Ada Lovelace Day- Carmen Sandiego

Ada Lovelace day is about celebrating women in science and technology, and as is my want, I'm going to talk about a woman who is literally IN technology.

This woman in technology was and is an aspirational character who influenced a generation (and certainly me) to show that girls and woman can be anything, even international supervillains. Designed to teach geography, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego was released in 1985, and released a dozen successful games between then and 2001. The games also spawned a game show on PBS, several movies, a few animated serieses, a smattering of books and even an album from the game show by the band Rockapella.


Carmen Isabella Sandiego is a Hispanic, international thief with a lot of ambition and an absurd degree of technical acumen. Carmen Sandiego is a classic outlaw, a modern day femme fatale who not only knew how to run an international organized crime syndicate but was well versed in the world's treasures, coming up with countless schemes that somehow involved stealing the Taj Mahal, Ankgor Wat or Big Ben. Carmen Sandiego not only found a new way to logistically move these artifacts and monuments in every mission but she was particularly hard to catch.

She was always one step ahead of the ACME Detective Agency, whose chief was also at times a woman. As a little girl I spent hours learning geography while chasing Ms. Sandiego across space and time and I remember where Dar es Salaam is today in no small part because I played these games. Utilizing the video game format to teach with humor really resonated with this first generation of kids who had access to personal computers. Carmen Sandiego helped kids learn about the world they live in, historically, physically and even kept kids listening and reading as they learned about plants, animals and art. Something that I think needs to be mentioned is that these games were popular with girls AND boys, they were educational and fun and no one really cared that Carmen Sandiego was a girl, she was awesome.



... so was her theme song.

Brenda Laurel on Girls and Video Games

It can't just be a giant sexist conspiracy... these people aren't that smart!

Here is an interesting video about video games and girls, if you have 13 minutes knock yourself out. The idea is basically that girls weren't playing games, and then they analyzed what it would take to get girls to game and then implemented it and it was successful. But, the greater question, I think, is asked in the comments. Why are these games worth while for either gender? School games are a normal part of education these days, when I was growing up I had a kindergarten class from K-8 and even as I was an older child essentially T.A.ing in younger kids classes, the girls were no less interested in the games than boys.

There are 2 narratives going on here, the dynamic of the game industry as it relates to educational games, and the dynamic between empirical studies and social case studies. The most valuable part of this video is around 8 minutes where the lecturer actually shows interviews with girls who they interviewed.

If you're a tomboy playing a girl game, you might think they're a little sissy.

Rocket's Tricky Decision, seems interesting and Rocket as a character has a lot of potential for expansion. This is an interesting study because it talks about fan validation "this gives girls a chance to know that they're being seen." That validation is really important to any audience and to young girls, is certainly vital to development of confidence and will influence their choice as to whether to look at the game a second time or not.

The final note of the video however, a tongue in cheek jab at video game developers in general, speaks to an assumption made that I think takes away from the lecturer's point. I feel like she'd made her point, that this game has been successful because it listened. But traditional FPS games, listen to their fans as well, and there IS a large fan base for explosions, grotesque (meaning exaggerated) distortions of forms and the fantasy of immediate and dire action. Just because you as a creator do not want to look at that fan base doesn't mean that its not a reasonable segment of the market, and it doesn't help create your market to be antagonistic to others. While I'm sure she's encountered that antagonism from the Video Game establishment, she proves that there is a place for her, and other creatives making different narratives in the gaming arena.

The giant conspiracy is one of disinterest, no one has been interested enough to make the game before. It's not a question of an entrenched market preventing something, it's a question of no one stepping up and volunteering. The audience is there, there just aren't any products to fill it.