I think that was huge. Like I think the gaming community exploded during COVID because everyone had all of this time on their hands too, you know?

00;17;21;16 - 00;17;32;15
Gabe
So, but, and I think that I don't know where I was going with that. I just think that was a huge thing for the gaming community. Although content kind of got took a hit.

00;17;32;15 - 00;17;37;13
Lauren
I think it was a huge thing for the gaming community, but I really think it was a huge thing for female gamers.

00;17;37;23 - 00;17;39;12
Gabe
For women. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah, right.

00;17;40;09 - 00;17;47;16
Lauren
Because again, the switch animal crossing, like there was so much more community building.

00;17;47;17 - 00;17;47;26
Gabe
Mm hmm.

00;17;48;09 - 00;17;48;21
Gabe
Yes.

00;17;48;21 - 00;17;53;27
Lauren
Because women all of a sudden were saying, hey, well, I can't see my friends in person anymore.

00;17;54;04 - 00;17;54;17
Gabe
Yeah.

00;17;54;17 - 00;18;34;01
Lauren
And not to generalize, but women like to be in person with their friends a lot of the time. I mean, I would say more than men, I think there were lots of avenues. And maybe this is just like my personal life, where my husband plays a lot of games online with his friends who are in other states and other areas, like they built up that group and that friendship years ago and for years have been doing online things in their own houses and doing that distant friendship but talking all the time.

00;18;34;01 - 00;18;57;08
Lauren
So they had already built up that. And then when COVID hit, I was super unprepared because I was used to being with my friends in person and like texting and whatever. But we didn't spend time interacting online or just like being on discord. Like most of my friends in my area, we don't hang out on discord. That's just not what we do.

00;18;57;08 - 00;19;24;21
Lauren
We don't game together. So I just hadn't built up that infrastructure, which I think I've talked about this before. But that's why I started streaming on Twitch, is because I didn't have friends around me that wanted to hang out online necessarily. And so I went looking to find a community that I could hang out with online because what else was I going to do?

00;19;25;04 - 00;19;28;12
Lauren
And luckily I found a great one. So, nailed it.

00;19;28;12 - 00;20;00;23
Gabe
Hashtag nailed it. Ironically, I forced all of my childhood friends into gaming and made them play like especially Nancy Drew games with me and stuff. And like my very bestest childhood friend, Danielle who I've literally known our whole lives, so I still convinced her to do stuff and we do fortnite and we'll go back and play Mario together and like Crash Bandicoot games and stuff and she's like, "you know Gabe, I don't know if I would have been as much into games without you."

00;20;01;02 - 00;20;04;07
Gabe
And I'm like "You're welcome. You're welcome."

00;20;05;09 - 00;20;06;18
Lauren
Mm hmm.

00;20;06;18 - 00;20;24;16
Gabe
Okay. And then. Okay. So we talk about the players. We've done that. Let's talk a bit about developers, right? This is all about developers now? The Games We Play: 25 Online Games That Women Enjoy.

00;20;25;22 - 00;20;55;08
Lauren
So I was looking at the games that women have been playing and then also the games that women have been creating. And I was reading through, you know, kind of just list articles and top games for women and blah, blah, blah. And I don't know if anyone remembers this happening. I don't. But in 2020 there was a Parade.

00;20;55;13 - 00;21;25;17
Lauren
(the magazine) article that came out titled The Games We Play: 25 Online Games That Women Enjoy. And the author said she surveyed game developers, pro gamers and everyday players to create this list of 25 free online games for women. So the only reason this is notable is because the E3 official Twitter account tweeted a link to the article and it's just like, Hey, any games you play make the cut?

00;21;25;27 - 00;21;58;29
Lauren
And so people who considered themselves to be a female gamer went to look at it and they were like, What the heck is this? Because they were all - well there were a lot of phone app games like including the Kim Kardashian game and Solitaire, Tetris. There was kind of notoriously Bejeweled Classic where she listed or she wrote as like the caption for it "Diamonds are a girl's best friend.

00;21;58;29 - 00;22;17;25
Lauren
Am I right, ladies?" And it was just, it came off as really patronizing. I don't think the person who retweeted it for E3 read the article. I think they just saw the title and were like, Cool. Somebody made an article listing out games that women like to play and they retweeted it.

00;22;17;25 - 00;22;30;19
Gabe
Oh I thought the E3 person was being, like, sarcastic. I thought, I thought that meant that they... Oh, okay. I don't know. I guess I didn't take it that way. It seemed like, Oh, any...

00;22;30;19 - 00;22;36;18
Lauren
If they meant to be sarcastic, it did not come out that way. And they had to issue an apology.

00;22;36;18 - 00;22;38;02
Gabe
Awkward

00;22;38;02 - 00;22;42;14
Lauren
because gamers were not having it.

00;22;42;24 - 00;22;43;15
Gabe
That's interesting.

