Cerise Magazine

I first “met” Patrick Weekes, writer for Canadian video game company BioWare, online during a multiple-blog-spanning discussion about gay romance in BioWare’s Jade Empire. He quickly impressed me as a thoughtful guy who is really passionate about writing quality games with well-developed characters. When the other editors and I were coming up with ideas for people in the industry to approach for interviews for Cerise, Patrick was a natural choice.

Robyn Fleming: Let’s start with a little background information about you. How did you wind up writing for BioWare? Were you into gaming before getting the job?

Patrick Weekes: I’ve been a gamer for most of my life. I played tabletop D&D as a kid, gave it up when I went to college, and then picked it back up again with some friends when 3rd Edition D&D came out back in 2000. The campaign I DM’d went for three years, and when it was over, we branched out into d20 Modern, Mutants & Masterminds, and other systems. (We stuck mostly with d20, though. It’s hard enough to get a group of working gamers to learn one gaming system…)

As far as computer games, I grew up with the SSI D&D games, and I loved Star Control II for its fantastic story, but the only company whose games I’d buy sight unseen was BioWare. I bought and played pretty much everything they put out, so for me, BioWare was a dream job.

I got my job at BioWare at least partially on a bet. I pitched a short story idea to a friend, and she more or less dared me to do it, saying that she didn’t think a story like that could sell. I wrote it anyway and sold it to Amazing Stories, and the editor liked it enough that when he left Amazing Stories to work at BioWare, he asked if I was interested in interviewing with them as well.

I got the e-mail from BioWare inviting me to apply for a writing position the morning my wife and I got back from the hospital with our newborn baby. After some test writing and a phone interview, we flew from San Francisco to Alberta for the in-person interview; the difference in temperature was about 70 degrees Fahrenheit. In retrospect, dragging my wife and two-month-old baby up to Canada in January seems a bit crazy, even for a dream job, but things seem to have worked out well for everyone involved.

RF: I know from my interactions with you online that you’ve got some very feminist leanings – can you tell me a little bit about how that impacts the way you approach your work as a game writer?

PW: When designing plots and encounters, I try to make sure that I’m presenting women fairly. This doesn’t mean that I only assign good traits to female characters – an RPG needs its share of villains to whack – but it does mean that I try to balance gender roles in the world. In a science-fiction game like Mass Effect, for example, there’s no reason that a criminal warlord couldn’t be a woman, and the grieving spouse of a dead soldier might well be a man.

I don’t know enough about feminist theory to write a large plot specifically designed to explore gender issues, and I’m not sure that would work well in a BioWare game. My main goal is to write plots in which the female characters are developed well given the wordcount available to them. A nameless soldier who only merits 200 words is never going to be a deep, polished character, but if I can make her as good as any other 200-word character, I can be proud to see her in the game.

RF: Do you think well-developed female characters are worth the time you put into them, from a business perspective? There’s a pretty common viewpoint out there that says that the majority of men don’t care, and not enough women game for their opinions to matter. What do you think about that?

PW: I think that it depends on what kind of game you’re playing. In a roleplaying game, it’s vitally important that all the major characters be compelling, and that many minor characters be memorable as well, so it’s definitely worth the time it takes to make well-developed female characters. I think that BioWare in particular does a good job of not alienating female gamers with gratuitous stereotypes, as do a lot of other roleplaying-game companies. CRPGs are about getting the player to identify with a character, and that’s hard to do if your characters are offensive.

In an action game, none of the characters will necessarily be deep at all, and story and characterization aren’t generally major priorities. As a result, many action games have comfortable and easily accessible plots in which female characters are little more than stereotypes. (I think that the male characters are stereotypes, too, but they’re stereotypical heroes, as opposed to stereotypical virgins, victims, or latex-clad villainesses.)

On the other hand, if you look at the most recent Tomb Raider game (Tomb Raider: Legend), it’s fascinating to see an action-adventure franchise change with the times. It’s still Lara Croft, and if you look at the screenshots, she’s still unrealistic eye candy. On the other hand, she’s more realistic than she was in previous titles, and there are some lovely moments of character development here and there. I think that improvements are being made.

Regarding the number of women who game, the industry recognizes that there are a lot of women gamers, but I think it also assumes that any women who game are going to put up with the stereotypes of the genre (as many of my female gamer friends do). Until we see evidence that there are women who would love to play video games, but who are stopped specifically by the portrayal of female characters (and that if the female characters were improved, the women would suddenly start making more purchases), I doubt we’ll see any sudden changes.

