The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> RYSZARD FRELEK: Hello. We'll be starting in one or two minutes. Please.
Okay, for those who are here in the room, it is channel 3, please. All right. A very good afternoon and good morning, depending from where you are joining. Our apologies for the slight delay. But we are all here now and we'll be very happy to be here together with all of you here in Riyadh and the IGF.
My name is Ryszard. And I will be joining together with Kristine. I will be moderating the event together with Kristine joining us from Geneva online. And Kristine will take over the moderation after Alaa will speak. Congratulations to all the organisers of the IGF for putting in place all of these excellent arrangements.
This session is hosted by the World Intellectual Property Organisation in short, WIPO. We are the U.N. agency that serves world's innovators and creators, ensuring their ideas travel safely to the market and improve lives everywhere.
We do by providing services that enable creators, innovators and entrepreneurs to protect and promote their intellectual property across borders and acting as a forum for addressing cutting edge IP issues.
Our IP data and information also guide decision makers the world over. And we of course as well have impact driven projects and technical assistance to ensure that everyone everywhere benefits from the intellectual property system.
Now, we of course in the more in the opening session, as well as throughout all the past days and upcoming days, the issue of the gender divide was echoed across. We are very happy to be here with our amazing speakers from across the world. And who will be speaking about, first of all, the inspiring stories they have as women leaders in the gaming and app development sector.
Second, we will also showcase the different policies that can help others join these innovative and creative industries. And also tell about our IP tools from the World Intellectual Property Organisation that can be used by anyone in order to successfully manage your intellectual property in gaming and software sector.
Finally if time allows, of course, we'll be happy to take up any questions from the audience, both online as well as on site here.
In order save time we will not be giving the full bios of all the amazing speakers. It would take an hour each for all of the CVs that we have here gathered with us. But in this case, allow me just to very quickly ready now turn to the first speaker, Kate Edwards. For those who are in the gaming space does not need introduction. She is a legend in the industry.
And Kate, over to you.
>> KATE EDWARDS: Okay. Thank you very much. It is great to be here. And thank you for coming to our session. I'm going take this off while I am speaking, because I don't want to hear myself. So yeah, basically I have been working in the video game game industry for 31 years. Currently finishing up (?)
And I've Ben doing what I call culturalisation work on games. I've been doing this work at Microsoft many, many years ago. Which I found a way to apply my skills as a geographer and cartographer. Helping initially on mapping products at Microsoft. But as games started being developed there, I worked on all the games. And basically help make sure the game developers are not making cultural and political mistakes that get them in trouble and therefore limit the distribution. And also there IP could be actually taint bade political or cultural issue that they got wrong.
And that happened a few times over the years. So that was my main job. I left in 2005 and I've been self employed as a consultant ever since. In addition I game executive director of the International Game Developers Association and ran that organisation for five years. The world's largest association for people who develop games. Has chapter all around the world.
Also was executive director after global game gym, which is the world's largest game creation event. Every January, happens right about a month from now which we have about 50,000 people in over 100 country making games at the exact same time around the same weekend. All around the same theme which gets announced every year.
Then I do lot of other stuff. I'm on the board of take this.org that deems with mental health in the game industry. I'm on a girl team institute organisation board as well.
So basically there is a lot of work I do that is about the cultural adaptation of the content. And then there is also about the culture of the industry. How can we make the industry more inclusive and diverse? Because one thing we know very well is that, you know, this industry, currently, if you look from place to place, it generally is 15 20% of the workplace are women. Working in the game industry. And we would like to see that be vastly improved.
Because we know that essentially, you know, the people who play games today are pretty much anybody. It is the world's largest form of entertainment. I Mays makes far more money than film and music combined.
A lot of people of younger generation, their eyes are looking at our screens, the game screens. More than television. More than film.
So that is a huge area for influence. It is an area for inspiration. So I travel about 75 percent of the year. I visit a lot of places around the world, including lot of emerging markets. And I meet phenomenal talent from all kinds of wawksz of life. And all kinds of backgrounds. I meet a lot of women. Lot of other underrepresented groups who are working on games and making games. Because for them games are their favourite medium. And it also is an artistic form of self expression.
So they have chose on the look at games as a way to express themselves. Express their own story. Express their own culture stories. Which is something where games are really unlocking for a lot of people the bality to tell the story that is local. That people have never heard before. And that to me is very exciting. We of course see that in other creative media. Film and TV and other forms.