00;22;43;15 - 00;23;01;08
Lauren
So there was a lot of feedback on that. And E3 did not write the article, somebody just posted a link saying the article is out there and otherwise I don't think anyone would have seen it. It's in Parade. Who cares?

00;23;01;11 - 00;23;02;17
Gabe
Can I just say, though.

00;23;02;18 - 00;23;03;00
Lauren
Because...

00;23;03;15 - 00;23;17;01
Gabe
So many women I know actually do play Sudoku, like the Candy Crush kind of stuff. They do play all these games! Wait so I'm confused. So what's the issue? Why were they upset?

00;23;17;02 - 00;23;45;11
Lauren
So she had a lot of apps. She also included Animal Crossing, Sims four, etc. Just Dance. She did include Overwatch on the list saying women like it since it has a lot of female heroes to portray, giving them the chance to hold their own amidst the boys and for its fantasy element and she was saying that online games don't have a gender attached to them, but she was saying that these are some of the games female players tend to gravitate towards.

00;23;46;03 - 00;23;47;20
Lauren
So I wanted to talk about this.

00;23;47;20 - 00;24;13;13
Gabe
I could see all of that being kind of true though, because I feel what she said about the overwatch. Like I love games like that when there's equal or diverse people that you can play, so you can play someone that you identify as. And I'm sorry, I have to make a side note as we're talking about this. It made me think about all the men I know who play female characters.

00;24;13;28 - 00;24;17;27
Gabe
Like, Well, you have the option to be a female or male, and they choose the female.

00;24;17;28 - 00;24;19;06
Lauren
Mm hmm.

00;24;19;16 - 00;24;32;22
Gabe
One. I think that's so strange, too. It bothers me a little bit, because do you you know, when I ask guys why they do it, their answer is because I want something nice to look at.

00;24;32;22 - 00;24;33;05
Lauren
Oh, that's gross?

00;24;33;05 - 00;24;50;05
Gabe
I'm like, okay. That's yes. And so it always bothers me a little bit. And I've - many, many men, like not just friends, but like many men have said that answer to me and they're like, Well, why would I want to be a big, stinky guy or like a gross looking guy or all that?

00;24;50;06 - 00;24;52;00
Gabe
And I'm like,

00;24;52;00 - 00;24;53;00
Lauren
Fair, for starters

00;24;53;00 - 00;25;05;29
Gabe
Because that's what you are. I just I don't I don't get it. That's just made me think about that. Sorry. But yes, I, ok, continue.

00;25;05;29 - 00;25;32;28
Lauren
So I, I think people's issue with the article is that I don't know if it's necessarily like "this is what the pro gamers play." I think it's maybe what the article writer's girlfriends are playing that, you know, she's asking her friends like, hey, what games do you play? And these are some of their answers. So everyday players.

00;25;32;28 - 00;25;54;03
Lauren
So there were a lot of people who are like, I'm a gamer who are like, this isn't tackling any like real games, but then this is going into the whole. Are these apps popular? Yes, 1,000%. Somebody who's playing Kim Kardashian, bejeweled.

00;25;54;03 - 00;25;56;26
Gabe
It's just so much a gamer as someone playing Overwatch.

00;25;57;06 - 00;26;19;18
Lauren
Is that person not - like are these not very, very popular games? You can look at the app downloads and see how many freaking downloads that all of these apps have. Like so it yes. Was the list maybe a little patronizing in how she was just like, oh, girlies like is this what we're - like this is so much fun for us.

00;26;19;18 - 00;26;51;00
Lauren
Like, you can do all these sparkly things. So was it a girly list. Yes. Can girl gamers be super girly and play a whole bunch of super girly games and not play any games like Overwatch or not play any games like Elden Ring or what like? So I think that's just it's tackling them or it's kind of at the crux of the issues of so are the women who exclusively play games on this list.

00;26;51;00 - 00;26;52;06
Lauren
Are they not gamers?

00;26;52;17 - 00;27;37;12
Gabe
Right. Yeah, I yes, I think they're gamers are just as much gamers as people playing quote unquote, more hardcore, you know, games. I, I think I slightly agree with her saying that females would tend to gravitate towards games with like no gender attached to them, mainly because it's is better now it's getting better. But if you think about gaming and its history, typically main characters and stuff are guys, you know, there's not really as much female representation or, you know, options and stuff.

00;27;37;14 - 00;27;48;26
Gabe
So I could I could totally understand where they would maybe want to have, you know, a genderless game. But I think it's also a lot better now than it used to be. I mean, we're getting tons of.

00;27;48;26 - 00;27;51;10
Lauren
Yeah,

00;27;51;10 - 00;27;59;07
Gabe
yes. But so okay. So then we have that other article that's top 15 video games played by women. Yeah.

