[Release Date: November 23, 2021] What is it to “be” a gamer? How did the gamer “identity” become both masculinized and marginalized? How has this impacted female players and is the “gamergirl” identity useful or counter-productive for female players? We chat with Dr. Amanda Cote who argues that video games are in a crisis of authority related to what a “gamer” is.
SHOW TRANSCRIPT
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Shlomo Sher: All right, everybody we’re here today with amanda cody assistant professor of media studies and game studies at the University of Oregon school of journalism and communication.
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Shlomo Sher: she’s also a member of the University of Oregon esports in games research lab which sounds really cool amanda studies digital and analog games, as well as their culture and industry.
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Shlomo Sher: Her first book gaming sexism gender and identity in the era of casual video games was recently published by nyu press today and she’s here to talk to us about.
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Shlomo Sher: Some things from that amanda cody welcome to the show.
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Shlomo Sher: Alright, so you know there’s so much in your book that we really want to talk about, but we decided we’re going to focus on really one aspect because.
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Shlomo Sher: A this is are very, very long overdue, and when I say long overdue, I mean Andy and I wanted to do a show about sexism and video games like from the very beginning.
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Shlomo Sher: And it took us a while to find the right guest for it, but I mean really, really long overdue, and so we decided to kind of focus on the the grounding for the current situation, which in your case really kind of focuses on.
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Shlomo Sher: And gamer identity and how all of that equates the current situation so Okay, so you read in your book that Games were both opening up to new audiences and the 2010 to the 20 teams.
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Shlomo Sher: The teens right, but also that, at the same time that they’re opening up to new players to get this backlash against non traditional players, including female player So what do you think led to this to this backlash.
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Amanda Cote: So first i’m glad you also have a struggle figuring out how we refer to the early 2000s, I wrote this whole books still not sure how to do it.
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Amanda Cote: But I appreciate this question because it does get it, what the motivating force behind the book was.
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Amanda Cote: So, in the early 2000s, of course, we had things come out like the Nintendo DS we had things come out like the Nintendo wii.
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Amanda Cote: Which deliberately targeted families moms older players people that we don’t traditionally think of as gamers and then, at the same time, of course, we had the rise of.
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Amanda Cote: Mobile games and social games that was the farmville boom was around that time.
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Amanda Cote: And so, because of all these games coming out, we got a lot of journalistic stories we got a lot of narratives that anyone could be a gamer now.
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Amanda Cote: That Games were opening up that Games were now accessible to different players in new ways.
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Amanda Cote: But at the same time within video game spaces, we saw a lot of evidence that that just wasn’t true we saw for instance female cultural critics of games facing a lot of harassment for daring to criticize the representation of female characters we had.
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Amanda Cote: Female professional gamers facing sexual harassment from their coaches and speaking up about it.
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Amanda Cote: And so I was trying to wrap my head around these two totally divergent narratives games are for everyone games are definitely not for everyone.
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Amanda Cote: And what I end up arguing at the beginning of the book is that these are actually related.
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Amanda Cote: That as games have started to deliberately target newer audiences people who are used to being prioritized.
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Amanda Cote: find that somewhat concerning and i’ve been trying to use their slightly more privileged position in gaming to prevent or stop that diversification and protect this this hobby that they see is really central to their identity.
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A Ashcraft: And you do you think that’s actually a conscious choice, or do you think it’s just happening subconsciously.
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Amanda Cote: that’s a really good question I don’t think it’s necessarily conscious choice, and I also don’t think it’s all gamers.
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Amanda Cote: i’m trying to guard gaming from change.
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Amanda Cote: I and my participants, the women that I spoke with for the book, who are often long standing female gamers.
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Amanda Cote: largely find that most players are great most players are supportive most players want more people to play games, because then they get more games.
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Amanda Cote: But a very small number of people are very vocal about about not wanting games to change, and those are the people who are kind of at the heart of this backlash against games diversification.
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Shlomo Sher: You know I really want to ask if you know the early teens right are 10 years ago now, and it seems like a long time, especially in gaming time.
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Shlomo Sher: You know, and part of it is the part of me really wonders I have.
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Shlomo Sher: I want to ask if things have changed, but I feel like we got to get there first.
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Amanda Cote: Right.
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Amanda Cote: I think we can put a pin in that for.
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Shlomo Sher: Later, yes right because I mean.
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Shlomo Sher: You know I want to ask if things have changed, I want to ask kind of what kind of ethical issues for women kind of came.
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Shlomo Sher: came out of this kind of backlash but let’s kind of kind of build up to it, so how did this idea that gays were masculine activities kind of come about in the first place.
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Amanda Cote: Oh so many so many forces apologies if this is a really long answer.
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Amanda Cote: So games where video games emerged from were very masculine I spaces, the very earliest video games created came out of military research facilities.
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Amanda Cote: So people disagree on what counts is the first video game, but the usual contenders are either tennis for two, which was kind of an analog game created at brookhaven national laboratories in 1958.
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Amanda Cote: Just on a whim for visitors day for something people could have fun with and play while they were visiting the nuclear research lab.
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Amanda Cote: The other contender is a first.
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Amanda Cote: spacewalk which was created at MIT by students kind of playing with their departments computers in their off hours.
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Amanda Cote: But those computers were largely funded by military research funds and so both of these first contenders for.
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Amanda Cote: original video game came out of spaces that were more accessible to men and boys at the time than then largely to women.
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Amanda Cote: And that kind of continued a little bit as games became popular while we know that men and women, both played arcade games.
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Amanda Cote: We know that men tended to do so in higher numbers arcades were often seen as potentially risky or deviant spaces, you know they’re these dark buildings with these flashing lights you’re not really sure what everybody’s doing and there.
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Amanda Cote: They have connections to things like pinball and organized crime, which is a whole nother history that I don’t know time for.
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Amanda Cote: Those spaces were therefore more open to men and boys than women and girls, because we give men and boys kind of more freedom to move in public spaces.
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Amanda Cote: And my colleague carly historic her book coin operated Americans goes through all of that in depth, then video games had a crash in the 1980s.
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Amanda Cote: The North American video game industry kind of dried up quite quickly due to both economic recession, as well as.
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Amanda Cote: Producing a surplus of not very good games when games decided to recuperate from that and came back companies were really interested in managing their risk, and so they chose to target audiences that were narrower and audiences that they knew had already existed done men.
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Amanda Cote: boys, we see that really ramp up through the late 1980s and 1990s and that’s just kind of stayed since then, all of these introductory forces keeping the same kinds of games being produced and keeping them targeting the same kinds of audiences.