But games have very personal. You often have one or two people working together making a game together, about, say, something based on their local mythology. Or based on their own personal life journey. And weave had this over and over again. So it is something that very inspiring. And we see it as a Gateway that lot of people especially young women who are interested in getting into tech and getting into the creative fields. They see games as, I guess, one of the easier paths do.
Because often times in a lot of locations, if you want to become like a software engineer or, you know, a software developer, the path to get to that point is it can be tough. And I don't mean tough from a schooling standpoint. I tough from a cultural standpoint. Because of course in a lot of markets today, the parents may say, no, that's a job for boys. It is not a job for girls.
They may discourage daughters or discourage their girlfriends or others from going that path. And yet we've seen the talent. There are so many fantastic examples of young women I've met around the world who have chosen that path. And they have been very successful at it. I know AI engineers because we use AI quite prevalently in video games. To control non player characters and other aspects of the game world. I know a lot of people who are software engineers. They are artists. They are amazing writers.
And these are people, lot of women who come from different backgrounds from around the world. And so it is this assumption that we make often times, that the typical game player is like this young teenage boy, you know. In their parents house. Who is yelling at the screen. But that has not been true for many, many years.
Because the fastest growing demographic of games on a global average has been 30 40 manager women. They are the ones who are playing the games more than the young teenage boys.
Why? Because games are a great distraction from every day life. Especially mobile games. Especially the easy kind of like casual games as we sometimes call them. Because we often don't have times to sit down and play a game for 6 hours at a stretch.
I would love to do that but I'm too busy working on games. So lot of times we'll play something really simple. Like I play Pokemon go every day because why not. It is something I can do very quickly.
So I think it is really important that we realise that games are a cultural force. They are a cultural artifact and more and more governments that I talk to on a regular basis are starting to understand that that is what games really are. They are not just a toy. They are not just a form of entertainment. They are an artifact of the culture in the same level as literature, art, film, television. They are an artifact that we now need to embrace.
So it is encouraging to me that more and more governments are starting to see games that way. But more importantly, they need to see who are actually making the games. And make the investment in the young people, especially the underrepresented young people, especially women. And give them a chance to get into this space.
Because as I said, we know that pretty much everyone today is playing games of some form. And the challenges is that we want those who make games to better represent those who play them. And the only way we can do that is to open more doors and allow young women and people underrepresented to have an opportunity to have the chance to make games.
And so that is essentially what I will end with.
>> RYSZARD FRELEK: Thanks so much, Kate. And you are one of the people I could be listening for hours and hours. But time is flying so thank you so much. And let me now kindly move to Tami, who is the vice president of civility and partnerships in Roblox.
Tami the floor is yours.
>> TAMI BHAUMIK: Thank you so much for allowing me to participate with this amazing panel of women. I lead an area at Roblox called "civility." We work on closing the generation gap between the generations.
We want to empower all of our community in order to have the tools and the knowledge to be able to thrive, not just on Roblox but on line in general.
I've been at Roblox for eight years and I've seen tremendous changes in terms of the community. Not just the players. But also the creators. And the developers on the platform. I've had the pleasure of meeting and working and talking to a lot of girls and women who have found Roblox to be their creative outlet.
They have chosen to spend time on Roblox because it is a connection point for their friends. They just have fun on it. Roblox for those unfamiliar, it is a technology platform that allows you to use free tools to create games and experiences and publish it out to millions.
We now have close to 90 million daily active users on our platform. We have 6 million active developers. And 10s of millions of games. On Roblox.
And the experiences that are created are really inspiring. I'll tell you a little bit of a story of one of the the developers I came to know. Just really inspires me. Her name is Mistra. Spf she started playing Roblox when she was 12 years old. And she was full of energy, creative ideas. And she kept seeing all of these different games. But it wasn't quite what she was interested in.
So she started making friends on Roblox who were developers. She started becoming really inspired and started designing clothes. Digital items that started to really take off.
And this was quite few years. This was about 6 years ago.
Over time she taught herself to programme. On Roblox. She started to develop games on the platform that took off. That now have close to a billion plays.
And so she has inspired. She has now become an inspiration for other girls on the platform. She's created her own studio. With girls and women. Inspiring them to create. Her latest game was a game about mermaids.