00;27;59;17 - 00;28;12;28
Lauren
Yeah. So that to the Parade article came out in 2020 so I was interested in looking at like in 2010, what were women playing back then on kind of more of a public stage.

00;28;12;29 - 00;28;13;09
Gabe
I feel this is accurate

00;28;13;09 - 00;28;15;19
Lauren
So Forbes

00;28;15;19 - 00;28;16;17
Gabe
Sorry. Go ahead. Yeah.

00;28;17;01 - 00;28;31;25
Lauren
So. Forbes a part that I thought was funny is that they mentioned, like I said, all the articles say female gamers are on the rise. And the Forbes article says "that trend means more than just Mario and Luigi time with the kids."

00;28;31;25 - 00;28;33;10
Gabe
What does that even mean?

00;28;33;10 - 00;28;41;00
Lauren
Like, oh lord. That just, you're not just playing games with your kids anymore, ladies. You're playing with yourself.

00;28;41;29 - 00;28;58;22
Gabe
I play with myself every night. I'm so sorry. Ahem. ...Bejeweled. I love that. That's on, I think you said that in the other one too, Bejeweled's on both of them I love that. Mm Farmville.

00;28;59;03 - 00;28;59;19
Lauren
Everyone's playing bejeweled.

00;28;59;19 - 00;29;02;13
Gabe
I remember the obsession of that, wasn't that a Facebook game?

00;29;03;04 - 00;29;27;08
Lauren
It was I knew allegedly still is because I also was looking at a 2022 list from the U.K. that Farmville was still on that. And I was like, Who? Okay, I guess it's all, you know, boomer parents still on Facebook playing Farmville. Are the boomer parents playing Farmville, not gamers?

00;29;27;08 - 00;29;37;16
Gabe
You say that. And the only reason I know about Farmville is because when I was in robotics, the boomer parent would play it on her computer.

00;29;37;16 - 00;29;46;06
Gabe
In the kitchen. I was like, What is? But that's the only reason I know what Farmville is. That's so funny. Final Fantasy.

00;29;47;13 - 00;29;48;29
Lauren
Mm hmm.

00;29;48;29 - 00;29;52;23
Gabe
Never got into it, but. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have no idea what Flower is.

00;29;54;25 - 00;30;07;11
Lauren
Flower is like. It's a really pretty game. Did they make a board game out of it? I don't remember. But it's it's just a really beautiful, like, visual, artsy game.

00;30;07;22 - 00;30;12;03
Gabe
Okay. Gotcha. Mass effect two, solid, Portal.

00;30;12;13 - 00;30;13;03
Lauren
Portal.

00;30;13;10 - 00;30;19;29
Gabe
I love that game so much, Portal and Portal 2. Sims 3, like Sims. The Sims kind of makes sense that being.

00;30;19;29 - 00;30;32;24
Lauren
Sims Animal Crossing, those two are always like at the top because women like building and interacting with cute creatures.

00;30;32;24 - 00;30;35;14
Gabe
I love that you just generalized all women so.

00;30;38;13 - 00;30;39;03
Lauren
I know.

00;30;39;19 - 00;30;40;04
Gabe
But hear me out...that's ok, I love that

00;30;40;04 - 00;30;41;26
Gabe
I don't think I'm wrong.

00;30;41;29 - 00;30;53;15
Lauren
I don't think I'm wrong. I don't think it's exclusive. But I'm saying that a lot of women enjoy that creation and connection piece.

00;30;53;23 - 00;31;00;09
Gabe
I wonder if it's if it's some just kind of how our brains develop and stuff and just.

00;31;00;20 - 00;31;01;02
Lauren
Mhmmm.

00;31;01;26 - 00;31;09;04
Gabe
What, what part of the brain each gender kind of is more likely to activate, if that makes sense.

00;31;10;02 - 00;31;10;14
Lauren
Yeah.

00;31;11;07 - 00;31;11;21
Gabe
Yes.

00;31;11;27 - 00;31;17;24
Lauren
And I think it also is I like to think about why people play games.

00;31;17;24 - 00;31;18;05
Gabe
Right.

00;31;18;23 - 00;31;45;11
Lauren
Because, you know, what? What drives you to want to play a game? What drives you to want to play a game like Nancy Drew? And you want to do puzzles and you want to do some, you know, story work as opposed to Minecraft as opposed to Call of Duty. You know, what kind of inspires us all to move into different directions on different days or.

00;31;45;15 - 00;31;46;17
Gabe
Yeah, yeah.

00;31;47;21 - 00;31;48;16
Lauren
Different moods.

00;31;49;11 - 00;31;57;11
Gabe
Sing Star because because we all have to karaoke with our ladies. All right, let's be honest.

00;31;58;00 - 00;31;59;05
Lauren
We sure do.

00;31;59;12 - 00;32;10;28
Gabe
How many sleepovers did you karaoke at? The answer is every single one of them. You cannot tell me otherwise.

