Getting More Women to Work in Games Is Easy

[Dragonbums]

But that's not what he said, I'm not sure how you can confuse "a largely homogenous group of people who all have similar ideas about how games should "work"" with "more than just white people". The statement that white people are a homogenous "group" who all think alike is racist.

They are for the most part similar ideas. Because white people can't do anything else? No. It's because they only really have their own opinions to base inspiration from. By adding different kinds of people into your field you heighten the chances of getting better and unheard of ideas on the table. That's a fact with every creative medium out there.

Cubism wouldn't of happened if Picasso and other cubists didn't take their inspiration from other countries like Africa. Lautrec's posters wouldn't of been so extraordinary and fresh if he didn't take inspiration from Japanese wood cut blocks. Predominately white game developers are taking their inspiration from other developers that are predominately white and the retread is starting to show through.

I didn't actually say fried chicken is part of black culture, I said a black woman claiming that that the bounds of fried chicken could no longer be pushed by black women alone due to being a homogenous group of similar thinkers was racist. Black women can cook differently from one another, white guys can have different opinions on what constitutes a game. Easy.

Then your analogy still falls flat because you associated black people with fried chicken in the same way the OP was talking about mostly white developers and videogames. In that scenario you basically said that fried chicken is a food that is predominately made by black people and having others take their own spin on it is bad. That was the analogy you were responding to the OP with.

I don't even see your point in that thread, I read it top to bottom before I even posted here and I still don't buy food is not part of a "culture", even if it's racist to presume fried chicken is a part of black culture, it's not barred from being so anymore than hot dogs and hamburgers are from being considered American.

Then it's clear that you didn't really read the thread then. Also America is not a 'race' it's a demographic of people living in a specific region that includes various ethnic, religious, and social groups so comparing hotdogs and hamburgers to American like one would compare fried chicken to black people is an incorrect analogy entirely.

This line of thinking is also incredibly discriminatory. The assumptions that people of different backgrounds, sexualities, emotional states (what does this even mean?!) or nationalities somehow have a more "diverse range"

You are not reading what I'm telling you at all. When you have an industry mainly dominated by a single ethnic group with experiences and inspirations that are often the same, then it is beneficial to have the input of people outside of your group come in so you can broaden your horizons.
That can be said for any group that is the dominant and everyone else is in the minority. In this case, videogames happened to be dominated by white straight men. As such it would benefit the videogame industry to have more than just white straight guys in and making games because other people- the minority group that often aren't represented enough or at all can input ideas, and experiences that will benefit the industry as a whole.

Erm, "universally hated", "places like Italy love", "knighted in France". You realize Italy and France are predominantly Caucasian countries, right? As in, your "white guys"?

Yes I am very aware of that. However Cage is also one of the few devs who did something outside of the box. You know like I said earlier. I said that "aside from a few notable studios and devs" most devs tend to do the same thing with the same ideas.

I'm not sure what your point is, and I don't even agree.

That seems to be a recurring thing throughout our conversation.

I think Telltale does his job better as far as that sort of game

Telltale games seems to make adventure games. which have stories in them anyway.
Cage makes non Japanese visual novels of sorts. Or at least, that's what got half the haters ragging on him in the first place.

universal hate is ridiculous.

Have you seen any thread talking about David Cage? For every person who genuinely like his games, you got 10 others calling him a hack.

I really don't like what you're implying by this. Are you trying to tell me "white guys" are responsible Hepler's harassment?

No. But seeing as how everyone and their dog in every feminist/PoC/LGBTA+ game thread and the like love to point out that the reason why "X people aren't well represented because the majority of gamers are white males" and slap on official links and statistics to go with it. Then it's not exactly unreasonable to fathom that the majority of the people who flamed her were white males to begin with. Unless you can prove to me that in the case of Hepler the majority of the haters were Middle Easterns, women, and Japanese people.

Was them being white the reason for harassing her? No. They just didn't like her implication that one could have the option to skip combat, and since most game statistics prove that the AAA videogame market (not social apps) are dominated by men then of course that demographic is most likely going to be at the helm for any huge backlash against videogame industry celebrity of the month.

The action mode was actually the greatest deviant, which made conversation replies automatic rather than manual as they'd been before.

Yet that mode didn't get near enough flak as the story mode. Because at least in action mode your playing the game. As opposed to the latter- like Hepler suggested you can skip pointless combat and get to the meat of the story.

And I can actually see the case for the inclusion of Cortes's (the shuttle pilot) romance being shoehorned in.

The only people really complaining about shoehorned in gay romance options (optional ones at that) tend to be people who aren't gay, and those who have concerns for the plot. That's not even getting into the Kaidan fiasco.

He didn't feel like a very well fleshed out character - he didn't even exist until the third entry in the series, unlike all the other romance options... except for Traynor (the brand new lesbian option). So... Yeah, I can totally see why it seems like those two characters were tacked on at the last minute for broader appeal or publicity. I don't think it's wrong to have LGBQT characters in the game as romance options but I'd rather their characters be meaningful additions rather than new sex scenes.

You also had characters that just popped up in Mass Effect 2. Nobody complained about being able to romance Thane, and he was shoehorned in just as much as the ones in ME3.

Also I'm not talking about characters specifically. I'm talking about how the mere mention that gay romance options would be available in ME3 had fragile ego losers frothing at the keyboard at the fear that Garrus would suddenly hit on them and they might catch "teh gays".


Again I'm not sure what this had to do with white males, do you seriously think "pro-capitalism" is a shared trait among them? Are we just going to ignore all the critics here on this website and elsewhere in favor of sweeping labels and generalizations?

Better define "change",

Anything that isn't the predominant norm. Games tend to be still worth discussion if they so much as have a female lead.

Honestly when it comes to that, Japan tends to be much better at at least keeping things interesting. Granted they tend to have their own issues.

So you'll have to actually look for quality rather than hope that the best of it will float to the surface? You've basically described every medium of art ever and defined how I experience my gaming hobby.

Well then you can't really blame people from the outside pointing out that the videogame industry is full of straight white dudes, who make the same games now can you?

If your solution to anyone who makes that criticism is to look in the depths of Steam greenlight for what your looking for then the industry has failed at showing themselves off as a diverse medium.

Unless you're specifically referring to quality as being non-white-male-produced content. Again, racist

You just said in the above quote that one actually has to search for quality...and now your saying that I'm associating quality with games made by non white people? Actually when did I talk about quality? I'm simply talking about representation. Your the one who brought quality into this argument. I have noticed that half of your assumptions about what I'm saying are 'inkling' of yours and nothing of what I actually said.

It seems that you really want to jump at every opportunity to call me a racist.


.

It was not just because she was a woman, it was because she made a game dealing with real life issues and that set some people off, some people who very probably have their own issues to deal with and don't like the idea of anyone

And if you saw the thread for the reasoning behind this the reason why she was targeted because the men in question were sexist and believed that she had no right to make a game about depression because apparently women can simply open their legs and have the sadness washed away.

So yes. Her being a women was a large part of her harassment.

"Next up, Concentration Camp Tycoon: Auswitchz DLC"

How disrespectful of you. Especially when the dev who made the game itself actually has depression and made the game solely so people who don't have depression can understand what it feels like.
Not to mention the ancedotes from other players with depression remarking on how accurate the game is.

I don't understand, internet communities such as forums and message boards are relatively insulated from internet bile,

I would of hoped you would understand the difference between someone talking shit about you on an online forum and people within your working field and out sending you nasty messages on your personal blog/site/etc, or make the studio/office/etc. an unpleasant place to work in.

But white guys are the ones predominately making games (and Japanese people.

So? How does being in the majority make them a problem, and how does being in the majority mean they're all the same?[/quote]

Your the one trying to prove to me that white guys don't tend to make the same stuff. Now your saying that isn't their problem? So are you admitting that devs do indeed tend to make the same stuff with different twists?

This is really silly. Lynching someone definitely stops them from doing that thing you don't want them to do[/quote


And so does an unpleasant working environment. One is physical the other one is mental.

Nasty internet comments - sorry, "mental and social negativity" - stops you from doing nothing.

I suggest you read the blog of a Bioware writer who felt increasingly negative, unmotivated and downtrodden because every time he went to the studios forums it was nothing but bile, hate, and negativity towards the writers and the ME3 ending. This is a working professional. If your seriously going to tell me that toxic comments directed towards you on a daily basis will have no effect on anyone, then you have skin as thick as 30 ft concrete, your you have never been on the ass end of bile comments spanning to the hundreds.

No one will physically stop people from making videogames based on gender, ethnicity, etc. in the first world, that's not a thing. Extremely negative public opinion can stop people from buying your game, but it can't stop you from making it, otherwise school shooting simulators wouldn't exist. If you're actually making a good game, and not a school shooting simulator, you might enjoy success.

Already been discussed above.

It seems that you don't count mental and verbal abuse as legitimate factors that prevent outside groups from breaking in.

Well I'd say at least 90% of all videogames try to cater to everyone in some way, either by being fun or interesting or having a nice aesthetic visual quality.

You sure you aren't talking about the sub category of white straight men? Because I have yet to see my game.

Unless you meant the racist thing. I think you meant the racist thing. I'll try to address that.

You can't exactly address something that was never said. Especially if you can't even elaborate on what I said, and simply called it the "racist thing".

any corporate definition of "white male demographic",

white male demographic literally speaks for itself. There is no corporate meaning.

I could not care less for what passes for it anymore than the presumption that black people fit into the "urban market".

Your lengthy reply to me says otherwise.

they should do it, they should do it to their heart's content and never stop doing it, because I truly believe anyone can make a good game and in this day and age there's not much stopping them, and when the digital landscape is so covered in these great games there won't be any argument or issue to be had. We'll be playing video games.

And then it all circles back to why said groups of people aren't coming in and making those games. Which is a whole nother slew of threads entirely.

 

[Requia]

"Do blind resume reviews and you'd be amazed how many women filter to the top," Sampat said.

You can't just say "Oh, yeah, trust me, run this study I've invented and I promise the results will be what I say!" Without, you know, running the fucking experiment.
(Well, Ok, evidently you can, but good luck getting anyone who knows even the smallest bit about the scientific method to agree with your complete nonsense without asking for more evidence then just your hearsay.)

The experiments *have been run*. If you hand people resumes with women's names on them and hand a second group of people resumes that are exactly the same except with men's names the one's with men's names get rated higher (irrespective of the gender of the person doing the rating). A blind review just means taking the name off before handing it to the HR person.

 

[UberPubert]

They are for the most part similar ideas. Because white people can't do anything else? No. It's because they only really have their own opinions to base inspiration from. By adding different kinds of people into your field you heighten the chances of getting better and unheard of ideas on the table. That's a fact with every creative medium out there.