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Shlomo Sher: So.
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Shlomo Sher: it’s still at the same time, you say that in the 90s there wasn’t actually attempt to diversify games and move somewhat away from that and make make a more inclusive for women.
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Shlomo Sher: At the same time, I know that right in the 90s, I think we hit like peak sexualization of women.
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Shlomo Sher: Female characters in games what what happened in.
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Amanda Cote: yeah so there was a deliberate movement in the 1990s, the girls games movement to try and reach new audiences.
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Amanda Cote: And this was not trying to revamp the entire video game industry which, as you point out was doing some very interesting things in their advertising and character design.
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Amanda Cote: This was meant more to be kind of an alternative stream for reaching female players and designers in the girls games movement really trying to meet girls, where they already were.
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Amanda Cote: Developing games that focused on social relationships and friendships, for instance, or soccer was very popular for girls in the 1990s.
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Amanda Cote: And so, these designers said okay like traditional games, you can go do your own thing we’re going to focus on this audience and we’re going to meet girls, where they are.
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Amanda Cote: One of the big founders of this movement was Brenda Laurel who created the game company purple moon so, for instance, one of their popular games was the rocket series which was about this girl named rocket.
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Amanda Cote: Dealing with the trials and tribulations of middle school making friends dealing with friends jealousy going to school dances.
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Amanda Cote: Their last game was a soccer game so highlighting that 1990s interest in women’s soccer.
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Amanda Cote: The girls games movement was for girls, a success, many girls purchase these games loved them contributed to online forums about them, but it ended up being unfortunately kind of a blip in the history of games, the late 90s decline of the CD Rom market.
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Amanda Cote: kind of decimated the production structures of those Games.
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Amanda Cote: But it also kind of fell prey a little bit too too many cooks in the kitchen kind of problem.
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Amanda Cote: game developers wanted to make games that would be a success, regardless of what that meant.
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Amanda Cote: feminist activists sometimes felt that targeting girls, where they were was just reinforcing gender norms and when actually solve the problem of getting women into tech, so there were a lot of disagreements about what the correct approach to this would be.
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Amanda Cote: So, unfortunately, by the late 90s, most of these companies that had formed to make games for girls ended up closing their doors.
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Amanda Cote: And i’m going to bring her up again, but my carly my colleague Carla garrick also has a book on this.
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Amanda Cote: In the influential video game designers series she wrote a book on Brenda Laurel the the founder of purple moon, and one of the leaders of the girls games movement that gets into this in much more depth.
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A Ashcraft: yeah so is that I sort of feel like that sort of coincided with like the way toys and Games were were also sort of super differentiated and the way that they were sold like when you go into Twitter if you’d go in and toys R Us at the time it was like the pink aisle and the blue is.
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A Ashcraft: supposed to end.
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Amanda Cote: It has.
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Shlomo Sher: not changed.
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A Ashcraft: yeah I mean toys R Us, of course, is gone, but.
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A Ashcraft: But but target sort of does a little bit more mixing nowadays it’s a little bit less, especially in their games i’ll they don’t you know they don’t they don’t necessarily do that completely I mean there’s still a little bit of that, but it seems like it was like super binary.
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Shlomo Sher: But it is a really and yeah it’s interesting because maybe it’s interesting how the movie towards non binary gender identity, really.
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Shlomo Sher: That puts a lot of this at the question, but it is interesting that you have that these kind of two approaches one kind of expand the current offering to say it’s.
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Shlomo Sher: For women and girls to the other is construct things, especially for women and girls and if you do, that are you essentially you know, assuming some sort of either gender essentialism or you know something, whereas where you’re saying games for women and girls are different.
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Shlomo Sher: Then right, and so, how does this end up connecting to the to gamer identity, this idea that games for women and girls are different.
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Amanda Cote: yeah so that’s actually a problem that’s still persists i’m in my book, I interviewed a whole bunch of female gamers and they played a wide array of games.
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Amanda Cote: loved a whole bunch of different varieties of games from role playing games to first person shooters to candy crush.
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Amanda Cote: But where they felt the industry targeted them and expected them to play was a pretty narrow band, one of my participants had this great line where she said, the industry treats women as a genre.
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Amanda Cote: And so, she used.
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Amanda Cote: The example of things like Nintendo dogs a game where you take care of dogs on a portable system as an example of the kind of games that that women tend to get.
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Amanda Cote: She also jokingly summed up the entire industry of women’s and girls games through the fictional title Dora the explorer goes on a princess adventure I believe was hers that.
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Amanda Cote: are made up.
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Amanda Cote: made up game title.
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Amanda Cote: And so.
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Amanda Cote: A lot of my participants found.
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Amanda Cote: That the games that are still.
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Amanda Cote: Market and targeted towards women do follow these pretty strict to gender binary is it’s games about taking care of animals riding a horse cooking games like cooking mama and they didn’t hate these games.
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Amanda Cote: They liked them.
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Amanda Cote: Several of my participants loved cooking mama they thought it was so fun.
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Amanda Cote: And so well done.
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Amanda Cote: But they somewhat resented that those were the only moments they felt the industry was really speaking to them, because they also liked.
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Amanda Cote: First person shooting games adventure games role playing games and they felt that.
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Amanda Cote: It was hit or miss whether they were included in those spaces, so they loved games like mass effect where you have the option to play a male character, or a female character, because they saw that as.
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Amanda Cote: These people want me to play their game.
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Amanda Cote: But a lot of other games like that don’t offer that option, and so they felt that they were often in an afterthought in those sections of the industry, rather than being deliberately included and the section that always deliberately included them tended to be kind of heavily gendered.
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A Ashcraft: Right right, I wonder if it’s only just now occurred to me and I don’t know I mean.
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A Ashcraft: Like the marketing of these games.
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A Ashcraft: creates this the spaces, that that are ultimately then play like that that you know where the where the people actually like the Community is that form out of it is really formed out of that marketing.
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A Ashcraft: And sometimes I think that.
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A Ashcraft: Certainly, when when making a mass market game we’re not necessarily thinking boys only.
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A Ashcraft: But if it’s if it’s marketed that way.
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A Ashcraft: Then that’s what that’s sort of the the Community that’s going to form out of it right.
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Amanda Cote: yeah I will say.
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Amanda Cote: Women always play games that are marketed as for men, my female participants like if I said what games are you playing, it was a list.
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Amanda Cote: Everything.
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A Ashcraft: Of course, but I mean in terms of like feeling feeling accepted in those spaces.
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Amanda Cote: yeah and that led to a whole nother set of issues around identity which the original question was about were female gamers play these games and we’re good at them often extremely good.
