The History Channel’s “Life After People” is one of my favorite TV series, so I was amused to see this mention of an “Immortality Drive” that’s apparently in space at this very moment. The Immortality Drive is a kind of high-tech time capsule; put together by video game auteur Richard Garriot, it contains messages to our descendants/alien resurrectors, a list of humanity’s greatest achievements, and the digitized genetic data of “a select few” members of our species. All this is currently preserved on the International Space Station.
And who are these select few, meant to represent and possibly recreate us in case we nuke ourselves/get Raptured/are eaten by grues? Oh, you know where this is going.
These were the 10 names I could find:
Stephen Colbert (yes, the comedian; white)
Physicist Stephen Hawking and his daughter Lucy (included for charity; both white)
Matt Morgan (pro wrestler; white)
Jo Garcia (female, Playboy model; Latina according to Wikipedia)
Eric Johnson (musician; white)
Patrice Pike (musician; white)
Tracy Hickman (male, if you’re wondering, and white; fantasy author)
Scott Johnson (Olympic gold medalist; white)
Brian Crecente (Kotaku editor; race/ethicity unknown, but misogyny noted)
Also, here’s some photos of the folks whose DNA is being included, from the “Operation Immortality” Facebook page.
So OK, we’ve got 30% women here, one definitive Latina, and one disabled person. No African Americans, AFAICT. No Asian Americans. No Native Americans. So the future of humanity won’t be exclusively white and male… just mostly so.
Now, in Garriot’s partial defense, “Operation Immortality” actually includes 40 people; these were just the 10 names I could find. The whole batch might be more diverse than this sample. Also, although this thing got billed as putting “the best of humanity” into space, that was BS; Garriot specifically sought to put the DNA of gamers into space, to promote his latest game (which bombed). In reality the slots got sold to the highest bidder as a publicity stunt. But y’know what? Since this was meant to be promotional, I think some consideration should’ve been given to making the Operation Immortality list at least tacitly resemble the audience that might buy the game. Since black and Latina/o gamers make up a substantial proportion of the US gamer demographic — 50% of console owners according to this 2005 study, probably more since — you’d think there’d be a few more of us in that list. Actually, given that Garriot’s game was an MMORPG, PoC make up an even bigger proportion of those players; 5 million of World of Warcraft’s 7 million players are in China. And that 30% female thing? Should be more like 65%. So I can’t help wondering if a contributing factor to the failure of Garriot’s game was his failure to use this and other promo opportunities to really connect with his audience.
What really annoys me here is not Garriot’s shortsightedness — well, yeah, OK, that annoys me too — but the fact that my tax dollars are involved. See, while Garriot himself paid for the Russian mission that shot his and his friends’ spooge into space, it’s being stored aboard the International Space Station — which is partially paid for and maintained by NASA.
Now, I’m pro-space exploration (duh, see my avatar). I know a lot of ya’ll (speaking to the black folks here) feel like it’s a waste of money given the number of people struggling to get by in our society, but I’m with Octavia; I believe the destiny of humanity is to spread among the stars. That said, it still pisses me off when my destiny, and that of other people who look like me, gets excluded from or severely underrepresented on NASA-sponsored missions like this one. I think that if NASA would try a little harder to make sure space travelers — or their genes — represent the breadth and variety of Americans, then a greater breadth and variety of Americans might actually support NASA funding. (It’s not like there aren’t other wastes of money to complain about.)
Anyway, this marks the start of another series I’ll be periodically running here at ABW, which I’m going to call I, For One, DON’T Welcome Our New White Overlords. It’ll examine all the many ways in which our society’s so-called futurists repeatedly envision lily-white futures, and what we can do to smack those visionaries in the head until they see better visions remind them that the future will be — like the present already is — 50% female, and a lot browner than they realize.
And now a word from our sponsor…
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um, am I misunderstanding something, or are you assuming the future of humanity is American? (Referring to “So OK, we’ve got 30% women here, one definitive Latina, and one disabled person. No African Americans, AFAICT. No Asian Americans. No Native Americans. So the future of humanity won’t be exclusively white and male… just mostly so”)
Crecente self-reports as “half Italian, a quarter Spanish, an eighth Irish and an eighth English.”
65% of gamers are women? Apparently. According to the linked story:
[T]he Consumer Electronics Association (as reported in The New York Times)… study found that 65 percent of women in the 25-34 age bracket play video games, while only 35 percent of men in that group said that they play video games.