But even in your own example Picasso and Lautrec didn't create new work because they tried not being white guys for a change, they were just inspired by other cultures to make different kinds of art. The equivalent would be your white male game designers taking a class on other cultures, not inviting people from those cultures to come work with them.

Then your analogy still falls flat because you associated black people with fried chicken

But I didn't. It was an analogy, and not a correct one. I even pre-faced it with: "This is wrong on so many levels."

Also America is not a 'race' it's a demographic of people living in a specific region that includes various ethnic, religious, and social groups so comparing hotdogs and hamburgers to American like one would compare fried chicken to black people is an incorrect analogy entirely.

But the majority of Americans could be defined as caucasian, or a "race" of white people, so the analogy is still correct.

You are not reading what I'm telling you at all. When you have an industry mainly dominated by a single ethnic group with experiences and inspirations that are often the same,

There, you did it again. You just assumed that because they share an "ethnic group" that their experiences and inspirations are often the same. You keep assuming, based on the color of their skin, that white people think and act alike. That's racism, and it's wrong.

Yes I am very aware of that. However Cage is also one of the few devs who did something outside of the box. You know like I said earlier. I said that "aside from a few notable studios and devs" most devs tend to do the same thing with the same ideas.

You still haven't made your point. If David Cage is a white guy who is trying to do something different with video games and he's celebrated by other white people for it, how are white people responsible for keeping the market stagnant?

Telltale games seems to make adventure games. which have stories in them anyway.
Cage makes non Japanese visual novels of sorts. Or at least, that's what got half the haters ragging on him in the first place.

Woah, what? That is not what David Cage makes, or at the very least not what he's famous for. Indigo Prophecy, Heavy Rain and Beyond Two Souls (all of which I've seen firsthand) are a lot more like adventure games with some mini-games in them, and a smattering of dialogue choices. So, a lot like Telltale. Telltale, by the way, was pretty critically acclaimed for it's work on The Walking Dead which I can also personally recommend as a narrative driven adventure game.

Have you seen any thread talking about David Cage? For every person who genuinely like his games, you got 10 others calling him a hack.

I've seen a lot of criticism leveled at Cage for the stories in his games and I can kinda agree, but almost none of the ones I've read have to do with the game's simply including story in them, and even then I'm not sure what your problem with those people would be, why are the insults of people who are ignorant to storytelling in gaming a problem when storytelling in gaming will exist with or without them?

Was them being white the reason for harassing her? No. They just didn't like her implication that one could have the option to skip combat, and since most game statistics prove that the AAA videogame market (not social apps) are dominated by men then of course that demographic is most likely going to be at the helm for any huge backlash against videogame industry celebrity of the month.

So what's your point? People lashed out against a developers comments, by rule of statistics alone they happen to be men, and it seems to happen every month. The harassment didn't occur because they were white men who thought alike because they were white men, they were a minority of players who disagreed (in an abominably stupid way) with what Hepler said. This doesn't even seem like a valid complaint about stagnation, Bioware games used to have way more talking and exploring in them than combat.

Yet that mode didn't get near enough flak as the story mode. Because at least in action mode your playing the game. As opposed to the latter- like Hepler suggested you can skip pointless combat and get to the meat of the story.

No, you *can't* skip the combat with Story mode, I just pointed that out. It can make combat easier but you still have to participate. I have no idea why Story mode would comer under flak, it didn't actually do anything, and Action mode is the equivalent of hammering the continue button to get to the end of the dialogue tree, which people were already doing.

The only people really complaining about shoehorned in gay romance options (optional ones at that) tend to be people who aren't gay, and those who have concerns for the plot. That's not even getting into the Kaidan fiasco.

Why isn't "concerns for the plot" a valid reason to complain? Granted, the romance is optional but there is an argument for the resources put into Cortez to be put to better use elsewhere. I personally don't think it would've mattered with the budget they were given but it's a valid viewpoint.

You also had characters that just popped up in Mass Effect 2. Nobody complained about being able to romance Thane, and he was shoehorned in just as much as the ones in ME3.

No way. Thane was an important part of ME2 and 3 (assuming he survived the ending). Many characters from ME2 were.

Also I'm not talking about characters specifically. I'm talking about how the mere mention that gay romance options would be available in ME3 had fragile ego losers frothing at the keyboard at the fear that Garrus would suddenly hit on them and they might catch "teh gays".

I think you're being a little hyperbolic there but I still don't see what the worry is. You're bothered by ignorant "losers" complaining about something that didn't actually happen? You know it didn't actually stop Bioware from introducing same-sex romance options, right?

Anything that isn't the predominant norm.

Stop repeating yourself, what is the "norm"? Games cover a huge range.

Well then you can't really blame people from the outside pointing out that the videogame industry is full of straight white dudes, who make the same games now can you?

If your solution to anyone who makes that criticism is to look in the depths of Steam greenlight for what you're looking for then the industry has failed at showing themselves off as a diverse medium.

I can blame people when they say it's because the "straight white dudes" are a homogenous group who all think alike, mostly because it's untrue, but also because it's racist.

The "depths" of steam greenlight... Or, you know, use the search bar. It has a massive library, new stuff is introduced all the time that never goes through green light because they have a deal with Valve. I don't see how having a game catalogue so big you cannot fathom it is a failure of diversity in the industry.

Your the one who brought quality into this argument.

Actually, I didn't. TMDC did by describing games as they are now as "the full extent of where they can go", you agreed by referring to it as "the same shit", both statements are marks against the quality of games, and both of you keep saying it's because white males dominate and that they all think alike.

And if you saw the thread for the reasoning behind this the reason why she was targeted because the men in question were sexist and believed that she had no right to make a game about depression because apparently women can simply open their legs and have the sadness washed away.

So yes. Her being a women was a large part of her harassment.

Insults about her gender were a large part of her harassment, the subject of depression is the reason.

How disrespectful of you. Especially when the dev who made the game itself actually has depression and made the game solely so people who don't have depression can understand what it feels like.
Not to mention the ancedotes from other players with depression remarking on how accurate the game is.

I don't see how that makes it any better. Just because people share a disability doesn't mean they all feel the same way about it or think it's appropriate to be making games about, and it certainly doesn't preclude some of them from getting angry.

I would of hoped you would understand the difference between someone talking shit about you on an online forum and people within your working field and out sending you nasty messages on your personal blog/site/etc, or make the studio/office/etc. an unpleasant place to work in.

...how is an online forum and your personal blog/site/etc. any different? Hell, that's even better: If you personally control the web page you can block or ignore people as you see fit, how is this a problem? If a studio/office/etc. is really uncomfortable then there's a whole other route: Speaking with higher-ups, human resources, trying to talk to people and finally quitting the job and maybe suing someone. There's some really obnoxious and insulting people out there, I don't find that very discouraging when the vast majority of them aren't.

Your the one trying to prove to me that white guys don't tend to make the same stuff. Now your saying that isn't their problem? So are you admitting that devs do indeed tend to make the same stuff with different twists?

This is confusingly worded but I'll try to respond to each question: Yes, and then No. I'm saying white guys being in the majority isn't a problem, because they're not making the same thing over and over.

And so does an unpleasant working environment. One is physical the other one is mental.

"Unpleasant working environment" can mean a lot of things, but unless we're talking about actual harassment I don't see how the mental negativity can be so serious. It sounds more like insecurity to me.

I suggest you read the blog of a Bioware writer who felt increasingly negative, unmotivated and downtrodden because every time he went to the studios forums it was nothing but bile, hate, and negativity towards the writers and the ME3 ending. This is a working professional. If your seriously going to tell me that toxic comments directed towards you on a daily basis will have no effect on anyone, then you have skin as thick as 30 ft concrete, your you have never been on the ass end of bile comments spanning to the hundreds.

Just sayin, if you want me to read something you should probably link it, a lot of writers worked at Bioware. Regardless, I think if we're talking about something like ME3 it's not concrete skin you need but evasion. Sometimes internet comments and forum posts just aren't worth reading. Coming from a professional stance, yes you should read your criticism and consider your work, but that kind of backlash - huge and unwarranted as it was - was better off being avoided until the smoke had cleared.

It seems that you don't count mental and verbal abuse as legitimate factors that prevent outside groups from breaking in.

I don't count mental and verbal abuse when it's on the internet from people I don't care about. I think that's a fair outlook.

You sure you aren't talking about the sub category of white straight men? Because I have yet to see my game.

wat? If "fun or interesting or having a nice aesthetic visual quality" is not your game, I think you have a problem with games.

You can't exactly address something that was never said. Especially if you can't even elaborate on what I said, and simply called it the "racist thing".

white male demographic literally speaks for itself. There is no corporate meaning.

Ah, you did mean the racism thing. Yes, presuming that all white males like the same or similar thing because they are white males is wrong, you reinforcing that by assuming 90% of games cater to white males based on the color of their skin is racist.

And then it all circles back to why said groups of people aren't coming in and making those games. Which is a whole nother slew of threads entirely.

I've never been satisfied with the answers those topics never really came to a consensus on, and I don't actually know how many people from those groups are or aren't in gaming, all I do know is that there's nothing really stopping anyone from making their own games and sharing it with the world anymore, it's become too easy.

 

[VVThoughtBox]

How exactly is it easy to get more women to work in video games? Isn't the field very competitive?

 

[AgedGrunt]

How exactly is it easy to get more women to work in video games? Isn't the field very competitive?

Extremely, but what I found interesting was one woman's perspective above that she was turned off by the chances of sexism in the industry because she's a woman, so she's explicitly avoiding it. That's likely a big factor in many other fields, and that may mean it's not so much about opening doors for women but getting a lot more to walk through them.

Either way I think it's too much to talk about the game industry as a whole; company to company can mean a huge difference. ArenaNet, for example, has a lot of women involved at every level and looks like a dream work environment.

 

[TAGM]

"Do blind resume reviews and you'd be amazed how many women filter to the top," Sampat said.

You can't just say "Oh, yeah, trust me, run this study I've invented and I promise the results will be what I say!" Without, you know, running the fucking experiment.
(Well, Ok, evidently you can, but good luck getting anyone who knows even the smallest bit about the scientific method to agree with your complete nonsense without asking for more evidence then just your hearsay.)

The experiments *have been run*. If you hand people resumes with women's names on them and hand a second group of people resumes that are exactly the same except with men's names the one's with men's names get rated higher (irrespective of the gender of the person doing the rating). A blind review just means taking the name off before handing it to the HR person.

