LucasArts Creative Director Slams "Viking" Dev Culture

[Booze Zombie]

Detailed post

Oh, I am aware of the purile games or the sex appeal elements in otherwise "normal" games, but I would hardly call that a systemic problem based on gender, solely rotting the entire industry from the centre until it's a withered husk of dick jokes, fart noises and naked women shooting generic men with glowing red eyes in the face with rocket launchers before turning away and walking slowly from explosions.

Whew. Anyway, I blame it on human nature. We all form social groups, do stupid things to "impress" each other and well, the various stupid stories of workplace misbehaviour emerge.

 

[Jumplion]

Forgive me for being cynical, but just watch as his next game shall include fart jokes and big, burly, viking men.

But, more on to his point, he is absolutely correct. We do need more females in the gaming industry, and not because we can use them to tap the huge female portion of gamers. It brings about more ideas, more innovation, and generally it's just good to diversify the workforce.

 

[Jumplion]

There have been many posts and articles about the problems of the game industry. However, they all seem to sum up to "grow the f--k up, for crying out loud!". Basically, the game industry has a lot of things wrong with it, things that were wrong in other industries more than 50 years ago. However, the game industry seems recalcitrant to learn from history and does not seem to want to push past its Peter-Pan existence in terms of the nature of games. Sure the graphics have gotten better, but that seems to be the bulk of advancement. The industry, as a whole, just doesn't seem to want to actually evolve, not only in terms of the nature and quality of the games produced but also in terms of how games are produced, marketed, sold, and how talent is cultivated and retained within the industry. There are just so many issues, it seems, that just should not be issues anymore.

It is no longer excusable to claim this is a young industry and it needs time to develop. It has had 30-40 years, at present(yes, the video game industry is really that old) to make these advances and adjustments. There are numerous examples in the development of other past industries and practices from which to learn and accelerate the growth and development of the games industry. There is a large body of documented knowledge of best practices and additional ideas of new experimental directions to improve the industry that can be used to advance the industry forward. This wealth of history and knowledge mean the "young industry" excuse is just no longer applicable nor acceptable for the game industry. The continued refusal of the industry to evolve in other aspects besides better graphics is just plain stubbornness and an unhealthy clinging to the past.

Maybe what the industry needs is to take time away from crunch-time/death-march grinding out another mediocre, me-too AAA title and switch to some lighter fair so it has the resources to devote to making some internal progress, other than better graphics engines. I know that sounds like a total slap in the face to all the game developers out there who work their asses off, but that's just it. Sometimes you can be working too hard, and you just grind yourself into a rut. It's well documented how over-work can destroy creativity and stunt the evolution of a business.

There was also a psychologist who published the idea that sometimes shooting for the big pay-offs is more likely to lead to high stress and failed effort, and AAA titles certainly present the prospect of a big pay-off. Yet, they are also very hit-or-miss in their chances for success compared to the cost. However, the entire industry(as well as the community) is singularly focus on exactly that, creating the next big blockbuster AAA title. This singular focus creates a lot of stress and unnecessary hardship in the game production process, which leads to a reduction of talent and a breakdown of the work-force. Maybe, this is just the wrong approach.

Okay, I'm rambling. I'll stop now.

How can it be rambling when it is the absolute truth?!

 

[KirbyKrackle]

I believe this Gutters Comic describes the situation in the entertainment industry best:

Yes, this comic does a good job of illustrating the vicious cycle that can occur in these industries:

Industry only produces products aimed at men -> only men interested in the product -> only men become interested in producing the product -> only men join the industry for producing the products -> industry only produces products aimed at men, and so on.

The comic industry is a particularly illustrative worst-case scenario in that the cycle has led to change and diversity becoming anathema to the industry to the point where it can't change and diversify even when it wants to and it's forced to a appeal to an ever shrinking market.

Hopefully, video games will not follow the same slow death of the comics industry, and I believe that, as Hocking points out, one of the ways to avoid this fate is to take steps to diversify the industry's producers and to attempt to appeal to a larger and more diverse market.