If you note that there are more women aged 25-34 than men, than the percentage of gamers in the 25-34 demographic is probably more than 65% female. I’m surprised.
Again, I found that hard to believe. This time around, I think skepticism was warranted.
While the linked story’s language is a little loose, I read it to say that 50% of blacks, whites and Hispanics in the 18-24 demographic live in households with a PlayStation 2. And among 25-34-yr-olds, “black respondents came out ahead in PS2 ownership.” Again I’m surprised. However, because white households outnumber black and Hispanic households combined (in the US), I would expect the percentage of PS2s owned by black and Hispanic households to be less than half of all PS2s.
So the console people still have some reason to pander to us white guys.
I totally agree with your overall point but I think that if you’re going to bring up the statistic about Chinese gamers it’s worth mentioning that as well as being white and male, these “world’s finest humans” are also all, afaict, either American or English (with maybe a Russian or two?)
Regardless of statistics about America, I feel reasonably confident that *globally* the majority of gamers aren’t white. And as much as my first personally biased reaction is “What about Australia?”, if you’re courting/representing gamers then it seems more odd not to have anyone from Japan or Korea.
[T]he Consumer Electronics Association (as reported in The New York Times)… study found that 65 percent of women in the 25-34 age bracket play video games, while only 35 percent of men in that group said that they play video games.
I don’t believe it. It’s counter to 30 years of observational experience in the video games market. It’s counter to what you see in the stores as people shop. Even counting Moms buying video games for Junior, it isn’t 2/3 women in there. It’s counter to the populations you see on gamer forums. 50-50, I could believe with a stretch.
2 girls for every boy? Bullshit. They fucked up the study, or they’re lying about something.
Robert- as a female gamer I must disagree. I specifically avoid those stores, since half the time I’m not helped at all and the other half they answer all my questions to my husband as if he had asked them (they’re almost as bad as car salesmen). Me and most of the female gamers I know purchase our games online after much research and avoid the brick and mortar stores, both because of the way we are treated and for convenience (and price!).
My online gaming community is about 50% female (I haven’t done an exact count so I couldn’t tell you if it’s closer to 40% or 60%, plus some people don’t disclose gender.). Bear in mind that my community is PC-based MMORPG only, but it is in the demographic of roughly 25-34 years old. There may be subtle differences by including a wider variety of both game types and systems. If they included games like bejeweled and solitaire, then it becomes much less surprising; most of the people I know who play flash, puzzle and card games are female.
Leah, I believe (and applaud) that lots and lots of women play games. Like I said, 50-50 I could believe. But twice as many young women are into games as young men? No way.
And that 30% female thing? Should be more like 65%.
Check the link and they say that men outnumber women slightly in console games, but a lot more women play games like Tetris, solitare, etc., and they are including such people as “gamers”. But my guess is that when people talk about someone being a gamer they mean people who play console games or other competitive interactive games, not stuff like solitare. I’d also guess that Tetris and solitare players is not the group that the person who put this list together is marketing to.
It’s not just the lack of national/ethnic diversity or the under-representation of women – it’s the women they choose. A playboy model? A famous man’s daughter? You’ve GOT to be fucking kidding me.
It looks like only one accomplished woman was included.
Robert,
I’m a 36-year-old female gamer. I’ve been playing most of my life — had an Atari 2600 as a kid — but hardcore since college, when I discovered the Zelda games for the SNES, which I was introduced to by a member of my (historically black) sorority. I play sometimes with other thirtysomething female gamers (most of whom are women of color). I write game-based fanfiction (mostly slash), which I sometimes share with other female gamers in female-dominant online spaces (like LiveJournal). I go to anime/manga/gaming conventions — hell, I founded one, though it died of bad management later — where I get to ogle guys dressed up as my favorite male video game characters. I have an adorable plushie Sephiroth doll that a girlfriend of mine made for me. Sometimes I put ribbons in his hair.