Let me reiterate the point: You can't just say "The study exists" and expect everyone to believe it to be the case right there and then. I would assume, considering you know of this study, that you've seen it. Considering it's a study on the video game industry, that puts it at around 20 or 30 years ago at the very earliest, probably closer to in the past 10 years. Just about every psychological, if not scientific paper and lab report that's been created that recently has ended up at least referenced online.
So to put it bluntly and simply; considering the burden of proof is in your court, stop expecting me to do what is considered in most scientific circles to technically be your work and show me the actual paper. Or at the very least give me a name.
It really shouldn't be that difficult. Especially considering Google has a search engine specifically made to find academic papers. scholar.google.com (Or scholar.google.co.uk if you'd prefer British websites, or - well you get the picture) You know what the paper contained (I assume), so search up the key words, find the paper, post a link. That's it, problem solved!

 

[Requia]

"Do blind resume reviews and you'd be amazed how many women filter to the top," Sampat said.

You can't just say "Oh, yeah, trust me, run this study I've invented and I promise the results will be what I say!" Without, you know, running the fucking experiment.
(Well, Ok, evidently you can, but good luck getting anyone who knows even the smallest bit about the scientific method to agree with your complete nonsense without asking for more evidence then just your hearsay.)

The experiments *have been run*. If you hand people resumes with women's names on them and hand a second group of people resumes that are exactly the same except with men's names the one's with men's names get rated higher (irrespective of the gender of the person doing the rating). A blind review just means taking the name off before handing it to the HR person.

Let me reiterate the point: You can't just say "The study exists" and expect everyone to believe it to be the case right there and then. I would assume, considering you know of this study, that you've seen it. Considering it's a study on the video game industry, that puts it at around 20 or 30 years ago at the very earliest, probably closer to in the past 10 years. Just about every psychological, if not scientific paper and lab report that's been created that recently has ended up at least referenced online.
So to put it bluntly and simply; considering the burden of proof is in your court, stop expecting me to do what is considered in most scientific circles to technically be your work and show me the actual paper. Or at the very least give me a name.
It really shouldn't be that difficult. Especially considering Google has a search engine specifically made to find academic papers. scholar.google.com (Or scholar.google.co.uk if you'd prefer British websites, or - well you get the picture) You know what the paper contained (I assume), so search up the key words, find the paper, post a link. That's it, problem solved!

Spend 5 freaking minutes checking before you run your mouth about how there's no evidence and maybe I'll bother.

 

[TAGM]

"Do blind resume reviews and you'd be amazed how many women filter to the top," Sampat said.

You can't just say "Oh, yeah, trust me, run this study I've invented and I promise the results will be what I say!" Without, you know, running the fucking experiment.
(Well, Ok, evidently you can, but good luck getting anyone who knows even the smallest bit about the scientific method to agree with your complete nonsense without asking for more evidence then just your hearsay.)

The experiments *have been run*. If you hand people resumes with women's names on them and hand a second group of people resumes that are exactly the same except with men's names the one's with men's names get rated higher (irrespective of the gender of the person doing the rating). A blind review just means taking the name off before handing it to the HR person.

Let me reiterate the point: You can't just say "The study exists" and expect everyone to believe it to be the case right there and then. I would assume, considering you know of this study, that you've seen it. Considering it's a study on the video game industry, that puts it at around 20 or 30 years ago at the very earliest, probably closer to in the past 10 years. Just about every psychological, if not scientific paper and lab report that's been created that recently has ended up at least referenced online.
So to put it bluntly and simply; considering the burden of proof is in your court, stop expecting me to do what is considered in most scientific circles to technically be your work and show me the actual paper. Or at the very least give me a name.
It really shouldn't be that difficult. Especially considering Google has a search engine specifically made to find academic papers. scholar.google.com (Or scholar.google.co.uk if you'd prefer British websites, or - well you get the picture) You know what the paper contained (I assume), so search up the key words, find the paper, post a link. That's it, problem solved!

Spend 5 freaking minutes checking before you run your mouth about how there's no evidence and maybe I'll bother.

I think I may have miscommunicated my original point: I wasn't saying the study didn't exist at all, I was more asking for the study to be shown.

And why am I doing the work to disprove a theory? You want to state a claim that the studies exist, that places the burden of proof on you. As I said: just run the key words of the study through Google Scholar and look for the apparently oh-so-obvious name. If you don't want to even do that much, then fine, but I'm going to continue to doubt the existence of it until I either find it myself or you do what the burden of proof essentially demands of you.

 

[Stu35]

snip.

I too would like to see this study (these studies? How many are there?). I believe you that it exists, I think the premise is an excellent one - one which I suspect to be true. To that end, I would like some guidance on where I could source it for reference purposes?

A quick googling has turned up nothing for me, and as you have the superior knowledge perhaps you could guide me on to it?

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

But that's not what he said, I'm not sure how you can confuse "a largely homogenous group of people who all have similar ideas about how games should "work"" with "more than just white people". The statement that white people are a homogenous "group" who all think alike is racist.

It's also something that I never tried to imply, and it's certainly not what I mean. So let me answer this one single point.

First off, you realise that I'm speaking from the point of view as a white male hobbyist game developer? The games I design are not "unoriginal". Hell, I'd go as far as to say that there's nothing like them on the market right now. Everything about them is AI-focussed - the gameplay is purely interacting with an artificial intelligence, or multiple such intelligences, in a way that I've never seen done elsewhere. If I was truly suggesting that white male developers can't come up with original ideas, I'd say that I disprove my own argument simply by doing what I do!

As for my attitude towards other white male developers, I'll just say this: my favorite developer is Ken Levine. A white guy.

I'm not claiming and have never suggested that white males haven't or can't continue to contribute to the genre... I DO suggest that people from non-traditional gaming development "culture" (which tends to be white / Japanese and male) might have ideas that expand the industry that we're not seeing from within the culture right now. And that's ALL I'm suggesting.

Let me use this example. Brian Clough, who most would probably agree was one of the most influential football (soccer for the Amerians out there) managers ever, didn't come from the same school of thought as the "traditional" managers. He came from a different culture, and as a result he saw the problem of how to make a football team successful in an entirely different way to his peers. His methods worked so well that they've been adopted by decades of new football managers since then.

That's what a different perspective can do. So why not apply the same principle to games development? Again, I'm not saying at all that "traditional" gaming culture can't produce great new ideas - it has, it does, and I hope it will continue to do so. But we need new blood as well, new ideas from outside the "traditional" sphere. And that's what I'm arguing for here.

 

[UberPubert]

It's also something that I never tried to imply, and it's certainly not what I mean.

What are you talking about? You said "Games development is still dominated by white men.", and then later "we're not going to see it develop to its full extent while it's dominated by a largely homogenous group of people who all have similar ideas about how games should "work"". Forget implications, how are you not saying that white men are a homogenous group with similar ideas in these statements? Re-word it if you have to, but that's what it says.

First off, you realise that I'm speaking from the point of view as a white male hobbyist game developer?

What do I care? Just because you happen to be a white male dev doesn't give you the authority to speak for all of them. No one has that authority.

The games I design are not "unoriginal". Hell, I'd go as far as to say that there's nothing like them on the market right now. Everything about them is AI-focussed - the gameplay is purely interacting with an artificial intelligence, or multiple such intelligences

You're late: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfW6EbFXtCQ. It's primitive, but "user interacts with AI" as the sole premise of a game has been done before.

If I was truly suggesting that white male developers can't come up with original ideas, I'd say that I disprove my own argument simply by doing what I do!

Not really. If you're saying that white men dominating game development is what's causing it's stagnation, your personal projects as a hobbyist wouldn't really change that.

As for my attitude towards other white male developers, I'll just say this: my favorite developer is Ken Levine. A white guy.

I wouldn't even address this if it weren't so dumb in context, but it is. Ken Levine? Seriously? You want to complain about the stagnation of the industry and your favorite is the guy who worked on systemshock2, and then made it's spiritual successor three times in a row for the next decade of gaming? People knock Tim Schaefer for being a click and point Adventure game fanboy but at least he and the crew at doublefine took breaks for psychonauts, brutal legend, costume quest, stacking, and once upon a monster.

I'm not claiming and have never suggested that white males haven't or can't continue to contribute to the genre... I DO suggest that people from non-traditional gaming development "culture" (which tends to be white / Japanese and male) might have ideas that expand the industry that we're not seeing from within the culture right now. And that's ALL I'm suggesting.

But what is this "white culture" you people keep banging on about? You realize people of the "caucasian race" span the entire northern hemisphere of the globe, and many of them immigrated to elsewhere, right? Trying to lump them or their cultures into the same group is futile, assuming based on the color of their skin alone that they do is insultingly ignorant - and that is what you're doing. You didn't say "Americans" and "Japanese", or "white people and yellow people", you compared a single nation of people to another group you chose to distill down to a skin color but consists of many nations and cultures.

That's what a different perspective can do. So why not apply the same principle to games development? Again, I'm not saying at all that "traditional" gaming culture can't produce great new ideas - it has, it does, and I hope it will continue to do so. But we need new blood as well, new ideas from outside the "traditional" sphere. And that's what I'm arguing for here.

And if that's all you had to say on the matter I'd agree wholeheartedly. New ideas? Why not? I love experiencing new stuff. But making broad, sweeping generalizations about the people who are currently working in the industry - based on the color of their skin and sex, no less - is wrong.

 

[Dragonbums]

But even in your own example Picasso and Lautrec didn't create new work because they tried not being white guys for a change, they were just inspired by other cultures to make different kinds of art. The equivalent would be your white male game designers taking a class on other cultures, not inviting people from those cultures to come work with them.

That literally doesn't make sense. The original post said that in order for one to expand their horizon you must have those outside of the predominant group come in and give their perspective on various subjects and ideas. Nowhere did my post or the OP's said anything about excluding them. No one said anything about them "stopping being white guys". What are you even getting at here? Are you just purposefully misconstruing what I said to fit in to your opinion of what you thought I said?

That's literally what I just said. They need to get inspiration from groups that have little to no representation. They aren't doing that. They aren't asking women, PoC, LGBTQ+ members about what would interest them in videogames. They are simply looking at the same game blockbusters and making basically the same stuff with a different coat of paint and a slightly new twist.

But I didn't. It was an analogy, and not a correct one. I even pre-faced it with: "This is wrong on so many levels."

Yes. You did. You made a mock reflection analogy in response to OP's analogy that claimed that asking white people to get influence from various under represented groups in the videogame industry was the equivalent of asking a black woman to listen to other people that weren't black on their input on how they go about making fried chicken.
Claiming that it was a bigoted and narrowminded point of view.

You never debunked his point nor proved that his point was wrong at all.

You just made a bad analogy that had no equivalence to the claim that the OP was making in the first place.

But the majority of Americans could be defined as caucasian, or a "race" of white people, so the analogy is still correct.

No it's not. Because even within American you have just as many of those Caucasian people who are part of other nationalities in Europe. America is not a race. Similar to how Mexico isn't a race, Canada isn't a race, and China isn't a race. You have got to be fucking kidding me dude.
So if you saw a Russian in American are you going to tell him that because she's in American that her cultural food is hamburgers and hotdogs? No. You wouldn't because that would make you look unbelievably stupid.
Being an American is an ethnic identity. Not a race. It's the reason why a white person born in Africa can still be identified as an African American because that is their ethnic background.

