Laralyn McWilliams
@Laralyn
Followers
6,952
Following
625
Media
728
Statuses
27,722
Game designer and leader since 1994: Free Realms, Full Spectrum Warrior. Many awards including Lifetime Achievement. Also speaks about game dev wellness.
Seattle, WA
Joined March 2007
Don't wanna be here?
Send us removal request.
Explore trending content on Musk Viewer
オリンピック
• 683524 Tweets
Christians
• 400909 Tweets
#บัสซิ่งไทยแลนด์EP7
• 256354 Tweets
花火大会
• 222787 Tweets
#พรชีวันep1
• 177758 Tweets
1M LOVE LINGORM
• 133813 Tweets
Endrick
• 128477 Tweets
グラブル
• 117351 Tweets
スポーツ
• 114780 Tweets
Itália
• 77181 Tweets
YOKOFAYE WATCH BLANK
• 73795 Tweets
Judo
• 67382 Tweets
永山選手
• 66384 Tweets
#SixTONESANN
• 49478 Tweets
柔道の審判
• 48515 Tweets
Darlan
• 42559 Tweets
#青島くんはいじわる
• 34549 Tweets
Leclerc
• 34367 Tweets
#ジェルくん誕生祭2024
• 31791 Tweets
Arabia
• 30122 Tweets
反則負け
• 28979 Tweets
Checo
• 23734 Tweets
柔道の判定
• 23261 Tweets
ハンドボール
• 20692 Tweets
コラボガチャ
• 20009 Tweets
Equi
• 19948 Tweets
男子バスケ
• 16425 Tweets
Irak
• 16386 Tweets
クラフトワーク
• 14976 Tweets
Babiarza
• 12670 Tweets
ガルリゴス
• 12184 Tweets
girl in red
• 10959 Tweets
タルマエ
• 10370 Tweets
Pinned Tweet
How do you make a game feel fun and fair? By understanding that players have implicit expectations--a sense of their rights within the games we create.
For the next twelve days, I'll add one item a day to the Player's Bill of Rights.
2
7
43
Tales of women in game dev, chapter 14: I was reminded in a chat today that I was asked during at least 3 different E3s whether I played the game... that I was demoing at our booth... while wearing my badge that clearly read "Creative Director" or "Lead Designer" + company name.
22
796
4K
One of the unspoken taxes of being in game dev is having to move frequently, especially in AAA. Since I started in pro game dev, I’ve lived in Raleigh, Ann Arbor, Seattle, Chicago, LA, Austin, San Diego, San Francisco, LA again, and Seattle again. That’s 10 moves in 27 years.
47
176
2K
We've known about this for at least 25 years, since the first large-ish commercial MMOs. People who are creeps in real life--or afraid to be creeps in real life--will find ways be creeps in a virtual world.
This is not something that should have to be rediscovered.
Meta is implementing a "personal boundary" feature to try to curb creepy behaviour in their social VR spaces -
5
1
16
19
266
1K
One of the biggest mental shifts in a non-game CD role after 25 years as a woman creative lead in game development is that every little thing doesn't have a to be a fucking fight. I don't have to enter every day, every meeting, every moment girded for battle.
11
170
1K
We need a "50 over 50" list of game devs. It's a challenging career for the long haul, and also not always great at valuing experience.
32
206
762
A reminder: when someone talks about their negative experiences in the game industry, replying with simply "I never experienced that" is just as helpful and welcome as running into a cancer center shouting, "I've never had cancer, woo hoo!"
4
140
674
If you've been in game dev any length of time, you've almost certainly had games cancelled, or live games taken down, or games on platforms that no longer exist and aren't (or can't be) emulated.
We all have these game graveyards in our hearts and souls.
27
51
599
Tip for women in tech:
You probably already do a quick scan of emails to look for typos and other mistakes.
Use that same time to edit out phrases that soften your points, excuse something that doesn't need to be excused, apologize when no apology is needed.
