DIGIMP@CT 2.0
Met DIGIMP@CT bevragen we enkele stakeholders uit de Vlaamse gamesector over hun visie op duurzaamheid.
Allie Weis
What is your name?
Allie Weis
What organization are you working for and what role does it play within the gaming landscape?
I currently work for Howest University of Applied Sciences in Kortrijk within the curriculum of Digital Arts and Entertainment (DAE), and my job title is the Ethics Coordinator in International Game Development; this means a few different things. Among other things, I am a first listening ear who helps with mental well-being topics. I work very closely with our female and female- identifying students on campus and our LGBTQ+ students as well, and I also host a livestream series about ethically-relevant topics in games and digital Entertainment. We've had a few streams and panels discussing crunch culture and working sustainably.
This is a topic that we return to time and time again, and we're also actually starting a podcast series as well, in which the first topic is going to be about working sustainably and being able to recognize crunch culture for what it is – being able to acknowledge that and then find ways to work alternatively, or to find other solutions if it's not possible where you are currently working, within the landscape of games and total entertainment.
We are in education, so this is really what I view as the beginning. And so for us, it's really crucial to talk about these topics of working sustainably. Work-life balance is very important because they won't necessarily discuss this anywhere else before they enter the industry.
So your main clients are students at your school, but with the activities you do like the Game For Thought, you also reach professionals?
Yes, that’s definitely true. With the Game For Thought livestream, the audience is varied. So I would say most of the audience is students, especially because now I teach a class called Career Skills (for all first-year students; around 800 students) that is focused solely on personal and professional development. And so, again, working sustainably is a huge topic that is part of that course, and it's already implemented within our first year. But part of the Game For Thought audience are also industry professionals. In terms of working sustainably, we also had an institution-wide well-being survey that talked a lot about work-life balance as well. That was shortly after Corona, so these are topics that we also definitely discussed as staff. For me, it's incredibly important that the Game For Thoughts series is both helpful for students and professionals alike.
Is the environmental impact a topic that people think about, or is it more hidden in the shades?
It’s hidden in the shades. The social impact of sustainability is very much touched upon. It's something that I, just out of my own self, feel very passionate about, because we are not robots, we are human beings. Our mental health comes first, so finding a way to work sustainably is crucial, and it also benefits our work. In terms of talking about sustainability, if we're talking about room for improvement or areas that we can build upon, also starting to touch upon the environmental facet is really important. I view sustainability as a holistic theme. So, that involves the both the environmental aspect and the social aspect.
I think a piece of the puzzle in terms of why we aren't talking so much about the environmental side of sustainability is because a lot of the articles or the resources that are available, are extremely scientific, and that isn't necessarily accessible to the general public (including students). So I think that's one of the pieces of the puzzle there.
How do we represent the society in the games we create?
Last year, I had a few conversations with our students and staff about representing diverse characters and diverse stories within assignments. For reference, using diverse references (environments, characters, etc.). It benefits the student to be able to be creative in that way, to create stories that are different than the ones that they normally see.
What's really important for me, though, is when students are creating art or elements for a game or film that involves characters or stories from a group that they do not belong to (i.e. a Native American character), for example, that they are in contact, or ideally speak regularly with people from that community. Because it's one thing to involve diverse characters and diverse stories in your game or in your film or whatever medium it is, but it's another thing to do that “authentically”. And that’s impossible if you are not actually receiving input from the source. So if you are making diverse characters, have conversations with the people whose reality that belongs to, because that reality doesn't belong to you.
Digimp@ct is een samenwerking van Pulse Transitienetwerk en het Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds (VAF), ondersteund voor Vlaams minister van Media Benjamin Dalle.