There, you did it again. You just assumed that because they share an "ethnic group" that their experiences and inspirations are often the same. You keep assuming, based on the color of their skin, that white people think and act alike. That's racism, and it's wrong.

And you my friend are purposefully not understanding what I'm saying so you can continue to label me a racist. I already explained the fucking point to you multiple times and you still refuse to listen.

If X industry is mainly inhibited by specific group of people, with similar backgrounds, and experiences then eventually the well of creativity will dry up between them and in order to further the medium it is in their best interest to expand their horizons by asking for the input and ideas of others outside of their group for inspiration because said outside groups could potentially offer in new insight and ways of thinking based on their experiences that differ from the dominant group.

You still haven't made your point. If David Cage is a white guy who is trying to do something different with video games and he's celebrated by other white people for it, how are white people responsible for keeping the market stagnant?

Because David Cage is only one dev out of dozens upon dozens that actually did something different. The time it takes for Cage to make another game or two you will have 39 other games from other devs that will basically be the same damn thing. If you have more people who have ideas outside of the dominant norm than you would get a much higher frequency of fresh and new games as opposed to the same shit with a different IP slapped on it.

Woah, what? That is not what David Cage makes, or at the very least not what he's famous for. Indigo Prophecy, Heavy Rain and Beyond Two Souls (all of which I've seen firsthand) are a lot more like adventure games with some mini-games in them, and a smattering of dialogue choices.

Well visual novels with minimal gameplay seems to be the majority concensus to the many people who discredit him. I personally could care less.

I've seen a lot of criticism leveled at Cage for the stories in his games and I can kinda agree, but almost none of the ones I've read have to do with the game's simply including story in them, and even then I'm not sure what your problem with those people would be, why are the insults of people who are ignorant to storytelling in gaming a problem when storytelling in gaming will exist with or without them?

I'm pretty sure i've seen quite a few "If I wanted story only I would watch a movie" in regards to Cage's games. Do I care personally? No. I do not play his games. I also do not know where you got the assumption that I had any sort of problem with it either.

So what's your point? People lashed out against a developers comments, by rule of statistics alone they happen to be men, and it seems to happen every month. The harassment didn't occur because they were white men who thought alike because they were white men, they were a minority of players who disagreed (in an abominably stupid way) with what Hepler said. This doesn't even seem like a valid complaint about stagnation, Bioware games used to have way more talking and exploring in them than combat.

Was it not you that was balking at the implication that I was claiming that it was mostly straight, white dudes, who sent hate mail to Hepler?

Regardless if they were a minority or a majority, the point is is that a majority of the people who went out of their way to make hate threads, messages, and emails about her can be assuredly white, straight, males. Unless you can find a counter proof that showed that in this scenario it was mainly Hispanics sending Hepler hate mail.

You keep asking what's the point, when it seems that you can't even keep track of the points you are making in your previous posts from which I'm responding to.

No, you *can't* skip the combat with Story mode, I just pointed that out. It can make combat easier but you still have to participate. I have no idea why Story mode would comer under flak, it didn't actually do anything, and Action mode is the equivalent of hammering the continue button to get to the end of the dialogue tree, which people were already doing.

Then perhaps you need to go to more Mass Effect based threads. Because that got a lot of flak. If for not skipping the combat, but for making it so easy for them which made it "unfair" to the regular players for having to work to get to the story.

Why isn't "concerns for the plot" a valid reason to complain? Granted, the romance is optional but there is an argument for the resources put into Cortez to be put to better use elsewhere. I personally don't think it would've mattered with the budget they were given but it's a valid viewpoint.

None of the romances in Mass Effect were any good from a realistic standpoint. Some were just worse than others. I liked romancing Garrus but I'm not going to deny that the initiative comment into romancing him involved putting him on the spot with a creepy sexual innuendo after he just told a story about going on the final rounds with a fellow hand-to-hand combat member and just like that he wants to rock your world.

No way. Thane was an important part of ME2 and 3 (assuming he survived the ending). Many characters from ME2 were.

Oh yeah sure. I supposed you are useful for death fodder against a Cerberus assassin makes you an essential plot point. No, not many of the characters overall were really all that important to the plot line. The only ones that had any sort of essentialness to them outside of player attachment was Mordin, Wrex, Miranda, Liara, Legion, and Tali. Yeah. I left out Garrus. In the end him not being there would just result in a fucked as hell Palavan. Kaidan and Ashley are kind of important if only because one of them can become bomb fodder in one mission and whoever lives nobody gives two shits about because they ditched you in the second game and came back in the third game.

I think you're being a little hyperbolic there but I still don't see what the worry is. You're bothered by ignorant "losers" complaining about something that didn't actually happen? You know it didn't actually stop Bioware from introducing same-sex romance options, right?

Well duh I'm aware of that since I brought it up in the last paragraph of my comment like twice now prior to this.

Stop repeating yourself, what is the "norm"? Games cover a huge range.

You really want to play this game? You know what I'm talking about.

I can blame people when they say it's because the "straight white dudes" are a homogenous group who all think alike, mostly because it's untrue, but also because it's racist.

I was wondering when your going to bring racist back into the equation again. Especially when it's against claims nobody actually made.

The "depths" of steam greenlight... Or, you know, use the search bar. It has a massive library, new stuff is introduced all the time that never goes through green light because they have a deal with Valve. I don't see how having a game catalogue so big you cannot fathom it is a failure of diversity in the industry.

There are definitely a couple of good games that don't get greenlit. But the large majority of them are the equivalent of shovelware games. However telling unrepresented groups to "search for it" no matter how long it would take while you have the luxury of finding the majority of the games that cater to you on the front page is a sense of entitlement.

Actually, I didn't. TMDC did by describing games as they are now as "the full extent of where they can go",

That does not imply poor quality at all. That just means that they have reached their limit.

you agreed by referring to it as "the same shit", both statements are marks against the quality of games, and both of you keep saying it's because white males dominate and that they all think alike.

I just said it's the same shit because it's the same shit. That is not to mean that the games in question are bad. I tell my friends that Pokemon is basically the "same shit" that doesn't mean I said it's a bad quality game. I play the fuck out of that game.

However the reason why it's mainly been the same thing is because the industry has and continues to be dominated by a single demographic of people with little to no outside influence from said group.

Insults about her gender were a large part of her harassment, the subject of depression is the reason.

Her being a woman]/b] talking about depression was mainly the sole reason. If it was a male doing the same game he wouldn't come under nearly as much flak.

I don't see how that makes it any better. Just because people share a disability doesn't mean they all feel the same way about it or think it's appropriate to be making games about and it certainly doesn't preclude some of them from getting angry.

Those with actual depression and who played the games would tell you otherwise. Especially when you made it out to be some money making scheme.

Tell me, do you hold that opinion about military shooters where everything is unrealistically dramatized so gunning down people in a war is fun while actual soldiers are suffering from PTSD and other mental and physical disabilities everyday?

...how is an online forum and your personal blog/site/etc. any different?

I don't have to look at the Escapist, or IGN, or any other forum about people shit talking me. It's a bit different when they take their trash into your front lawn.

Hell, that's even better: If you personally control the web page you can block or ignore people as you see fit, how is this a problem?

You seriously can't say this is a legitimate response anymore. Especially not when a certain tropes woman who will not be named did the same thing in light of her Youtube videos getting toxic comments and block comments on all of her pages completely. We all know how that line of action turned out.

If a studio/office/etc. is really uncomfortable then there's a whole other route: Speaking with higher-ups, human resources, trying to talk to people and finally quitting the job and maybe suing someone. There's some really obnoxious and insulting people out there, I don't find that very discouraging when the vast majority of them aren't.

Yeah...if you think any of those solutions worked this would be a problem right now? Most women- excuse me- most people don't want to put up with that kind of negative behavior period.

"Unpleasant working environment" can mean a lot of things, but unless we're talking about actual harassment I don't see how the mental negativity can be so serious. It sounds more like insecurity to me.

You are seriously telling me that mental abuse isn't a legitimate form of harassment?

Here is a good example. An Asian person works at an office where all of his employees never physically harm or threaten him, but they go out of their way to call him a *****, a kook, and all sorts of derogatory slurs and jokes. That is mental abuse and harassment.
That is not in and of itself a self esteem issue, although that does contribute heavily to it.

Just sayin, if you want me to read something you should probably link it, a lot of writers worked at Bioware. Regardless, I think if we're talking about something like ME3 it's not concrete skin you need but evasion. Sometimes internet comments and forum posts just aren't worth reading. Coming from a professional stance, yes you should read your criticism and consider your work, but that kind of backlash - huge and unwarranted as it was - was better off being avoided until the smoke had cleared.

The Bioware forums is the offical forums of Bioware studios. A good portion of the staff probably have to go there daily as part of their job in order to get fan feedback.

Anyway here is the link http://dgaider.tumblr.com/post/39544291251/on-fandom-and-toxic-environments

I don't count mental and verbal abuse when it's on the internet from people I don't care about. I think that's a fair outlook.

And again that is a very easy thing to say when it's not you in the limelight and the center of all the toxic comments day after day.

wat? If "fun or interesting or having a nice aesthetic visual quality" is not your game, I think you have a problem with games.

You said 96% of games cater to everyone. Nintendo has nice colorful visuals, and people don't give a shit about it. Those games don't cater to them. Therefore it is irrelevant to them.
Catering has a whole lot more to it than just basic visuals.

Ah, you did mean the racism thing. Yes, presuming that all white males like the same or similar thing because they are white males is wrong, you reinforcing that by assuming 90% of games cater to white males based on the color of their skin is racist.

No it is not racist. I implore you to go to any game threads asking about why there aren't more X representation in videogames and I will guarantee it that half the answers will be "because games are business and business wants to cater to the majority and the majority is white male gamers backed up with statistical surveys and facts.

And consistently the market has not proven them wrong either. It's the reason why Call of Poopy can still churn out one game a year and still make big profits.

I've never been satisfied with the answers those topics never really came to a consensus on, and I don't actually know how many people from those groups are or aren't in gaming, all I do know is that there's nothing really stopping anyone from making their own games and sharing it with the world anymore, it's become too easy.

I just told you what is most likely stopping them from making games. I personally told you it's because of negative an toxic environments that said peoples often tend to get put in and they don't want to deal with that in the first place.
You basically said you don't believe mental abuse is legitimate thing.

Others say it's a social thing. If X group of people are discouraged from doing a specific thing as a social construct than it shouldn't surprise you that X group of people are not making games.

Those sound like pretty damn solid answers if you ask me, but if you personally don't like them because they technically "can" in the narrowest sense without looking at the bigger picture than I really don't know what to tell you.

