Brianna Wu: "I see a generation with almost no innovation"

Brianna Wu, activist and the head of development at Giant Spacekat, told GamesBeat 2015 attendees that making tech more inclusive for women could help to breed the innovation that she feels is lacking from this generation of games.

"When I look at the PS4 and I look at the Xbox One I don't know what you see, I see a generation with almost no innovation," she said.

"With respect to all my friends out there shipping games on it, when I look at Forza I see the same game from Xbox 360 with slightly prettier textures and particle effects. Like there's nothing I've seen so far that couldn't have been done last generation. Same story with first person shooters. To me when we're talking about women in tech at its core this is about making better games. Aren't you all so frustrated playing the same stupid game?"

Wu also spoke about her recent visit to Oculus Connect 2 and the potential she sees in the medium for emotional storytelling.

"I left Oculus Connect a few weeks ago and I left Oculus Connect more psyched that I've ever felt in my life about the longevity and the sustainability about VR. That said I can't help but look at some of my friends that are working in this field... look for instance at Epic's tech demo, they came out with a tech demo that got rave reviews," she said.

"But what is it? it's a tech demo where you are on a train and you're killing more robots in a first person shooter. Let's trot out the same playbook yet again!"

She explained that Giant Spacekat was more interested in what VR could do better than any other technology, and it believed the answer was story. She suggested empathy was the building block currently missing from game development, and VR could offer a way to incorporate that with your motion, your eyes and the tone of your voice.

"That's really the direction that we're going."