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Amanda Cote: But were often still treated as outsiders or as potentially suspicious or suspect because they weren’t part of this kind of ideological or imagined audience for that game.
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Amanda Cote: And so they often faced what I refer to in the book as both overt and implicit forms of sexism so over sexism would be the kind of.
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Amanda Cote: In group out group harassment, the go back to the kitchen and make me a sandwich kind of behavior that’s directed at people who are seen as not belonging.
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Amanda Cote: But implicit or inferential sexism is often more insidious because it’s things that don’t appear to be negative or sexist on the surface.
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Amanda Cote: But rest on an assumption that women aren’t supposed to be there are so continually being treated with surprise oh my gosh a girl who games i’m so excited to see you here.
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Amanda Cote: was just in many ways as off putting is actually being harassed, but harder to combat because it didn’t seem like a bad thing.
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Amanda Cote: Several of my participants also found that that male players would offer them help.
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Amanda Cote: Even if they were a higher level than the person offering.
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Amanda Cote: them because of this assumption that they weren’t the Games target audience because of this assumption that obviously they were new.
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Amanda Cote: And needed to help.
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A Ashcraft: Because this game.
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Amanda Cote: Women didn’t play this game, and so they found that incredibly frustrating to be you know Max level in world of warcraft with.
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Amanda Cote: Impressive gear array is and still have people being like Oh, let me help you with this quest so those kind of more subtle forms of sexism were really frustrating.
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Right.
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Shlomo Sher: um.
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Shlomo Sher: Maybe this is a good point to talk about the idea of the gamer girl right uh you know I still want to talk about the.
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Shlomo Sher: Core gamer.
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Shlomo Sher: gamer identity right but but right maybe before before we get to it, so at one point, we had this Facebook post where.
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Shlomo Sher: i’m not even sure for word, but we use the hashtag game a girl.
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Shlomo Sher: But someone, and it was a male co I commented that there’s no such thing as a game ago right there’s only there’s only games and you know I couldn’t tell if you know if he was trolling us and actually that might have been the first troll ID but.
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Shlomo Sher: But, but I thought it was a very you can take a you can take a claim like that in so many ways right, I mean you could take it as positive as.
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negative.
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Shlomo Sher: What do you think of the game, or what did women think of the of this kind of label as as an identity.
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Amanda Cote: This comes up, so much so much, and the reason why is because.
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Amanda Cote: gamer girl or a girl gamer often gets used in a pejorative context, it is often leveled against female gamers as one of these forms of sexism.
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Amanda Cote: And so, in my book, I kind of extensively discuss the girl gamer stereotype.
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Amanda Cote: which has kind of two facets First is the assumption that women are only casual gamers who are only interested in things like candy crush and don’t like more serious games.
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Amanda Cote: The other side of it is the idea that women than if they play more serious games are only doing so to get attention from men.
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Amanda Cote: Which my participants hated.
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Amanda Cote: Because they found that this pressure them.
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Amanda Cote: either to have to prove their skill to prove that they belong didn’t didn’t just play casual games, but then, even if they succeeded in doing so.
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Amanda Cote: People expected them to flirt or pay attention to male players basically their their presence in the space and their ability to participate in it fully was constantly under question.
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Amanda Cote: So in that circumstance, the game or girl or girl gamer stereotype is a barrier that female gamers have to overcome.
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Amanda Cote: And and kind of a stereotype that’s used against them in a lot of ways to question their presence in game spaces.
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Amanda Cote: On the other hand, because we have such a long standing understanding of gamer equals male a lot of my participants participants also felt it was important to.
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Amanda Cote: take on an activist role and prove that no not all gamers are men, women are here have long been here have the same level of skill and commitment as others.
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Amanda Cote: And so, in that context, sometimes they would forefront both their gaming skill and their female identity.
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Amanda Cote: As as an activist move away to prove that they were there, and that they belong so, for instance, one of my participants kiana played a whole bunch of board games a wide array of board games I don’t think i’ve ever seen somebody off the top of their head lived as many board games.
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A Ashcraft: As she can.
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Amanda Cote: And she often posted them to social media with the girl gamer hashtag because that was her way of saying look I know this sphere I love it and here i’m important in this space, and I am also female and so that’s a.
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Amanda Cote: girl gamer gail gamer girl it really depends on context, it has both a potentially positive side, and a potentially negative side.
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A Ashcraft: Right is that sort of like a reclamation reclaiming the word.
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Amanda Cote: Yes, exactly so, for instance, a really big.
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Amanda Cote: forum for female gamer is is on reddit are slash girl gamer and their little blurb about their part of reddit is we’re we’re taking back the term, so it is a very deliberate and thoughtful approach to that when women use that term on their own.
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Shlomo Sher: Though it’s interesting I mean to me, you know this is identifying yourself as a member of you know of a minority group or especially minority group that’s been oppressed right.
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Shlomo Sher: Is.
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Shlomo Sher: You know something that’s done in a lot of spheres.
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Shlomo Sher: Right and in our society and and it’s interesting how it’s how it’s done how it’s done here in gaming because gaming is one of those situations where, in some ways it’s possible to be anonymous.
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Shlomo Sher: And yet, and yet identity really matters, and yet you also lose something and being anonymous especially being anonymous means that everybody assumes that you’re different than who you really are because the standard is that you are, that you are a man right.
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Amanda Cote: yeah this was a dilemma that that my participants brought up frequently is.
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Amanda Cote: when and under what circumstances and to whom.
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Amanda Cote: Should they reveal their identity.
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Amanda Cote: Because a lot of them were playing games to relax to have fun to detox after a day of work and they didn’t necessarily want to deal with the potential backlash or baggage of being.
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Amanda Cote: In outsider in that space when that was their goal, so a lot of them would.
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A Ashcraft: she’ll come back.
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Shlomo Sher: yeah we got to bring her back to to it.
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Amanda Cote: Either identity Internet avoid waste chat okay i’ll be right back.
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Amanda Cote: Okay, I have X.
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Amanda Cote: Where did I find out.
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Shlomo Sher: Good question Do you remember exactly handy I.
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Shlomo Sher: Had it in my mind.
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A Ashcraft: just talking about the identity yeah.
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Amanda Cote: Yes, so i’ll start back at the top, and we can cut this whole section out great.
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Amanda Cote: So that was a dilemma that female gamers had to deal with a lot, the question of when and how and to whom they wanted to reveal their identity, so a lot of female gamers played games to relax to have fun to detox after a tough day of work.
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Amanda Cote: Sometimes know having others know that they were female made it difficult to achieve those goals, so they often would not use voice chat use gender neutral username not let anybody know that they were female.