00;32;10;28 - 00;32;13;27
Lauren
I have not. I don't think I've karaoke since high school.

00;32;13;28 - 00;32;37;07
Gabe
Okay. Okay. But I don't mean like I'm using the term karaoke loosely in the sense that you all have a rock out moment and sing together. Okay. That's what I mean. Again, tell me I'm wrong. I love that Wii Sports is on the list because I was definitely playing Wii Sports in 2010.

00;32;37;07 - 00;32;38;29
Gabe
Well

00;32;39;03 - 00;32;41;07
Lauren
I was playing Wii Sports and Halo.

00;32;41;16 - 00;32;47;21
Gabe
And Halo, I love that for you. World of Warcraft, obsessed with the World of Warcraft. I love that.

00;32;48;26 - 00;32;53;09
Gabe
Zuma, Peggle, Brain Age. I don't recognize those puzzle games. I'm be honest.

00;32;53;20 - 00;33;00;10
Lauren
Yeah, I don't know. They're some of them are puzzles. Some of them are just like educational kind of games.

00;33;01;13 - 00;33;07;28
Gabe
All right. And the fact that Nancy Drew's on here, honestly, I feel like Nancy Drew climaxed in 2010. Like, I feel like.

00;33;07;28 - 00;33;12;13
Lauren
1,000%. I mean, they were putting out two games a year for...

00;33;12;23 - 00;33;13;12
Gabe
And they like.

00;33;13;12 - 00;33;14;13
Lauren
Five years in a row.

00;33;14;13 - 00;33;22;03
Gabe
And they're actually like quality games, too. They weren't Salem.

00;33;25;29 - 00;33;26;07
Gabe
Oops.

00;33;26;27 - 00;33;27;13
Gabe
Sorry.

00;33;28;00 - 00;33;30;24
Lauren
It's hurtful.

00;33;30;24 - 00;33;54;18
Gabe
I know. They're just yeah, that was I feel like some of peak. Peak Nancy Drew like Nancy Drew the company, Her Interactive was just they were there. I feel like, they've lost it some now, and it makes me sad how they get back there, anyways. Besides, besides the point. And then we have the next article that you found and I love this so much.

00;33;55;20 - 00;34;04;22
Gabe
It was list of trends seen in female players in 2022 and... Slots and Poker! We're gamblers baybee.

00;34;05;23 - 00;34;23;28
Lauren
Slots and poker. So this is UK only. So I don't know what they're doing over there, but slots and poker. I DO know what they're doing over there, it's Slots and Poker! Sims, Farmville still as we mentioned, and then Prince of Persia, which I thought was.

00;34;24;07 - 00;34;29;11
Gabe
Okay but is that is that like the movie Prince of Persia is it a whole other thing? That's what I was trying to... sorry.

00;34;29;25 - 00;34;32;05
Lauren
Oh, it's I mean, it's a game.

00;34;32;07 - 00;34;33;25
Gabe
Was it related to the movie?

00;34;33;25 - 00;34;41;13
Lauren
I mean, there was a whole series about it, and I think the movie was based on the games?

00;34;41;13 - 00;34;43;02
Lauren
Oh is that how it went.

00;34;44;05 - 00;35;07;17
Lauren
I'm 80% sure because yeah, Prince of Persia came out in 89 and then there was a second that came out in 93, and then there was a 3D one which is the first installment to use 3D computer graphics that came out in 99, and then they did some more in like 2003, 2004, 2010. And then there was a film adaption.

00;35;09;00 - 00;35;09;18
Gabe
Okay.

00;35;09;24 - 00;35;11;00
Lauren
That came out in 2010.

00;35;11;00 - 00;35;13;04
Gabe
Right, right, right. Yeah. With Jake Gyllenhall.

00;35;13;04 - 00;35;16;00
Gabe
and there was a Lego prince of Persia toy line.

00;35;16;00 - 00;35;17;16
Gabe
Gotcha, gotcha. Okay.

00;35;17;26 - 00;35;25;26
Lauren
Ubisoft bought it and the Assassin's Creed franchise is considered to be the spiritual successor to the series.

00;35;26;08 - 00;35;27;13
Gabe
Ahhh

00;35;28;18 - 00;35;40;22
Lauren
So if they were saying Assassin's Creed was a high trend in female players, I'd be like, Yeah, I got it. It's puzzles, it's movement, there's storyline, there's romance.

00;35;40;22 - 00;35;43;05
Gabe
We get to hardcore parkour!

00;35;43;18 - 00;35;45;12
Lauren
So then we're getting a bit more modern.

00;35;45;12 - 00;35;47;16
Gabe
Yes, yes, yes. Yeah.

00;35;47;16 - 00;36;14;01
Lauren
So Glamor magazine UK. I don't know why a lot of this is from the UK, but it is. I think there are some really strong like women in gaming communities and groups over there that I think is what's building up their bigger interest in talking about it and having articles on it.