17
143
600
Many women in game dev (>20 of them) have told me they miss recruiting or networking opportunities because going to events means being harassed, hit on, and groped. It’s the kind of discrimination and lost opportunity overlooked when people try to address industry gender issues.
@Laralyn
Sign me up as not a fan of industry events with alcohol.
Times I've been inappropriately touched in the industry mostly happened around drunk people (nothing too serious in my case). Makes me want to avoid parties.
6
11
273
3
176
567
There was zero chance anyone would ever confuse me with a booth babe... but it was 100X worse for other women. It was infuriating to have endless male coworkers argue FOR booth babes when my female coworkers literally had to forcibly remove hands from their butts every E3.
3
24
571
The discussion around booth babes and "strippers" at big publisher GDC parties became toxic for almost any woman trying to participate, regardless of their personal POV. Somehow saying "I'd like to attend a professional event without getting groped" was a controversial stance.
1
38
572
While demoing Full Spectrum Warrior at our first E3, even after the Director had lost his voice and explicitly pointed me out as Lead Designer and asked press to talk to me, they would go to anyone BUT me, including the male models dressed as soldiers.
6
32
572
It was so bad one year that I bailed on the company "women's sweater" after 30 minutes on the floor and changed into the men's tee shirt. Wearing the women's sweater created a 75% chance I would be ignored and a 25% chance I would be asked to intro the press to a "real dev."
3
12
563
If we tried to talk about our experiences, we were labeled by our male colleagues as "too sensitive" or "reading into things" or "blowing it out of proportion." It was compared to press being "rude" to them. It was impossible even to TALK about it to many male coworkers.
1
21
546
Every time industry horror stories start to surface, about the rude, sexist, awful and sometimes damaging and criminal ways women have sometimes been treated in game development and the game industry, it reopens a wound that never really heals in the first place.
2
116
528
It was only a few years ago that I was told by multiple men, point blank: Discussing the issues women face in game development is "off-topic" and "too divisive" and "too political" for a professional game development chat group.
And I'm a moderate, quiet voice about all this.
3
21
530
My favorite personal experience with game dev gate-keeping?
About 6 years ago, I had several very positive interviews with company execs for a studio-wide design role at a major but old-school game dev company. I had about 20 years of XP and was currently VP of Design elsewhere.
6
188
536
I do believe things are changing, slowly. But that doesn't make it any easier for the women still experiencing the kinds of things I've talked about here. And it's exponentially worse for non-white, non-straight, non-cis women.
Pause. Take a breath. Open your eyes. Listen. Help.
14
12
492
It almost certainly destroys your spouse/partner’s career because they have no consistency, no long track record, less opportunity for advancement. And it becomes harder and harder to make friends in new cities as you age, especially for an introvert like me.
5
13
460
What's in your game graveyard? Games that were cancelled or no one can play anymore?
342
66
463
So my ask is that we all pause, take a breath, listen, open our eyes. When you see this behavior happening to someone else, if you can, say something. Do something, And, most especially, reach out afterward to the woman just to say, "I saw that. It happened. It wasn't you."
1
29
439
I'm far enough and confident enough in my career and close enough to retirement that I don't care if this even-handed discussion extends the "toxic clock" on me. I'm speaking out for women who don't have those blessings. I hate the fact that so many women still leave game dev.
1
4
421
Things have changed since the early days, both for better and for worse. It's great that we can have these conversations now! But what used to result in women's experiences being dismissed now results in harassment and death threats and, whether we respond or not, being exiled.
1
12
417
The biggest lesson for me was to open my eyes. It's entirely possible for a woman to spend most if not all of her career in game dev and have zero gender-related issues. It's also possible to encounter them non-stop, and every shade between. Everyone's experiences are different.
1
9
411
For the bulk of my career, it was just the price I had to pay to be a game developer. Silently acclimating to whatever gender-oriented bullshit that came my way shaped me, changed me. I wrote about it back in 2015.
2
14
410
Talking about being a game dev over fifty & how challenging it is to stick with it made me consider the things I've learned over the years.