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Amanda Cote: um but then they they sometimes felt guilty about that, because then they felt that they were allowing the assumption that all gamers are men to continue.
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Amanda Cote: And so, some of them did things like they had two accounts for games one with a feminized username and one with a gender neutral username and when they wanted to when they had the energy to take an activist stance they’d play the feminized one.
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Amanda Cote: And when they didn’t have that energy.
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Amanda Cote: And just wanted to relax they play the other account, and so this was kind of a constant negotiation that a lot of my participants were going through as.
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Amanda Cote: long standing skilled gamers they felt it was kind of important for them to prove that they were there prove that they belonged prove that they had skill and experience in gaming.
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Amanda Cote: But they also had to balance that with prioritizing their own needs and their own experiences and so that was that came up over and over again, of when do I use voice chat and how that’s.
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A Ashcraft: Right.
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A Ashcraft: Right and and that relates to code switching you know how my minorities deal with with expressing their identities or or not expressing their identities.
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A Ashcraft: You know, outside of the norm.
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Shlomo Sher: And given all this and I know that you know you’re talking about your research and all that, what do you do you do you have a personal opinion about the usefulness of the term game a girl with at this point in time.
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Amanda Cote: Oh that’s a good question um.
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Shlomo Sher: If i’ve everything you said, I mean you obviously see a lot of complications in it and that’s that’s why you know i’m asked i’m curious what you personally think.
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Amanda Cote: Yes, that is a good point um I don’t personally use it, but I also don’t play online games, so if I am discussing my gaming people see me, and therefore I guess I don’t feel any pressure to add the caveat to that.
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Amanda Cote: Because discussing my gaming experience in forums like this, or, for instance in my game studies class it’s already pretty obvious that i’m bringing my my gender identity to the forefront as well.
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Amanda Cote: So I generally don’t employ it, but I do think that that has to do a lot with, but the circumstances in which I talk about games.
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Amanda Cote: I think if people are comfortable using the term and want to try to reclaim it like more power to them, and many of my participants have done that, because they do find it useful.
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Shlomo Sher: Okay now let’s move to the core core gamer identity Okay, so when people talk about gamers right, what is this idea and let’s connect it back to do but kind of original story of.
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Shlomo Sher: of how the gamer identity forms and what is the gamer identity.
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Amanda Cote: yeah so you know we’ve talked about how gamer identity is masculine eyes gamer identity tends to be associated with men and boys.
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Amanda Cote: But it kind of goes beyond that right like if we think about gamer identity and its most stereotypical format we’re getting like a young.
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Amanda Cote: nerdy white or Asian young man who you know lives in his mom’s basement that’s the most extreme form of the stereotype.
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Amanda Cote: And that’s been reinforced by a lot of factors, both within games and within broader pop culture, you know we think about the the jocks and geeks that are ever present in TV shows and movies.
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Amanda Cote: And so gamer identity has in many ways been masculine is, which you know is is in modern society in empowering place to be.
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Amanda Cote: But it’s also kind of marginalized because these are usually men who are presented as less than in popular culture.
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Amanda Cote: And gamers have also had to deal with claims of you know dungeons and dragons and Satanism or video game, violence and school shootings and so gamers.
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Amanda Cote: occupy in many ways a privileged position and how they’re stereotypically defined.
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Amanda Cote: But don’t always necessarily feel like it’s a privileged position because they’re still marked as potentially deviant or less than you know the wholesome all American athletes, and so the gamer stereotype occupies this really interesting space between.
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Amanda Cote: privilege and margins and so that has meant that, for many people gaming.
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Amanda Cote: becomes core to their identity, almost in kind of like a.
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Amanda Cote: resistant or hazing way like because i’ve had to deal with all these negative stereotypes about myself i’m going to embrace this identity and i’m going to embrace this Community.
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Amanda Cote: And you can’t take that away from me, or you can’t tell me otherwise we’re pushing back against how you think about us so that’s an interesting position to.
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Amanda Cote: To be in and then face the specter of change oh we’ve had this space that is ours we’ve protected it against all of these threats from outside.
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Amanda Cote: And now, all these people are coming in, who don’t understand what’s going on, what is this going to do for our Community and our identity and so that’s kind of the the struggle that’s going on, often in unconscious ways around what gaming is right now.
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Shlomo Sher: Can I have, I want to go into simultaneous directions here.
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Shlomo Sher: Number one I mean has has the public perception of a gamer changed over time because gaming is just broaden so much, I mean you know your high school athlete like plays games all the time.
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Shlomo Sher: These days, right, so it has has that changed over time.
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Shlomo Sher: And if that has changed, is it that the the more traditional game or identity, a.
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Shlomo Sher: Does it has widened, or does it just feel more you know more what’s the hold more to the geek them of it also against this kind of broadening.
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Amanda Cote: If.
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Shlomo Sher: That makes sense.
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Amanda Cote: yeah um.
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Amanda Cote: I do think that the stereotype has expanded and is expanding, you know games are pretty mainstream now, and especially with the rise of things like esports with the rise of things like video game live streaming.
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Amanda Cote: it’s largely impossible to avoid games at this point, and so we finally see all the many diverse people who play games and have played games, for a long time, there are still some.
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Amanda Cote: limitations and I think it’ll be time before we see, for instance, change at those high highly competitive highly skilled levels, for instance, if you look in esports predominantly young men still and that’s for many reasons, women don’t end up competing at those high levels um.
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Amanda Cote: The idea that gaming is still for men leads more young women to drop out, they often still have to deal with harassment or questions about why they’re there.
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Amanda Cote: And so few of them make it to those high levels, right now, so I think over time we’ll still see change happening, but I think the overall stereotype of a gamer is now more firmly recognized as a stereotype because we see so many others involved.
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Shlomo Sher: That makes it even weirder right because right because yeah we talk all the time now, but the stereotype of the gamer right.
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Shlomo Sher: And yet right you’re saying that we still have all these people who are kind of holding on to this game or identity that began as a stereotype of a sort is that, am I am I getting that right or.
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A Ashcraft: And and and it’s because it seems like in some ways it very much mirrors the idea of the gamer girls who really hold on to that I that and and and are claiming and staking a claim in that word and those in that in that term.
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A Ashcraft: Right these these guy gamers who were sort of taking a claim and being that that nerdy living in the basement know this is the way that it’s supposed to be.
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Amanda Cote: I sometimes like to think about it as.
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Amanda Cote: kind of like hipsters like we were into this before it was cool.
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A Ashcraft: mm hmm.