00;36;14;17 - 00;36;32;14
Lauren
But so they made a list of best games made by women that does include games that have come out since 2010. So it's it wasn't saying like of that year, but it's somewhat recent. So they include Tomb Raider, Sims 4, Animal Crossing. And then there were some indie games that I wanted to call out.

00;36;32;14 - 00;36;39;23
Gabe
Wait, hold on. I was so embarrassed to not know that Tomb Raider was made by women or like a women led team.

00;36;39;26 - 00;36;42;21
Lauren
The last two Tomb Raider's, yes.

00;36;42;21 - 00;36;53;03
Gabe
Oh, well, we're talking the trilogy, right? We're talking about the newest trilogy of Tomb Raider. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I didn't know that. Yes.

00;36;53;03 - 00;37;03;25
Lauren
Yeah. So we'll talk about the woman who is very key on that. Rihanna Pratchett? Rihanna, Rihanna Pratchett. We'll talk about her in a second.

00;37;05;06 - 00;37;09;25
Gabe
Regardless, I think is Rihanna it has a H in it.

00;37;09;25 - 00;37;20;13
Lauren
She's British. So I don't know if that helps or hurts my cause. So on this list of best games, there's a VR game called Earth Light Spacewalk that

00;37;21;03 - 00;37;22;08
Gabe
Space work.

00;37;22;09 - 00;37;24;08
Lauren
Is - space work?

00;37;24;10 - 00;37;25;15
Gabe
Yeah, that's what is written.

00;37;25;15 - 00;37;47;29
Lauren
You do a space walk in VR in my defense. So you play as a female astronaut and again, it's in VR, so you're basically walking along and in a working on, a not a rocket...

00;37;47;29 - 00;37;56;03
Gabe
A rocket ship. No. It was also a collaboration with NASA which is super duper cool.

00;37;56;08 - 00;37;59;17
Lauren
Okay. I lied. I typed in space work, but it is actually Space Walk.

00;37;59;17 - 00;38;03;27
Gabe
Oh, it is space walk! Like, okay, you got it.

00;38;03;27 - 00;38;17;24
Lauren
It's Australian and the studio Opaque Space, won Australian studio of the year and this is the most realistic depiction of a spacewalk on the International Space Station.

00;38;18;00 - 00;38;19;05
Gabe
That's crazy.

00;38;19;19 - 00;38;33;15
Lauren
It was the winner of the Australia's Game of the Year in 2017 when it came out, and it lets players experience human spaceflight through the eyes of Ana, one of NASA's brightest astronauts on a repair mission hundreds of kilometers above Earth.

00;38;33;25 - 00;38;34;20
Gabe
Dude, is this on Steam?

00;38;34;20 - 00;38;37;15
Lauren
And I'm not sure probably? Hopefully?

00;38;37;15 - 00;38;39;21
Gabe
you continue. I have to know.

00;38;40;14 - 00;39;07;14
Lauren
But it just looked so cool, so interesting, you know, it's a female led team. It was produced by Danielle Hindi and there was a game design lead. Jennifer Scheurle who were, you know, the key members here on creating it and you play a female astronaut. And again, they were working with NASA to really, really focus on women in space.

00;39;07;18 - 00;39;17;13
Lauren
And NASA has a lot of goals on getting more female astronauts up and going and up in space.

00;39;17;13 - 00;39;18;07
Gabe
That's so cool.

00;39;18;07 - 00;39;34;02
Lauren
I was really excited seeing that, another game on the list that I wanted to talk about was Gravity Ghost, and this is from Ivy Games, and as a player you control a young girl's ghost. And again, there's a lot of space going on.

00;39;34;08 - 00;40;06;16
Lauren
I don't know why. And it explores a shattered galaxy. And you rescue survivors from this galaxy. And so the developer, Erin Robinson Swink, was named as one of the most influential women in technology by Fast Company, and I was reading some interviews with her. She's very funny, but she was in an article with Engadget. She was saying she can usually tell if someone is played until the end of the game based on the way they say it to her.

00;40;07;07 - 00;40;34;20
Lauren
So if they're like, "Yeah, I played your game! :) " or if "I played your game...", and then they look off into the distance, okay, that person played to the end. So Gravity Ghost, some other interviews that I saw. It's a game about personal growth, family and discovering the strength to continue living. Even when that seems impossible and people have told her that it helps them deal with loss playing through the game.

00;40;35;11 - 00;41;03;23
Lauren
She was saying that even the top steam reviews about that from a guy she doesn't even know who just bought the game. He talked about how it helped him deal with it, the death of a loved one. He didn't expect that from playing this little indie game. "I was like, God, that is super humbling." If her name, Erin Robinson, sounds at all familiar, she did the art for like a little point and click game called Blackwell Unbound, which was her first paying gig in video games.

