Why is casual racism/sexism more accepted in video games than other forms of media (these days)?

http://i.imgur.com/kZ1UwZL.jpg/

huh i stay meticulously up-to-date on both GG and orphan black, and i didn't think of GG at all when i saw that ad campaign. i also stay meticulously up-to-date on Outrage Tumblr and they haven't been yelling about it, so.

btw everyone should watch orphan black

http://www.camposanto.com/quarterlyreview/volume-2/issue-1/lost-boys/

A good read, though it's striking that

That may be the case in practise, but legislation regarding social media is underdeveloped. “It’s a grey area,” she says. "You wouldn’t say [to an applicant], ‘I’m not hiring you based on what you said on social media,’ you would find other reasons, like, ‘we found someone more qualified,’ or, ‘we don’t have the budget to fill this position right now.’ You can always come up with a (valid) reason not to hire someone.”

is being presented in the context of "Hooray we don't have to hire GG" when the same situation is far more commonly used for "Hooray we don't have to hire anyone other than white/asian straight boys".

i don't actually believe that there's a lot of that going on -- purposefully not hiring people because they aren't white males. there's unintential bias, the old boys club (people tend to hire people they know, which tend to be white males who tend to hire white males, repeat repeat), the historical imbalance in comp-sci/programming....i really do not believe that any company ESPECIALLY any of the major companies would want to or engage in any soft or active discrimination

also i mean this happens all the time, you bring in someone, they have a good resume, cover letter, experience, and then the vibe at the interview isn't good, they seem kind assholish or pushy or whatever, that's basically why you have interviews in the first place.

there's no litmus test where you dip someone into a test tube and it says "oh turned blue this is the best candidate", there's a whole spectrum of things you evaluate, exp, talent, personality, etc etc, this whole idea of "objectivity" and that complex social interactions and paradigms should be "scientific" and shit is one of the most frustrating aspects of GG

xpost

er.... maybe not, but there are so many ineffables and unspokens in any hiring process. i mean i don't think i need to invent the wheel of gender discrimination here, but for one thing: people doing interviews think things like "will they mesh with the team?" or "do they seem like they have the right attitude?" and it turns out the same exact behaviors and signifiers that convey "chill" to a white male interviewer, when attached to a white male, instead convey "cold" and/or "not serious" when attached to someone else. combine that with tech/gamer stereotypes that particularly up the stakes of proving that they're not "fake gamers" or whatever - - - none of this would have to be conscious for it to matter. i do think the point about people's work networks and so on totally matters too, but i'm not ready to just optimistically assume that surely none of these male-dominated companies would have some kinds of unconscious biases.

to be fair, i have been thinking about these things lately in reference to academia, just listening to recent phds talk about the job market, etc. i was sitting in on a friend's mock job talk and the first point of feedback she got from a (female) tenured faculty member of some seniority was "don't put your hand on your hip during your talk," and be sure they see you smile more. my understanding is that in the real interview she (a) did end up putting her hand on her hip a couple of times and (b) got the job. so maybe things are changing...!

IOW "the vibe at the interview isn't good, they seem kind of assholish or pushy or whatever" isn't a neutral response either, vis-a-vis gender. not trying to put you on the spot here UMS, just trying to imagine the kinds of dudes that work at some of these companies, and what would look like "pushy" to them from a male vs. female candidate. based on things like the 'foaming jugs' they desperately need more "pushy" women working there to say "um, fuck no," not that that would always help.

Doctor Casino otm, but UMS also otm about how one of the most "want to pick them up and shake them" aspects of GG is the idea of objectivity, and in particular that they are the lightbringers of objectivity, that they are certainly not viewing this through an emotional lens, or with an inherent bias.