19
103
407
And in most of those situations, if you take the risk and respond--even politely and professionally--they'll get mega offended, deny having done anything, and you're doomed. You're now the problem woman they don't want to work with.
2
10
405
I started getting the "what games are YOU playing?" test during E3 and GDC pitches at around 45, too. It became obligatory at around 50, and pubs would even interrupt me during pitches to ask.
I wanted to answer: "Almost certainly more games and a bigger variety than you, bro."
1
7
398
Now, as a woman over 55, I'm pretty sure it would be super hard for me to get a creative director gig on a AAA game despite my track record and experience. Definitely not on an action game--I watched that door close on me when I was around 45.
1
9
387
Many women who have worked in the game industry for 10+ years have heard these names before, heard similar stories, witnessed similar events, and been victims themselves. We owe it to everyone--including ourselves--to listen and, if we choose, to speak.
2
72
393
Player choices in games say as much about us as creators as they say about players. By providing and limiting choices, we're stating values.
18
156
374
Yesterday I had my first cancer surveillance scan in almost 8 months—they’re usually every 4 months. They do two scans, actually, of two different regions since I had head and neck cancer and then lung cancer. It was all clear! Amazing, for incurable cancer. I’m so lucky. <3
24
4
381
And that was in response to discussions JUST LIKE THIS ONE. I have never, ever gotten more heated or more contentious than I have been in these tweets.
And even this measured, calm, quiet discussion is too toxic for investors to want to partner with me.
1
6
367
In those moments, it's almost impossible for women to respond. You can't tell off the press covering your game, or the publisher you want to give your company money, or the guy at the crowded party wearing a badge from a big company, or the guy interviewing you for a new role.
1
9
361
I remember when a major dev studio working on its first F2P MMO interviewed me for studio CD. It was right after Free Realms hit 20M players and had a ton of great press.
The execs loved me but one lead designer said I "lacked credibility" with his team and that was the end.
2
8
351
New Things are underway! I've joined Microsoft as a Creative Director in the Experiences & Devices group. So much to learn...
41
3
356
So the next time you find yourself wondering why there are so few women in dev leadership roles at game companies, remember that. And wonder how many times women can have that happen before we take our talents to a different line of work altogether.
2
20
342
I remember when I was briefly thinking about starting my own company to make a cheaper, modern Free Realms 5 years ago, I was told by someone in touch with potential investors that my discussion of women in games was "too much" and "too negative" and it closed that door forever.
1
10
341
A quick side note on an undercurrent in all of the crunch talk today: I wince every time it's framed as "complaints" from "wives" or there's an assumption that spouse=wife.
3
59
329
An undercurrent that rises to the surface at times like this is the concept of game developers being completely and easily replaceable: every person, every role.
Well, except that one dude they consider a rockstar who must be retained regardless of the human wreckage he creates.
5
69
336
Replayability is a complex concept in games. It's not as simple as allowing two paths through a level or letting the player choose a race or gender. It's more than providing two solutions to a puzzle.
It's a different way of thinking about your content.
5
74
319
Just realized that this year marks 25 years as a professional game dev for me! I don’t track dates very well so I’m not sure what month I started or much less what day... but it was 1994 for sure. Or at least... pretty sure?
16
10
310
Last week, I had a skip 1:1 with someone on my team, where we talked about career advancement. I said, “I burned my entire life and my husband’s on the altar of game development.” I have no regrets because game dev and design is at my core… but it’s a hard road for sure.
1
10
316
That’s why I end up emotionally and mentally conflicted when people try to dismiss passion as not being important in game dev. I absolutely agree that it’s used as both a carrot and a stick to lure, underpay and otherwise control employees. But it’s also behind some great work.
3
5
292
I try to lead my design team to have a culture of “And here’s why.” This means you feel compelled to follow up every design decision or even opinion with “And here’s why...”
And here’s why. ;-)
7
83
274
Hey, game devs! Who else shipped some of your best work after you turned 40? It started with
@danctheduck
, and along with Warren's tweet below, I mentioned shipping Free Realms at 45 years old, and
@Flayra
chimed in with shipping the awesome Subnautica at 44.
