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EA_Mai's avatar
EA_Mai
5 years ago

Women behind The Sims - SimGurus' answers to International Women's Day Q&A

You sent in your questions, now get ready for a long read: SimGurus answered a good bunch and they had a lot to say! I will be short, just a quick note before leaving you with them: some questions...
EA_Mai's avatar
EA_Mai
5 years ago
WORKING AT EA / ON THE SIMS

mirta000:
Has EA been kind with work-share, work from home, part time work and similar opportunities? One of the biggest issues that forced me out of software industry was the fact that if you're a woman that wants a family, or a woman with a disability, you got to act like one of the men and sacrifice your desires in a full time office environment with overtime hours required. I would like to hear from women in EA if they feel better treated, similar, did they have to make sacrifices to work the jobs that they do and do they regret their career choices.

Amuni50:
One of my main concerns for any woman is equal opportunity and equal pay. Do the women in your company have access to both, not only in Maxis but in EA as well? Do you have access to childcare, paid maternity leave, and a harassment-free environment?

SimGuruRusskii:
Yes, absolutely. I can only speak about Maxis, but I personally work with teams that are remote by nature, and within the game team we do have team members that are remote. While there are challenging parts of this, like making sure we are all on the same page, that we are not forgetting to talk about a thing, and making sure there is some face time, I believe we do a pretty good job on working together efficiently and we try to improve more on it to try to make it as seamless as possible. We do have a variety of roles where sometimes, depending on the nature of the role, it is desirable for that person to be in the office, but it is not related to gender, it is more of whatever needs a studio has and how they need to communicate with the team.

For me in my career, being a woman has not meant that I have to sacrifice my life to progress in my career, or it doesn't affect the role I have. I think any time I felt like I needed to work a lot with less free time, it has been my choice and the situation itself needed me to do that, but not because of my gender.

I don't have children, but EA does have childcare available, and maternity/paternity leave, I think, though that part of the question is more suited for other Gurus that have children, sorry. As a work community though, part of our company and studio culture is to have everyone be respected and heard, it is a big part of how we work and create community in the workplace. Hope this helped answer your questions! Thanks!


VioletMiroir:
I feel like we often see women in graphics or communication teams in videogame. What about the development and programming teams for The Sims? Are there women in all sectors of the videogame industry, and what are the proportions/percentages?

12mich06:
Videogames are often made and animated by men, is The Sims an exception?

SimGuruRusskii:
I can see where this question comes from because when I was looking to get into the industry, I saw this as well and was pleasantly surprised when I joined Maxis to see that there are a lot of women in this industry. But yes, absolutely, so I can only speak for The Sims in terms of numbers, since every company and game studio is different and has variations of the roles within the main disciplines. But I can say that I have a lot of peers in the industry that are female in a variety of roles and disciplines.

I would say it is hard to see who and how many people work in a game just by social media alone or who is "visible", if you will. There are so many people that work in game studios and they are not normally in the spotlight, so to speak, and that is their personal choice. A lot of people have other ways to talk about their work and experience that may not be just being on social media or gameplay videos and livestreams. A lot of us volunteer and mentor in the area we live or work in for example. Some even give classes, or talks at events. Hope this helps answer your question, thank you!

SimGuruRad:
We are a fairly well-rounded studio. While it isn't a perfect 50/50, we have a lot of female team members and a lot of those are in Animation too.


mirta000:
How high up the ladder is the highest ranking woman on EA/Sims team? Are women relegated more to the bottom positions, or is EA equal opportunity?

rachelwolfe:
1) Is your boss a woman?
2) Is her boss a woman?
3) How about hers?
4) Regardless of level, are you paid the same as your male peers, just like in the game?
And if you're a higher-up and the answers to these questions are mostly no, why not?

SimGuruRad:
A woman (SimGuruLyndsay) is the head of the Sims team!
In general we are well dispersed throughout the team as far as position. There might be a few women in our more junior positions, and this is not because they are not good enough, but more because we are hiring more women, so when we open up positions we are getting a great selection of potential applicants. They're just starting their journey with us and I hope that they will continue.

My boss is Male, his boss is Male, his boss is Female, her boss is Male, his boss is Female, her boss is Female, and her boss is Male and the CEO.
To the best of my knowledge and experience, I am paid as much as my male peers within Production. There are other jobs within the studio that do pay more, and again, from what has been discussed, my friends who are female are getting paid the same as their peers.


Svineprutter:
How does it work, for women and men to work together in a mixed world, reality of producing content and exploring an imaginative world. Do women have advantages for this, like beeing better at connecting the 2 dimmensions?

SimGuruDana:
Especially for a franchise like The Sims, there is huge benefit in getting a mix of personal experiences from a wide variety of people; all genders, cultures, and ethnicities have something valuable to offer. As well-intentioned as a dev may be to represent others in game, you'll never be able to represent someone else as well as they can represent themselves. This is why it is really vital to have a wide range of representation on our team itself, so that we can better translate those experiences as gameplay for our players. You can imagine that pregnancy or getting ready at the vanity may not have been as authentic as they are in game without the input from women on our team.


Arkenja:
Does working on the game and knowing all the tricks ruin a bit the satisfaction or excitement to play it?

SimGuruBeth:
Not at all for me! It's a fun way to learn even more about the game and just how many little neat easter eggs or fun things get added. Sometimes we can get focused on the specifics of what we are working on, which means we still find surprises. Also, sometimes we don't work on every single pack, so some packs are still fresh and new when we get to play them which is still just as fun for me as it was before I was working on the game.


ImSands:
As a female Sim Guru, are there any game play features that have turned out differently due to your female perspective compared to how they might have originally been envisioned?

SimGuruRad:
I don't know if anything core to a feature has changed specifically because of my female perspective, but I do know that when we did the acting career that we realized that we needed to make adjustments to hair and makeup for different skin tones. We were setting up for an early internal demo and I realized that the hair and makeup I chose wasn't going to look good with all skin tones. While we did a demo with a specific Sim, we knew that players were going to be using all different types of Sims and we wanted it to work for all of them. After that we set up looks for multiple categories of skin tones, and tried to make choices that would look good on all of the skin tones in each group.


Deborah:
Do we have Dutch speaking SimGurus?

SimGuruRusskii:
Not currently. SimGuruMaaike was our Dutch SimGuru, but she has moved on to another project so her account is inactive.


comicsforlife:
Is it cool working on sims games?

SimGuruBeth:
To me, yes! I think The Sims is such a special game for a lot of people. It is even more special to me as I grew up playing the original games, and now I actually get to work on them, which is still a bit surreal. I know how much it helped influence me as a young person, and I feel humbled to be a part of the possibility to do that for players today. Since I’m an artist on the team, it's incredibly weird/humbling/heartwarming to see people share screenshots of any objects I may have worked on. I am grateful to work on such an inclusive game that strives to be different and with people who feel the same way.


Nicole46:
What motivated you to become a SimGuru?

SimGuruPopcorn:
When I first started as a tester, I had a couple of women Producers that I looked up to and was inspired by. I'd see their passion for the community and I did my best to learn from them. They both enabled me to become more confident and gave me opportunities to grow. I saw them interact with the community and I knew that was something I wanted to do. And here I am! I cried when I was made a Guru. It was very special for me! I couldn't have done it without their examples and support.

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