And also UMS otm about the question regarding hiring quotas is always "But it would be wrong that someone gets a job based on their race / gender", without ANY CLUE that this is actually what's already happening - "Why would someone not pick the best employee?"

it turns out that people are really bad at picking the best employee

for some reason I just had a flashback to the Invader Zim cartoon episode where the title character decides he needs a "best friend" to blend in as human and tests possible friends for absorbency and electro-conductivity

i'm not disputing that there can be unconscious biases at work, or that how ppl perceived is def colored by perception as dr casino says

i was just referring to the article forks posted in specific, where GGers are saying "well they said that they aren't going to hire someone because they are GG, that's against the law" and i'm just saying well there are any number of ways in which you can come off in a negative light to perspective employee and that this idea that personality or fit on a team or ways of dealing with people isn't a part of the selection process (which obv could be for ill sometimes too) for a job.

which again is not to discount anythig dr casino said at all, that stuff is real and exists too. it's just this maddening GG emphasis on "objectivity" is, well, maddening to me

like on a base level "hey i've been engaged with an online movement that's actively harassing a woman at this company now she doesn't want to hire me! unfair!" is like well jesus christ do you guys understand how being a human being works?

overall, i think in some ways -- within the ACTUAL industry of professionals -- GG is probably having a positive effect in that it's putting a lot of the industry's bad aspects in a bigger lights...like for instance the the "foaming jugs" thing was terrible and studid, but hell they actually came to their sense and apoligized for it, 10 years ago or even 5 years ago that would have gone right by and nothing would have happened.

Aye, but isn't that due to one of the causes (or the causes of the causes) of GamerGate, that there is a larger and louder non-stereotypical gaming audience (and that said audience is more aware of this)?

yes?

The problem is that the stereotypical douchenozzles are fairly entrenched in actual game companies, due to the culture

To an extent, companies have encouraged that by pushing long work hours, ridiculous deadlines, and relatively low pay with the promise that working as a wage slave will lead to you being a game designer someday.

Industries like that end up trending young, male, and single. Because "traditional" gender roles end up with women being primary caregivers for children, forcing them out of workplaces that require ridiculous amounts of time in the office. Eventually you end up with a monoculture churning out variations of the same thing.

good pt

^ yep - and that's (probably) another unconscious bias in hiring

in addition to people who are not white 20-something dudes setting off "possibly not 'good cultural fit' with our existing team of white 20-something dudes <handwave about 'being on same wavelength'>" alarms, also the suspicion/realisation that no matter how into it they sound in the interview someone older/a woman might be less willing work long hours because they might have other things they'd rather do in the evening other than being all bros together bro-ing down on some hard code problems and caffeine until 10pm even though their contract and pay packet says 9-5

and even if the woman says "sure I love to code into the small hours because I love video games and it's what I do at home anyway" a little subconscious voice might be going "oh, you like it now, but what if you suddenly, inconveniently decide to have kids?"

(disclaimer: I have not worked in these jobs myself but friends have - although the worst offender I've heard of was at one of those "writing elite network code to shave microseconds off your trading lag" companies rather than game development)

i was just referring to the article forks posted in specific, where GGers are saying "well they said that they aren't going to hire someone because they are GG, that's against the law" and i'm just saying well there are any number of ways in which you can come off in a negative light to perspective employee and that this idea that personality or fit on a team or ways of dealing with people isn't a part of the selection process (which obv could be for ill sometimes too) for a job.

which again is not to discount anythig dr casino said at all, that stuff is real and exists too. it's just this maddening GG emphasis on "objectivity" is, well, maddening to me

oh yeah, 100% on board with you here! mea culpa, i reopened the thread this morning and kinda forgot the immediate context/news informing your comments.

mh right on about industry conditions. also may be that gamer values themselves dovetail alarmingly with a willingness to accept terrible conditions: tough-it-outness and a serious individualistic ethic that does not really translate well to, say, thinking of yourself as part of an oppressed class and deciding to join a union.

(as always, i view these things partly with some overlap from my experience of the world of architecture, and my student friends who are at the point in their careers of taking terrible, underpaid, overworked internships which are just accepted as The Way It Goes, partly because that's exactly how school is and they have no models, and so on...)

