Co-written by Khadija Jagani, Gursimran Kaur
GBC’s top-performing postgraduate Game Development students were recently given the exciting opportunity to work on a real-life game spearheaded by alumni for school credit; but that initial elation quickly turned sour for some.
The project presented to students was Exiled Princess, directed by former student Pedro Correia. According to one of the developers, Tamerlan Tahilri, “This game is about Princess Leonora Sysgray who has had their kingdom overruled by dark entities and has to fight to reclaim ownership. She has various abilities including a transformation state in which she wields armour and gains strength and speed, a burst ability to send enemies flying away from her and many more.”
Despite approval from faculty, Exiled Princess has received a mixed reception, with some students expressing disappointment, confusion and even repulsion over what they describe as sexist depictions of women with the game.
Student allegations
In the fall semester during a game production course, students were required to choose a project to focus on throughout the semester. Students who performed exceptionally well on these projects were selected for a “promotion,” allowing them to get involved in a real game being worked on by GBC alumni.
Although multiple opportunities were supposedly available, only the Exiled Princess team came through on the designated day to showcase potential projects.
The Dialog interviewed multiple students from the program to get a sense of their reactions towards the game. All students asked to keep their identity anonymous.
As per a statement by one of the students enrolled in the program, the majority of the class was uncomfortable as the game was being presented as a potential project to work on. “Honestly, I thought it was super disappointing, seeing this project greenlit and brought up to the stage of development,” they shared. “Because with the whole Activision and Blizzard, the current climate in the game industry isn’t the best for women.” The student was referencing recent misogynistic allegations towards major gaming companies in the industry. “It didn’t provide a very hopeful outlook to the future.”
Classmates revealed multiple aspects of the game which appeared to be problematic. For example, in the pretext the game announces that the female protagonist has “just turned 18.” Many felt that this detail was particularly alarming given that the character seemed to be overly sexualized. As per the student, “For her to be stronger, she must take her clothes off,” they explained.
“The target audience is just for men. It’s for men who want to look at younger girls while it’s still legal, so they’ve just turned 18,” said one student from the program.
As the game was initially being presented to students, many noted instances of “hyper sexualization” and “objectification” of the protagonist. “There were a couple of scenes that were… I didn’t really feel that they were appropriate for the location or for the school environment,” said another student after watching the trailer for the game.
With only ten females out of hundreds of students and no female professors in the program, some felt that the game presented a reflection of the misogyny present in the industry as a whole. One of the females enrolled in the program described how she felt the responsibility to prove herself since she was the odd one out.
“I think it’s a little nerve-wracking and unfair to think that when I look at these big companies that I would like to work for, that I’m also going to have to deal with the sexism, and knowing that I’m in a workplace where I might be touched, or someone might say something that makes me uncomfortable… the place just was not built for me,” said the student.
Some students also expressed frustration, as the complaints they brought up about the game to college administrators have not accomplished much. “There wasn’t really a reason for me to try harder in that class because if I were to try harder, then the reward would be to work on this project. Which I just didn’t want to do,” one student expressed.
“I haven’t heard anything positive about this project”
Response to accusations
Our team reached out to several developers of the game to learn their opinions of the controversy during our research.
Only the lead developer, Pedro Correia, was willing to provide a statement. In an email, he claimed that he was unaware of student concerns since he no longer attends the college.
“There is no misogynistic content of any kind in Exiled Princess,” he writes. Correia goes on to describe the game as a passion project which has taken seven years to bring to fruition.
Correia explains that the characters are purposely “drawn as voluptuous and can appear in revealing outfits” because the game’s art is predominantly inspired by anime-based media, in which this is not unusual, and that this could explain why students unfamiliar with the style would feel that it looked strange.
As the team plans to formally publish the game upon its completion, Correia says that it will be acknowledged as an “M for Mature” rating to advertise it appropriately.
“Mind you, I have always been very open about the content and art direction of the game while I was still attending GBC, and the project has been seen and approved by several faculty members and presented to students of various courses, some of them (both men and women) who ended up joining the development team,” he wrote.
We do not know all the faculty members who were responsible for the game’s approval, but we were advised to contact the Chair of the School of Computer Technology, Albert Danison, and the Game Programming Program Coordinator, Alex Richard.
These individuals met with a student from the program, who raised concerns of misogyny in the game and the lack of other presentations back in October. She described their reactions as “dismissive.”
Beyond directing us to contact the School of Design, both individuals declined to comment.
However, the Student Association has temporarily placed game development clubs with key individuals who worked on Exiled Princess, such as GBC Pixel Labs, on probation due to student concerns.
A second set of eyes
The Dialog team sought out an outside perspective from an individual who works in the gaming industry and uses their voice to lift up those who have been marginalized due to their gender in their field of work. They have chosen to remain anonymous for the purposes of this article.
The individual expressed disappointment in the way that the development team handled the matter. “I think when developers are negligent towards student interns and ignore their concerns, it sets a bad precedent for workplace ethics.”
Although Correia seemed to be open to feedback on the game, there has been no indication that these allegations were openly discussed and taken into consideration by the team. The game was approved by faculty, and so it appears that any dissent was simply dismissed.
“I spend my time between working in large teams in the tech industry, and running my own game collective with a few people,” the person remarked.
“When something surfaces that makes workers uncomfortable, we have to take time to understand why and how we can mitigate that–in this case a game character and game design made students not want to work on this project, which will only deter them from wanting to collaborate on more projects in the future and will overall dampen their opportunities at learning more about the game development pipeline.”
Because the audience was limited, they believe that the Exiled Princess team and faculty were sheltered from possible consequences, and that behavior of this nature will not always be tolerated.
“While in this case it’s primarily about a college setting, it again sets a bad precedent that ignoring the concerns of people working on your game is OK, when in the real world it is absolutely not and can result in lawsuits and labour violations.
When asked about the trajectory of the industry, the individual feels that there is still a lot of work to be done to support gender equity. “I do think the game industry is opening up more opportunities for marginalized creators, though that process is definitely slow and arduous,” they wrote.
The individual pointed to Activision-Blizzard as an example, a large and well-known company, which was exposed just last year for allegations surrounding sexual harassment and discrimination, occurring specifically with respect to gender and race.
“People are still burning out and quitting games at worrying rates as a result of sexism and discrimination.”
However, they have witnessed some positive transformations within the community due to the increasing number of studios that have shifted away from a traditional, top-down model. The individual believes that reducing hierarchy between coworkers can play a huge role in improving treatment towards gaming experts who have been othered, as these structures are less likely to “value profit over people.”
And this idea can extend to all fields of work, not just gaming.
“The biggest push for inclusivity I believe in and promote is encouraging workers to unionize and if they find themselves in a place where they can create their own studio, to build a co-op-based model or something more collaborative than the average commercial studio,” the individual writes.
“If workers have a better bargaining position, then they can also work to build standards to prevent and mitigate sexism in the workplace.”
