My Adventures in the Computer Games Industry

3/8/2020

Darlene Lacey in her home office in 2015 with some of the classic computer games she created.

You probably don’t know this, but I was a pioneer in the computer games industry. I was one of a team of three game designers for an arcade game that is kept in permanent storage at the Smithsonian Museum. I was one of three game designers/producers recruited to launch the Walt Disney Company into the computer game market. I was part of a small dot.com design team building an artificial intelligence personal assistant years ahead of Apple’s Siri.

After that, I dropped out.

Why? Primarily because I saw the promise of creating games and software for people (not just males, not just females) dwindle into almost non-existence with each passing year. I also saw the market for games that challenged the intellect get crushed by the tidal wave of combat, killing, and pillaging games. Games I had no interest in designing and putting out in the world, even though they were popular and profitable.

I understand that there all kinds of people, and they all deserve products they enjoy. So, I’m not entirely against these games. However, what I found so discouraging was that the diverse, interesting people who originally populated the industry were being replaced by gamers who loved these games and had no interest in creating anything different.

When I started out in the computer games industry in 1981, none of the designers had a degree in computer game design. This didn’t exist. We used to say, “None of us set out to be game designers; it just happened.” We got involved because we were primarily creative people, a diverse group coming together to build something exciting and new. There, we created the groundbreaking laserdisc arcade game, Dragon’s Lair.

1983's smash hit, Dragon's Lair

When I began in the game industry, I was paid $40 a week for “all I could write” for an experimental home adventure game system. We designed games with paper and pencil. A while down the line, the company purchased a computer that we all shared for a few hours a day. We had no email, internet, smart phones, tablets, or personal computers. I bought my first personal computer, a Compaq Portable, in 1983. It weighed 28 pounds, but technically was “portable” with a handle so that you could lug it around. I loved that computer.

1989's Ducktales, PC Player Magazine's Gameboy Game of the Year

When I joined Disney in 1989, we still didn’t have email or internet. We used bulky SyQuest 44MB removable hard disc drives and sent them via FedEx back and forth to our developers. We had our own offices so that we could think, and not just be part of a hive of “asset creators,” a concept that didn’t exist back then. We were hired primarily because we were creative. I was the sole female producer, but there were only three producers when we started.
At Disney, I produced some unconventional adventure games for all genders (see my Dog Eat Dog video) along with what are now known as classic Nintendo games, most notably Ducktales in 1989. I wound up being profiled as a female role model for a children's book. The author had come in to interview a male producer, then saw me coming down the hall. "Who are YOU?" she asked. The next thing I knew, I was being interviewed for the book. She didn't expect to find a female producer.

Sadly, the 1990s ushered in the change to the testosterone-driven games that alienated me. I left the games industry, moved into Web technologies, and eventually moved further into education. Now I design games and curriculum for NFTE, a non-profit organization providing entrepreneurship training and education programs to young people from low-income urban communities. These are game designs I can get behind. I love the challenge of designing games that don’t rely on technology, but can also work with technology. I love that there is a positive purpose in what I do.

I am also happy to see that females now have equal access to the internet and computing, and that casual games and social games have grown in popularity to be an option for anyone not interested in violent games.

However, I don’t find myself wishing to return to the games industry. Despite the growth in women playing computer games, the statistics I see on women working in the industry are still discouraging. Statistics from 2014-17 show women comprising 21% of the workforce, and the majority of those relegated to traditionally ‘feminine’ roles, such as the marketing or administration divisions, rarely seeing opportunities for advancement. This, despite women comprising 46% of the computer and video gamers in the United States in 2019.

When will women truly achieve equality in this profitable industry? What will it take to achieve it? These are questions I can’t answer, but I hope to see the day that this happens. Let’s stop going backwards. I, for one, am sick of it.

Darlene Lacey
Author of A Woman’s Guide to Low Self-Esteem, available on Amazon in paperback and e-book.

"I am Generation Equality: Realizing Women’s Rights”
#IWD2020
#GENERATIONEQUALITY

Profile of Darlene Lacey, then Darlene Waddington, as a female role model in the 1994 book Know the Score by Gloria Skurzynski.

3 Comments

Ben de Dood

3/8/2020 05:02:38 pm

Having worked as a games journalist all through the nineties, from freelance editor to editor-in- chief of various Dutch games magazines, I can relate to your story from a media point of view.

The first games magazine I worked for had an all-male crew. Until one day my then girlfriend asked me what I was doing when she saw me play a game and make notes. I replied that I was working, playing games and reviewing them. She said she could also do that, so I said great, we need female reviewers. From the moment her first review was published, the magazine received letters and e-mails from young women who told us they were so happy finally reading reviews by female game journalists. It really made a difference. In the nineties, Dutch games magazines on average had less than five percent female subscribers. This magazine eventually reached ten to fifteen percent. Still not great, but compared to the competition it was pretty impressive.

After a few years, we both left to start working for another games magazine. The crew went back to being all-male, and the percentage of female subscibers dropped to average. I became editor-in-chief of a new games magazine, and made sure the editorial staff included several female editors (though not as much as I aimed for, somehow they were hard to find). Once again, the percentage of female subscribers rose to way above average (something like twenty percent), which made the publisher very happy – mainly for commercial reasons, it really helped sell more adverts, so let’s say this was a win-win situation. It was also great for editorial content. Game developers – mostly men - loved being interviewed by our female editors. Somehow, they seemed to talk more openly and nuanced about their work.

However, I couldn’t help but notice that we still were an exception. All the other game mags only seemed to hire male reviewers/editors. The game companies were all managed by men, women were mostly hired for marketing and PR. At the same time, the game content focused more and more on a male audience that was into fighting, racing, destroying and killing, and sports.

However, in the early nineties, there still were games that were interesting to play. I remember this game (I don’t remember the name) in which your task was to bring peace between warring countries. There was also a game that was about bringing a barren country back to life by introducing new species and making sure there was food, water and a generally livable environment. One game I liked in particular was I have no mouth, and I must scream. Your mission was to die, but you couldn’t die unless you made peace with yourself by repenting for your sins.

There were also quite many adventure games that were about solving puzzles, communicating with characters, creating and building stuff. Gradually this type of games disappeared, the adventures evolving into fighting games, war games and other genres that required the player to kill and destroy.

At the end of the decade, I left the games magazines business. The average game wasn’t that interesting to me any more, and the ones that were interesting were not suitable for the mainstream audience the industry was waiting and catering for – the same audience we needed to survive as a magazine. I started working for magazines and websites about online business and online marketing. Quite a lot of the new companies I wrote about at the time were run by women, so all hope was not lost. But that, as they say, is a different story.

Darlene Lacey

3/8/2020 05:44:34 pm

Thank you for sharing this. It's very interesting! Some great first hand metrics on the value of bringing different voices to the conversation.
Those games you describe also sound quite good. I was always fascinated with the idea of flipping what was expected or the status quo. For example, I designed a game in which you were the captain of a small expedition cruise. All the passengers were annoying and seemingly with few redeeming characteristics, but they all had an obscure talent that came to your rescue if you realized it. You also had to learn to communicate with a chimp and other fun things!

Nick G

4/28/2020 04:37:29 pm

Thank you for this excellent write-up, Darlene. I've really enjoyed reading about your career and your advocacy of women in the game industry.

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Darlene Lacey

My Adventures in the Computer Games Industry

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