@danctheduck
@Laralyn
One other point: Deus Ex came out when I was 45. Make of that what you will.
5
18
122
66
59
268
Not putting this in the thread I just tweeted... but personally I got SO SICK over the years of seeing men in game dev disguise abuse of power dynamics under "flirting" and "dating" and then later "justifiable employee action."
2
25
248
What I call "smart guy syndrome" is one of my biggest pet peeves about game development. Leaders and devs either figure they're too smart to even bother with what folks learned in the past, or they think they're so smart that they don't have to follow what was learned.
5
37
250
Being a woman in game development--even today--means being talked over, it means having your input diminished, ignored or retroactively attributed to men or just "the team", it means having to stand up, time and time again, and say, "No, you're going to hear what I'm saying."
4
33
252
That's true for every creative role in game dev. It's not your creative outlet. It's not your playground. It's not your personal sandbox. You make the right thing for the game and the player, and what the company needs/wants/asks you to make.
"You are not the author of your own story," Ubisoft's Lauren Stone says. "If you want to tell 'your story', write a novel, but a game is a collaborative effort. There will be more stakeholders who get a say in what you're writing than you will ever know."
5
11
80
8
34
247
Bad but way too common critique style for a creative leader: "I can't give you clear direction but I'll know it when I see it."
Don't be that person. Learn to recognize when you're leaning toward that state. Do the work to develop a point of view or don't be a creative lead.
6
37
249
Today was my first CT scan in more than three months, and I was nervous after being off treatment for two months of that. Still all clear—no evidence of cancer! Going into treatment infusion shortly and then I fly back home... smiling. I’m amazingly lucky.
13
1
243
Likewise, I’m deeply suspicious of CDs and even studio design directors who never touch the tools or have side projects or participate in game jams. How can you lead a team effectively and with empathy if you don’t walk in their shoes, at least periodically? You lose touch.
1
6
248
My 25 years of E3 in a single evergreen exchange:
Reporter: "I have questions about [game]."
Me: Sure! What would you like to know? I can give you a demo as we chat.
Reporter: Um... I wanted to talk to someone on the development team.
Me: ...
Me: I'm the Creative Director.
8
56
227
For every game company that employs more than one woman, it's entirely possible (even likely) that two women can work beside each other for years and have different experiences. It doesn't make either experience invalid.
2
29
227
I'm humbled and honored and honestly don't even know what to say besides thank you. <3
Tom Fulp and Laralyn McWilliams to be honored at 2021 Game Developers Choice Awards
29
109
1K
35
10
226
I landed on the POV that passion becomes more and more important as you rise in leadership and production. I was always dumbfounded by CDs who don’t play the game they’re working on, at least 2-3 times a week if not obsessively. I wouldn’t want to work on that person’s team.
2
7
225
Addendum: also super tired of hearing abusive and harassing behaviors that happen at events dismissed as “he was just drunk.”
Bad behavior while drunk once is an accident. Bad behavior while drunk after that is a choice and equivalent to the same behavior while sober.
2
19
211
I've done career chats with prospective designers over the past few weeks, and I'm often asked why so few women pursue game dev as a career. I think the answer is multi-faceted, but a big part of it is the extreme, limiting gate-keeping around game dev and being a "gamer."
6
52
204
Last GDC, I watched the official talks, round tables, unofficial talks, grassroots efforts and a ton of both offline and online discussion happen around the concept of game dev unions.
9
73
197
If most of your hires were by direct calls to people, how do you even know if it's hard to find/hire women engineers? Your statement itself makes it clear you never tried.
Also, the aptly-named old boy network is the
#1
reason game companies lack diversity, IMO.
5
44
197
There’s a perception that you have a binary choice: make games for a living as your full-time paid job, or leave the industry. That’s bullshit. There is a huge spectrum of choices, including having a different paid job and also doing game jams or having side projects.
