Getting More Women to Work in Games Is Easy

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

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.

You've now taken exception - hell, taken OFFENCE even - to my using "white", "male", "geek", and "culture" to describe the majority of people working in the games industry. If I say they're all human, are you going to point out how I'm discriminating against martians?

EDIT: I honestly thought you weren't a troll, just somebody who'd got the wrong end of the stick. Am I giving you way too much credit here?

 

[Dragonbums]

EDIT: I honestly thought you weren't a troll, just somebody who'd got the wrong end of the stick. Am I giving you way too much credit here?

For your own sake I would re omit the troll part of your edit. Referring to anyone as a troll is a surefire way of getting a warning.

 

[UberPubert]

You've now taken exception - hell, taken OFFENCE even - to my using "white", "male", "geek", and "culture" to describe the majority of people working in the games industry. If I say they're all human, are you going to point out how I'm discriminating against martians?

Well I'm not even sure how one takes offense unless they declare it, but I do find your generalizing statements about people to be insulting, and that's no way to prove a point. If you want to say the majority of the people working in industry are white males I don't care, I even believe you - though I haven't seen a statistic for it. But making broad statements about what kind of people they are or what ideas they have based on those traits is wrong. There's so many people working in the industry that you're doomed to fail just trying to describe them as a homogenous group.

EDIT: I honestly thought you weren't a troll, just somebody who'd got the wrong end of the stick. Am I giving you way too much credit here?

Oh dear, I've been found out. It was the tusks, wasn't it? I'll have to return to the mountains from whence I came to gnaw on bones until winter rolls around again...