And it was it just it again, was such an easy, safe place for girls and women to come to be able to be together. And I think that is such an important goal of these experiences.
When people think of games or programming a game, I think that it can be very, very intimidating. I think that many girls think that they have to learn how to programme. They have to be good math. But it sometimes can intimidate them.
But now I'm very optimistic was a with the advent of generative AI you don't have to become this expert programmer. You can really, really use your imagination to be able to create worlds and experiences without the cumbersome fact of learning how to programme.
So what I'm excited about is it is going to bring so many more people into the ecosystem. From developing countries, from underrepresented communits, to genders. And it is not the typical as you say, Kate, the traditional boys that you think are creating games. It is really going to open up and diversify the storytelling.
I'm also on the advisory board for the Gina Davis Institute which is an institute are you familiar with the Gina Davis? So I'm on the advisory board of Gina Davis Institute. And it is all about storytelling. It is all about inserting the narrative of women and telling a story in film, in entertainment, and in gaming. To make sure that the story of women are not are truly inclusive and representative. Of how women really are.
So again, there are tools. There are playbooks available. That teach developers how to create experiences that are truly gender inclusive.
>> RYSZARD FRELEK: Thanks so much Tami. And definitely you are also another person I would love to continue listening to. But time goes on. And now we are coming back to Riyadh. And I would kindly like to ask Meaad who is Kerry of an award winning studio Starvania here based in Riyadh. And I think I will my next game, I will be playing will be Bahamoud.
>> MEAAD AFLAH: Thank you very much. It is my pleasure to be here. I personally started game development since 2013 where there was no gaming industry back then in the region. Purely self learning. There were few developers out there but you have no idea where to find them exactly.
So it was hard to start the gaming industry at that time. Because no one was taking this industry seriously. And it was very hard to take this even as a career path.
So I want today build my own game studio long time ago but I couldn't. My boring job as a project manager in a tech company was taking huge part of my time and effort. And sorry for all the project managers out there. Don't take it personally, please.
So my job was really taking a huge part of my time and effort and I couldn't really focus on building my studio.
Then one day the ministry of communication and information technology actually launched very first gaming and (?) programme in Saudi. Once I saw this glimpse of hope, I immediately went to my boss, resigned from my job for the sake of my passion basically being fully dedicated and focus on building my dream.
At that time, I even I even relocated to Riyadh because I'm originally from Jeddah. Back then I remember I told my parents, hey, I resign dprd my job, and I'm relocating to Riyadh to start my business. It was all of a sudden.
My parents were very supportive at that time. I told them even just give me one year and if I doesn't work I'll come back. And I never came back. Lot of things happened since then.
It was a very risky step for me at that time because I wasn't quite sure what's hidden for me. Where the industry in Saudi Arabia is actually going and how would it be in the next few years. But I also believed that sometimes you need to take some brave steps. In order to make a change in your life.
And I feel like that was one of the best decisions that I've had, honestly. Because lot of things happened since then. In so I joined the programme. It was over a year long. And I've been mentored under experts from Nintendo, dij pen, institute of technology. And they even elevated my experience and knowledge in the gaming industry in general from both game development and also business side.
I graduatedded from the programme and at that time founded Starvania with my other cofounder. I joined another programme which is also (?) programme. Also collaborated with MCI T, minister of communication and information technology. I finished the programme. I jumped to another accelerator programme which is game founders, where I met Kate actually for the first time.
I was literally jumps from one accelerate to another. Because I was trying to expand my knowledge and experience in the gaming industry as much as I can. Maximizing my opportunities and connections and also accelerating and growing my business as fast as I can.
At that time I started to feel that like after joining three accelerates one after another, I started to feel more confident. And I felt like yes, I can stand by my own. I can stand with my feet, on my feet.
And then at that time neon came and invested in us. They only picked four companies out of over 20 to relocate to the line city once it gets ready. Ands of very proud to be part of this. We were the first cohort and now they have is second cohort. We only started with four members and currently we are 15.
Traveled around the world to participate in many global events. We have been in Germany. UK. In the U.S. Dubai. Jordan and other, many other countries as well.
So I feel like we really grew a lot since the investment of (?). And everyone though we only started like two years and a half ago or almost three now. But I'm very proud see that my city and myself started to be recognised very fast among the local and gaming industry. Like the games, our games have been featured in multiple game awards. Media and press released started talk about the game and studio. And we recently even awarded the game start up award in the region and I was very proud of this huge achievement and recognition.