3
44
197
Being a woman in game development--even today--means the very actions you have to take in order for your hard work to be seen, much less recognized, also get you labeled as "the bitch".
It's even harder when you're a lead and you have to stand up for your team's work, too.
2
17
195
We live in a time of medical miracles. I have incurable metastatic cancer. I'm on a clinical trial. PET scan results: currently cancer-free.
17
13
190
I was lead designer for the PS2 Stitch game, and got to attend the (second, crew) red carpet for Lilo & Stitch. I was in love with the movie even when I first saw it in sketches. I remember a room full of grown men (and me) crying at a rough of the duckling book scene.
2
15
184
I believe change and growth are possible, absolutely. Every person, every company deserves a sincere chance at change.
But “it’s been several years” as a way to say “we’ve addressed all the cultural issue”? Nope.
Signed,
A Woman Who Has Watched This For 30 Years
1
29
186
Do you rate the gameplay elements of your game? If you don't, you should!
By gameplay elements, I mean things like:
Relationships
Harvesting
Home Decorating
Island Design
Random Encounters
Fishing
Visiting Islands
Those are some of the gameplay elements of Animal Crossing.
2
34
181
Discussing the experiences of women in the game dev workplace always entails a healthy portion of "oh good, this again." It's been the same events, the same excuses, the same defensiveness, the same bluster, the same knee-jerks, and the same glacial improvements for thirty years.
1
27
183
I tweeted this morning about invisible disabilities and cancer as a disability, and I’m going to do something I have never done before in public: talk about what this really means.
I say all of this immensely grateful to still be alive, with the knowledge that I am super lucky.
11
92
183
A note based on some of the replies: how often you move greatly depends on how many openings in your specific discipline and at your level. For many years there might be only 5-6 game creative/design director jobs open in the whole WORLD. So you had almost no choice but to move.
2
3
178
We talk a lot about how rough it is for women devs, tools we've developed that help, and how to move game dev culture forward. But we don't spend a lot of time talking about the emotional and physical toll of being in a ready-to-fight state for 8+ hours a day.
1
27
176
My extreme dedication (pretty much my whole life!) to game dev and games is not the norm. It made me willing to put up with 10X, 100X, 1000X what most women would be willing to tolerate.
So think for a minute what we're losing in terms of talent, ideas, voices, experiences.
2
6
172
Obviously you can’t stay on top of everything and having a CD monkeying around in the scripting and levels for a game-in-progress is THE WORST. So you do your best to stay current and informed, and listen to your team to understand their day-to-day as much as you can.
1
3
171
The official results: there is no longer any clear sign of active cancer anywhere in my body.
35
3
168
That’s especially true for design, where skills are often considered a lot less portable. IMO it’s easier for a great art director to move from a kids game to AAA and back. Very very difficult for a creative director to do the same, which limits options even more.
1
2
164
Why are there so few women with 20+ years of game dev experience still around? Sure, there were fewer of us back then so there are fewer now. But a lot of us left mainstream game dev. We went elsewhere or we went indie. The endless fight took its toll.
1
6
163
This isn’t a complaint, just a fact: it’s rare to find a woman active in trying to improve game dev culture for non-majority folks who isn’t doing all that labor on top of all the regular work in building and maintaining your game dev career and current job.
4
22
160
My biggest piece of advice for folks trying to break into game design: build stuff. Become obsessed with building stuff. Constantly.
4
42
156
Change happens at the manager level. You need:
Managers with zero tolerance for that bullshit.
And
Managers who people can trust to confide in about the bullshit they don’t witness.
And
The company to have those managers’ backs and be willing to act.
5
23
156
I remember many years ago hearing and agreeing with the sentiment: "Mazes are lazy level design."
Well, I'm here to tell you that cancer is really lazy storytelling.
7
10
155
But retirement planning/funding and insurance (health, disability, life) are the big Indiana Jones rolling boulders of doom behind every game dev, even if you're not aware of it quite yet.
