Tracy Annin

We sat down to talk with Tracy, a production coordinator.

QRM: Can you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do in the games industry?

Tracy: I'm a big nonbinary nerd. I play all kinds of games from Stardew Valley to Dragon Age to Overwatch to PUBG. I currently work in production for a medium-sized AAA studio—basically what I do is manage tasking and coordinate designers + QA on a single feature, and support the feature's main producer.

QRM: How long have you been involved in the game industry, and what projects have you worked on? What are you working on currently?

Tracy: 8 years as of this December. I was a QA associate or a QA team lead on a number of early Kinect titles, a QA team lead on Forza Motorsport 5, embedded QA/production assistant on Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, and production assistant/production coordinator on Middle-earth: Shadow of War.

QRM: What inspired you to get started in the games industry?

Tracy: Fun and luck, basically. I saw a Craigslist ad for contract QA openings at Microsoft and thought it would be interesting. I honestly didn't expect it would lead me down this path, as I had no experience, but I got pretty good at what I was doing and stuck with it.

QRM: In what ways do you feel your experiences as a queer person manifest in the games you work on, and influence the work you do?

Tracy: It definitely gives me a keener eye for spotting unintentional sexism or heteronormativity. I can't really say it has directly influenced what I've worked on, which is sometimes an awful feeling because I feel like I need to do MORE—that in some ways I'm in a position of power and I'm failing to use that to do more good (see a couple questions down).

QRM: Do you have a favourite queer character—in games or media more generally? If so, what is it about them that makes them your favourite?
Question asked by @kamienw.

Tracy: I really love Tracer from Overwatch. Actually, when the comic was released that revealed she was in a same-sex relationship, it was a huge motivator for me to actually buy the game. The fact that she's literally the face of the game, she's the most prominent on the box art and the advertising, and they chose to make her a lesbian? It's wonderful. Some others... Isabela from Dragon Age 2, Ned Wynert from Assassin's Creed Syndicate is pretty great, and likewise I love Jacob Frye even if his sexuality arc is pretty tragic. I'm really hard-pressed to think of more canonically queer characters that I love unconditionally? Like, I like Krem from Dragon Age: Inquisition, but so much of his presence is about educating cis players that it was really hard for me as a nonbinary player... I wanted to cringe every time I saw really inappropriate questions in the dialogue wheel.

QRM: Have you ever encountered roadblocks in trying to include queer characters in games? What do you think is preventing greater diversity within games?
Question asked by @dustinalex91.

Tracy: The last couple games I've been on have been in a pre-existing IP where we basically needed permission from the rights-holders for everything, and the nature of the story just didn't end up showing many relationships anyway, so for both of those reasons, I think it would have been difficult.

I think a big thing that prevents greater diversity is fear, in several different ways. From a marketing side, I know people are afraid that they'll lose money, even though I think there's good evidence that this isn't true. From a design/writing side, I think people are afraid of trying to branch out and getting it wrong, or just afraid of leaving their comfort zone in the first place.

QRM: Why do you think it is important that queer audiences are able to see themselves represented in the games they play, and in the developers who make the games they see? What can we do to improve the industry for queer audiences and devs?

Tracy: I know I'm preaching to the choir when I say this, but look at the mental illness and suicide rates of queer youth--I know that part of that comes from a sense of not being able to see a future for yourself, either from looking at professionals in your own world or at characters in the worlds we escape into. It's also important that straight/cis gamers see queer characters in media because the recognition that queer people exist and are humans to be empathized with can make straight/cis folks empathize better with queer people and queer causes in the real world.

What can we do... I don't know. One thing I try to do is be as out and open as possible so that I can make other queer devs feel safer or less alone... but at my current studio, I don't even know if there ARE any others. Another big problem is that there's some inherent, additional emotional labor in trying to influence a project or a studio with respect to representation--I feel like, if we were to have a queer or particularly a nonbinary character, I would want to be available to help critique or advise, and that's not my job at all--I'd be willing to do it, but it would either take time away from my regular job or it would be extra work on top of it, and not every queer employee is going to want to do that... and it would be wrong for the studio to expect that of us.

QRM: In what ways can non-queer folk increase and support queer diversity present within games, as well as in the industry more broadly? How can we all work to support intersectional approaches to diversity, and why is this important?

Tracy: Straight/cis devs HAVE to take this responsibility on. They have to be ready to change industry culture to be welcoming—it's not enough to just hire more diverse candidates if those candidates don't feel safe and end up leaving, which I've seen happen. They have to stand up to coworkers who might, knowingly or unknowingly, make homophobic or transphobic comments. Straight/cis devs in management roles or roles with creative control need to propose queer characters, be ready to hire diversity consultants/sensitivity readers, and be unafraid to accept the feedback that they need to change or fix things.

TL;DR: I'm tired! I'm tired of being alone and feeling like the onus of changing the world falls solely on me.

QRM: Is there a message that you would like to share with the queer game players, game studies researchers, and other interested folks who comprise the Queerly Represent Me community?

Tracy: I love you! You're the reason I keep doing this job! Even if I can't do more, I'm going to keep hacking away in this industry until I can, and please believe me that there's a place for you here—it's not easy, and sometimes it's small and rough and tiring, but there are lots of us here trying to make it better.

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You can find Tracy on their Twitter.