 

[UberPubert]

That's literally what I just said.

No it's not. You said Picasso and Lautrec took inspiration from Africa and Japan, all I'm pointing out is that in your example the relevant course of action would be for game developers to take inspiration from other cultures as well, rather than to hire them as you suggested. Both are valid courses of action but one is not what your example suggests.

Yes. You did.

I think you misunderstood the entire analogy. That's fine. They're not always the most effective method of conveyance, but I'm telling you what you think I implied with it is wrong.

America is not a race.

I didn't say America was a race, I said the majority of them could be defined as caucasian, which is a race. My original statement was that hotdogs and hamburgers could be considered a part of American culture.

If X industry is mainly inhibited by specific group of people, with similar backgrounds, and experiences then eventually the well of creativity will dry up

Why do you assume this "specific group of people" share similar backgrounds and experiences? Why do you assume others, not belonging to this "specific group of people" wouldn't?

Because David Cage is only one dev out of dozens upon dozens that actually did something different.

There's other developers besides Cage, you know. Many of them aren't interested in making the same thing over and over. Your problem is with big publishers who own valuable IPs milking them for money. That has nothing to do with lack of originality on the developers part.

Well visual novels with minimal gameplay seems to be the majority concensus to the many people who discredit him. I personally could care less.

I'm not sure why you care or why they matter if they haven't so much as seen a trailer for the game or read wikipedia. You seem upset about a group of people I've never encountered who don't even know what the thing they're complaining about is.

I'm pretty sure i've seen quite a few "If I wanted story only I would watch a movie" in regards to Cage's games. Do I care personally? No. I do not play his games. I also do not know where you got the assumption that I had any sort of problem with it either.

If you don't have a problem with it then why bring it up? Are you just making a statement?

Was it not you that was balking at the implication that I was claiming that it was mostly straight, white dudes, who sent hate mail to Hepler?

I balked at the implication it had anything to do with them being white males. I still do.

You keep asking what's the point, when it seems that you can't even keep track of the points you are making in your previous posts from which I'm responding to.

It's difficult when I have to flip back through several posts to see all you've written about a topic. But your preamble to Cage/Hepler/Bioware was: "Then honestly, I would like them to legitimately prove me wrong. Because they will retread the same ideas over and over and over because for the most part because they do not have the diverse range of people from different backgrounds, sexualities, emotional states, nationalities, etc."

So I repeat, what's the point of bringing up the Hepler controversy if no developers (as far as we know) were actually involved with the harassment and none of it stopped anything from happening? It's worth noting Hepler wasn't actually a designer, she was a writer at Bioware. No amount of harassment directed at her would've had any impact on the possibility of the feature she described entering the game.

Then perhaps you need to go to more Mass Effect based threads. Because that got a lot of flak. If for not skipping the combat, but for making it so easy for them which made it "unfair" to the regular players for having to work to get to the story.

I'll reiterate what I said about Cage: Why/How are you so concerned about what some people who didn't actually know what a feature was thought about a said feature when it didn't change anything about the game? What new idea was thwarted? Who was discouraged? I don't really see what's so important about some people giving a game developer flak over something and then nothing about it happening.

None of the romances in Mass Effect were any good from a realistic standpoint. Some were just worse than others. I liked romancing Garrus but I'm not going to deny that the initiative comment into romancing him involved putting him on the spot with a creepy sexual innuendo after he just told a story about going on the final rounds with a fellow hand-to-hand combat member and just like that he wants to rock your world.

Me personally I didn't care much for romance in mass effect. I thought the characters were fun and interesting but I almost felt like I was ruining them by having them get romantically involved with Shepard, who I thought was a total bore due to being a mostly blank slate for players to project on. But this is all deep, deep into subjective writing territory and if someone says the inclusion of new characters to romance is pandering I might disagree but I can at least understand.

Oh yeah sure. I supposed you are useful for death fodder against a Cerberus assassin makes you an essential plot point. No, not many of the characters overall were really all that important to the plot line. The only ones that had any sort of essentialness to them outside of player attachment was Mordin, Wrex, Miranda, Liara, Legion, and Tali. Yeah. I left out Garrus. In the end him not being there would just result in a fucked as hell Palavan. Kaidan and Ashley are kind of important if only because one of them can become bomb fodder in one mission and whoever lives nobody gives two shits about because they ditched you in the second game and came back in the third game.

Well Thane had some neat story stuff about coming to terms with dying from Kepral Syndrome even if it was just a continuation of his arc from the last game but at least he got to meet up and chat with Shep again. I'd say Jacob probably got the shortest straw due to just being vaguely related to Cerberus the third time around and having one of the more boring loyalty missions last game.

You really want to play this game?

Yeah

you have the luxury of finding the majority of the games that cater to you on the front page is a sense of entitlement.

Why do you assume whatever's on the front page caters to me? I don't actually do much shopping on Steam, for the most part I take recommendations from friends. The only thing the front page is for is occasionally grabbing my attention with a really good sale.

That does not imply poor quality at all. That just means that they have reached their limit.

But that's still pretty insulting, and mostly untrue. Telling anyone who takes pride in their work that they have "Reached their limit" is kind of patronizing and assumes you know a lot more about their capabilities than they do.

I just said it's the same shit because it's the same shit. That is not to mean that the games in question are bad. I tell my friends that Pokemon is basically the "same shit" that doesn't mean I said it's a bad quality game. I play the fuck out of that game.

I don't see how calling something "shit" is not claim of quality, you could just say "same" if you wanted to be clear. But even then, seriously? You're complaining about stagnation and the industry and you keep buying and playing pokemon games? You just sound like a hyprocrite when you make fun of CoD doing the same thing.

However the reason why it's mainly been the same thing is because the industry has and continues to be dominated by a single demographic of people with little to no outside influence from said group.

And what is this single demographic? I mean, you already proved yourself wrong by consistently bringing up Japan, but go ahead anyway.

Her being a woman]/b] talking about depression was mainly the sole reason. If it was a male doing the same game he wouldn't come under nearly as much flak.

Can you say that as a fact? I certainly don't believe you.

Those with actual depression and who played the games would tell you otherwise.

That doesn't change anything. Just because some people with depression did approve doesn't mean all people with depression would.

Tell me, do you hold that opinion about military shooters where everything is unrealistically dramatized so gunning down people in a war is fun while actual soldiers are suffering from PTSD and other mental and physical disabilities everyday?

No, and I personally don't care. But if someone who had been in the military complained about it? I could totally understand.

I don't have to look at the Escapist, or IGN, or any other forum about people shit talking me. It's a bit different when they take their trash into your front lawn.

It is not your "front lawn", it's a space on the internet far removed from your physical location.

You seriously can't say this is a legitimate response anymore.

Yeah I can. It's the same reason mods and admins exist on any website, only you're doing it for yourself. Some people might complain further, but I don't see how that'd stop you.

Yeah...if you think any of those solutions worked this would be a problem right now?

Uh, yeah? These aren't preventative measures they're reactionary ones. People are still going to be nasty and sometimes the best we can do is try to settle things when they occur, nothing's ever going to just make it stop anymore than all the law enforcement in the world is going to stop crime.

You are seriously telling me that mental abuse isn't a legitimate form of harassment?

Uh, no. I think you misread, I said *unless* we're talking about actual harassment. If it is actual harassment - which the abuse you described would fall under - once again, we have measures to try and correct that and people have options available to them.

The Bioware forums is the offical forums of Bioware studios. A good portion of the staff probably have to go there daily as part of their job in order to get fan feedback.

I completely agree with Gaider in this and his solution and mine is the same, even the reasoning matches up. Sometimes people just aren't worth listening to, sometimes they have nothing worth saying or they deliver it so insultingly it's better to ignore it anyway. He says he doesn't want to visit the forums as much but it doesn't seem like it's dissuaded him from writing. I think that's a great attitude and more people should follow suit.

And again that is a very easy thing to say when it's not you in the limelight and the center of all the toxic comments day after day.

I highly suspect my principle wouldn't change. To a lesser degree I follow it even in real life. I'm just not that concerned of what most people think of me, I can't fathom why game desigerns would be. Their profession is a craft, not a popularity contest.

You said 96% of games cater to everyone. Nintendo has nice colorful visuals, and people don't give a shit about it. Those games don't cater to them. Therefore it is irrelevant to them.
Catering has a whole lot more to it than just basic visuals.

I only meant to say most games try to appeal to most people for several different reasons, although I recognize there's many others.

No it is not racist. I implore you to go to any game threads asking about why there aren't more X representation in videogames and I will guarantee it that half the answers will be "because games are business and business wants to cater to the majority and the majority is white male gamers backed up with statistical surveys and facts.

The majority demographic may happen to be white males but white males are also majority demographics for games that are nothing like other games that also have a majority white male demographic. Take your pick of Call of Duty and say...oh, Beyond Two Souls, and based on those two traits alone it's very likely a fan of one will not like the other, even if they belong to the same demographic.

And consistently the market has not proven them wrong either. It's the reason why Call of Poopy can still churn out one game a year and still make big profits.

I think CoD does well because it has an established fanbase as one of the first games of it's kind to deliver the casual arena multiplayer combat, and it has a budget that makes it too big to fail.

Those sound like pretty damn solid answers if you ask me, but if you personally don't like them because they technically "can" in the narrowest sense without looking at the bigger picture than I really don't know what to tell you.

Technically they can, which means they actually can. I don't even see how abuse or social stigma enters the development scene unless the person or team behind the project is deliberately posting their ideas or material for the sake of feedback or criticism of strangers. If they are, should they really be so surprised to find negative comments? And if that happens, should they really be so dissuaded from making the game they should just quit? I don't think so.

 

[Requia]

snip.

I too would like to see this study (these studies? How many are there?). I believe you that it exists, I think the premise is an excellent one - one which I suspect to be true. To that end, I would like some guidance on where I could source it for reference purposes?

A quick googling has turned up nothing for me, and as you have the superior knowledge perhaps you could guide me on to it?

Research on this started in the 70s, there's a bunch. Sadly I'm hitting major paywall problems, I miss the uni access :/

This is the only one I found open access, it's a retrospective showing that blind applications caused an increase in acceptance of papers by first time female applicants:

http://www.biology.ualberta.ca/uploads/csz-scz/documents/news/scientific_reviews.pdf

(If you're at a university, and thus have access to more, ask a research librarian to show you how to use PsychInfo, should get far better results)

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

1) What are you talking about? You said "Games development is still dominated by white men.", and then later "we're not going to see it develop to its full extent while it's dominated by a largely homogenous group of people who all have similar ideas about how games should "work"". Forget implications, how are you not saying that white men are a homogenous group with similar ideas in these statements? Re-word it if you have to, but that's what it says.

2) What do I care? Just because you happen to be a white male dev doesn't give you the authority to speak for all of them. No one has that authority.

