In this piece, Girls Make Games creator Laila Shabir explains the need for more young women building video games.
“Girls don’t like playing video games.” It’s time to get rid of this age-old myth.
If you look at the numbers, about 46% of the U.S. gamer population is female. There are a lot of reasons as to why the misconception exists. Maybe it’s because of the long-standing reputation of sexism, or the lack of complex female characters in video games. Thankfully, there have been shifts in recent years, even if it’s as simple as starting a conversation about how many young women love to play video games.
Beyond creating a world where girls can feel empowered and seen, I have also made it my mission to get more young women to be the ones actually creating the video games they love to play. My name is Laila Shabir, the creator of Girls Make Games, an organization dedicated to inspiring the next generation of female designers, creators, and engineers behind video games.
Though I’m a proud gamer today, my path here didn’t start with gaming at home. I grew up the daughter of a conservative Pakistani home in the United Arab Emirates, a household where education was essential. My parents worked tirelessly to send their kids to the best schools and shaped my perception of the true purpose of education: to leave this world a little better than we first find it. Their efforts paid off when I got into MIT on a full scholarship and earned my degree in economics. I tested the financial sector for a year before deciding that my life’s ambition rested elsewhere — I would get a Ph.D. and become a professor.
Then my world turned upside down. I met a nationally ranked mathematician, who played video games and got paid for it, which completely fascinated me. He opened up this whole new world — video games that go beyond entertainment. Video games that move, inspire, and teach. He wanted to teach as well, but on a scale larger than a classroom.
We eventually got married and moved to California where we started LearnDistrict, a company creating access to education through video games. Through that initiative, we launched an experimental three-week summer camp for girls. What we found was that not only did girls love playing games, they loved making them. And Girls Make Games was founded.
