August's Girls In Games Jam Has Speakers From Sony And EA
The first Girls In Games Jam is taking place early next month with speakers from Sony Interactive Entertainment, Innersloth, Warner Bros Games, EA, and Netflix, among others, as the event seeks to "highlight representation for girls and women in the games industry".
Amazon Web Services and social community platform Games Jolt will be hosting the virtual jam, with a day of talks, roundtable panels, and speakers from a variety of backgrounds and experiences. Alongside the developers mentioned above, industry veterans from PlayStation Studios, Dreamhaven, Twitch, AWS For Games, and others will be in attendance. In addition, participants will be invited to team up or go solo and be tasked with coming up with a game pitch deck featuring a girl and/or woman as the protagonist.
Related: Women's Stories Being Told By Men Is One Of Gaming's Biggest Problems
The jam is aimed at those early in their games career, but AWS and Game Jolt emphasised that the content is open to all, and "especially those who identify as, and are allies of, girls, women, and non-binary people". The jam is to provide a day of inspiration while showcasing different paths forward into the games industry, and turning participants' passion into a concept with the game pitch. There will be talks on game development, design, publishing, programming, games media, and how to make a great pitch deck, among others.
Improved diversity in the games industry is much needed to better reflect the player base, while studies have shown that having more diverse teams can lead to smarter and more dynamic companies, which this Harvard Business Review article summarises.
Last month, the USA's Entertainment Software Association found that nearly one in two (48 percent) of
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