And also the game awarded a deaf com indy word. And that was a big global recognition.
I felt that as achievement wasn't the studio or game specific or oi myself. It was literally achievement for the entire Saudi ecosystem. That we started to hit the globe within very short period of time. Even when they handed me the award they were saying we were the first gaming studio from Saudi Arabia that is being part of the DEFCOM indie award. And I was very proud to represent my country with this huge achievement.
So and that is that's literally what we're trying to do in Starvania is to really build high quality games that can resonate and meet the global standards and show the world that we can actually develop games that can compete within a global scale.
Because in the gaming industry it is all about like curating great IPs.
Like I always say we believe in creating entertainment experiences beyond the horizon. I know this might sound a bit cliche. But like what I mean by "beyond the horizon" is that you know that feel when you finish a game or a movie. It is called postgame or postmovie depression. You feel so happy and satisfied that you have finished a good experience but at the same time you feel sad and empty you finished it and you feel like so what now. And now you need more but there is actually no more.
That is actually what I mean by the horizon. The horizon is the game itself. The original IP that you are seeing immediately on the horizon. What is beyond that, we build a very rich content that can be used with different entertainment mediums using the original IP.
As a long term vision we don't want to (?). We continue to to grow and own the IPs by creating (?) to support the game itself and deliver complete and extended entertainment experiences through the games that we make or through the original IP.
So yeah at the end I would say as you can see the industry is growing massively in Saudi. And I'm very proud to be part of this wave, especially to be one of the pioneers in the gaming industry in Saudi. As a woman led studio. And I hope I could inspire other women like me to pursue that you are passion. Even dream big and go crazy.
So thank you so much.
>> RYSZARD FRELEK: Thank you Meaad. Really excellent and inspiring. I was also by the way joking with some participants here that one of the good ideassy would love to have announced that after our event you will have the possibility to play Roblox. Have you lived the possibility to play ra humid and the possible to play Indiana Jones with Kate.
We have to move on though. Next part of our event focusing on policies. And here can if I could kindly turn to Alaa. Chief of Digital Economy Foresight, Digital Cooperation Organization. great corporation we also receive from DCEO. The floor is yours.
>> ALAA ABDULAAL: Thank you so much.
The Digital Cooperation Organization, our mission is making sure that there is a fair opportunity for everyone. And when we say everyone, including women definitely. And when we look at the numbers, it is really disappointing. Based on the U.N., one of the U.N. report, we only find that 33 percent of women are in jobs in technology and top 10 technology companies. 33 is a very disappointing number.
And they know for a fact coming from a very technology background. And I know around me there is a lot of amazing women who have the computer and science S.T.E.M. in them. And they are going into that field.
So having that reflection really make us look at what is the problem. Looking at there is a one trillion, if I'm yeah. One trillion of missed opportunity from GDP perspective. For omitting women and not giving them that opportunity to participate in the digital economy.
This is a loss. A loss for the globe overall.
And this really makes us even in the organisation really think behind why. Why is this happening?
What do we need to do?
On different levels, not only from policy perspective but policy, education, skills, funding. That full enablement and empowerment to make sure that women is part of this growth of the digital economy.
One of the things that we recently this year have launched. We worked on a unified framework for women participation in ICT and through ICT. The objective of this unified framework is to enable and empower not only countries but businesses to really start creating impactful initiatives.
So we are seeing a lot of initiatives that are targeted for women. But again, we always get that "what can we do?"" Where is the need?," "how can those initiative bs tailored in very impactful way."
So we created this framework, it is like a tool, that will help in the creation of actionable initiative, looking at different category, different sectors. For example, which region are you targeting? Is it a country? A region? Is it a specific group age?
Is it for people, women who are employed or unemployed? Which sector exactly?
We are talking about women who already have education in the ICT sector? Or how can they use the technology to empower them in the industries they are already working in?
Whether they are lawyers, whether they are doctors. We believe technology would be a huge enablement and empowerment for those women who are working in those industries.
So this framework will really help in creating those tailored, targeted initiatives that also will be helping in how can we measure their impactor later on.
This is one of the things we have launched bin beginning of the year. Another thing we said put our hands on the ground and not only providing tool kits but let's have initiative to really enable women.
