Whether it be Blizzard or Riot seems like a lot of the AAA gaming companies are struggling recently with gender related issues -- what do you think is causing this? Why do you think the culture at gaming companies are particularly patriarchical?
It’s an issue beyond gaming. IMO we just don’t hear about the struggles elsewhere because those are smaller firms or arbitration is involved. Small businesses with less than 100 workers account for 98% of US businesses. Riot has 2500 employees. If a woman in a small company feels harassed or discriminated against in a small business she has a choice of leaving and not publicly outing them (if she does, do you think it’ll be newsworthy?) or fighting them and it will likely end with a confidential settlement so no one ever knows. Riot is massive so people are going to talk.
I think we hear about the sexism from gaming companies more because their WLB, frequent layoffs, and lower pay leaves more disgruntled employees willing to spill the beans.
Maybe I'm biased but why does Blizzard get dragged into the same sentence as Riot in this context? In terms of combating sexism and discrimination they're about as opposite as you can get.
Not in my experience with both studios. They're basically the same on this front.
When were you last at Blizzard? Because I don't see how you can compare the two, given all the scandals Riot has had, and the ones Blizzard hasn't, not to mention all of Blizzard's current efforts like the women's council, the diversity group, the regular meetups in this space, etc, etc, etc. I'm not trying to paint Blizzard as saintly, we all know Battle.net is a toxic cesspool, but there are legitimate company efforts to move things forward. Also our executives don't make rape jokes at company meetings.
Revenge of the nerds. In the 70s, 80s companies like Atari & Sega had higher representation of women. Still white male execs for the most part - but a higher percentage of women. Cultural zeitgeist shifts over the 90s/00s - STEM becomes socially downtrodden. Graduate Engineers at the turn of the century who inherit and forge the Games Industry resentful towards alpha male types and girls who passed them over in school. These Developers start to earn $100,000+ salaries. Money + contempt = assholes.
Makes no sense. Why would they have contempt for fellow game devs
I think its wayyyy overblown because people are more interested in what they consider culturally relevant, due to both far left and far right people getting all fired up about it, it becomes something of a spectacle I haven’t noticed any issues where im at, HR has its ears to the ground and handles things whether they be minor or major Not saying its a nonexistent issue, im sure it is an issue on some teams in some corps somewhere, but i do think the “wow game dev is full of sexist nerd gamers” stereotype is blown out of proportion
I was you until the issue came knocking at our door a few weeks ago.
Honestly? People fail upward. There's a specific class of person who is untouchable and the HR systems protect the company from lawsuits rather than protect the employees. Only the most egregious cases with overwhelming evidence will ever get looked at seriously. Things may be changing now, but there's so much history and habit built into this behaviour that without a massive change in accountability and transparency it's never going to be gone completely.
I'm not sure we work at the same company.
I've been at Riot for 6 years, which amounts to just under half my professional experience. Working on r&d, but I've been on a few different teams at this point and there are ineffective and malicious people still at Riot.
Ifs overblown. When things like being talked over in a meeting as a man happens, we go “wow he’s a jerk.” When it happens to women, they go “Wow it’s cause I’m a woman.” Being asked out at work is not sexual harassment, could be creepy depending upon how the guy asks if. Gamer guys are notoriously socially inept. If anything I noticed woman over-promoted and over hired at Blizzard. If I was a cute girl I could play these chumps like a fiddle. I’d be CEO by now.
Anyone who thinks that gaming is worse than finance, or retail, or healthcare, or tech... Wow. I want what they're on.
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Proponents of common core and self-elected architects of the future of our children’s education have gotten into their minds an idea that games are the perfect delivery mechanism for learning and indoctrination. They want games to become the number one tool for education: https://slate.com/technology/2015/10/can-video-games-teach-students-the-common-core.html https://www.edutopia.org/blog/games-common-core-need-each-other-milton-chen The problem standing in the way of achieving that goal is the fact that current cultural trends consider video games to be something boys do, while girls aren’t that into it and usually choose different kinds of digital entertainment. So what do all the donors and foundations do to solve the problem? They invest in and prop up different feminist organizations tasked with taking over gaming from boys and making it more girl-friendly. Enter all the female game devs and their shitty games receiving praise, conferences on women in gaming, feminist gamer advocates and other creatures of the NGO world. That’s what’s really happening, a turf war for the future of indoctrination.
"cultural trends consider video games to be something boys do, while girls aren't that into it" this isn't cultural. This is strategic marketing. Back when console games were first affordable on mass, toy sections in stores were either for boy toys or girl toys. They had to chose one, so marketing efforts target games to boys.
Spare me your idiotic theories that gender is socially constructed and that companies dictate what boys/girls like instead of it being the other way around.