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Amanda Cote: As if being the first to a space makes you a more valid occupant of that space and also, you can see where like we were in this before it was cool so we got shoved in lockers and you haven’t gone through that experience, so you don’t truly understand what it’s like you can see why that.
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Amanda Cote: Concern or resentment about the entry of new participants can persist.
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Amanda Cote: Even though of course the stereotype.
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Amanda Cote: doesn’t hold up and and and never truly reflected everybody who played games.
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A Ashcraft: that’s right there you type in they’ll have.
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A Ashcraft: Even in the early days of computer games, there were women involved from the ground up.
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A Ashcraft: You know they weren’t highly publicized, but they were there.
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Amanda Cote: yeah some of the first esports competitions were won by women as TV case is a great example, who beat john Romero at doom his own game.
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Amanda Cote: Women have always been present in the space, but because they haven’t been as prominent whereas heavily linked to the identity, they have been somewhat disempowered and how much control, they can bring to gaming culture and communities so.
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Shlomo Sher: So we’ve talked about this in kind of a roundabout way, but just this idea of the gamer identity like what would you say creates barriers for women’s engagement with games and again feel free to bring back things that we’ve talked about already.
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Amanda Cote: yeah so there’s a couple different ways um there’s kind of if we think about who games how games are made and who they’re made for there’s kind of content barriers.
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Amanda Cote: And then, if we think about game communities there’s social barriers so because games have this long history of targeting in imagine the gamer, who is a young adolescent male.
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Amanda Cote: A lot of games feature male characters hyper sexualized their female characters.
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Amanda Cote: Tell stories that tend to fall more in line with traditional boy culture stories about war and.
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Amanda Cote: Shooting and sports and things like that, and so, women have to decide if those types of content are of interest to them.
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Amanda Cote: And then, if those types of content are of interest to them.
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Amanda Cote: Are they willing to play a game where they have to play a male character, are they willing to play a game where the female characters are hyper sexualized and kind of poorly fleshed out token characters.
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Amanda Cote: These are barriers they have to navigate and they are actually quite good at this, the women, I spoke with have these extremely detailed processes for discovering if a game is going to be worth their time or energy.
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Amanda Cote: which we could can get to in a future podcast because we’re taking a long time to talk about now.
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A Ashcraft: Right now, that would be fascinating.
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Amanda Cote: yeah so they’re kind of content negotiation approaches are key, then they have to deal with the kind of in group and out group dynamics that humans are so good at.
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Amanda Cote: Because of this stereotype of who games are for and who they have targeted for so long has been very powerful.
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Amanda Cote: Women, as I said, are often questioned when they are in gaming spaces Oh, why are you here, are you here to meet guys like are you actually any good at this game, and so they often have to deal with those pressures.
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Amanda Cote: And so figuring out how to navigate.
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Amanda Cote: Where they forefront their skill, where they try and minimize or dismiss their gender identity, so they can be seen as just gamers.
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Amanda Cote: versus when they forefront the fact that they’re female to combat those stereotypes it’s a kind of ongoing process that.
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Amanda Cote: Every person approaches differently, which is also really interesting based on their personality and what they’re good at, they have different strategies for doing this.
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Amanda Cote: But yeah the this stereotype means that games have been created for particular kinds of people with forms of content that designers think will appeal to those people.
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Amanda Cote: And then that builds a Community where some people are expected to be part of it, and others are seen as outsiders or invaders.
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Shlomo Sher: Okay, so I think this could get us to the point of talking about this, the current situation right, and of course this is all part of the current situation, but.
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Shlomo Sher: you describe the current situation is essentially being in a crisis of authority when it comes to gender and games so let’s tell us about that that seems really, really key.
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Amanda Cote: Yes, so I borrowed a theory from Antonio Gramsci political theorist from around the world war, two era, Antonio Gramsci was an Italian Marxist who ended up being thrown in prison by mussolini’s fascist government for protesting against the rise of fascism in Italy.
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Amanda Cote: While in prison, he wrote an extensive series of theoretical pieces that are lumped together called in a book called the prison notebooks and so he talks about power and how power hold on to its own ability to graduate and also have systems of power can change over time.
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Amanda Cote: So, Antonio Gramsci came up with the concept of a Gemini or hedge moni depending on on who’s pronouncing it, which is the idea that the status quo, the existing way of doing things.
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Amanda Cote: stays in power, because the powerful normalized systems of belief that support their continued power.
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Amanda Cote: That there’s this kind of taken for granted nervous about how things work because Oh, this is of course this is how things work, this is how things have always worked.
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Amanda Cote: And so, when Gemini is functioning systems of power stay in place just through this process of common sense.
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Amanda Cote: But of course not everybody’s empowered in a system and so people will push back against that and sometimes if I push back is strong enough.
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Amanda Cote: A moment the ground she refers to as a crisis of authority this common sense maintenance of power, is no longer strong enough.
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Amanda Cote: So he says in a crisis of authority, the people who are in power will have to use force to defend their position instead.
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Amanda Cote: And, of course, Graham she is talking about big political shifts like the rise of fascism in Italy and so he’s talking when he says forest he’s talking about you know, please send the military.
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Amanda Cote: So, even though i’m talking about things on a much smaller level than Graham she is the theory maps onto games really well.
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Amanda Cote: Where we’ve had this hegemonic idea for a long time that games are meant to look a certain way for a certain group of people and that’s just what games are.
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Amanda Cote: And when new forms of games new platforms new players start to question that it’s this moment where things either could change to be more inclusive and broaden out.
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Amanda Cote: or where if the powerful group exerts enough force, they can maintain the system, the way it is, and so I argue in the book that things like harassment and discrimination against new types of games and new types of gamers.
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Amanda Cote: Is that kind of force that crisis of authority so it’s a really interesting moment because the crisis of authority either ends with change or it ends with the reaffirmation of the existing system and we’re still kind of figuring out where we’re going in this one.
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Shlomo Sher: And if change happens i’m assuming those who are currently in power, which would be your traditional quote unquote gamers right.
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Shlomo Sher: also lose their identity is their identity at stake in this as well.
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Amanda Cote: I think a lot of people feel their identity is at stake because they have for so long, define themselves, as this is, who I am, this is what I do this is what people like me look like.
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Amanda Cote: I will say I don’t actually think that the diversification of gaming will ruin it for existing gamers you know the intro of casual games is not in fact taking time and energy away from traditional forms of games it’s kind of adding on.
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Amanda Cote: But when this process started, I think a lot of people were concerned that that wouldn’t be the case that if casual Games were super successful.