00;41;04;10 - 00;41;13;05
Lauren
And I played that game and it is very good and I was very excited when I realized who she was and what she had worked on.

00;41;13;07 - 00;41;21;00
Gabe
It's on my wish list, I've been really wanting to play it but I haven't got a chance to. That's awesome. I didn't know that. So cool, the more you know.

00;41;21;14 - 00;41;47;27
Lauren
And then there is another game called Niche, which I think is a bit more talked about and it's described as Pokemon Go meets Tamagotchi, where you're evolving creatures, and you start with real animals and then use genetics to kind of create something new, fun, try to keep them alive, try not to let the species go extinct. And this was designed by a Swiss designer named Philomena Schwab.

00;41;48;06 - 00;42;07;08
Lauren
And then she went on to found a company called Playful Oasis, "Your source for games about nature". So it's a company that really highlights and works with games that are specifically about nature and animals, flora and fauna, etc. which I love.

00;42;07;17 - 00;42;22;08
Gabe
When you brought up the niche game. I had no idea what you werer talking about. I just looked it up in Steam and apparently it's in my library! Awkwarddddd.

00;42;24;28 - 00;42;29;24
Lauren
Great. Well, you're going to have to tell us how it went, how it goes. You have to try it out now.

00;42;29;25 - 00;42;32;02
Gabe
I do. I do. That's so funny.

00;42;33;20 - 00;43;00;24
Lauren
The last one on the list I wanted to talk about is called Butterfly Soup, and it's an app game on Android and iOS, and it's a visual novel following for young, queer Asian-American girls in their first year of high school. And so there's some interactive choices in the narrative. And it was named the best visual novel of 2017 by PC Gamer and the creator, Brianna Lei, who also made Butterfly Soup, too.

00;43;01;06 - 00;43;44;00
Lauren
It came out a few years later, was named on Forbes 30 under 30 list for games. So very exciting for her. So the ladies are creating really exciting new indie games. Again, focusing lot on kind of connection and it's a lot of science and connection with nature as well, which is exciting. We wanted to highlight a few big names in the industry, so Rhianna Pratchett We already mentioned her and she is one of truly the most famous female games writer and narrative designers.

00;43;44;14 - 00;44;16;09
Lauren
She's British and she is the daughter of Sir Terry Pratchett. Just to deal with that elephant in the room, I know that is something that articles that have been written about her or interviews with her, I've noticed several of them which had to change bylines because the bylines would say something on like Sir Terry Pratchett's daughter does this and such, and people would be like, She's her own person, leave her alone.

00;44;16;22 - 00;45;01;18
Lauren
So I have to acknowledge it, but then we'll move on. So she graduated with a journalism degree and started working at a women's magazine, and they were a little more flexible when she first started working. So the first year that she was there, she kind of bullied them into letting her write about comics and video games. And if she hadn't had that kind of first step in the door or into video games, her career, the way that it turned out, would never have happened the way that it like she probably would have gotten into writing in some other, way but because she could start and move into this like video game journalism, that really allowed her

00;45;01;18 - 00;45;25;07
Lauren
to continue on and start looking for more roles that are going to write more about video games and get further into the industry, and then moved on to helping create games. So Beyond Divinity was one of the first games she actually worked on where she was helping to polish the script, and then she wrote an accompanying novella to flesh out the game.

00;45;25;09 - 00;45;44;00
Lauren
From there, she did some game writing for - she liked doing kind of role playing story, heavy games, RPGs, and she did, yeah. Where she worked on Heavenly Sword and was nominated for a BAFTA for that. And then she worked on Overlord where she won best Video Game Script.

00;45;44;02 - 00;45;44;27
Gabe
Whats a BAFTA?

00;45;45;09 - 00;45;47;02
Lauren
British Academy Film Awards.

00;45;47;03 - 00;45;48;04
Gabe
Oh, cool. Okay.

00;45;48;28 - 00;46;25;15
Lauren
Yeah. So it's the British equivalent of the Oscars we were talking about her because we were talking about Tomb Raider. So she was the lead writer for the 2013 Tomb Raider and then the 2015 Rise of the Tomb Raider. And I saw this quote that was joking about the producer who I believe was a woman as well, went looking and was laughing because she found a girl with daddy issues to write about a girl a daddy issues because Rihanna has been under her father's shadow and then, you know, and he's been ill.

00;46;25;15 - 00;46;58;18
Lauren
And so there's just and Lara Lara Croft is similarly where her father is a really famous archeologist. And so she is trying to create her own path while still dealing with. I mean, Lara Croft dad disappears and her mother passes away. And so she's dealing with all of this trauma but she is trying to find her own path and explore her own world instead of just being known for her father.

