Games let you be whatever you want to be – but please choose one of only two gender presets! But what if you want to be a guy with long hair? Or wear a dress and a beard? Or play as neither a man nor a woman?

This talk by narrative and game designer Arden Osthof on June 27 introduces five design lenses to help you design the unique character customization that fits your game and delights your players by incorporating gender options.

This event is part of our event series “Gamecity Impulse” which covers diversity-related topics in different fields of the games industry and gaming culture

Meet our Expert: Arden Osthof

Arden Osthof is a non-binary narrative and game designer. They have worked on well-established franchises at Ubisoft Reflections and Ubisoft Mainz; shipping Tom Clancy's The Division 2 and helping the Anno strategy series break into the international market through their multi-lingual expertise. Now they’ve embarked on a new adventure to help indie teams deliver gripping stories.

They will talk about "5 Lenses for Designing Better Gender Options".

What is Gamecity Impulse?

Gamers are diverse: Around 2,2 billion people around the world play video games, coming from a multitude of ethnic and religious backgrounds, nationalities, genders and sexual identities, abilities, age and language groups. The communities that form around games and the teams that make the games aren't always as diverse. This has already sparked a host of discussions throughout the games industry and community. The German games industry has picked up on the topic, by starting the joint declaration “Hier spielt Vielfalt”, as well engaging in projects, discussions and initiatives as individual companies, associations and people.

As Gamecity Hamburg, we want to contribute to the important discourse by hosting talks and panel discussions on diversity-related topics in different fields of the games industry and gaming culture in our digital event series “Gamecity Impulse”. We hope to help raise awareness of, start discussions, provide food for thought as well as offer industry insights on ways to improve equality, diversity and inclusion.

Previous Events:

Over the last two years, we hosted a couple of impulse talks and events on diversity topics, like Gaming Communities, Diversity Management or queer representations and queer authenticity in games. You can find all of the past events here.