3) You're late: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfW6EbFXtCQ. It's primitive, but "user interacts with AI" as the sole premise of a game has been done before.

4) Not really. If you're saying that white men dominating game development is what's causing it's stagnation, your personal projects as a hobbyist wouldn't really change that.

5) I wouldn't even address this if it weren't so dumb in context, but it is. Ken Levine? Seriously? You want to complain about the stagnation of the industry and your favorite is the guy who worked on systemshock2, and then made it's spiritual successor three times in a row for the next decade of gaming? People knock Tim Schaefer for being a click and point Adventure game fanboy but at least he and the crew at doublefine took breaks for psychonauts, brutal legend, costume quest, stacking, and once upon a monster.

6) But what is this "white culture" you people keep banging on about? You realize people of the "caucasian race" span the entire northern hemisphere of the globe, and many of them immigrated to elsewhere, right? Trying to lump them or their cultures into the same group is futile, assuming based on the color of their skin alone that they do is insultingly ignorant - and that is what you're doing. You didn't say "Americans" and "Japanese", or "white people and yellow people", you compared a single nation of people to another group you chose to distill down to a skin color but consists of many nations and cultures.

7) And if that's all you had to say on the matter I'd agree wholeheartedly. New ideas? Why not? I love experiencing new stuff. But making broad, sweeping generalizations about the people who are currently working in the industry - based on the color of their skin and sex, no less - is wrong.

Ok then.

1) If nine out of ten people in a group are male, it's not sexist to claim it's "male-dominated". It's a statement of fact. Most game developers are still male, and most come from a specific culture. I'm not criticising those developers at all here. What I AM saying is that gaming would benefit from ideas that come from outside of that culture. You seem to be seeing this as a "with us / against us" scenario where one party has to be "right" and the other "wrong". I don't agree with that at all.

2) When did I ever claim to speak for anybody but myself? My opinions are my own. I don't expect anybody else to do anything but agree or disagree with them.

3) That actually has nothing in common with what I'm doing, but it's pretty much irrelevant. Maybe if I can get something I design to a state where I can actually sell it, that'd be different. As things are, I can hardly ask you or anybody else to make comparisons between actual finished games and my stuff that nobody but my friends have seen. It's completely futile until I actually get something released and on sale.

4) I don't think claiming game development hasn't reached its full potential yet is the same as saying it's "stagnating". I certainly don't think there's a shortage of ideas out there WITHIN gaming culture. My point is that I also think that there might be a heap of ideas OUTSIDE of it, and those are the ones that aren't getting heard.

5) Levine's a great example of a developer who does one particular thing really well. I have no problem whatsoever with that, except when it comes to his last game (which I honestly wouldn't have known was his game if it wasn't called "Bioshock"). But again, I've beaten that dead horse over and over again, I'm not going into it here.

6) "Trying to lump them or their cultures into the same group is futile, assuming based on the color of their skin alone that they do is insultingly ignorant - and that is what you're doing."

No I'm not. I'm arguing that there's a specific culture that most gaming developers still come from. The "geek culture" if you like. There's no assumption there about the sex or ethnical diversity of the developers. That's a simple matter of fact.

7) I'm making no generalisations of people already in the industry, except that they're already IN the industry, and that there's a specific culture there. Like I said, you seem to think I'm making some kind of "us versus them" argument. I'm not. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with people who are part of this culture (which, again, I include myself in). I think that we may be missing a helluva lot of contributions from people who AREN'T part of it but who might still have great ideas about the industry or gaming in general.

If you object to my idea of this culture as "exclusive", I'm not blaming anybody who's part of it for making it that way - but the fact remains that it is! There's a shortage of diversity in the gaming industry. I don't know how that came about. I don't particularly CARE how that came about.

I do, however, care about what we're going to do to fix it... and if you don't think it's a problem that needs to be "fixed", all I can say is that we're not going to find any common ground here. I don't think that's what you're saying though.

Here's what I think you are taking from my argument:

1- Gaming developers are largely from a few specific ethnic groups, and mostly male.
2- Those developers are causing the industry to stagnate.
3- Therefore, developers who don't fit those ethnic groups are naturally superior.

Well #1 is a statement of fact, #2 I absolutely disagree with, and #3 is patently ridiculous. There's plenty wrong with gaming culture right now, and it won't be resolved by "excluding the white man", even if that were in any way possible (it's not). That said, the culture might very well be improved by bringing in some talent from outside the "traditional" spheres. That's what I'm arguing for here. Nothing more than that.

 

[UberPubert]

and most come from a specific culture

Why do you assume they come from the same culture? Because of their profession? If we took this reasoning to it's logical conclusion then anyone who entered into the gaming industry would inevitably fall under the same label and be a part of the same culture you're criticizing for stagnating the industry, with no guarantee that they'd actually add to it rather than simply be assimilated and conform to the ideas that are already there, as we would have to assume the people who have joined the industry have already done.

When did I ever claim to speak for anybody but myself?

I don't know, why do you keep bringing up the fact you're a white male game developer hobbyist? If your opinions are your own and you describe yourself as independent from the industry then what does your label or perspective matter from anyone else's?

That actually has nothing in common with what I'm doing

Well I can't help that you were being vague but it was the best guess I could give with the information you provided, I'm still not sure what makes your approach "unique" when it sounded like something I've already seen.

My point is that I also think that there might be a heap of ideas OUTSIDE of it, and those are the ones that aren't getting heard.

Great. And if you'd merely said "people outside the industry might have good ideas about gaming" you'd hear no complaint from me. But you didn't. And you're not in this post, why would you even refer to the white male majority in videogames if what you really meant was "geek culture", which isn't indicative of either trait? Not every white male is a geek, not every geek is a white male, and I wouldn't even call "geek culture" a homogenous group of people who have similar ideas about how games should work, since many people in geek culture disagree on a fundamental level about what games are good or bad and why.

No I'm not. I'm arguing that there's a specific culture that most gaming developers still come from. The "geek culture" if you like.

You realize plenty of LGBT, PoC, what have you, "non-white-men" also belong to geek culture, right? Even Dragonbums above you, who identifies herself as a woman of color, plays pokemon and mass effect, and at the very least has a passing interest in other story-driven games - the kind that already exist. In order to find someone with unique ideas not derivative of geek culture you'd need to find someone with no interest in things "geeky" like video games, not just someone who isn't part of the majority. I hope you can see how that may be problematic to the video games industry.

I'm making no generalisations of people already in the industry, except that they're already IN the industry, and that there's a specific culture there.

But the industry isn't even a culture. In fact, most of the people that consumers have problems with in the industry have no interest at all in video games. The publishing company execs, the stockholders, the marketers - they normally don't call themselves part of game culture, and from this do not care about the products they're helping to fund outside of making it a financial success.

if you don't think it's a problem that needs to be "fixed", all I can say is that we're not going to find any common ground here. I don't think that's what you're saying though.

No, you nailed it. I don't think a numerical disparity in the amount of people in the industry, or in the "culture", is a problem, because I have faith that the devs in the industry can continue to grow and thrive. I have no real problem or stake in more people joining, but I don't see why I should support them more than any other small-time or independent dev who desperately needs money to fund their ideas.

Well #1 is a statement of fact,

A few? There are many ethnic groups that could be described as caucasian that are involved with gaming, many of the most culturally rich and diverse ones being from across Europe, but Americans and Canadians should not be discounted either. Even places like the United Kingdom boast several different and well-established ethnicities.

#2 I absolutely disagree with,

Then again, I have to wonder why you think a few specific ethnic groups who you described as homogenous being the majority is a "problem" you want to "fix". If you think they're doing a good job and still have ideas left in the tank, why say that they're limited and have taken the medium as far as they can?

That said, the culture might very well be improved by bringing in some talent from outside the "traditional" spheres.

Sure, why not? I think new ideas are a great thing, I look forward to discovering what new things can be done with games in the future, but how is anything you're saying here about the people currently working in the industry supposed to help the people who do want to get in? Making generalized statements about the culture people belong to, or claiming to know about their capabilities as professionals does nothing to serve outsiders.

 

[Dragonbums]

No it's not. You said Picasso and Lautrec took inspiration from Africa and Japan, all I'm pointing out is that in your example the relevant course of action would be for game developers to take inspiration from other cultures as well, rather than to hire them as you suggested. Both are valid courses of action but one is not what your example suggests.

I would assume if you are to take inspiration from other cultures it would also involve hiring them or at the very least asking them for their input in the development process of the game. You are now playing the semantics game because not once in this situation did I ever imply that those people should be barred from game development. Which is what you claimed in a previous post.
You are putting words into my mouth and now making up assumptions about my argument that did not exist in the first place. You knew what I was talking about and found asinine "holes" so to speak in my clarification to make up nonsense about me saying not to hire people of other cultures. I never suggested any of that. You made that up yourself.

I didn't say America was a race, I said the majority of them could be defined as caucasian, which is a race. My original statement was that hotdogs and hamburgers could be considered a part of American culture.

You also stated that black people is to fried chicken was the equivalent to American and hotdogs. Which is comparing a race to a food, to a nationality to a food because Caucasians live there. Even though said Caucasians could very well not even be Americans themselves and as such have no cultural relevance to hotdogs and hamburgers. Once again another poor analogy on your part.

Why do you assume this "specific group of people" share similar backgrounds and experiences? Why do you assume others, not belonging to this "specific group of people" wouldn't?

Because that's how real life works. Yes the experience of all people tend to overlap, but certain groups have different experiences than other groups due to cultural, religious, sexual, and ethic backgrounds. A white person will hardly ever experience what it feels like to be called a "dirty foreigner" for speaking in their native language on a public bus to another person of that same group. A black person will rarely know what it feels like to be called a terrorist because of their clothing choice.

You know what I'm talking about. A single group that is predominately dominant in a single field with little to no input from other demographics will be limited in what they can do because at the end of the day they don't have the full creative potential of what thousands of people from all over can bring to the table.

There's other developers besides Cage, you know. Many of them aren't interested in making the same thing over and over. Your problem is with big publishers who own valuable IPs milking them for money. That has nothing to do with lack of originality on the developers part.

It's almost like you skipped the part where I specifically said 'few developers and notable studios' are like this. That would imply that there is more than just Cage doing things outside the box.

I'm not sure why you care or why they matter if they haven't so much as seen a trailer for the game or read wikipedia. You seem upset about a group of people I've never encountered who don't even know what the thing they're complaining about is.

You seem to mistaken making note of observations in reacting to David Cage's games to me legitmately caring about his games. Which is funny considering how I don't play his games at all. A lot of these replies are now just me repeating myself and I'm getting pretty damn tired of it.

Are you just making a statement?

Is that not allowed in discussion threads?

I balked at the implication it had anything to do with them being white males. I still do.