We have what we call "we elevate," a full programme to help and empower women to transition from regular businessing to be there (?). The this would be a full horizon. Making them not only work in their national jurisdiction. But going and being open and available online. It means cross border. It means in this world of digitalisation. And you can see how this would not only have that economic impact. But even reach and showcasing those women led businesses.
And we already started. We are targeting to have 300 businesses. And we started launching in Rwanda. Targeting having by next year 300 businesses to transition them fully online.
Not only that, we're supporting them by giving them the right skills. With specific training. To help them. There is a full supply chain. Full knowledge they need to have to really operate online.
This is... so we are taking it a full fledge from giving the education, giving the opportunity, giving the fund, giving them the floor and platform. To be their online.
Again there is also a of our secretary general, she always, to be honest, since she's a woman, she really likes to empower women. And in every country where we go, she has those session where is she talks to women, shares her story. And this is always open and new horizon.
And when you listen to other women their successful story, like my colleague beside me, we really see that yes the numbers are disappointing but there is a lot of hope. Only just by giving the floor, having such a session to share the stories of amazing women, led my businesses and even them being in the field. This is really inspiring.
And this is even what we are trying to do in NDCO and different occasion.
Also, we have launched our digital economy navigator. It is a tool that help in assessing the maturity level of the digital economy. And one of the major spectrums and indicators that we are capturing and we believe that it is really one important aspect is gender equality.
In different sector, in different levels. In the private sector and even in the government. And we capture that indicator as a key component in this tool that we have produced. And when we look at the numbers and we see how much we are behind, it shows us how much we need to work together to make sure that we are giving the opportunity and empowering women in every level.
Again, I don't think that this is something that women can do alone. If we do not have also the male impower plant from the other side, then we are not looking for we will not achieve this success.
I wish as a woman to have the day where we don't need to talk about this issue. We don't need to talk about women empowerment because it will be our nature. It will be the common sense.
So again, as the Digital Cooperation Organization, I believe there is lot to be done from policy perspective. Building the right initiative to support the empowerment of women, having the right incentives in place. Having the right funding to fund the businesses led by the women. Having targeted programmes to give them the right skills to be in this digital world.
It is still a big journey and a big number that we want to see increased. And we hope by the cooperation between different stakeholders and different sectors, we will achieve that soon.
>> RYSZARD FRELEK: Thank you Alaa and if I can say the inspiration, the hope is very condensed in this room. And thank you very much for providing all the support you have in all the different areas of your work. Now let me perhaps then turn to our second moderator to Kristine who is joining us online. I see you. I don't know if I'll be able to hear you.
>> KRISTINE SCHLEGEMILCH: Hi everyone.
>> RYSZARD FRELEK: I can hear you. Go ahead.
>> KRISTINE SCHLEGEMILCH: Thanks so much Ryszard. And a big thank you Alaa for opening us up on the part of our session where we are discussing the policies and tools crucial to understanding and helping to disclose those disparities in the tech sector that you just mentioned.
I'm pleased to introduce my colleague Julio Raffo, WIPO's economist leading work on the innovation economy. As well as our innovation and gender research at WIPO.
And Julio, we're looking forward to learning from you about your team's research into understanding the gender gap in innovation and IP as well as recent analysis of the video game industry.
Right over to you.
>> JULIO RAFFO: Thank you Kristine. Thank you Ryszard. Thank you to IGF for organising this very important session and event. So I'm very happy to be here. And as memorizationed I'll be talk about our world IP report 2024. We can see here in the background. Has full chapter dedicated to innovation capability os in video game industry. The video game industry I think is not going to be surprise most of you is significant contribute tore global economic activity.
And you may know generates almost double in revenue than the movie industry. So that can give you little bit the measure how big it is.
More importantly, video games as I think Kate was saying a bit earlier today is no longer that person hidden with a computer, especially a teenager. But actually they span in many platforms. Mobile, console, pK and browser games to name a few. Some titles are really big. Block buster. And complete with block buster films.
More used as a fig year as an example.
The industry also offers high paying jobs with workers sometimes earning up to three times the average wage in many countries. For instance, Finland, Japan, Poland. U.S., to name a few that we have discussed in our report.
And of course very importantly we have three billion people around the world that plays video games. And actually many places, half of them are women which is very important like we're trying to establish here in this session.