I say all this to point out that if you’re looking at testosterone-heavy game stores and most gaming forums, naturally you aren’t going to see women; you’re looking in the wrong places. Women have their own spaces in which to enjoy gaming, and their own gaming culture. I can’t speak for other women, but I don’t go into those stores, and I sure as hell don’t go on gaming forums. The stores are no big deal — a little cluttered and busy and ugly for my tastes, clearly designed for teenage boys — but I prefer to try my games before I buy them, so I use Gamefly. Gaming forums, except for feminist ones like Iris or those with a no-bigotry moderation policy, are so filled with semiliterate sexist, racist, and homophobic invective that I have no desire whatsoever to talk in most of them. I suspect a lot of other women feel the same way. (One day, when I’m feeling really bored, I’ll write an article about the pervasive white male hostility towards those who aren’t white and male in the Western gaming environment. [Because Japan doesn’t seem to have the same problem, or at least not to the same degree. It’s clearly a cultural issue.] But I’d have to be really bored, and playing the latest Silent Hill right now, so that’s going to have to wait.)
And if you’ll read the article more closely, you’ll see that they explained the statistic as partially including women who play “casual games” like Solitaire and Tetris. It’s not clear how many of those women play only casual games — I play Solitaire and Tetris too, for example. I’m also involved with the NY chapter of the IGDA, and they’ve been tossing around a “40% of gamers are women” statistic pretty consistently for the last few years now. Seems to come from several sources; not sure which one they’re using. Since the IGDA consists mostly of computer game developers (not console, note; the IGDA isn’t really very I, and console development mostly takes place in Japan), this may apply only to computer games. So it may not be 2 women for every man, but it’s almost 1 for 1 — which feels about right to me.
I can actually believe those numbers, started to when I thought outside the box.
It just seems our usual (mental and visual?) vocabulary of a “gamer” will be overwhelmingly male (and white and straight and western) and revolve around more highly publicized or mainstream games that are competitive and/or interactive. As well as hardcore since some studies and statistics point to a sizable chunk of gamers when you include casual play and games like Tetris, Bejeweled, Chocolateir, Peggle, etc. along with online gaming communities based around chess, go, shogi, etc. Both of which probably also increase the age of gaming community too.
And you can’t really go by personal observational experience all that much. Leah’s story is pretty much common to other women gamers I’ve met and known. Just because you don’t see a lot of gamers of such gender or such ethnicity or anything else that isn’t the “standard gamer profile” doesn’t mean we aren’t there–sometimes we just don’t represent, or you fail to notice us or we don’t bother because we don’t feel welcome.
meijusa,
You’re right — that’s muddled language/thinking on my part. I should’ve said “black” instead of African American, etc. And I suspect the articles containing stats that I posted were mostly focused on the American and European gaming market, though it’s not clear.
That said, if we take this global (as with the Chinese WoW stat), the Operation Immortality numbers get even more hinky. The vast majority of the planet is PoC, and they seem to make up the majority of gamers worldwide too.
nobody.really,
I think you might be right about that Gamasutra article; I misread it. Sorry. Though I do wonder about that “came out ahead” bit too.
Dee,
Actually, from what I could find, Patrice Pike was included because she’s apparently acquainted with the musical director of Garriot’s gaming company (Johnson too). So she wasn’t included on her own merits, but because she’s got connections.
Indeed, in the popular lexicon, “gamer” usually means someone who is into games like Halo, MMORPGs, first-person shooters/slashers, team fortress, etc. etc. It’s subtle coding for “person who enjoys games typically designed by males FOR males and thus most likely to be male.” (And I should add straight, white, middle-class cisgendered) See, certain games are valid for the “gamer” title and certain games are invalid for the “gamer” title. I’ve even noticed discounting a lot of console games for the “gamer” title in the past 5-10 years, with the gender-neutral popularity of games like mariokart and wii fit. I think it’s no coincidence that traditionally male-oriented and male-produced game genres are the ones that count for the “gamer” title.
Agreed. It’s another by men for men deal.
And of course female gamers are the driving force behind the growing ‘casual games’ market.
I play final fantasy video games, and that type of thing, and I never go into the fucking stores.
you’re a gamer if you stay up all night trying to finish a level. and it doesn’t matter if you’re trying to finish a level in Halo or Diner Dash 3, you’re still up all damn night. You’re a gamer.
Well, to me, the answer is simple: Consider who compiled the list: A white male. Obviously, his white male privilege doesn’t allow him to believe that Black Americans are capable of much.
Thanks for the insight into the female gamer world – you’re right, I don’t see that as much in my daily life and my personal observation is undoubtedly skewed.