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Amanda Cote: Investment money that would have gone to traditional games would flow to casual games, instead, and so I think there was this real fear that gaming was.
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Amanda Cote: zero sum and that success for one sector of gaming mental loss for another, and so far it doesn’t seem like that’s been the case it’s been kind of a rising tide for everyone instead.
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Shlomo Sher: You know.
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A Ashcraft: it’s interesting.
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Shlomo Sher: To me, that the question is a little different you know I do think of you know spheres, like being a hipster right where you do feel like you know.
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Shlomo Sher: You know where you were there first and when everybody else discovers your thing it feels like it lessons that you know you’re not special anymore you’re you know and notice right and.
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Shlomo Sher: in some way just doesn’t make sense, because your your thing that you thought was so beautiful and amazing now the rest of the world gets to discover and.
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Shlomo Sher: You know you can’t deny that it’s good that other people get to you know discover the good and amazing, but I could, but I could also very much see how that can feel like you yourself lost something that was that was special to you.
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A Ashcraft: yeah right and and I should say that that’s precisely how I have navigated this because you know as the nerdy skinny brainy kid you know I I discovered D amp D and it was an escape from the from the the the social crushing you know.
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A Ashcraft: bs that people deal with in high school and junior high and and but that’s precisely the way that I handled it is, I went, I decided that this is cool and I want to invite more people in.
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A Ashcraft: Right, and you know this is, and then, of course, then I discovered, you know, through the history, you know, through you know finding out that oh.
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A Ashcraft: This actually wasn’t my space to begin with, there were there were people here before me, and they were, of course, very diverse people here before me, so it wasn’t all just people who look like me that played D amp D in high school right so.
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A Ashcraft: So, you know that that learning more about the history of it and also being open to inviting people in is precisely how I navigated this.
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Amanda Cote: yeah and it’s definitely like those are real feelings that people have and a half to figure out how.
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Amanda Cote: To deal with.
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Amanda Cote: And so it was really interesting to speak to female gamers who kind of understood why people responded to their presence in the way they did.
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Amanda Cote: And we’re very aware of these kind of existing power structures, well, of course, men feel like gaming is there space look at all these things that have marked that out for them, and of course they see you know games that that feature female characters as potentially divergence from that.
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Amanda Cote: But they argued that male gamers deserved more credit they argued that you know targeting men specifically and only on a certain forms of adolescent masculinity which a lot of game advertisement has relied on really kind of.
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Amanda Cote: token eyes men as well and said oh if we got to throw in a sexy female character, because that’s how we’re going to reach men, they said well that that argues that men can’t empathize with characters or care about them, for any reason other than their appearance and that’s not our experience.
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Amanda Cote: And so they ended up arguing that.
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Amanda Cote: Diversifying games, while it might be a bit of a challenge at the start, would actually be better for everyone, because it would allow people a broader range of different experiences, but until you know what it looks like, on the other side that idea of change can be tough yeah.
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Shlomo Sher: hmm that’s a great point.
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A Ashcraft: And you’re right i’ve often felt insulted by the pandering.
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A Ashcraft: Right.
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Shlomo Sher: yeah you’re not you know you’re not a teenage boy, you know and anymore right and yeah it is really weird right part of it as as you grow throughout the years of the gamer, but in some ways the targeting remains very, very similar right itself like is there’s there’s something.
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A Ashcraft: That makes me feel like i’m growing out of it.
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Shlomo Sher: yeah it’s just.
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A Ashcraft: That that’s a bad thing for the industry to feel like hey this person is who’s who’s loved games and will probably continue to love games is starting to feel like like they’re they’re not part of it just because they’re older and wiser.
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Shlomo Sher: Right, I mean I want you know I mean you’re talking about generations let’s say of games from the 80s, that you know soon enough will be grandparents and.
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A Ashcraft: already are.
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Shlomo Sher: Some more do.
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Shlomo Sher: Right and no I mean and that’s really interesting right because I mean you know even from the from the male side right, I mean they would want games that connect with them in that stage of their lives.
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Shlomo Sher: Okay, I want to so this idea of a this other ideas that so you draw this picture, where gave me or give me give me your identity is divided into these kind of.
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Shlomo Sher: Core gamers, and this is kind of the core of hardcore right gamers and that’s masculine and casual players right which is kind of like.
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Shlomo Sher: Not real players are not real game right as as we, as sometimes they say right or casual gamers and we’ll put it in quotes right.
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Shlomo Sher: Which is kind of female and less category did the key kind of becomes that, how do you maintain the identity of the core and we can essentially.
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Shlomo Sher: We can have our gamer and those are the real gamers and the core and you know female players will be kind of, on the other side of it and you say that the chorus is really kind of non essential right, and you can challenge it and and reimagine it.
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Shlomo Sher: And that this is already kind of happening that’s what’s causing this crisis of authority So what exactly is this reimagining right, how do you see.
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Shlomo Sher: This this split between this core and casual gaming changing going away melding together how would you describe it.
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Amanda Cote: yeah, so this is actually a really interesting question to follow up on our just previous point about kind of who gets included in games so in the book I argue that these concepts of core and casual are.
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Amanda Cote: messy and flexible and multifaceted we have traditionally kind of defined core gaming based around not only an identity this young male identity we’ve talked about but also forms and genres of games so it’s been PC and console games it’s been.
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Amanda Cote: emos and first person shooters and rpg us and those kinds of genres and we define casual, as my colleague shear a chest in her book ready player to lays out this designed identity of a.
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Amanda Cote: Female casual female gamer really, really well, but she says the we kind of conceptualize the casual gamer as.
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Amanda Cote: Female but like midwestern and middle class and kind of a mom figure at the same time, you know playing games, while waiting to pick up her kids from soccer practice and these designed identities.
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Amanda Cote: to steal her charm don’t encompass all players but they they serve as kind of shorthand for who particular parts of the industry are targeting.
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Amanda Cote: So.
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Shlomo Sher: Then, is that an industry target is that an identity that the industry made by kind of targeting those those those women.
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Amanda Cote: Yes, that’s what she finds so she actually kind of looks at design textbooks and speaks to designers and finds that they have this vision of their casual gamer as like a white midwestern mom.
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Amanda Cote: She refers to this is Jennifer throughout her book, which is very funny.
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A Ashcraft: So did, is it basically they just went and they took the casual they they took the the the standard idea of a gamer, which was a white kid and went well who’s the mom of that kid.
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Amanda Cote: moms show up a lot in discourses about gaming.
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Amanda Cote: um so so part of my book, I do an analysis of video game press and kind of how people talk about the rise of.