Yeah, it's a good thing that I never implied that at all. Since you seem to be really good at implying things that were never said.

It's difficult when I have to flip back through several posts to see all you've written about a topic. But your preamble to Cage/Hepler/Bioware was: "Then honestly, I would like them to legitimately prove me wrong. Because they will retread the same ideas over and over and over because for the most part because they do not have the diverse range of people from different backgrounds, sexualities, emotional states, nationalities, etc."

So I repeat, what's the point of bringing up the Hepler controversy if no developers (as far as we know) were actually involved with the harassment and none of it stopped anything from happening? It's worth noting Hepler wasn't actually a designer, she was a writer at Bioware. No amount of harassment directed at her would've had any impact on the possibility of the feature she described entering the game.

When did I bring in developers in regards to harassment to Hepler? When exactly? This was a sub topic and now your trying to rope it back in to the main topic which had nothing to do with developers harassing anybody. Quit making up arguments that I never started. It also doesn't matter if she was a writer at Bioware. As part of the staff of Bioware she is part of the videogame development process regardless of her job. Therefore whenever she says anything people will associate hear as part of the game development staff at Bioware.

I'll reiterate what I said about Cage: Why/How are you so concerned about what some people who didn't actually know what a feature was thought about a said feature when it didn't change anything about the game? What new idea was thwarted? Who was discouraged? I don't really see what's so important about some people giving a game developer flak over something and then nothing about it happening.

Just because nothing happened to the game overall doesn't mean that you are not supposed to talk about the reactions about said game in the first place. If the game was changed due to ignorant backlash than the reactions would be even worse for it.
Sorry that I take concern over a good majority of the gaming populace taking a shit on some dudes' game when most of them haven't even played it.

Well Thane had some neat story stuff about coming to terms with dying from Kepral Syndrome even if it was just a continuation of his arc from the last game but at least he got to meet up and chat with Shep again. I'd say Jacob probably got the shortest straw due to just being vaguely related to Cerberus the third time around and having one of the more boring loyalty missions last game.

That doesn't mean Thane was integral to the plot of Mass Effect. Nor the other characters that I deemed not essential to the plot.

Why do you assume whatever's on the front page caters to me? I don't actually do much shopping on Steam, for the most part I take recommendations from friends. The only thing the front page is for is occasionally grabbing my attention with a really good sale.

There is a phenomenally better chance at finding something that interests and caters to you than there is for someone like me to find a game that caters to me.

But that's still pretty insulting, and mostly untrue. Telling anyone who takes pride in their work that they have "Reached their limit" is kind of patronizing and assumes you know a lot more about their capabilities than they do.

You are the one that implied that quality was tied to diversity.

Also I'm talking about the gaming industry as a whole. Not a single individual person in the gaming industry. Don't try to turn this into an individual potential debate. That's not what I'm talking about.

I don't see how calling something "shit" is not claim of quality, you could just say "same" if you wanted to be clear. But even then, seriously? You're complaining about stagnation and the industry and you keep buying and playing pokemon games? You just sound like a hyprocrite when you make fun of CoD doing the same thing.

Another thing you know exactly what I'm talking about but making stuff up so you have something to argue. I'm playing the literal game with you.

And what is this single demographic? I mean, you already proved yourself wrong by consistently bringing up Japan, but go ahead anyway.

My God.

Can you say that as a fact? I certainly don't believe you.

I'm guessing you didn't take a look at the Escapist article regarding the matter in the first place. Nor were you aware of the Jimquisition episode in regards to Zoe and other such cases.

That doesn't change anything. Just because some people with depression did approve doesn't mean all people with depression would.

The question I'm asking you is why do you think it's okay for her to be harassed for making the game when countless other devs have made splatter shows revolving real war and nobody gives a fuck?

No, and I personally don't care. But if someone who had been in the military complained about it? I could totally understand.

So it's okay if devs inaccurately dramatize war because soldiers have not spoken out about it loud enough, but Zoe is trash about making a non dramatized game about real depression because a couple of people hated her so much for doing it that they verbally harassed her about it to the point where she took down the game once before uploading it again?

It is not your "front lawn", it's a space on the internet far removed from your physical location.

And I still inhibit that space on the internet. If someone comes to my website/blog/forum and proceeds to send me hate comments then it is reasonable to feel threatened, hurt, and overall shit about it. "Because it's the internet" doesn't change fucking anything.

Yeah I can. It's the same reason mods and admins exist on any website, only you're doing it for yourself. Some people might complain further, but I don't see how that'd stop you.

I don't see the mods on the Escapist banning anyone who shit talks Anita. I didn't see Youtube do a damn thing when Anita got pages worth of rape threats. Her blocking comments only made matters worse because then they just took it to the emails. You are assuming that mods are as diligent as they are on the Escapist and other sites. Mods only bans the user. They do not however delete the comments.

Uh, yeah? These aren't preventative measures they're reactionary ones. People are still going to be nasty and sometimes the best we can do is try to settle things when they occur, nothing's ever going to just make it stop anymore than all the law enforcement in the world is going to stop crime.

....Christ. We are done with this one. You don't think verbal abuse is an actual form of harassment.

Uh, no. I think you misread, I said *unless* we're talking about actual harassment. If it is actual harassment - which the abuse you described would fall under - once again, we have measures to try and correct that and people have options available to them.

That is still verbal abuse. And that is still something most adults don't want to put up with in the first place.

I completely agree with Gaider in this and his solution and mine is the same, even the reasoning matches up. Sometimes people just aren't worth listening to, sometimes they have nothing worth saying or they deliver it so insultingly it's better to ignore it anyway. He says he doesn't want to visit the forums as much but it doesn't seem like it's dissuaded him from writing. I think that's a great attitude and more people should follow suit.

Of course it didn't dissuade him from writing. He's already in the industry and that is his job. That still didn't change the fact that he increasingly felt like shit about it, and become somewhat depressed over toxic comments on the internet. However such behaviour can be really destructive to people not in the industry, just starting into it, or not having a thick enough skin to deal with such things.

I highly suspect my principle wouldn't change. To a lesser degree I follow it even in real life. I'm just not that concerned of what most people think of me, I can't fathom why game desigerns would be. Their profession is a craft, not a popularity contest.

Maybe it won't. Then again I hope you don't ever have to experience such things in order for you to find out.

The majority demographic may happen to be white males but white males are also majority demographics for games that are nothing like other games that also have a majority white male demographic. Take your pick of Call of Duty and say...oh, Beyond Two Souls, and based on those two traits alone it's very likely a fan of one will not like the other, even if they belong to the same demographic.

For every beyond Two Souls that actually features characters that aren't white males, you have 50+ other games coming out that feature white straight males. Do just as many of the white male demographic like Beyond Two Souls? Yeah, they do. However you don't see a lot more games featuring characters other than white male characters because that demographic liked a game with a colored person in it as a main character. I can only think of about three games this (and last year) with so much as a female lead.

There was Remember Me, Walking Dead part 2 I think (or was that DLC) Bayonetta 2, and Mirrors Edge.

I think CoD does well because it has an established fanbase as one of the first games of it's kind to deliver the casual arena multiplayer combat, and it has a budget that makes it too big to fail.

It is also notorious for having the trashiest, racist, sexist fanbase of the entire videogame industry. Right up there with Halo. Lord bewares you let known the fact that your not an asshole, a woman, LGBTQ+, or not white. You are in for enough racial slurs, sexist remarks, and bigoted hate that can last you a lifetime.

Technically they can, which means they actually can. I don't even see how abuse or social stigma enters the development scene unless the person or team behind the project is deliberately posting their ideas or material for the sake of feedback or criticism of strangers. If they are, should they really be so surprised to find negative comments? And if that happens, should they really be so dissuaded from making the game they should just quit? I don't think so.

If you honestly do not understand how negative environments can deter people away from working in a field then I think we are done with this discussion.
No amount of me explaining with change that. It's amazing how ignorant people can be when they have never experienced what it feels like to be unwanted in the field.

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

...

Ok... I got nothing more here then.

You seem to have problems with my very definition of a "culture". I've been part of it for over fifteen years now. I know it exists, I know how exclusive it can be, and there are enough numbers out there to show that my personal experience is pretty representative of the culture as a whole.

I'm not judging the people in it. I'm not questioning WHY it is the way it is. I'm not blaming anyone for why it is the way it is. I'm asking how it can be more inclusive to people who traditionally haven't been specifically included, or may have been actively excluded, from said culture. And if you seriously have a problem with that then I don't even know what to say to you.

I'm done.

 

[UberPubert]

I would assume if you are to take inspiration from other cultures it would also involve hiring them or at the very least asking them for their input in the development process of the game.

Why? You can study any well-documented culture without a living, breathing member of it there to tell you what it is. And even if that were the case - even if every developer had the time and resources to hire such a consultant - how would that significantly change the industry employee demographics?

You also stated that black people is to fried chicken was the equivalent to American and hotdogs. Which is comparing a race to a food, to a nationality to a food because Caucasians live there. Even though said Caucasians could very well not even be Americans themselves and as such have no cultural relevance to hotdogs and hamburgers.

Well if the subject in the analogy is americans then the sub-culture that black people would represent is african-american, and the analogy would still be valid. Also, why would I include non-american caucasians when talking about a majority of americans who are also caucasian?

A white person will hardly ever experience what it feels like to be called a "dirty foreigner" for speaking in their native language on a public bus to another person of that same group. A black person will rarely know what it feels like to be called a terrorist because of their clothing choice.

In your first example, how would a white person be less likely to be called a dirty foreign whilst in a another country? And even though a black person might never be called a terrorist, there's numerous bigoted stereotypes associated with one's clothing which almost every prominent ethnicity has, why do you exclude white people?

A single group

Why do you keep asserting the whole of the gaming industry is dominated by a single group rather a diverse range of groups who are also white? How does being white make them less diverse?

It's almost like you skipped the part where I specifically said 'few developers and notable studios' are like this. That would imply that there is more than just Cage doing things outside the box.

But there are many people besides Cage, he just has some of the biggest budgets and flashiest titles. What's more is I wouldn't actually call his games unique, they're more like a genre-blend and on a fundamental level they already well-established types of games.

You seem to mistaken making note of observations in reacting to David Cage's games to me legitmately caring about his games.

My only mistake was thinking you had a salient point to make on the matter and inquired further to see what it was. Forgive me.

Is that not allowed in discussion threads?

Sure it is, but if the statement has no immediate bearing on the discussion I'd like to ask why you made it.

Yeah, it's a good thing that I never implied that at all. Since you seem to be really good at implying things that were never said.

When you first mentioned the Hepler controversy it was commenting on the white male majority and how you thought they would retread the same ideas over and over due to lacking "people from different backgrounds, sexualities, emotional states, nationalities". By using Hepler in your argument that the ideas of the white male majority would not change, you implied that it was because they were a white male majority.