00;46;59;05 - 00;47;13;06
Gabe
The hard thing about that is that he's like gone and I think presumably dead. And that's just like, I think even harder of something to try and live up to, you know what I mean? Because it's not

00;47;13;06 - 00;47;14;04
Gabe
Lara Croft's dad?

00;47;14;05 - 00;47;17;06
Gabe
Yeah. Sorry. Yes

00;47;17;25 - 00;47;18;27
Lauren
Just. Just so we're clear.

00;47;19;02 - 00;47;40;23
Gabe
Yeah. Laras, not Rihanna's, Lara, Lara Crofts, because it's just it's. I feel like you can Idolize and make some someone more of a hero when they're not there to show you otherwise. So I feel like that would just be so. I mean, it doesn't matter. We're talking about Rihanna now. I'm sorry.

00;47;42;01 - 00;48;10;17
Lauren
Well, but I wanted to talk about Rise of the Tomb Raider. Right. Because I wanted to talk about Rihanna's take on Lara Croft. She was in an interview. She was talking about, you know, how in the movies she's a bit of an ice queen where nothing moves her, nothing touches her. She has a lot of money. So she's just kind of throwing money around and crashing planes into mountains and being a total badass, but very much being detached.

00;48;10;28 - 00;48;42;23
Lauren
Yeah. So she was talking about what - That they took what people think of as Lara Croft, her traits like bravery, resourcefulness, resilience, independence, strength. And they rewound the traits until they they're just below the surface. In Rise of the Tomb Raider. Lara is young. She's a late teenager. So she's definitely doing a lot of growing up. And part of the story is her finding out or figuring out that she's been just running away so that she doesn't have to deal with like her trauma and her pain.

00;48;43;02 - 00;48;47;29
Lauren
And so it's her kind of coming to terms with that and being brave enough to face that.

00;48;48;03 - 00;48;49;15
Gabe
That's powerful.

00;48;49;15 - 00;49;09;00
Lauren
Rihanna was saying you don't want to just pop out. Being a badass like that doesn't just happen. And so especially with Rise and she has all of these traits, but I mean, she's young and she's still dealing with so many things. So those traits can't really come out to play. "There's no bravery without fear" is what Rihanna was saying.

00;49;09;06 - 00;49;13;07
Lauren
And they wanted to show where that came from, where her bravery came from, and how it evolved.

00;49;13;20 - 00;49;16;18
Gabe
That's deep. That's powerful and it's true.

00;49;16;18 - 00;49;33;26
Lauren
And Rise of the Tomb Raider won outstanding achievement in video game writing. An Outstanding Achievement in character for Lara Croft character at the 60th Writers Guild of America Awards in 2016. I loved that story and kind of the thought behind it.

00;49;34;12 - 00;49;34;23
Gabe
Yeah.

00;49;35;07 - 00;49;51;15
Lauren
And so as she stayed, as Rihanna stayed involved with Tomb Raider, she like wrote a comic Tomb Raider the beginning. And then that kind of got her into some other comic work where she worked with DC Comics to write the Mirror's Edge comic miniseries.

00;49;51;24 - 00;49;59;20
Gabe
It's this why she didn't she wasn't a part of writing the third one because she got into all these other projects.

00;50;01;05 - 00;50;03;27
Lauren
I don't know why she didn't write the third one.

00;50;04;05 - 00;50;06;02
Gabe
Okay. That's okay.

00;50;06;02 - 00;50;25;15
Lauren
So I couldn't tell you. She might have moved on into other projects by the time that really started going. She won the European Women in Games Hall of Fame Award in 2013, where they said that "she's a scriptwriter and narrative designer. She's best known for her work on Heavenly Sword, Mirror's Edge and more recently, Tomb Raider.

00;50;25;27 - 00;50;32;21
Lauren
Her characterization of in game females as fun rather than cliched has helped set the new benchmark for the industry."

00;50;32;24 - 00;51;01;22
Gabe
I think Tomb Raider was huge for female characters and and it showed I don't know how to put this, in that like Lara Croft wasn't ditzy. She wasn't an airhead, like they said, she wasn't an ice queen. So I feel like these are the tropes that female characters end up being. No, she was real. I felt like they did a really good at making her real and more relatable.

00;51;02;09 - 00;51;23;13
Gabe
And like you're saying, like, you're not just immediately a badass. And like, as fun as it is to live out your badass life and, you know, video games. I liked that in the tomb, right? Like you didn't start out being that way. Were like, you're literally naked and afraid at first and then. Yeah, and then slowly being like, You know what?

00;51;24;29 - 00;51;29;28
Gabe
I'm a bad bitch. Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

00;51;30;14 - 00;51;31;23
Gabe
Surgeon simulator!

00;51;32;22 - 00;51;59;12
Lauren
I know. So my chat recently had me play Surgeon Simulator 1. Turns out Rihanna was a writer for Surgeon Simulator 2. So now apparently I'm going to have to go and play that and find out what went on and what she contributed to that. Because I'm very curious, because it's quite a game.