EDIT: I should also add that the cycle comes with a distinctly nasty corollary of then blaming women for not feeling welcome in (and therefore not feeling particularly interested in taking part in) an industry that wears its sexism on its sleeve, go figure.

 

[BlindChance]

This sounds like an excellent topic for the Extra Credits folks. How do you increase the overall levels of female employment in the videogame industry?

My thought is: How do you increase enrollment at, say, Digipen with women? This has to be one of the key areas for improvement. I'm hopeful enough to believe that, as with the comic posted above, one of the key problems is simply the number of available candidates. It's a problem that needs to be attacked in multiple ways, not simply by quotas.

 

[Baresark]

There are two things:

1.) The industry caters to the people who buy games. So if you demand more games without these so called "fart jokes", then you shall receive, but that also doesn't mean only women can provide this content. Video games are not a case of, new curtains and everyone lives happily ever after, but this article very much treats it as such.

2.) Just because there are more women in the workforce, it does not mean there will be no more Duke Nukem Forever's. You can have an even 1:1 ratio of women to men and there will be Lara's breasts, objectification of both sexes, etc. These things mimic life beautifully really. No matter how much you don't depict rape, rape still happens everyday. Just because you don't see it, doesn't make it not there, it makes you blind.

Those things being said, there is a place for all tastes. There will always be dick and fart humor in videogames, but I would love to see other content, and I don't really cares who provides it. If it happens to be women, good, if not, good.

Edit: Also, rules arbitrarily asking for a more equalized workforce actually hurts everyone, so we should want to avoid that at all costs. It should always be the best person for the job, and race, sex, religious denomination, etc., should be left out of the equation.

 

[JMeganSnow]

The particular cultural values of our GENDER?!

Could he BE any more sexist? Women don't value anything BECAUSE of our GENDER. Not to mention I know plenty of women with all kinds of pent-up aggression.

You want more women in the games industry? Here's how you do it.

Eliminate crunch schedules. Women with kids can't work 90 hour weeks. Learn how to spread the work out in a rational fashion so you aren't trying to cram 90% of the work into 15% of the scheduled time.

Paid Child Care.

Paid Maternity Leave.

All kinds of good health insurance.

Are these things that most devs are willing to pay through the nose for? Nah. It's just like any other extremely high-risk industry, it's dominated by men, because among other reasons men often tolerate the insane working conditions better.

 

[NickCaligo42]

UGH. Clint Hocking is getting features on the Escapist now!? Crimony. >_< I have a bad feeling about this.

This guy is one of the dumbest jerkwads I've ever seen in my life. I've met him a few times, and every word out of his mouth is meaningless, condescending pseudo-philosophical drivel. He's one of those guys that accidentally had his station in the industry fall into his lap at a time when it was less stable and didn't discern who it put in power from regular employees. He's a total clown with no real merits or creativity of his own, posturing as an intellectual, who inexplicably inherits the properties of other, better designers instead of formulating his own ideas. And here he is with all this high-minded talk about how the culture of a studio should be conducted. Cripes. I'm a stuck-up prick, myself, and I think this is too far. They're nerds! Deal with it! Let them have fun and be themselves in the workplace!

 

[Thaluikhain]

So, you take something that everyone knows, and write it in a more pretentious way, and suddenly its new and insightful again?

Yes, having variety in development staff would lead to a greater variety of experiences and outlooks that would...we know all this already.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Lucasarts? Who fired their clever department to go on milking Star Wars until it bled?

Padwan, heal thyself.

 

[KarlMonster]

I'm still working on WTF Hocking thinks the Viking Expansion was. I don't quite remember vikings being at Hastings in 1066, but maybe I've missed something.

There were some lads that visited Ireland, and showed a few friendly locals how to properly sharpen their axes. Then they discovered that some careless person(s) had left a lot of golden things lying around in churches, and went off in search of the rightful owners - by the long, long, scenic route.

