David Gaider on Diversity in a Development Team

In a panel at GaymerX, an LGBT-focused gaming convention, Dragon Age lead writer David Gaider spoke of the need of diversity in games development and how it leads to developing better games in the long run. Luckily for us, Gamasutra has a brief transcription of the most important points of his speech:

“Perhaps it’s a sign of the times that it’s even a question, or one where the answer might be, ‘yes, but it’s important to speak up even so,'” he offers. “Someone who doesn’t conform to the perceived norm might think they don’t have a chance of getting into the industry — a gay person might think, ‘oh, there’s no point in applying. I don’t want to work in a frat house.'”

“It’s important that more companies get broader viewpoints from within their own teams, and that first requires that people with different viewpoints apply for those positions.”

As Gaider is fond of noting, his team of writers for Dragon Age — affectionately monikered the Writer’s Pit — is predominantly women. This can have an impact, such as Gaider recounted late last year on his personal blog, when women on his staff expressed discomfort over a particular aspect of a sexualized scene.

It extends further than the writing department, of course. During one of his GaymerX panels, Gaider described a complex interrelationship between narrative designers and concept artists — a “yes, and” style of creative improv in which both departments build off one another’s ideas. Failure to get on the same page, by contrast, can spell problems for the whole production.

“Storytelling isn’t only for writers,” he tells attendees. “In fact, it’d be really selfish for the writers to go off on our own and create a story without their involvement. It needs to be a collaborative effort.”