anna anthropy

pixelclash:

continue? - 

Ninja Gaiden (Tecmo - arcade - 1988)

yyyYYYYYYYYESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

In 2001 I posted a teaser page for The Emperor's Star, a three-day, six-player Chrononauts role-playing scenario. Then nothing happened for eleven years. Then Anna Anthropy rightly bugged me about publishing it, and bugged me again until I did something about it. So here it is. All the rules, character information, and the timeline are posted now; also the PDF files I used for the original play session.

As 1/4 of the organizing force behind Lost Levels (the other 3/4 being: Harry Lee, Fernando Ramallo, and Ian Snyder), I'd like to talk briefly about it.

It went really well. Like really really well, much weller than I ever thought it could've went. At least 150-200 people showed up, and we had about 50-70 speakers in the end. Thanks everyone.

I'm sure all attendees and speakers have different takeaways from Lost Levels: on the power of organization, the ultimate uselessness of Powerpoint, why GDC must be destroyed, why GDC must exist, etc. At the very least, I'd like to think we succeeded, to some degree, to break down a sense of "exclusiveness" and unreachability among all game developers and players.

As a former modder, I occupy a strange space in the game developer ecosystem: my background is in AAA tools and techniques, but my politics and interests will often clash with AAA politics and interests. I can't identify completely with the more militant indies nor more militant AAAs. However, I do think militancy has a crucial purpose, and that purpose is to move the middle to a better place, and right now I think that place is toward those who have the gall to align themselves with the forces of human empathy.

Now, all throughout Lost Levels, I felt very conscious of this appearance that we're "against" GDC. Again, we are not against GDC; rather, we are against a pervasive system and mindset that prevents GDC from changing for the better. A giant corporate conference structure has strengths, but it also has very real gaping flaws -- its expense forms a prohibitive cost barrier that fundamentally limits the diversity of voices who supposedly represent all game developers, which enforces a monoculture of ideas and works. Monocultures kill games.

My main takeaway from Lost Levels: we all possess some degree of power. We must simply exercise it collectively, decisively, and tenderly.

Thanks for participating and see you next year!

(As a reminder: I am only 1 of 4 Lost Levels organizers and my opinions do not necessarily represent the rest of the organizers' opinions; it's okay if you disagree with me, you will still always be welcome at all Lost Levels existing and imaginary, whether I'm helping to organize it or not.)

Tag them with the correct colours, but don’t get eaten! – [Author's description]

[Play online (HTML5)]
[Download for Windows]

Credit: Shesellsheshells

(Thanks, Kotaku!)

Grey, a new and beautiful pattern by Nicolas Sassoon.

assassination-for-beginners:

LEGEND. All others are imitators and impostors. 

I’m reading through the latest digital edition of Game Developer Magazine which contains their annual survey.  The salary numbers overall weren’t concerning to me, until I scrolled down and saw the differences between the male and female survey respondents.  The next time someone tells me that men and women get paid equally for their talents in the game industry, I wanted something to link to them.  This is just plain disgusting.

 

This isn’t so bad right?  Female programmers are currently making 4.5% more annually than male programmers.  However, considering they only make up 4% of the entire field of programmers in the game industry, companies are probably paying them more to retain them.  I’m glad to see the few lady programmers we have in games aren’t underpaid.

However, expect things to get more grim.

 

Male artists make 29% more per year than female artists in the game industry.  Women represent 16% of the game industry’s artists, which is sadly a pretty decent number.

 

Male game designers make 23.6% more annually than female game designers, and men comprise 89% of the game industry’s designers.

 

The producer field doesn’t look so terrible.  It has the highest percentage of female representation at 23%.  Women still are underpaid compared to men though: 8.3% less.

 

Audio development is completely dominated by men.  96% of audio developers are male, and they make a whopping 65% more than women.

 

It’s starting to get a big redundant, but here you can see that men make 24.9% more than women per year in QA.

Finally, in business and legal we see that men make 31% more than women.  This is a broad field that includes Community Management, CEOs, HR, IT, and admin.  I suspect part of this discrepancy in wage is that HR, admin, and community management have a lot of female representation anecdotally while upper management is dominated by men at most game companies.

I’m sure there are more details that might make these numbers less damning.  For example, we all know that games have been long dominated by men and the industry is taking small steps to change that.  As a result, many of the women who answered the survey might be new to the game industry, might not be in as senior of roles as the men who responded.  However, I don’t think this changes the fact that we need to recruit and encourage more women at all levels of every organization — and we’re failing to do so.

Leadership: look at your organization.  Compare the salaries of the women to the men who work at your company, and align their salaries.  If all of your women are junior, evaluate them.  How long have they been junior?  Are they deserving of an increase in role, capabilities, and salary?  If you don’t have many women in various departments, recruit them.  Make an effort to keep your space positive and encouraging for women.  Consider that raising women up in your company means for more mentors in our industry for the young women who might be interested in working in games.  These numbers are disgusting and we see them year after year.  Who is out there working to change it?  Every studio should be proactive in solving this, because with numbers like these — why would women want to work in games?