Just getting through science classes in college is tough for a female. A friend of mine recently graduated and she had to deal w sexist bs. Took it to authorities and they didn't do anything and even tried covering things up. And this was experimental electronics, dealing in a lab, not videogames. I can imagine just going through gaming school is hell on earth.

There isn't really "gaming school" per se, although some schools have programs with specialties. Mostly you'll find people in graphic design or computer science.

Well yeah i meant sort of like programs. Like I went to the art school in a public college but I didn't go to Art School.

http://i.imgur.com/2kh7f75.png

!!

omg

kinda sad that is not a real site

the man quoted here

https://twitter.com/srhbutts/status/583698049387503617

is david draiman, singer of disturbed

which will always be funny to me

oooo ah ah ah ah

Was he pro GG then got a dose of their anti semitism?

Apparently

from what I've seen recently, apparently a bunch of male tweens stalk the twitter hashtag and harass and threaten any woman who dares to use it

that's the movement i thought

I think they did have more people, but that's the core, for sure

they're winning!

http://imgur.com/CghI1Ur

how long until that dude figures out he installed adblock in the last few months

I could be wrong but in my experience game developers are predominantly male, but not predominantly white. at least not like 90% white or something so stark.

well i mean for one there's the entire japanese & korean & chinese industries

anybody want to factcheck anything on that imgur clip?

maybe after I exhaust all the worthwhile things I could do with my life

cool, will check back

i guess that gg is losing and the sjws are censoring vital free speech successfully after all?

https://twitter.com/ExcaliburLost/status/584074243048112128

cf their statement on "backer content" here i guess http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/75269-update-93-patch-103-important-community-fixes/

the amount of outrage over this is hilarious

Punished Logic ‏@KKMM612 4h4 hours ago
@ExcaliburLost @_WCS_ Sad to say, but I'll be boycotting all @Obsidian games from now on.They were my favorite dev before they became cucks.

I could be wrong but in my experience game developers are predominantly male, but not predominantly white. at least not like 90% white or something so stark.

― panettone for the painfully alone (mayor jingleberries), Friday, April 3, 2015 1:15 PM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well i mean for one there's the entire japanese & korean & chinese industries

― kurt kobaïan (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, April 3, 2015 1:54 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I got big time into Castlevania last year and was searching the music for the original NES game, which was done by a Japanese woman named Kinuyo Yamashita. The game has joke credits ("Screenplay by Vram Stoker") and she was credited as "James Banana". The composer for every 2d Castlevania from "Symphony of the Night" was another Japanese woman, Michiru Yamane. Konami had lots of female composers, and a composer was not simply someone who wrote music that ended up being imported into the game. They had to know how to code, how to create sound effects and music using the same base-level data manipulation that was used to make the rest of the games.

http://gamikia.com/interview-with-game-composer-kinuyo-yamashita/
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/207767/A_classic_interview_with_Castlevania_composer_Michiru_Yamane.php

Oh my god, the commenter who says he lived through Communist Poland is incredible

xp also notable @ Capcom:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoko_Shimomura
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manami_Matsumae

Ayako Mori original composer for Ghosts N Golbins arcade and NES versions.
http://capcom.wikia.com/wiki/Ayako_Mori

Satoe Terashima composer on Castlevania and Castlevania II: Simon's Quest
http://castlevania.wikia.com/wiki/Satoe_Terashima

Junko Tamiya composer on Commando, Bionic Commando, and Strider
http://www.vgmpf.com/Wiki/index.php?title=Junko_Tamiya

Miki Higashino composer on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles the arcade version, Gradius series, Suikoden series, and Contra III: The Alien Wars

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miki_Higashino

i am curious how so many women composers ended up in the Japanese video games industry at the time, they all started in the mid-late 80s. or maybe it was just Capcom and Konami putting out a call

And then she took her helmet off, and it was a woman!

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CBwVNPdUsAAhIrn.jpg