Rocksteady Studios Accused Of Failing To Deal With Sexual Harassment

[Cicada 5]

Female staffmembers at Rocksteady Studios, best known for the Batman: Arkham series, sent a letter to management back in 2018 complaining about sexual harassment, according to a new report by the Guardian.

The letter, reportedly signed by 10 of the 16 women on staff at the time, cited a number of persistant issues including transphobic slurs, derogatory and sexually explicit remarks about women, and sexual harassment that included “unwanted advances, leering at parts of a woman’s body, and inappropriate comments in the office,” the Guardian reports. This misconduct reportedly also filtered into Rocksteady’s games, which include hypersexualized versions of Batman characters like Poison Ivy and Catworman.

According to one of the Guardian’s sources, to address the issues raised in the letter Rocksteady held a single company-wide, hour-long training seminar. Employees had to sign a statement confirming they had participated in the training, but according to the source nothing else appeared to be done to address the problems. “It felt that it was a just way for them to cover their arses,” said the source.

Report: Batman Developer Rocksteady Accused Of Failing To Address Sexual Harassment [Update]

Female staffmembers at Rocksteady Studios, best known for the Batman: Arkham series, sent a letter to management back in 2018 complaining about sexual harassment, according to a new report by the Guardian.

kotaku.com

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

Was reading this earlier, thinking it explains so much of how women characters are presented in Arkham Knight. Like, it's not even subtle, they're all male-gazed up to the eyeballs with various fetishist pandering, fridged, trapped solely for motivation of men's games or just freaking annoying hollow caricatures. The writing mayhaps was on the walls. But it is a larger problem throughout society with certain power structures the way they are within workplaces, so this won't and shouldn't be the last revelation to come from the industry, or any others.

 

[happyninja42]

Was reading this earlier, thinking it explains so much of how women characters are presented in Arkham Knight. Like, it's not even subtle, they're all male-gazed up to the eyeballs with various fetishist pandering, fridged, trapped solely for motivation of men's games or just freaking annoying hollow caricatures. The writing mayhaps was on the walls. But it is a larger problem throughout society with certain power structures the way they are within workplaces, so this won't and shouldn't be the last revelation to come from the industry, or any others.

Given the way the female comic characters have traditionally been portrayed, I wouldn't say this issue is due to Rocksteady themselves. I mean it's not like putting Catwoman in a skin tight catsuit, and having her vamp up her sexual allure to confuse and distract male heroes, hasn't always been her signature trait for...well forever. Or Poison Ivy being drawn as if she's naked, with just leaves covering her bits.

Yeah it's a bad stereotype, but I mean, it's canonically accurate.

 

[Casual Shinji]

While the hypersexualization of the female characters isn't unique to the games, you could certainly tell they tried to squeeze as much out of these characters being hot woman as they could. Like, Poison Ivy's little plant panties were pretty outrageous from day-one. And Catwoman having her dialogue laced with an overly sultry tone was way too on the nose on top of being really fucking annoying. And Talia just looked like the most typical sexy teen popstar.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

Given the way the female comic characters have traditionally been portrayed, I wouldn't say this issue is due to Rocksteady themselves. I mean it's not like putting Catwoman in a skin tight catsuit, and having her vamp up her sexual allure to confuse and distract male heroes, hasn't always been her signature trait for...well forever. Or Poison Ivy being drawn as if she's naked, with just leaves covering her bits.

Yeah it's a bad stereotype, but I mean, it's canonically accurate.

Well, I mean even taking comic cliché into account. Comics still have given agency to their male-gazed women characters at the very least, even if only afforded to them by males.

 

[Adam Jensen]

Given the way the female comic characters have traditionally been portrayed, I wouldn't say this issue is due to Rocksteady themselves. I mean it's not like putting Catwoman in a skin tight catsuit, and having her vamp up her sexual allure to confuse and distract male heroes, hasn't always been her signature trait for...well forever. Or Poison Ivy being drawn as if she's naked, with just leaves covering her bits.

Yeah it's a bad stereotype, but I mean, it's canonically accurate.

I agree on that part. And even if it weren't true, it's not exactly a problem unless you really want to make it into one. Hardly anyone is complaining about it, so who gives a fuck? But I also have to play the devil's advocate, even though I agree with the sentiment and I don't give two shits about how sexualized characters are or aren't.

Batman Arkham Origins managed to do just fine without sexualizing character models. As far as I remember, at least. Copperhead looked scary more than sexy, and Shiva was pretty OK. But it's been years since I played that game, so I could be remembering it wrong. I remember it being written a lot better than the main trilogy. And better writing is often followed by less sexualized characters. But that game is set in the middle of winter, so that might have to do something with it as well.

None of this excuses shitty behavior toward your female coworkers though. Or coworkers in general.

 

[happyninja42]

I agree on that part. And even if it weren't true, it's not exactly a problem unless you really want to make it into one. Hardly anyone is complaining about it, so who gives a fuck? But I also have to play the devil's advocate, even though I agree with the sentiment and I don't give two shits about how sexualized characters are or aren't.