When did I bring in developers in regards to harassment to Hepler? When exactly? This was a sub topic and now your trying to rope it back in to the main topic which had nothing to do with developers harassing anybody.

I'm sorry, I thought we were staying on topic. It'd help if you provided a clear topic or point of discussion before diving headlong into it so other can join you.

It also doesn't matter if she was a writer at Bioware.

Of course it does. It means how popular or unpopular her opinions on game features are does not matter from Bioware's point of view, who happens to be the only party in the game development process that matters (apart from EA). If a developer on their staff had an unpopular idea for a game feature and it produced outlash from the online community, Bioware might want to rethink allowing the developer to implement that feature for the sake of the game. Hepler had no such power, ergo Bioware had no reason to cancel the feature that never existed and no creative idea was ever quashed, so how is this causing anyone to retread the same ideas?

Just because nothing happened to the game overall doesn't mean that you are not supposed to talk about the reactions about said game in the first place. If the game was changed due to ignorant backlash than the reactions would be even worse for it.

Obviously you can talk about it if you want, but pointing to a negative reaction that as far we know didn't actually do anything isn't a compelling argument to believe the reactions are worth anything more than a mild shrug.

Sorry that I take concern over a good majority of the gaming populace taking a shit on some dudes' game when most of them haven't even played it.

But you're just as ignorant on the matter. You could play BTS and hate it for all you know, you keep saying you don't even know what it is or why people are complaining. For all you know it could be the same thing we've seen elsewhere and you're only defending it for pity's sake.

That doesn't mean Thane was integral to the plot of Mass Effect. Nor the other characters that I deemed not essential to the plot.

More integral than Cortes and Traynor. Hell, Rico was more integral than Cortes and Traynor and I thought that guy was a douche.

There is a phenomenally better chance at finding something that interests and caters to you than there is for someone like me to find a game that caters to me.

Why do you assume that? Do you have extremely niche taste?

You are the one that implied that quality was tied to diversity.

I wonder why you'd be arguing for diversity if you didn't think it'd make things better...

Also I'm talking about the gaming industry as a whole. Not a single individual person in the gaming industry. Don't try to turn this into an individual potential debate. That's not what I'm talking about.

A disclaimer about your personal preference to address the industry - which is made up of individuals - as a faceless, homogenous mass, hardly makes your criticisms about it's inclusiveness or capabilities any less insulting.

Another thing you know exactly what I'm talking about but making stuff up so you have something to argue. I'm playing the literal game with you.

If you assume there was no miscommunication that would imply you believe I'm being disingenuous in my line of questioning. I find that very unproductive during a discussion.

My God.

Please, I didn't ask for your religious preference. I find this topic is volatile enough already without bringing religion into it.

I'm guessing you didn't take a look at the Escapist article regarding the matter in the first place. Nor were you aware of the Jimquisition episode in regards to Zoe and other such cases.

I'm not sure what you meant by this. Yes, the escapist has reported on Zoe's case but in order to prove or even hint that a male developer would receive less or that she received more hate mail over a game about depression you'd need at least two relevant examples.

The question I'm asking you is why do you think it's okay for her to be harassed for making the game when countless other devs have made splatter shows revolving real war and nobody gives a fuck?

Let's make one thing very clear: I don't think it's "okay" for anyone to get harassed. I think it's normal, par for the course on the internet, and so long as it doesn't break the law it must be tolerated, but that doesn't make it "okay". As for the difference, war and violence in general occupies a very different position in pop culture than mental diorders, one that has been a lot more thoroughly tread and covers the broad scope of completely realistic to cartoonishly violent. There's almost nothing that can be said or done with war or violence that hasn't been done before, the same cannot be said for mental disorders like depression.

So it's okay if devs inaccurately dramatize war because soldiers have not spoken out about it loud enough,

Actually I'll do you one better: I think anyone can depict anything no matter how loud anyone speaks about it. I also think, of course, that people are free to speak loudly about it regardless. That's why Zoe can make a game about depression, and people can get angry about it, and I don't really see either as a problem that needs to be fixed.

And I still inhibit that space on the internet.

Nnnno. You do not inhabit any space on the internet. Nowhere on the internet is your "home", it is - in all probability - somebody else's website on yet another persons's server, and so long as those people allow it, anything can be done there unless it's breaking the law. You have no right to that space, or a right for it to be "safe", it is a privilege allowed by the owner. Take it up with them.

"Because it's the internet" doesn't change fucking anything.

It literally changes everything, and the ignorance displayed in that statement is astounding. How can you not differentiate between internet conversations and real-world altercations after everything we've seen? Can you even imagine the two of us having this conversation in real life? Do you even have a frame of reference or a starting point of how to imagine this could be possible if it weren't for the internet?

I don't see the mods on the Escapist banning anyone who shit talks Anita. I didn't see Youtube do a damn thing when Anita got pages worth of rape threats. Her blocking comments only made matters worse because then they just took it to the emails. You are assuming that mods are as diligent as they are on the Escapist and other sites. Mods only bans the user. They do not however delete the comments.

Then it sounds like you have a problem with the mods, or admins of the site. I'm sure many of them are doing the best they can, I think targets of hate-mail or nasty comments can meet them halfway in ignoring everything else. What's funny about the youtube comment blocking fiasco was how many defenders of Anita dismissed the comment blocking entirely as "nothing to be gained from youtube commments, what's the big deal?", and now here you are, legitimizing them as some kind of significant force of abuse when most people know better to avoid them entirely.

We are done with this one. You don't think verbal abuse is an actual form of harassment.

That's an odd statement to make. I was addressing all harassment in my post, why would you assume I think verbal abuse doesn't count?

That is still verbal abuse. And that is still something most adults don't want to put up with in the first place.

Unfortunately, it's going to happen, occasionally. We can act on it when it happens but trying to act like not having stopped it entirely is a terrible problem when it is in fact an unrealistic goal isn't productive to finding a real solution.

Of course it didn't dissuade him from writing.

People in the industry can't be dissuaded from being in that industry? You act like no one's ever changed careers before.

However such behaviour can be really destructive to people not in the industry, just starting into it, or not having a thick enough skin to deal with such things.

I think you're really downplaying that third point but I have to ask what you even mean by the first two. If you've just started or are new to the industry and are receiving negative comments and criticism, shouldn't that just be a sign to improve yourself and show your worth so you can hear praise and comments from fans instead?

Maybe it won't. Then again I hope you don't ever have to experience such things in order for you to find out.

But that's the thing, I already have. I think everyone had some untoward comments sent their way at some point during their life and mine's been no exception, but the mantra that saved me then is not much less relevant now: "Stick and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.". Obviously that's not entirely true, words spoken by important people can be catastrophic to someone else, but we're literally discussing internet strangers and bullies, the exact kind of people the saying is for. Words is all they have.

For every beyond Two Souls that actually features characters that aren't white males, you have 50+ other games coming out that feature white straight males.

Hyperbole, of course, but I don't really expect anyone to have an accurate number on that kind of statistic. If you really care, go look up a list of female protagonists, it is nowhere near as small as you make it out to be, not even in the past couple years. But besides that, why do you assume every white male protagonist is straight? You realize most games don't touch on the sexuality of the character at all, right? For all you or I know almost all silent protagonists in videogames could be homosexual, but mostly it just didn't matter.

It is also notorious for having the trashiest, racist, sexist fanbase of the entire videogame industry. Right up there with Halo. Lord bewares you let known the fact that your not an asshole, a woman, LGBTQ+, or not white. You are in for enough racial slurs, sexist remarks, and bigoted hate that can last you a lifetime.

It's funny, I've poured so many hours into competitive games - including CoD and Halo - that I'd expect to have seen or heard a lot more of this, but I almost never did. In my experience, most games pass by in complete silence. Groups of friends have their own personal chatrooms setup that they can moderate as they please and never have to hear people outside of it. The only time I have ever seen the kind of behavior described (and it's universal for all multiplayer games, even non-competitive ones) is when what's presumably a prepubescent or adolescent is provoked or begins failing badly. And that pretty much sums up every youtube video or private message I've ever seen on the matter, and it's nowhere near unique to CoD.

If you honestly do not understand how negative environments can deter people away from working in a field then I think we are done with this discussion.
No amount of me explaining with change that. It's amazing how ignorant people can be when they have never experienced what it feels like to be unwanted in the field.

To me it just sounds like excuses or insecurity. Nobody "wants me" to go into the field, even my peers would view me as competition rather than a welcome addition to the team, because getting to work at a nice studio with decent hours and pay doing something you might like is actually hard. That won't deter me. If anything it gives me a reason to try and improve and excel to the point where I don't need their support, and if the industry crashes or rejects me I can strike out on my own because I can't imagine myself doing anything else.

 

[UberPubert]

You seem to have problems with my very definition of a "culture". I've been part of it for over fifteen years now. I know it exists, I know how exclusive it can be, and there are enough numbers out there to show that my personal experience is pretty representative of the culture as a whole.

Again with this "I" business. You've gone to speaking for white male game developers while denying it and now you presume to speak for the culture you have labeled them as belonging to. Well, surprise! I am also part of this nebulous "geek culture" you speak of, though I'd never seriously say that or describe myself in that way because what's considered "geeky" is so widespread and bland that it means nothing. Been collecting comics your entire life? Geek. Have a passing interest in popular superhero movies? Geek. Play angry birds? Well, that automatically makes you a gamer, so you must also be a geek!

It's a tiresome, trivial label, and you trying to explain it to someone who visits the forums on a website called "The Escapist" with your "fifteen years" of experience is facepalmingly patronizing to the point of nosebleed or concussion.

I'm not judging the people in it.

But you are. You're describing them as an exclusionary and homogenous group of people with same ideas about how games should work, how is that not being judgemental?

I'm not questioning WHY it is the way it is.

This speaks volumes. How can you possibly hope to "fix" something when you don't even fully understand what you've described as the "problem"? If you can't find the root cause of something, how can it be effectively addressed?

I'm not blaming anyone for why it is the way it is.

But you're going to point them out anyway, label them, criticize the culture you've pinned on them, and then reference how you have the stats to back it up. Not pointing any fingers, though.

I'm asking how it can be more inclusive to people who traditionally haven't been specifically included, or may have been actively excluded, from said culture. And if you seriously have a problem with that then I don't even know what to say to you.

It's funny, because if you'd worded that just a little bit better we could be on the same page and agree to mutually end the discussion. But you can't just say the industry has been actively excluding people like it's a fact and expect me not to protest. Discriminating against employees on matters of race or sex (and numerous other things, which can be read here: http://www.eeoc.gov/facts/qanda.html and here http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/) has been a federal offense in the United States since before videogames, the claim that they have done it anyway is nigh-slanderous and insulting.