EA has clearly been thinking long and hard about the lack of diversity in the games industry, an issue that women working in the industry highlighted (and are still highlighting) with the #1ReasonWhy Twitter hashtag. In a new blog post on its website, EA writes that those who work there “want to help change this story by writing a new one.”
EA's Diversity & Inclusion team is calling this exercise #PlayAs1. The point? To share positive stories from women working in the industry, presumably to encourage other women and not to discredit the many negative stories that have arisen under #1ReasonWhy.
The first story is that of Sarah Dahl, who works on The Sims 3. Right off the bat, she talks about how she never thought she'd have the opportunity to work in the industry, and considering it's “male dominated”, was unsure of how she would “fit into the culture”. Luckily, Dahl found herself in a team of talented and creative men and women who each contributed in his/her own way.
Dahl writes about how being a woman has helped her to perform her job well. She used her “compassion as a woman” and understanding of the fans to work on the game, finding bugs (of which there are many), getting involved with the community, and giving feedback to the developers. Her final thought:
“Working in this industry has taught me to be proud of who I am as a woman, and contribute to an incredible industry with a unique point of view.”
EA is trying to get others to join in, and spread the #PlayAs1 hashtag on Twitter. You can even win a copy of The Sims 3 if you happen to be one of the first five people to Tweet an answer to the question “What unique perspective would I offer to a game?”, and if you're too slow you can still Tweet before March 29 to enter into a prize draw for something EA is calling “an EA Swag Pack”.