00;52;01;00 - 00;52;03;10
Gabe
I'm not I'm not freaked out. You're freaked out.

00;52;04;11 - 00;52;07;24
Lauren
So sorry.

00;52;08;25 - 00;52;31;03
Gabe
We have all these other women developers to go through, but we were discussing that maybe we'll be highlighting them like a one female developer in every episode, because there's so many great female developers to talk about and truly too many to talk about in one episode. Especially when we had all this other stuff we want to cover, so not to worry, we will get to them.

00;52;31;03 - 00;52;53;17
Gabe
If you have games that were developed or led by women that you want us to check out and talk about, women in the industry that we should spotlight on a future episode. You know, let us know on our Twitter at nosidequests or email us at nosidequests at gmail.com and Lauren has a nice nice end speech to tell us that's really heartfelt.

00;52;53;17 - 00;53;16;19
Lauren
I - after a lot of my research and you know I was going through all of these developers and going through a lot of these games that were recently coming out and looking at the games that women are spending their time playing. Like I was saying earlier, at the end of the day, some women...this would make more sense if we had talk about all the developers because there is one developer...

00;53;16;23 - 00;53;37;28
Gabe
No it still makes sense though because it makes sense for the players. Okay, this is true. Some women like creating and playing games that help us connect with ourselves, to those around us, cope with loss and find peace. But this is true. Others want to smash things. I sometimes need to smash things. Okay. And then put them back together. And that's that's okay.

00;53;38;10 - 00;53;48;16
Gabe
And I'm definitely, like you said, many others switch between the two depending on whether it's, oh God, a white wine, sangria, or tequila soda type of night.

00;53;48;16 - 00;54;08;22
Lauren
I'm just saying that because I had one of each this weekend. So they're topical for me. When I was looking through a bunch of quotes by the developers, and so I was looking into one, Kim Swift, who did a lot of work on Portal, I mean, led the charge on Portal really. She was saying, "I work on toys."

00;54;08;29 - 00;54;36;11
Lauren
She's, she like rejects the art label for games saying "I work on toys. Don't take that away from me. I like that I make toys" versus, you know, a variety of other designers and developers who are saying, hey, I want to create art and create and build connections. So unsurprisingly there's a wide variety of creators in the industry, just like there are a wide variety of gamers.

00;54;36;24 - 00;55;00;25
Gabe
I feel like if you think it I mean, videogames are an art. Like even though I understand she's calling them toys and like even as toys, it's it's an art because there's there's so much impact they have there's so much you could do with them. I mean, I'm not going to cry. You're going to cry, I have to stop.

00;55;01;08 - 00;55;28;02
Gabe
I'm too emotional today. But they just, they, they they can touch you. They can help you get through a hard time or like that one guy said, maybe it helps you process something you weren't able to process before, or it helps you live out a life you always wanted to live. But you can't because you know, we can't all be ninjas or CIA agents or, you know, but you get to live it out and experience it and feel it.

00;55;28;03 - 00;55;53;08
Lauren
Or maybe you just want to play Bejeweled and stop thinking for 20 minutes while you're pressing the pretty diamond shapes. Yeah, it again, it depends on why you want to be gaming. Are you trying to release anger or are you trying to turn your brain off? Are you trying to, you know, explore something you want to have music on?

00;55;53;13 - 00;55;59;12
Lauren
Because it can be like reading a book. Like you choose to read different books for different reasons. It's the same with games.

00;56;00;08 - 00;56;08;12
Gabe
Yeah. And the making of games too. I think our next episode is going to be maybe about upcoming games for 2023.

00;56;09;04 - 00;56;09;07
Gabe
Or.

00;56;09;14 - 00;56;13;13
Gabe
It might be a surprise. Who knows? Okay, we don't know.

00;56;13;15 - 00;56;14;02
Lauren
Who knows?

00;56;14;02 - 00;56;30;03
Gabe
You don't know. And that's, you know, that's fine. You kid, you go ahead and laugh about it. But, you know, we're a mystery, okay? We're Nancy Drew, except for the mystery Nancy was trying to solve. And she's never going to solve it.

00;56;31;12 - 00;56;50;03
Gabe
Well, yeah. Lauren's like, Yeah, yeah. You know what? That's fine. I'm Gabe, and you know why you can find me. At nenyaadamas on Twitter, Twitch, YouTube and Instagram, and you can find Lauren at Sweetie_Potat on Twitter, Twitch and YouTube. She has her first ever YouTube video. Go, I don't know do the things. Sub? like? comment? ...leave?

00;56;50;08 - 00;56;52;12
Gabe
I'm just kidding, I don't know.

00;56;52;23 - 00;56;55;05
Gabe
That's all. Thank you for tuning in and I hope.

00;56;55;05 - 00;56;59;25
Gabe
you have a good one! Bye!