Ethical Gaming: What We Are in Digital Worlds

When we make a video game we can enter any world and be anyone. So why do the issues of the real world follow us into gaming? Should games represent everyone who plays them? How are gender roles played out in unreal environments and what do the narratives we place in the new lands of video gaming say about who we are?

Join Dr Steph Rennick and indie games & tool developer Rami Ismail in conversation on how we can make gaming fairer and more equal for players and developers.

Dr Steph Rennick is a philosopher working at the intersection of philosophy of pop culture, metaphysics, linguistics, and game studies, with a particular interest in video games, as well as gender, accessibility, time travel, and tropes. Her recent research concerns gender representation, construction and bias in video games and aims to give game makers the tools and knowledge to make informed choices about gender in their game design.

Rami Ismail is a Dutch-Egyptian independent games & tool developer with over 20 titles across PC, console, web, and mobile. Winner of the prestigious Game Developers Choice Ambassador Award, the IndieCade Gamechanger Award, and a Forbes 30 Under 30 nomination, Rami worked on award-winning and genre-defining games such as Ridiculous Fishing and Nuclear Throne. Rami continues to advocate for the creation of a fairer and more equal industry for developers anywhere through his work at gamedev.world.