Microsoft’s Women in Gaming Celebration in Toronto

Microsoft held an event last month in Toronto’s Yorkdale Mall to highlight women in the gaming community called the Women in Gaming Celebration. Hosted at the mall’s Microsoft Store, the celebratory event drew women from various online communities together to talk about their experiences as professionals in an industry where more than 75% of workers are men.

The event boasted several panels which can be watched in their archived forms online: Community Development, Media & Marketing, and Competitive Esports. These powerful discussions featured Extra Life Toronto’s Social Media Lead Renee Wong, Polygon Writer Cass Marshall, Fighting Game Community Commentator and CEO of AXL Gaming Alicia Junus, and so many more talented women.

To get more info on what made Toronto’s Women in Gaming Celebration so special and the thought processes behind it, we reached out to Maria Abila, Microsoft’s Gaming Expert who organized the event and made it possible.

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Jack Gardner: The theme for International Women’s Day is “Each for Equal – an equal world is an enabled world.” Can you speak more to that theme and its importance when it came to organizing the Women in Gaming Celebration?

Maria Abila: When organizing the Women in Gaming Celebration event at the Microsoft Store Yorkdale Mall, ‘Each for Equal’ was the core foundation of our International Women’s Day event. Our goal was to have a welcoming and safer space for gaming community in Toronto to come together to celebrate International Women’s Day. Creating change for an equal world isn’t done by one person alone; it’s developed together as a community! It was truly empowering to have the community together to celebrate women in gaming as well as actively break barriers to create a more enabled world for everyone.

JG: Black people, in particular, are underrepresented in the game industry. How did the Women in Gaming Celebration challenge existing power structures or community dynamics to make the space a more welcoming place, particularly for black women?

MA: Microsoft Store is the destination for all gaming and esports fans – inclusive of all skill levels, genres, generations and demographics. We bring all gaming fans together to celebrate the latest in games, whether it’s casual or competitive tournaments, celebrity gameplay events, viewing parties or fan festivities for the latest title/hardware releases from Microsoft and our developer partners.

For our Women in Gaming event we had an incredible line up of panelists, which included influential black women from the gaming community. Our panelists were chosen for their many years of experience and in-depth knowledge of the gaming industry. Being able to see black women speak on a panel of their success and challenges was an inspiration. They taught us that although you might face challenges because of your gender or color of your skin, pursue your passion and work hard to achieve your dreams.

JG: How do transgender women fit into planning for a gathering like Toronto’s Women in Gaming Celebration? What were the challenges of communicating openness and acceptance to those with gender identities beyond cisgender for an event like that?

MA: We wanted all guests at the Women in Gaming Celebration event to feel part of our gaming community and included. We embodied inclusivity as a community by taking this year’s International Women’s Day theme to heart, ‘Each for Equal’, and treating everyone with respect and kindness.

At all of our events at the Microsoft Store, we want to create an open and safe space for all women inclusive of transgender and cisgender. I’ve learned from a friend and colleague of mine, that one of the challenges she faces as a transgender woman is people not using proper pronouns. She has inspired our team by teaching us that addressing people by the correct pronouns (she/her, him/he, they/them) creates a more inclusive space for everyone. To encourage this at the event, we ensured that our name tags for guests had the option to share their pronouns.

We need to ensure that women of color or different nationalities and transwomen are continually part of the whole community and are integral in the planning and strategic direction of any event. We don’t want them to just participate and then leave, we want their guidance and thoughts on the direction of the event as a whole and we make sure we spend a lot of time with all key participants in any event to ensure we are making it the most empowering event we can. That is why events like the Women in Gaming Celebration provides us with a wonderful opportunity to work together to strengthen and build communities, especially in gaming.

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While women make up 48% of the video game playing population, only about 20% of the people working in games are women. There’s still a long way to go in order to ensure that women have a seat at the table across the professional game industry. Events like the Toronto Women in Gaming Celebration give women a platform that can inspire other women to enter the industry. Knowing that success is possible makes striving for it that much easier.

A huge thank you to Maria for her insightful responses and taking the time to talk with us for this piece.

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