These images are all from the April 2013 issue of Game Developer Magazine.

 

Press any key for joyness – [Readme]

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(from The Legends of Skyfall #4: The Garden of Madness, 1985)

CADRE Swap and Cooperative Gaming Coop Swap!

Tuesday April 9 from 7pm-9pm in Art 241 on SJSU campus.

Coop Swap – bring one cool game to swap for one cool thing we have in our collection, make sure to bring something someone will want to play… that is the way the swap lives on. You are also welcome to trade with other Coopers.

CADRE Swap – bring old electronics that you want to get rid of, we will put it all out on a table and you are welcome to take home whatever you like, anything that is left over will be recycled.

Toki, TAD Corporation

Mosaic works by Charis Tsevis. Plenty of more similar works at tsevis.com. Do you spot all the 8-bit references?

vuls:

Grace Jones maternity dress, 1979

Birdhead Ashcan minicomic is now for sale for $2 USD.

We ship internationally!

       
       
       
       
Game Boy Camera

“Wow you’re so brave, I admire your decision in life!” your friend enthusiastically shouts out as you escape your burning house

“I never have the guts to do anything as bold as that” they say as you shiver half naked, having suddenly lost everything

“Yeah I really look up to you” they smile at you and go back to their safe intact home and go to bed

You’re pretty confused since it’s not like you set your house on fire, all you did was you woke up to grave danger and fled.

You took too much [DRUG] and missed the shuttle launch. Or maybe you’re too early? It’s really hard to tell. Maybe you shouldn’t have taken all of that [DRUG].

Meander about the valley with [WASD]

Observe the perfect harmony of the world with [MOUSE]

Contemplate the meaning of existence with [ENTER] – [Author's description]

[Play Online]
[Windows/Mac Download (for full screen)]

I finished my first zine today — it’s a short compilation of some of my poetry and photography from my personal/self-documentation blog. I haven’t figured out a good way to get physical copies to people yet, but I’ve made a digital version for easy distribution.

In other news, anna anthropy has been facing a lot of financial hardship lately. I think people sometimes have this idea that because anna is well-known, has made highly-regarded games, and has written two books, that she’s well-off. This is not the case — most of her work is released for free and she doesn’t see much income from her books or many, many speaking gigs. She does a tremendous amount of work for games as a medium and most of it is unpaid.

So here’s the deal: send a dollar or a few anna’s way, email me to let me know you have, and I’ll send you a PDF copy of the zine.

The email route is getting a little cumbersome to deal with, so I’ve made the zine freely available for download. If you like it, please send a dollar or a few to anna.

I wrote today’s morning feature at Colorlines on “HR-by-mob,” i.e. the mechanisms by which the internet gets black women fired (and other folks who aren’t white men). I also made this gif to accompany it, which ended up not getting used, so enjoy it here!

L’Atlas, a French (street) artist. Seems heavily inspired by arabic text, compasses and labyrinths. A fine choice!

More L’Atlas
More kufi style

Moebius - Dune character designs

fucknovideogames:

Anna Anthropy reads her version of Cara Ellison’s “Romero’s Wives” at GDC.

This was probably the most important talk at this year’s GDC, and Anna does an excellent job calling the industry out on its bullshit.

Kufi works by Abdulaziz Şahin, Turkey. All these designs contain the word Muhammed or Allah, or both. More here.

A Guest Post by Sean Saifa Wall

On March 26^th, 2013 in Sapele, the Delta State of Nigeria, Pastor Henry Enuta was physically stripped and humiliated in public because he is an intersex person.  According to news reports, he was almost killed by a lynch mob before being taken into custody by police.  Most of the headlines covering this story grossly refer to Mr. Enuta as a “hermaphrodite” because he has genitals that are characteristically male and female.  To sensationalize this story and humiliate Mr. Enuta even more, media outlets have published pictures of him bare chested and with torn clothes, holding onto his dignity while passers-by capture pictures of him with their mobile phones.

When I saw this story, I was horrified at how Mr. Enuta’s humanity was reduced to a mockery simply because his body did not conform to narrow standards of what a man’s body should be.  For him to be forcibly stripped with no one to offer him clothes or rescue was atrocious.  I was doubly astounded at how members of his community sought to kill him for the mere fact that he was different and considered some kind of freak. Nevertheless, given that this incident has taken place in Nigeria, I want to be very aware of my position as an African American queer intersex man living in the United States.  People with intersex conditions living in the United States are just as vulnerable as intersex people living abroad.  The medicalized and state sanctioned violence that impacts intersex people living in the United States is a pervasive, isolating, and silencing kind of violence that recreates stigma and shame.