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Amanda Cote: The rise of casual games and this is where I, for instance collected the data that found a lot of people were anxious about this, because they thought casual games would take away from more traditional forms, there was this great editorial in.
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Amanda Cote: game developer, or the editor was like these games like candy crush keep succeeding, will we even be able to get in assassin’s creed or a bio shock in 2020 and, of course, obviously.
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Amanda Cote: We do have a sentence creates and bio shocks.
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Amanda Cote: And their equipment that’s why it’s funny, but this was like a real deeply felt anxiety that this new part of the industry was rising and what if it’s so successful it takes away from us.
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Amanda Cote: What if all the games in the future are made for mom and it was like mom mom mom constantly it was gamers versus moms these were the.
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Amanda Cote: Two flip sides of things.
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Amanda Cote: And so it’s really interesting how powerful that’s become as a conception this counter to the gamer stereotype is midwestern moms.
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Amanda Cote: But, of course, like neither of those holds Upon closer inspection, casual gamers sometimes they casual games and very serious ways they’re not all midwestern moms um.
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Amanda Cote: You know I have completed a gross number of candy crush levels like maybe I told my students, the other day and they’re like you’re joking nobody’s completed that many candy crush levels.
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Amanda Cote: I introduced my grandparents.
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Amanda Cote: To word scapes where you swipe letters on your phone maybe every single level and now have to wait for developers to release new ones for them to continue playing words gates.
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A Ashcraft: Like some.
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Amanda Cote: casual gamer is playing core game core ways core gamers sometimes playing casual ways they pick up breath of the wild they play for two days they put it down they come back, they have no idea where they were.
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Amanda Cote: And I argue that these categories like.
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Amanda Cote: are used as shorthand for parts of the industry, but don’t hold up and that’s why I argue that these are non essential, and if we accept that that we can’t categorize people this easily.
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Amanda Cote: It gives us a chance to rethink things so we talked about how you know you feel the core industry, no longer really targets you as you get older and move away from this adolescent mindset.
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Amanda Cote: But it’s also hard to find the time to play traditional forms of games.
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Amanda Cote: You don’t have 300 hours to put into a Skype room in order to beat it or even come close you don’t necessarily want to invest $60 in a game, when you can’t guarantee you’ll ever finished it, and so I argue that accepting that these forms.
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Amanda Cote: Are shorthand and not true reflections of who games, or what games are allows us to then rethink our models for how we target games.
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Amanda Cote: Who we make them for and it allows us to accept a broader array of players but also games in game style approaches, so we no longer have to value.
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Amanda Cote: Committed i’m going to sit down and play for you, this whole game in four days approaches to games, we can think about gameplay more broadly, and therefore allow more people to engage with games in different ways, while valuing those.
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Shlomo Sher: well.
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Shlomo Sher: Jennifer just I just love that it’s a you know I think of my first girlfriend who was named Jennifer, who was the Midwest.
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Amanda Cote: She played games Now I know I.
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Amanda Cote: know.
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Shlomo Sher: Everybody does right this this wasn’t the MID 80s, so this is a definitely a gen X that right so it’s interesting it’s a gen X, this is the gen X mom.
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Shlomo Sher: But but.
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A Ashcraft: I have a thing, I have a thing with generations so.
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Amanda Cote: sure that, like a Korean casual they’re made up is that what it is.
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A Ashcraft: Here yeah.
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Shlomo Sher: But but, but you know but it’s interesting right because a name like Jennifer right is a name that trended.
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Shlomo Sher: right around around around that era.
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Shlomo Sher: But it’s right this kind of leads to the question of whether the gamer identity is itself.
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Shlomo Sher: That does it serve a function and more right, I mean you know what you talked about how.
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Shlomo Sher: The casual core distinction itself might not be very important how people play games in so many different ways is is is the gate is the idea of a core gamer itself kind of too big.
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Shlomo Sher: Do we need to kind of, say, the kind of games you play the kind of commitment you have to gaming is that what core gaming remains in terms of identity, what do you think is useful in that space.
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Now.
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Amanda Cote: I will say if, first, before I answer this question shira tresses book is phenomenal it’s called ready player too its back casual gamers the Jennifer concept is very well done, highly recommend.
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Shlomo Sher: Is it is it connected at all to the second sex and ready player to right we’re in the second segment of war has right woman is the other sex and here woman is the other player.
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Amanda Cote: yeah to me yeah um but to answer the question about his core gamer identity or even gamer identity useful.
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Amanda Cote: i’m a big.
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Amanda Cote: proponent of doing what you love, but not gate keeping around it, and so I think that that’s The issue here is like it’s great to be a fan of something it’s great to be an advocate for things you love if.
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Amanda Cote: world of warcraft is your social network and how you met all of your friends and you love it and want to tell people about how great it is.
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Amanda Cote: Go for it, but I think, where we get to the issue is where we argue in order to be a true world of warcraft player, you must have done.
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Amanda Cote: A, B and C, you must have played since the first edition, and you must be whatever the highest level is now I think at it’s been a long time since I played world of warcraft again because I got old and don’t have time anymore.
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Amanda Cote: When enthusiasm and a desire to share or celebrate the thing you love devolves into that form of gate keeping I think that’s where.
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Amanda Cote: I think that’s where identity becomes more problematic or where this defining yourself around an identity is less useful.
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Amanda Cote: You know, we see it in other spaces like comic books long time comic book fans, some of them hate the marvel series because they’re like you’re ruining this hobby i’ve invested in for so long and.
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Amanda Cote: These are not the representations of my comic books but, like those got a lot of people into comic books and into these stories and I think celebrating that like sweet now I get to share this thing I love with all these new people.
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Amanda Cote: Is the much more productive way of approaching things and and gate keeping and borrowing people or marking some forms of games as less than because they don’t fit the kind you like that’s where I think the problem comes from.
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A Ashcraft: yeah that’s interesting, so I kind of want to bring in a little bit more about tabletop gaming.
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A Ashcraft: Because certainly like, in my experience, the places that I started seeing more women like taking their seats and taking their their their seats around the table was things like vampire the masquerade and you know, then in the 90s sit down role playing games that were not D amp D.
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A Ashcraft: Like rising up and and attracting more women to as players.
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A Ashcraft: And the those women because those women then branch out and start playing other games after that, like what was was that just just a step along the way, or was it its own thing.
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Amanda Cote: So.
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Amanda Cote: In terms of kind of numbers and distribution i’m afraid I don’t have those for analog gaming but my colleague tanya put Buddha is a Grad student is actually studying that she’s studying gender and board games and find that really interesting what I can say is.