So this means that diversity actually is our intrinsic part of the video game industry. And this is what going to try to discuss little bit by relying on that chapter I mentioned before. And then bring back of why it is very important we have women but also diversity incorporated into the gaming industry.
So, gonna say some tril things but especially for the non gaming community might be important. Video game industry includes game development, publishing, hardware, e sports but also the community of gamers around them. So it is a very diverse community. And if you want supply chain as a whole.
The key players are of course the developers. In terms of creative. They are the one who is create the games. But also the other key players are the publishers who finance and promote the games and bring all the games to the market. A very important element in innovation. Not only the creation but also the commercialisation so we can have access to them.
We're noticing that as games become more and more complex, which they have if you have been playing games. Ryszard mentioned a few.
More complex because develop cost and risks increase over time. And this means we need to be very creative and diverse in terms of skills how we tackle that.
For instance, just to give you a very concrete example linking to gender later on. (?) development team size doubled . develop a new game is required.
So it is not surprising that in response to that many publishers have actually virtual integrated. They have been big publishers have been acquiring smaller studios to streamline operations and manage expenses. As much also industry increasingly relying on sophisticated skills, graphic design, software development and storytelling to name a few.
But of course many of those overlap with other sector like computing and entertainment. With have a industry that is increasing, using talent for many other industries. Merging that talent in very creative way but also in world with less and less resources.
It is important also to know that innovations in virtual reality and artificial intelligence and mobile technology have enhanced game play and accessibility of games all around the world in a very impress away. And also means trends, cross platform playability to expanded to many markets now. And in the past games were developing in very few countries and/or a few very countries. Now is global endeavour.
The global supply chain of video games demonstrate this significant interdependence of different industries. We see also talent going from one industry to the other industry and at the same time we observe also that things arise from video game industry, they can go all the way to entertainment.
We see many many films now. Many movies being done from video games.
So, diverse capabilities are the fuel of this industry. We have a lot of evidence suggesting international collaboration in gaming innovation is key to successfully developing newnologies. We know lot of interdisciplinary collaboration. (?) diverse roles such as programmer, artist, marketers and user experience experts. Diversity is key of this and diversity has expanded to meet consumer expectations for sophisticated cross platform games. Once I mentioned before.
So this meanings that innovation related fields. Artificial intelligence and virtual reality continue to expand the industry. This is sector extremely interconnected with other industries, also driving innovation to them or from the gaming industry.
So the success in one segment of this very complicated supply chain or global value chain can spore growth in related areas. We can see game development success and hardware success and vices verse.
headset, now essential but also can support other fields. For instance, the industries complexity also very evident in the ability to create sib jis across disciplines that say from technology but also technology to medicine just to name a few.
So let me link this back to gender so I do not ask too much of my time.
First important to ensure opportunity for women. Not only matter of fairness but essential for typing into full potential of human resources. Women bring diverse perspectives to creative andty and problem solving. In WIPO we've been researching this. And noticed increasing workforce parntion of women, especially in (?) over the past 20, 50 years. However very important we say also gender parity in (?) projected happen in around 2061. So at least 40 years.
This participation of women of course varies lot by region and industry. Highest inclusion, for instance, usually in life sciences. And lowest in some very traditional engineering like mechanical engineer. But ICTs and the gaming industries are not far in life sciences which is the good news. However they are very far from parity and this is very important. I would like also to highlight that women are rarely part of a team of inventers sorry, a women rarely the majority in an inventors team. They often work actually on men dominated teams and very unlikely going to work in all women teams.
In order to tack this will we need to have increase of women. Unfortunately lot of improvement we observe in the women's participation in (?) has to do with mention of the teams are growing. And more men are and more people are participating together. Which increases likely of woman participating. But we observe very unlikely for women women only or women dominated teams. (?) in a team which is not enough.
Let me start concluding here before Kristine tells me I'm running out of time which clearly I am. I would like just to say the video game evolution illustrates complexity and reliance on technology and creative innovation but only through talent and entrepreneur and (?) see vibrant gaming hubs and of course increasing gender balance and diversity will certainly be part of the key to success for this vibrant and innovative industry. And I would like to stop here.
>> KRISTINE SCHLEGEMILCH: Thank you so much Julio and thanks for helping us get a sense and understanding for the importance of starting to look at developing IP indicators that can contribute to how women are getting involved in the tech sectors.