RF: Do you think there are other factors beyond the portrayal of female characters that might be keeping women who would otherwise be interested in gaming from picking up the gamepad?

PW: I can only speak anecdotally, but I’ve noted two things in addition to sexist game-design stereotypes that stop some women from gaming (and this isn’t to deny that sexist game-design stereotypes are a major factor; my point above was that it’s hard to PROVE to companies that it’s a major factor):

1) The learning curve. I picked up Madden 2005, having never played a Madden game before, and I was completely lost and intimidated. I couldn’t get into the game, because the game was designed for people who’d played a whole bunch of earlier Madden titles and were familiar with the controls.

Similarly, when my wife started playing Jade Empire, she was confused and intimidated, because she hadn’t been playing console fighting games or exploratory RPGs for ten years like I had, and every game that comes out today is built, in some way, with the assumption that the person who picks it up knows how video games work.

Because hanging out in the arcade or hunching over the home PC was branded as an exclusively male pastime, not as many women got the early training in “here’s how games work” that guys got. It’s a vicious circle – the fact that gaming was a guys-only area in the past means that it’s harder for women to get over that initial learning curve and get comfortable with the games.

2) Social pressure. While I think that many guys don’t care one way or the other about women gaming (and many guys actively enjoy having their wives, girlfriends, or female friends get into gaming), there’s a vocal subset of the male gamer population that sees gaming as their personal sandbox. The idiots who used to harass women at the arcades are now flaming or trolling online. Even if the online attacks aren’t successful in intimidating a female gamer into leaving, they serve to confirm the very worst stereotypes about gamer culture, and as a result, some women give up in disgust.

Fortunately, both of these problems have simple solutions, and both of them ultimately come down to friendship and social networking. Overcoming the learning curve is easy with the help of friends — I helped my wife get comfortable with Jade Empire, just like my childhood friend helped me get comfortable with console fighting games years ago. As for social idiocy, the creation of female-friendly areas like this one should help a great deal.

RF: We’re certainly hoping so! Another thing I’m interested in your anecdotal take on is the status of women within the gaming industry, where they’re pretty seriously outnumbered by their male colleagues. Do you think social networking is key to changing that, too? Any advice for aspiring game creators, female or otherwise?

PW: Women are definitely outnumbered by men in the gaming industry, but the ratio is getting better all around. I think that social networking plays a big role in that – some of the women who’ve come to BioWare as writers or technical designers were active members of the Neverwinter Nights modding community, while others are active on the MMO scene. On one of our projects, the women of the writing department outnumber the men. That’s a first for BioWare, and I’m looking forward to seeing what does (and doesn’t) change in our storylines as a result.

The only real advice I can offer an aspiring game creator is “be professional”. In your custom module, you’re the boss, but in a company of 350 people, anything you create or suggest could get cut for reasons that range from a necessary story change to art or budget constraints. That’s just the way the industry works. To make it in the industry, you have to find the right balance between defending the things you’re passionate about and accepting the compromises that have to happen for any game to ship.

RF: I think we’ve got just enough space left for you to tell us a little about the things you’re most passionate about as a writer. What do you think is most worth defending against the inevitable workplace compromises?

PW: I think that the thing I’d defend with the most passion is the notion that we’re making a videogame, and above all, it has to be fun. If the artist makes a beautiful level and I write beautiful dialogue but it’s not actually fun to play, then that part of the game is still a failure. That frames every social issue I want to explore – and in Mass Effect, we have side plots that explore everything from the classic ideas of redemption and forgiveness to more modern discussions of religious expression or genetic engineering.

You can’t create a great character or explore a social issue by grinding the story to a halt and forcing it; as soon as the game stops being fun, you’ve lost your audience. When the character or issue evolves from enjoyable gameplay, you’ve got a willing and engaged audience, and that’s when you’ve got the best chance to make something that people remember months or years after they play the game.

Learning that has been just like learning how to write short stories or novels – figuring out how to make the message complement the medium in order to create something that people enjoy and remember.

Patrick is currently working on BioWare’s Mass Effect, an Action RGP which will be coming out for the Xbox 360 within the year. He has also worked on Dragon Age, an epic fantasy RPG which looks to be BioWare’s largest game since the Baldur’s Gate series, along with his wife, Karin, who is an editor on the project.