Batman Arkham Origins managed to do just fine without sexualizing character models. As far as I remember, at least. Copperhead looked scary more than sexy, and Shiva was pretty OK. But it's been years since I played that game, so I could be remembering it wrong. I remember it being written a lot better than the main trilogy. And better writing is often followed by less sexualized characters. But that game is set in the middle of winter, so that might have to do something with it as well.

None of this excuses shitty behavior toward your female coworkers though. Or coworkers in general.

I'm fine with characters being sexualized, or not sexualized. I'm certainly going to enjoy any female eye candy tossed my way, but if they decided to put all of the female characters in reasonable outfits for what they do (like a Catwoman that looks like...I dunno...that dude from the Splinter Cell games maybe? or Poison Ivy in like, plant armor), I'm fine with that too. I do think that if the concept of the character is based around sex, or desire in some way, that it would make sense for them to dress in a way that accentuates that. Like, a seductress type character. But again, I'm also fine with them just making with the glowy eyes and bam, brainwashed minions.

I mean there are terrabytes of comic inspired porn out there for consumption, if you just REALLY need to spank your meat, or flick your bean to a bondaged up Wonder Woman (or her bonadaging up someone else), so I'm fine with them not doing it in the video games, and basically saying 'Yeah we don't have to do it here." I'm more bothered by boring characters really. And I've found, that if they spend all their time on vamping up the sexbait aspect of the character, they don't devote as much time to...you know, a CHARACTER.

Which all of that, is entirely separate from people acting like assholes and creeps in the workplace. If you're going to have kink, have it be on the page, not in the office.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

I'd say the depictions of Poison Ivy and Catwoman are fairly mild (Catowoman's design makes her highly unattractive if anything), but Harley was DEFINITELY hypersexualized. How many fetishes have been foisted on her already?

Anyway, that sucks to hear. I guess it really shouldn't be surprising anymore, but it always disappoints me. They'd better get their shit in gear, because if this blows up their litttle Suicide Squad reveal could become ironically literal.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

"including transphobic slurs, derogatory and sexually explicit remarks about women, and sexual harassment that included “unwanted advances, leering at parts of a woman’s body, and inappropriate comments in the office,” "

Do they have information on what their definition of these is?

 

[BrawlMan]

Not buying their next game. I also feel it boring, old, and cliche tofight another evil or renegade Superman again. That's been done too many times already.

 

[Kae]

Not buying their next game. I also feel it boring, old, and cliche tofight another evil or renegade Superman again. That's been done too many times already.

They're doing the evil Superman thing?!
I hate that, it's never been good, Superman wouldn't do that and also Superman>Batman, and it's always written by Batman fanbois that think Batman is the best and can't be beaten, ugh... I hate it already.

OT: But yeah that's pretty disappointing overall, it's good that this kind of stuff is getting exposed so that the problem can be dealt with, but it's also quite depressing seeing just how common this kind of behaviour is, anyway burn the establishment or something like that, whatever it's not even maddening enough for outrage, just depressing.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Not buying their next game. I also feel it boring, old, and cliche tofight another evil or renegade Superman again. That's been done too many times already.

Seems to be more than just Supes tho. I have to say, it would be incredibly boring if the heroes were evil yet again. It would be way more interesting for the Squad to be as they are: bad guys doing bad things but for the government.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Another day, another AAA studio gets accused of harassment.


Sometimes I can't help but wonder how much all of this is true, (as it seems to hit every single studio these days), and how much is manufactured outrage for headlines.

"including transphobic slurs, derogatory and sexually explicit remarks about women, and sexual harassment that included “unwanted advances, leering at parts of a woman’s body, and inappropriate comments in the office,” "

It is quotes like this that make be question. Because what's the context? You know if a group of character artists are designing catwoman or harley quinn or something and they are talking about making her tits right or fixing the shape of her ass, i wouldn't call that derogatory or even sexual remarks about women. It's artists trying to make a character look right. I assume the people making video games are adults and shouldn't be forced to use pre-school terms for body parts so that nobody can possibly get offended.

"unwanted advances" are absolutely a no go. But again....what's the context? If someone is asked out for drinks after work, it might be an unwanted advance but if the person takes a simple "no" for an answer and never bothers you again, then there is no harm there.

This seems like a story for the sake of it. Someone who's easily offended making acusations for the sake of making trouble.

Thankfully this doesn't seem like a Ubisoft level of scumbaggery. And from the looks of it, it's mostly verbal transgressions at worse. Which honestly.....meh.

Remember when "Sticks and stones could break your bones, but words would never hurt you". When did everyone's skin become so thin that the slightest thing could become a career ending offense? Do people just get off by getting other people fired for any little thing? (note if there are serious things that have occurred then I am very against that, I will never be against jokes though regardless of offensive content)

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Another day, another AAA studio gets accused of harassment.


Sometimes I can't help but wonder how much all of this is true, (as it seems to hit every single studio these days), and how much is manufactured outrage for headlines.



It is quotes like this that make be question. Because what's the context? You know if a group of character artists are designing catwoman or harley quinn or something and they are talking about making her tits right or fixing the shape of her ass, i wouldn't call that derogatory or even sexual remarks about women. It's artists trying to make a character look right. I assume the people making video games are adults and shouldn't be forced to use pre-school terms for body parts so that nobody can possibly get offended.