And growing that involvement. Data is really going to be key to informing strategies and actions for improving women's inclusion in the digital economy. As Alaa mentioned earlier.
So let's turn now to Michele Woods who leads our copyright law division at WIPO. Michele is going to share the growing range of tools and resources that WIPO has created to assist video game and app developers with everything from understanding relevant IP protections to using IP to help your business succeed.
So over to you Michele.
>> MICHELE WOODS: Thanks a lot Kristine and everyone. I'm going try and quickly run through some of the tools we have here at WIPO for women gaming and app developers. One of the key messages is there is really at least in the area of IP no need to reinvent the wheel. There is lots of great tools and information out there.
In many cases developed by our experts to help you get started. Or up your game. On the essentials of IP for gaming. Going through all stages of development of video games and model apps.
So gonna do a quick tour of some of what we have available here. And I know that Richard is going to share some links at some point. And would definitely suggest exploring our website because there is more there. But we can only do so much in the short time we have.
So first of all I want to highlight a very exciting project that Ryszard and others were involved in. That wrapped up last year. But where we have all the materials on video game development. The quest for IP.
This is a 5 stage quest to build IP skills through all levels of video game development. Concept phase. Development phase. Launch phase. Investments and acquisitions phase. And then a special module on IP and e sports.
In each level we have podcast interviews with leading gaming company representatives. Plus we have checklists with key IP takeaways for each stage of game development. And there is a network of game developers from all over the world that developed in the course of this quest as each module was launched. And that is still going strong. So people are really working with each other, mentoring each other, helping each other. All as part of this quest.
In addition, we have a number of other publications and resources. Including a training tool on business and legal issues for video game developers. Called mastering the game. A study on the legal status of video games done for our copyright standing committee.
Then if we look at mobile apps, there is also a lot of work done here, including in the development context. With have a committee on development and that committee has asked for some work on mobile apps.
So there are useful tools for three phases of the app development life cycle from the IP point of view. Covering conception, development, and commercialisation, monitoring and enforcement.
And we also have an IP tool box for mobile app developers that covers all areas of IP and enforcement of rights. Which of course is a lot.
And once again this does have a specific development focus. And this one can pick and choose those parts of the tool box that are most useful. Or of course look at the whole thing.
We also have a reference handbook on IP in mobile apps. And then we have a course on oh, sorry. We have a publication on the role of mobile apps in the gaming industry covering the basics to new challenge, the met verse, AI. All of these interesting areas we're all working in. Plus a short course specifically on IP law for app developersful.
So if you need guidance on starting and growing your start up business in the IP angle? We have six stages of navigating IP as a start up on infographic, very detailed. And then IP for start ups. More detailed publication in our IP for business series.
We have some IP resources for women innovators and entrepreneurs as part of a development project for them on increasing their role in innovation and entrepreneurship.
We also have an IP diagnostic tool, a self assessment tool where you put in information about your business. And the tool is designed to identify IP assets you may want to focus on and monetize. Tailoring the resources to your situation.
This can also serve as a tool for an IP audit. A general version of this IP diagnostic tool is available now. And a more specific version for video gaming and mobile apps is under development and should be issues soon. Along with the project I'm pleased to be working on, on esports.
So we have an extensive project mapping. The esports landscape and producing tool kit covering all major regions. And of course the involvement of women developers. So that should be issued this year. I understand that Ryszard will kindly share a slide with all of links. Because I know that is a lot I just ran through.
So please go cheque them out.
Back to you Kristine.
>> KRISTINE SCHLEGEMILCH: Super. Thank you so much Michele for walking us through some of the important considerations and resources that are available for protecting video games and apps. And it is important to also note that WIPO's resources are free. And they are all easily available on our web page, website.
I thought I'd also mention two more resources that might be useful for those who are interested in IP learning more about IP for game and app development.
WIPO has an online learning academy. It offers a lot of IP related courses. Not necessarily specific to gaming or app development. But that could be coming in the future.
And then also, I wanted to mention and encourage you to cheque out the IP for video game developers LinkedIn community, where developers, entertainment lawyers and others in the video game industry can network and share resources and learn more about IP by and for video game developers.
And, Ryszard I think you played a big part in starting that group up. I saw this morning there were nearly 950 members in that community.
>> RYSZARD FRELEK: Exactly. We'll be reaching 1,000 very shortly and I'm sure that will be a great opportunity to celebrate.
