The majority of gamers in the gaming industry have been men over the years. Except for Sims, the majority of games featured strong male characters that fought battles and were mainly targeted at men. As the industry developed, it started to target women as well. Newzoo’s research has shown that almost 46% of all gamers today are women.
Elya Topol, Product Manager at Playstudios-Israel
I received a degree from Tel Aviv University in brain science during college. I am currently the product manager for Playstudios. It is my first job since college. I was looking for a job that combined creativity, technology and innovation. It required me to think outside the box, embrace the business aspect, and work with and manage a team.
As a product manger, I get to be involved in developing games that provide a wide range of people with an enjoyable gaming experience. From characterization and game logic through the creative stages, I’m involved in the entire creative process. I also work closely with a diverse professional group to ensure the games are launched successfully. Then, I measure and optimize the games performance.
Are you concerned that women working in the gaming industry face different challenges than women working in other high-tech sectors in Israel? If so, what can society do to change that?
Based on my personal experience, women face many challenges. While I don’t have any experience working in high-tech or gaming companies, Playstudios has a large number of women in key management positions and leadership roles. My problems have little to do gender. I believe that gender equality contributes towards a peaceful and equal workplace environment and helps the company succeed. I hope that the gender-related questions of the past will disappear in the next few years and that professionalism will be reemphasized.
Are you adamant that there is a difference in the approach of a woman and a man to game design?
A combination of multiple viewpoints and many ideas is necessary to develop a successful game. The creation of a game is collaborative and involves the efforts of many professionals, regardless of gender, such as programmers and designers, illustrators and animators, mathematicians, product managers and data and business people. A video game is created when all these ingredients are combined.
We create games out of empathy for other players and their user experience. We hope that the game will be fun and enjoyable. The games we were working on did not target a specific gender, but a wider range of players – men and women, young and old alike. Despite the stereotype of the young boy-gamer-stereotype 50% of gamers are women.