What is it about?
Females designed games much before #GamerGate – as Roberta Williams' case shows. However, outside the United States, there was also a strong representation of women in video game industry. This article examines the selected works of three French female designers: Clotilde Marion, Chine Lanzmann, and Muriel Tramis. Yet in the 1980s, they tackled such themes as slavery, liberation, and male oppression against women. Therefore, their oeuvre was highly influential at the time.
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Photo by Moiz K. Malik on Unsplash
Why is it important?
While much of the video game research is devoted to American female designers in the 1980s, French female activity of the same time remains unknown. This article is important because it shows another perspective on the medium. This research shows that French females designed video games simultaneously to Williams, Dona Bailey and Carol Shaw. Therefore, it opens new perspectives on the position of women in supposedly male-dominated industry.
Perspectives
English-speaking game reviewers are constantly treating French games as the "weird" ones. While writing this article as a Pole, I was also considered "weird" because rarely anybody in Poland knew that "French video games" does not mean only "Another World" or "Rayman". This article, as I hope, can make the history (histories?) of the medium more nuanced. I would like to introduce you to into the realm of "weirdness" and familiarize you with the unknown. Especially the knowledge about French female designers can help you rethink your understanding of video game history.
Filip Jankowski
Uniwersytet Jagiellonski w Krakowie
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The Presence of Female Designers in French Video Game Industry, 1985–1993, Games and Culture, April 2019, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/1555412019841954.
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