If I could now have that moment. Any questions to our amazing speakers.
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Or online. And I'm looking around the room if
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>> courage and braveness of each one have put into the new industry. And it is very inspiring. I don't have much question. But like I would like to know all the... the LinkedIn, the last LinkedIn page that mentioned. I couldn't note it down. If that could be repeated would be very nice.
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>> KRISTINE SCHLEGEMILCH: Apology, Ryszard. We can't hear you online.
>> RYSZARD FRELEK: if you will go to the link up there, video games html. From there you will also have the link directly to the LinkedIn group.
I highly encourage it because it is becoming really active even more in recent time. So we'll be definitely also looking forward to your participation.
>> Thank you so much.
>> Hello. My name is (?). regional office, Asia Pacific. Thank you so much for inspiration and great work. My question is mostly related to also technology (?) violence in gaming industry. And how have you been dealing with this? With the, you know, before there was very long attacks on female gaming players. And how from your perspective in the design process have you been going through that area where you can encourage female players to come into the gaming industry.
>> KATE EDWARDS: So I can speak professionally and personally on this because when I was running International Game Developers Association I was one of the primary targets of gamer gate. I existed with debt threats and harassment over two years because I was a woman running in a global game association.
So I understand this very well. There is both the community aspect, which many, many companies because of gamer gate. Because of that whole episode about 10 years ago, that really got them to wake up to the dealing with toxicity in their communities. And building better community management.
That is really where we started to see community management emerge. As like an actual other kind of job in the game industry. That sort of existed but now is very formalized and something most companies have.
But in addition they have been employing a lot of like AI tools and other ways to deal with this. How do we detect toxicity, how do we detect certain behaviours.
But more importantly it is not just about the negative. It is about the positive. So lot of companies like Microsoft, EA, others, they have got efforts called live gaming for everyone. Player inclusion. And lot of efforts are aimed at making sure all the games made on their platform or releasedded on their platform are open for everybody. That they watch how representation is. They make sure that the community features are built in. So there is an awareness. Especially a self awareness that I think that is truly arisen over the last 5 10 years that just simply did not exist.
And to me that is encouraging.
>> So there is a group called "thriving in games." And it would start is this working? Can you hear me?
"thriving in games." And you can probably find it online. The as consortium of probably 200 gaming companies. Some of the largest ones. Roblox was actually one of the founding companies early on. Used to be called the fair play alliance.
It was an absolute awareness. It was a wakeup call to the industry. So is it solved yet? No. But are we moving in the right direction? Yes.
So thriving in games is all about using research to identify things like pro social behaviours. That we can start integrating into gaming. Innovating in the technology. To make sure that we're identifying. We're hearing about toxicity. We're giving reporting abilities. And then also detecting toxicity before it even starts.
Right? We can start using AI to start detecting patterns. So we are moving in that direction.
>> RYSZARD FRELEK: Thank you very much Kate and Tami.
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speakers here onsite for their final key message within 20 seconds because we're already running out of time. We've already ran out of the time. 20 second.
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>> So really quickly. Please, please, we need your stories. As women. We need your stories. So go to create.Roblox.com. Look at our resources and start getting involved and start creating.
>> And I would just reiterate what I said earlier. Don't underestimate games. As an artistic and culturally artifact and not only just games as a medium but who is creating them and where are they being created. Because I travel to all corners of this planet and everywhere I go there are people making games of all kinds of backgrounds.
So never assume.
>> So maybe I would like to give a message for other game developers like me. Because we're very passionate about what we're doing. Sometimes we, I would say, forget about the business side of it.
We are in that kind of bubble of developing our dream games and then when the game hits, we figured out that oh we have do this, this and that. And including the IPs which is very important.
So I feel like we definitely need to put that in consideration. And not like overseeing the business side of the gaming industry.
>> I think what I want to conclude that the power is within every and each one of us. We hold our own destiny to really empower ourself and not wait for other forces to change. We are the force of change. And even as this year we are committed to make sure not only women are included but at the forefront of innovation. And the only thing that will make this happen is the collaboration and working together.
>> RYSZARD FRELEK: Thank you very much. And congratulations to everyone for the great presentation.
For those who would like to, we are inviting you for a family photo. 36.
The colleagues and WIPO and if you could stay for one minute to be included. That would be also nice.