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Why We’re Striking on International Women’s Day

As long as discrimination and inequities remain so commonplace everywhere in the world, as long as girls and women are valued less, fed less, fed last, overworked, underpaid, not schooled, subjected to violence in and outside their homes—the potential of the human family to create a peaceful, prosperous world will not be realized. – Hillary Clinton Today, on International Women’s Day, women in the US are striking by abstaining from work and spending to demonstrate their economic power. It is a deeply ironic and upsetting proof of concept that many women cannot participate in the strike, either because their employers…

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Xbox Avatars acknowledge wheelchair users at long last

Creating digital avatars to represent your identity was a big part of the Xbox 360 consoles, allowing users to customize their online appearance through a stylized caricature of themselves. With the introduction of the Xbox One, this feature was taken away briefly before being brought back with an updated design. And now, Microsoft has revealed that it will be adding wheelchairs as an option for the reintroduced avatars. Inclusion in our media is important, but society (and games in particular) seems to always favor those who are able-bodied. This is why people with disabilities (and their allies) pointed the oversight…

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Kill Screen Fest’s scholars program to bring more women into gaming

Apply for the Kill Screen Festival Scholars Program here.  /// The internet makes it easier than ever for people at all skill levels to promote and distribute their art. This culture of creation has enabled a diverse community of game creators and studios to flourish, and for stories that are sorely neglected in mainstream games from larger studios to succeed. The next step for this wave of diversity is for the stories of women, people of color, and LBGTQ communities to be integrated into mainstream gaming. The only way to guarantee representation for these groups in these games is to…

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You’ll be able to enter the fevered mind of a game developer in One Dreamer

There is currently no shortage of games. Imagine a game, any game—a small game, a weird game, a psychedelic game, whatever—and there are probably twelve versions of it online. This is great. The more the merrier. But as one processes the daily deluge of wonderful little oddities, it’s hard not to wonder what on earth was going through developers’ minds as they made these games. One Dreamer, which is currently raising funds on Kickstarter, is a game that offers a glimpse into the fevered mind of a fictional game developer named Frank. Said developer divides his time between two levels…