The YAW organized by the Cologne Game Lab of TH Köln and the ifs joined the Gamescom congress with a workshop. They started the workshop with a presentation by Katja Aller (CGL), Federico Álvarez (CGL) and Jimena Aguilar (ifs) about the history of the YAW.

Last year’s workshop participants Kübra Aksay from the University of Freiburg and Christina Grübler from the University of Cologne led a discussion and a hands-on workshop on representation of women in games, starting examples of ways to examine three different dimensions of female representation in video games and game culture: in-game portrayal of women, representation of women in the video game industry, and community backlash against female characters and gender non-conformity in games.

It was followed by two short presentations about portrayals of female characters in crime fiction video games and heterosexist backlash against the character Abby in »The Last of Us: Part II« (2020). The second half of the workshop was dedicated to an open discussion and hands-on group work to generate ideas about game design and community management that can create safer and more inclusive video games and game cultures. Here are some insights!