Their Viking friends heard the sagas and said to themselves "hey, I want some of that", but they tended to discover that by now the locals had gone all snooty (in a violent sort of way), and the church powerups weren't respawning when they should. So mostly the Skandinavian boat tours of Europe ended, leaving only a few red-headed step-children as evidence.

Now, St Olaf did pull down London Bridge at 10:14am (give or take a few years), but he was helping the locals fight off Danish invaders. (That particular bridge tended to fall down a lot, so this was not counted in his favor for sainthood.)

On the other hand, Hocking's sense of history does remind me of one particular woman....

 

[BanicRhys]

Please, for the love of God, can we not try to get more females in the industry?

I've got nothing against more female game developers, but rather than hiring women because they're women, hire women because they are the best for the job. Otherwise you are just creating an unfair field for men and possibly hurting the games you make by hiring inferior devs just because they are women.

I hate affirmative action.

 

[Low Key]

All the guys I know like video games, while all the girls I know hate video games outside of Nintendo or cell phone puzzle games. And even though Nintendo and others do well with their offerings, games like Call of Duty will always sell more because it's just a much bigger, more dedicated market. It would be moronic to change that. There are different games for different people.

Expecting it to change is like an auto body shop painting their walls pink and putting flowers everywhere to attract more females to become body techs. Sorry people, that just doesn't work like that. There are plenty of good female body techs, but most regardless of concessions, simply don't want to be body techs.

If every studio were to change what is being proposed, they all might as well merge together and release one single game per console.

 

[Equiliari]

I am currently in a small newly started game company, and we have a female boss.
And the current team leader of our most successful game so far is also female. Works out pretty well, and it gets us lots of attention when we go around at conferences presenting our games .

 

[Asti]

So... where do I apply?

Is it really that bad in the industry? I'm currently applying for internships and I've seen quite a few women.
Maybe it's because I get the contacts through a professor whose main interest is Gender Studies...

 

[capt.fodder]

Why on Earth do people think this only happens with game development? Our QA department is almost a 50/50 split male to female, yet our development departments are 99/1 (and that is a literal split actually; one female developer).

You can't hire people that don't exist, no matter how much you'd like to. You want to fix this? Make it happen in middle school where people are more likely to show an interest regardless of gender.

As for game development specifically, well, when you hire a 28 year old as a "Senior Development Manager" you are getting what you pay for pal - in the software industry this is the equivalent of hiring someone in diapers to manage a bunch of others in diapers. These people know about as much about management as I do about building a Space Shuttle (likely less, actually). Oh, they THINK they know everything, but trust me these people couldn't manage a two-person parade down a narrow hallway.

So you end up with a giant buddy-buddy peer management scenario where jack-shit gets done, let alone properly. The games development industry is near-hopelessly broken and I'm not sure if there is a fix for it (other than total collapse).

As for women developers working on games, well, here comes some controversy but I'll say it anyways. Game developers are almost all in their 20s and early 30s, which in our society are the primary child-bearing years. How can you schedule out a two year (pretty much throw-away) product/project and have half of your workforce leave for a year in the middle? Development just doesn't work that way. If it were a long-term product with a proper design, lifecycle and maintenance cycle (e.g. Microsoft Word, network security products, hardware/firmware - you know, "real" software) it isn't a problem because a person can pick up where they left off, you can train and hire temporary people in the interim to fill in for a while and so on. You can *plan* for all of that. But with game development you'd have a very, very difficult time completing that project, because due to he nature of the beast, your best chance to succeed is to maintain the exact same people throughout the development of the product. You can't just train someone new in the middle - there is no time.

I think that the industry has pretty much settled at an equilibrium position, it just makes some people uncomfortable because it looks like an inequality where (in my opinion) it is completely natural. I also don't know why women would want to go work with a big bunch of men that refuse to grow up either, but to each their own I suppose. I'd like to develop games for a living, but I refuse to enter that industry as it is now (and I'm a 40-year-old male). Like I said: BROKEN.

 

[SoopaSte123]

I don't remember the last time I experienced a fart joke in a video game... maybe never. Could be my game choices though. The industry could use some more women developers, I'll agree with that. Step up, ladies!