"unwanted advances" are absolutely a no go. But again....what's the context? If someone is asked out for drinks after work, it might be an unwanted advance but if the person takes a simple "no" for an answer and never bothers you again, then there is no harm there.

This seems like a story for the sake of it. Someone who's easily offended making acusations for the sake of making trouble.

Thankfully this doesn't seem like a Ubisoft level of scumbaggery. And from the looks of it, it's mostly verbal transgressions at worse. Which honestly.....meh.

Remember when "Sticks and stones could break your bones, but words would never hurt you". When did everyone's skin become so thin that the slightest thing could become a career ending offense? Do people just get off by getting other people fired for any little thing? (note if there are serious things that have occurred then I am very against that, I will never be against jokes though regardless of offensive content)

It's not that I'm dismissing these things outright, but I'm tired of seeing "news" stories where they give generalizations of what happened so that people can fill in the blanks with the worst outcome rather than giving actual context for what is going on. I want to be told what happened and make my own judgement, not be told how I should feel about something when I've been told so little about it.

 

[CriticalGaming]

It's not that I'm dismissing these things outright, but I'm tired of seeing "news" stories where they give generalizations of what happened so that people can fill in the blanks with the worst outcome rather than giving actual context for what is going on. I want to be told what happened and make my own judgement, not be told how I should feel about something when I've been told so little about it

I mean that's the point. By purposefully making a vague statement the public automatically makes the situation in their head far worse than it actually is in reality. Because outrage is the name of the game these days. Cancel culture and all of that shit.

I don't believe anything without proof these days, because anybody can literally say anything on the internet these days and cause an uproar.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I agree on that part. And even if it weren't true, it's not exactly a problem unless you really want to make it into one. Hardly anyone is complaining about it, so who gives a fuck? But I also have to play the devil's advocate, even though I agree with the sentiment and I don't give two shits about how sexualized characters are or aren't.

Batman Arkham Origins managed to do just fine without sexualizing character models. As far as I remember, at least. Copperhead looked scary more than sexy, and Shiva was pretty OK. But it's been years since I played that game, so I could be remembering it wrong. I remember it being written a lot better than the main trilogy. And better writing is often followed by less sexualized characters. But that game is set in the middle of winter, so that might have to do something with it as well.

None of this excuses shitty behavior toward your female coworkers though. Or coworkers in general.

Well Penguin was surrounded with stripperific molls in Origins but I'd argue that was more a reflection on the sleaziness of the character.

Either way I'm not gonna chalk on Rocksteady the sexualization of female characters. That's just comic books and their projected male teen audience.

 

[Houseman]

I want to be told what happened and make my own judgement, not be told how I should feel about something when I've been told so little about it.

I don't want to have to make any judgement at all. I'd rather there be a system of justice where privacy is respected and witnesses are called and testimony is given, where both sides have an opportunity to tell their side of the story in front of an impartial judge.

But that's too far-fetched. Still, it would be nice though...

 

[Casual Shinji]

It's not that I'm dismissing these things outright, but I'm tired of seeing "news" stories where they give generalizations of what happened so that people can fill in the blanks with the worst outcome rather than giving actual context for what is going on. I want to be told what happened and make my own judgement, not be told how I should feel about something when I've been told so little about it.

What else would you want to know though? Judging from the article there seemed to have been transphobic slurs, derogatory and sexually explicit remarks about women, and sexual harrassment that included unwanted advances, leering at parts of a woman's body, and inappropriate comments in the office. Seems rather discriptive. And it appeared to have been enough of a problem for 10 out of the 16 women on staff at the time. But those must've been the ones with "thin skin", I guess.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

I don't want to have to make any judgement at all. I'd rather there be a system of justice where privacy is respected and witnesses are called and testimony is given, where both sides have an opportunity to tell their side of the story in front of an impartial judge.

But that's too far-fetched. Still, it would be nice though...

My comment is directed towards news outlets and their behavior. I would of course prefer these matters be moved back to proper law procedure rather than being public show trials.

What else would you want to know though? Judging from the article there seemed to have been transphobic slurs, derogatory and sexually explicit remarks about women, and sexual harrassment that included unwanted advances, leering at parts of a woman's body, and inappropriate comments in the office. Seems rather discriptive. And it appeared to have been enough of a problem for 10 out the 16 women on staff at the time. But those must've been the ones with "thin skin", I guess.

It's not. What one considers inappropriate can vary wildly. As just one example, the thumbs up is a positive hand gesture in America but is considered offensive in some countries.

 

[Casual Shinji]

It's not. What one considers inappropriate can vary wildly. As just one example, the thumbs up is a positive hand gesture in America but is considered offensive in some countries.

It's not for us to judge whether or not it's inappropriate. The 10 women who worked there perceived it as inappropriate and offensive and sent a letter to the management (in 2018) stating as much.

Although judging from what's been going on in the gaming industry lately it wouldn't surprise me if it was inapproppriate.