runs 10 minutes and is entirely
her creation. “To watch these
kids as their first line of code
works--we’re inspiring the
next generation of dreamers.
At the end of the day, when
we work with these kids,
especially the young girls, it’s
phenomenal.”
ne out of two
Canadians
has played
video games
in the last
two weeks.
48 percent
of those gamers are women.
56 percent of people who
play games on their phones
or tablets are women. The
stereotypical image of a gamer
being a 17-year-old boy has
changed.
“What we’re seeing is a huge
shift, thanks in part to the
social games on Facebook,”
Leggett says. “We can all
point to Farmville as being the
genesis of that. Instead of that
teenage boy, gamers are now
grandmas. The number one
reason people purchase games
is for storytelling. Women
like different types of games
than men, we like story based
games, we like adventure
O
games, we like puzzle games.”
Those are the types of
statistics that determine where
the gaming industry will go,
and she’s thrilled to be on the
forefront of that movement.
By creating a tool like
StoryStylus and making it easy
to be able to create gaming
content, Leggett hopes to see
more diversity in the types of
games being told. “We want to
see [indigenous] voices, people
with disabilities, LGBTQ+
stories. That is where I think
the games industry desperately
needs to go.”
According to Leggett,
revenue from gaming has
currently surpassed movies and
music combined. She feels the
gaming industry really has to
be conscious of the messaging
and storytelling that is being
presented, or risk having the
same games being produced by
the same people all the time.
eggett hasn’t given up
on books but she is
confident that gaming
will ultimately aid
the advancement of
literacy. “There is still
a large percentage of
people who enjoy reading and
a large percentage who enjoy
L