In speaking out against this act, my goal is not to impose a critical, patronizing gaze on how people in Nigeria should respond to queerness or difference.  Considering how the United States and Europe have responded to legislation that seeks to punish, kill, and “reform” queer people in Uganda, for example, I find myself both wanting to fight for the sovereignty of Black African nations and also asking those same nations to uphold the humanity and dignity of their queer and sexually differentiated citizens.  Those of us committed to the upholding the dignity and respect of intersex people around the world must be willing to do the hard work of both checking our biases and privileges while also continuing to advocate for justice wherever injustice occurs.

Caster Semenya winning second place in the women’s 800-meter final during the IAAF World Athletics Championship in South Korea in 2011 (Stu Forster / Getty Images)

We have witnessed a hazing similar to Henry Enuta’s experience on an international stage before with Olympic runner, Caster Semenya.  A gold and silver medalist hailing from South Africa, Caster’s glory was shrouded by “genetic testing” to prove whether she was a “man” or a “woman,” since having XY chromosomes as a female athlete would give her an “unfair” advantage.  Although we as a society should have used Ms. Semenya’s experience as an opportunity for education and reflection about gender identity and sexual differentiation in human beings, we instead responded with slander and ignorance toward a young Black South African whose goal was to compete in an international arena.  What does Caster Semenya have to do with Henry Enuta? Simply put, both of their experiences reflect two cases of intersex African people whose reception in the media did nothing but reinforce our perceptions of intersex people as “freaks” and as “other.”  I also bring Caster Semenya into this conversation because this freakish display and exploitation of African bodies is not unlike the colonial exploitation of Sarah Baartman, also known as the “Hottentot Venus,” a Khoi woman from Southern Africa who was toured around Europe as a spectacle because of her “enlarged” labia and “oversized” buttocks. Just as Sarah Baartman did not deserve this violation, neither do Caster Semenya or Henry Enuta deserve to be so unfairly and violently treated. It is critical that those of us fighting for intersex rights speak out against the public humiliation and violence perpetrated against these individuals.

In light of the U.N. Report on Torture in Health Care that includes intersex infants as a vulnerable population, I ask that we as a global community respect and uphold the integrity of intersex people wherever they work, live, play, and worship.  I also ask that we continue to examine how racism and other forms of oppression lend themselves to the way we depict intersex people of color in the media.  Given those requests, I hope that those responsible for the ill treatment of Mr. Enuta are held accountable by their community members and that future coverage of this case respects Mr. Enuta’s dignity and person.  As members of the movement to end violence and stigmatization of intersex people we must continue to stand united against injustice, while also moving forward in creating a world safe for all people.

 Sean Saifa Wall, an activist based in Atlanta, GA, is Board Co-Chair for Advocates for Informed Choice, an organization that fights for the rights of intersex individuals. 

Here’s the text of my very short #lostlevels talk — much of my time was taken up by a discussion in which I asked the audience to share erotic experiences they’d had in games.

*

Videogames have a problem: they aren’t very erotic.

As my friend Porpentine puts it, “there is a vast chasm between human bodies and the repetitive soulless porn of AAA games.”

Consider a game like Mass Effect, in which sex is a goal, the reward for a series of obviously correct dialogue choices — as my friend Kim Moss puts it, “kindness is a currency“.

Sex in Mass Effect is a cutscene in which the player puts down the controller and watches two bodies awkwardly interface with one another.

It is precisely the moment at which the player is no longer touching the game.

Sex is a movie, sex is a show, sex is a two-minute, pre-recorded, predictable sequence of events.

It may involve two parties of the same gender, but it is never queer.

When sex isn’t a cutscene, the prize, it’s totally mechanistic, linear.

It’s about increasing a gauge, building up a number.

Orgasm = level-up.

Leonore Tiefer, a psychologist who’s written extensively about sexuality: “I always say to people, orgasm is very American. Because it’s a score. It’s short. You know when you’ve had it. You can put the notch on your belt.”

Insofar as games incorporate sex mechanically, that’s how they’ve done it.

Sex in games is about control in the most unsexy way possible, the fantasy of bodies that bend to our perfect wills and always perform just like we expect them to.

So how can we incorporate sex and eroticism into games in ways that are mechanical — that don’t resort to exposition or cinematics — yet non-mechanistic — playful, exploratory, and expansive?

I think we need to realize that this won’t necessarily look like one organ penetrating another, or even two organs rubbing against each other.

We’re seeing more small independent games that provide the player with a space to explore and interact with, without much in the way of a goal or endgame. So maybe eroticism in games won’t be best explored in literal terms, as an act involving one or more human bodies, but will be suffused throughout a space, conveyed through an abstract experience created by a game’s rules.

Independent games are exploring more and more facets of human experiences — I hope to see more which treat sex thoughtfully and that present a diversity of erotic expression.

Square kufi scripts by lutfi. All these images are text. 

(from Star Challenge #3: The Cosmic Funhouse, 1984)