4
19
149
One of the most challenging and nuanced design skills is how to walk the line between absolute faith in your design while also being objective with feedback and open to changes, including throwing the whole thing in the trash.
4
34
153
You know that story that gets passed along until it’s far removed from any personal connection? Well, now you have that connection.
I was sent to the ER for chest pain and breathing issues on Thursday night. I had to wait for triage because the ER was flooded with Covid patients
5
31
153
I'm really excited to announce my GDC talk for 2020: Battling Burnout: The Side Project Ritual.
It's a talk about how to choose + set up a side project to promote wellness and to resist burnout, using elements of ritual to establish a space for thought, healing and creativity.
12
8
149
I am almost never snarky on Twitter but... ha ha um no. I’m not trying to say AAA is all that matters in games but all of the names so far don’t even scrape the crusty old surface of high level AAA game execs and leaders never outed for appalling and/or abusive behavior.
1
31
141
It wasn’t about whether I could do the job, or whether I could do the job well—the gate closed for me simply based on the fact that the leads thought their team wouldn’t consider me a “real” gamer or game dev.
Whether they would respect me enough for me to effectively lead.
2
15
147
I just woke up in the hospital covered with bruises and with almost no memories three weeks later. I’ll still be here in a week or so and in institutional care for at least a few weeks because I didn’t walk or speak with any thought for at least three weeks and I’m deconditioned.
37
1
148
It’s actually really rare to find a game dev company that lets you work on side projects, fully own the IP, and even publish them. That’s one of the things that makes game dev extra hard as a career, and makes it challenging to ever be more than “just” an employee.
7 & 8 are literally designed to strip the IP of employees. Not just what you make while there, but anything you've ever made ("prove you never worked on this while employed here").
That's why you're only allowed to collab with other Amazon employees. No competing rights to IP.
13
46
183
8
26
144
I didn't have perspective on the mental model that enmeshed me until I got out of it. The need to be prepared to fight at any given moment and for every bit of design choice/control didn't reduce over the years--it just shifted in call to action and type of battle involved.
1
2
145
The next step was phone interviews with the company’s design, art and engineering leads but it was abruptly cancelled. The reason?
“After talking to our leads, they think you would lack credibility with their teams.”
That’s verbatim because the words are burned into my memory.
2
15
143
How to give feedback is an often neglected topic in running teams. In fact, it's usually not covered unless there's someone outrageously bad at it.
And all too often, it's not covered even when someone is outrageously bad at it.
8
49
144
I wasn't imagining my experiences being different: I watched it happen, over and over again. We all watch it happen. You just don't parse it unless you've experienced the other side.
Trust me: women notice when men's designs pass with back pats and no extra scrutiny.
1
3
140
The exec sounded embarrassed to be saying those words... but he said them anyway. I was a design vet, well respected, F2P pioneer, frequent GDC speaker on design and metrics, and they were primarily looking for a studio design lead with F2P experience.
“...lack credibility...”
4
8
137
Being a designer plus a woman makes it worse. Everyone thinks they can do a designer's job--some think they can do our job better than we can. So add that to the skepticism and push-back we already get as women and you have an infuriating combo.
2
2
139
It was five years ago today that I was terminal and I started a clinical trial. The five year survival rate for recurrent metastatic lung cancer is less than five percent, and in my case it was much, much lower because it was my third go-round with this cancer.
4
2
138
There are lots of ways law school helped me as a designer, but one of the biggest gifts it gave me is the ability to stand up, quickly collect my thoughts, and fucking argue that shit into the ground if that's what it took to get my team's work seen and heard.
1
3
136
I can't begin to understand how years in that environment changed me, on a fundamental level. I wrote about how years of game dev led me to be uncertain as to what part of me was really me anymore for Gamasutra years ago, and it's still true.
1
9
132
I had my first PET scan in over three years. Since I first responded to the clinical trial, I’ve only had CT scans, which have much lower radiation but are also less precise than a PET.
It was all clear—no evidence of recurrent or metastatic disease.
13
1
133