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Amanda Cote: Some board games made deliberate attempts to diversify their audiences from the start, for instance, alternating he and she pronouns.
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Amanda Cote: throughout their ruled X.
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Amanda Cote: or even using the gender neutral day through out.
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Amanda Cote: Through character design through how they promote it conventions, etc, some board games have been more popular dungeons and dragons, for instance.
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Amanda Cote: Was not traditionally very good at this dungeons and dragons has a very long history of being seen predominantly as a space for men and boys dungeons and dragons has recently done a lot to try and overcome that which is fascinating i’m.
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A Ashcraft: In the middle.
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A Ashcraft: With with the usual backlash.
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Amanda Cote: Yes, um I mentioned this, both to both of you briefly before we started the podcast but for my book, I interviewed women originally in 20 2012 and 2013.
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Amanda Cote: And then, a lot in gender and games happened in that time period, so I tried to re interview, the same women in 2017 2018 I managed to reconnect with about a quarter to a third of my participants of the 11 I reconnected with three quarters of them had started playing dungeons and dragons.
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Amanda Cote: In the five years between our interviews not been playing at time one.
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Amanda Cote: had started at time too, and it was like over and over and over again they’re like oh yeah i’ve gotten really into dungeons dragons oh I don’t really play video games anymore, but I do play a lot of dungeons and dragons.
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Amanda Cote: And at first, I was like Okay, maybe this is a time thing like maybe D amp D takes less time than video gaming that quickly did not hold up because one of them was like in one group.
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Amanda Cote: damning another it was like.
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Amanda Cote: hours and hours of preparation every week very involved, so what I ended up finding was the case was that dungeons and dragons had done a lot of work to make itself more inclusive in this time period, so the fifth edition diversified.
437
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Amanda Cote: representations of characters.
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Amanda Cote: You know the the default representation of human in the players handbook is a black woman.
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Amanda Cote: They added notes on pronouns and gender identity and sexuality throughout the rule book they hired new types of designers to kind of double check what they were doing um and then of course D amp D became very popular and things like live streaming so of course we think.
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Amanda Cote: are critical role, and so this demos, a more diverse group of d&d players to potential new players.
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A Ashcraft: A lot of the people, casting those shows are very, very conscious of making sure that they that they have a diverse group of people playing.
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Amanda Cote: And, of course, like those people, especially when they’re actors and actresses are like cooler than we think of the traditional dungeons and dragons stereotype like Joe manchin Allah is not a traditional dungeons and dragons stereotype.
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A Ashcraft: Right and and is that changing the with that that identity idea.
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Amanda Cote: yeah, so this is really revamping kind of the the conception of who a D amp D player is and so all of these female gamers joined dungeons and dragons this game that has an almost 50 year history where, for a long period of time that probably wouldn’t have been where they turned.
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Amanda Cote: Because of these deliberate.
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Amanda Cote: Attempts to market D amp D to a broader audience that broader audience showed up and they argued that D amp D gave them.
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Amanda Cote: All the things that they enjoyed about video gaming mechanics the ability to take on different characters to play through a storyline social interaction.
448
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Amanda Cote: But they felt like it was easier to play that because they didn’t have to worry about who they were playing with or how they’d be treated.
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Amanda Cote: They could just go in and have fun and get everything they wanted out of video games in in an analog format, and so it was this fascinating shift of three quarters of the people I spoke to suddenly playing dungeons and dragons often in very involved ways.
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Shlomo Sher: You know it, I have to say when when you mentioned this before we started, I thought this was just a very sad story of women escaping the toxic world of video games.
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Shlomo Sher: into into an alternate way, but this is this is great, this is essentially you know.
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Shlomo Sher: You have a form of gaming that took steps to create an accepting identity, an identity that will come women and women flock to those spaces and obviously there’s a lesson here, you know about how to get women to flock to to your gaming space yeah taking those steps.
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Amanda Cote: And it is, of course, like still a little bit as well, a video games have not addressed their problems as effectively so women found alternatives yeah it’s it’s an active.
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Amanda Cote: thoughtful audience, who knows the space really well and is able to navigate through many different forums to find what they want, and so I would argue that if video games do this same kind of work.
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Amanda Cote: there’s a lot there’s a much broader audience to be gained for game developers, first and foremost, if we’re thinking about this and if your business sense.
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Amanda Cote: But then there’s also a much bigger community of people and ideas that could be brought to games and we’ve we see evidence of that, so the dragon age series the mass effect series super super popular among my participants, because those series.
457
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Amanda Cote: Did the work to show that they cared about more than just the traditional gamer they added female characters they added LGBT storylines.
458
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Amanda Cote: And so.
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Amanda Cote: gamers recognized hey these people are at least thinking of me a little bit, let me gravitate towards them, so my participants could name individual.
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Amanda Cote: developers game series etc that they thought were already doing the work of thinking about their audience and broader way is and they supported that with their dollars, with their fandom with their energy.
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Shlomo Sher: All right, Andy i’m thinking we’re at that.
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A Ashcraft: about it seems like this seems like a beautiful spot to like.
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01:05:05.100 –> 01:05:05.310
A Ashcraft: To.
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01:05:05.490 –> 01:05:08.760
A Ashcraft: Put an end to that it’s been almost exactly an hour so.
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01:05:09.450 –> 01:05:16.440
Shlomo Sher: awesome amanda the way we normally we developed this tradition of ending or episodes with a.
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01:05:18.000 –> 01:05:24.930
Shlomo Sher: With a GP instead of GG good podcast you can join us if you.
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01:05:26.490 –> 01:05:26.880
Shlomo Sher: alright.
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01:05:28.230 –> 01:05:36.540
Shlomo Sher: Thanks amanda cody go ahead amanda do you want to tell him a if people want to get in touch with you dental web or anything where they would do that.
469
01:05:37.170 –> 01:05:51.270
Amanda Cote: yeah of course Twitter is probably the best place um it’s a CC O T is my Twitter handle and if you’re interested in me where the book, you can also find my website at amanda see cody.com.
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01:05:51.960 –> 01:05:52.800
Shlomo Sher: All right.
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01:05:53.730 –> 01:05:54.780
A Ashcraft: Thank you so much.
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01:05:55.080 –> 01:05:55.320
Amanda Cote: Thank you.
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01:05:55.470 –> 01:06:00.270
Shlomo Sher: thanks for having me here alright GP good podcast everybody.
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01:06:00.390 –> 01:06:01.440
A Ashcraft: Good podcast.
475
01:06:02.520 –> 01:06:02.910
All right.
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01:06:03.960 –> 01:06:12.480
Shlomo Sher: play nice everybody
