People Features

The cheers would certainly have been louder if Fiona French has anything to do with it. She is a senior lecturer and the course leader for London Metropolitan University's BSc Computer Games degree and is determined to get more girls in her class.

In an attempt to kick-start this initiative, Fiona organised an event on the fringe of the London Games Festival that invited females to pit their wits against each other in a gaming tournament. People who think vowels are a mere luxury will be pleased to know it was called the 'Grl Gmr' tournament.

Live games music at the Royal Festival Hall

"This is to promote London Met and our degrees as a vibrant and welcoming environment," says Fiona. "We'd like more women to come and this is a way to wave the flag. Typically tournaments are male-dominated. So why not have a girl gaming tournament?"

Sounds of the Underground

Rather predictably perhaps, not everyone thought this was a great idea. On blogs and various message boards, some guys expressed dismay and outrage at being discriminated against.

Fiona explains: "People felt they were being excluded and got a bit upset about it. Some of the reaction was knee-jerk 'Why aren't they at home playing with their Barbie dolls?'

"I just wanted a way of publicising that girls can come and be involved on the courses at London Met."

In fact, 'Grl Gmr' held at The Rocket, on Holloway Road, did attract an equal mix of boys and girls. The competition itself featured 26 girls.

"We were pleased; everybody that was there had a great time and it went very smoothly," reports Fiona. "We had a very diverse selection of girls playing the games which was quite nice. Some of them were teenagers but some were grown women."

The best result, perhaps, was that at least one girl expressed an interest in joining the course.

(Not) Biology

Fiona's own interest in gaming started with her work as a developer for interactive media and in creating learning resources. For the last five years she has been teaching the Computer Games course at London Met, which is steadily growing from an initial intake of nine students to this year's cohort of 25 – 'mostly boys' she says coyly.

Students go through the programming and the design side of the games creation process. In the third year, they are placed on an internship with GameLab London, an entrepreneurial offshoot of the university, which gives students the experience of working on real commercial projects.

"Our students work on a project in a team, some concentrate on the programming and others on the design," says Fiona.

Fiona French

"They brainstorm and come up with a nice idea. They think about the logic of how you play and that is the interesting part of the course. What do you do? How do you interact with it? What makes it exciting? Where are the curiosities? What is the motivation? Where is the competition? Where is the fear factor? Where are the delights?"

Games developers are in demand in the UK with several global companies, such as Electronic Arts and Eidos, establishing a base here. The UK is the world's fourth largest video games producer.

Whole Lotta History

Video games, and probably computers in general, have always been labelled as a man's thing. Geeks may now be cool, and indeed they now run the world, but how did girls get left behind in all of this?

Fiona offers the explanation that because a lot of game developers are male they will create games that appeal to other males – hence the popularity of shooting games for instance. Also, such games are marketed with an emphasis on violence and horror to deliberately appeal to a particular cross-section of society.

"Games companies would love more women onboard because they'd love to have them involved in the games design process and on their technical teams as well," insists Fiona.

The Grl Gmr tournament

She believes that the popularity of innovative consoles, such as the Wii, has accelerated the development of games that have a broader appeal.

"So in terms of getting more girls into games, a big start would be getting more girl developers."

No Good Advice

The secret to encouraging girls to apply for Fiona's Computer Games course won't be found at 'Grl Gmr' tournaments. The answer, says Fiona, is at school.

"Schools don't realise that this is an exciting career path and they're probably not filtering that into teenage girls when they need to start thinking about it."

"There are loads of different kinds of work in the games industry as well. I think boys know that, because they play games, that they can also build them. Maybe it is down to schools and their career classes to get that message through to girls."

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Duncan Best, director of the London Games Festival, said: "Gaming is the fastest growing entertainment medium ever, and is starting to gain the cultural recognition it deserves. London is a hotbed for both the games industry and as a setting and inspiration for games."

Last year 78 million video games were sold in the UK, with a total sales value of £1.72 billion – much more than was spent on music CDS. And, as Duncan Best points out, gaming is beginning to even outperform Hollywood - the release of Halo 3 took more money on its first day of release than Spider-Man 3 took in its first three days at the cinemas.

Fans dress as gaming characters for a world record

Creatively, too, the industry has made huge strides since Pong was unveiled in 1972. But more exciting still, is the possibility that the only limits are the limits of our imagination.

"If you've read about it in a book, you'll be doing it in 10 years," says Fiona.

And perhaps, in the years to come, when the girls are asked to cheer, no one will be asking if the noise was loud enough.