A lot of people don’t know this about me, but my background is in journalism, specifically investigative journalism.
I have made the decision to mail the Universtiy of Mississippi and ask them if a graduation record for a woman named Brianna Wu exists
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I think if you look at who has the power in the industry, game journalists don’t have very much. [...] To me, the act of creating in much harder than commenting.
Not making a lot of friends with that one. once your abortion of a port is on Steam you might want to look back at this when you receive fuck all coverage.
I do spend a lot of time writing industry pieces on the way women and other marginalized groups are treated, because it’s something that simply as to change. I don’t think that makes me a journalist, though – I’m more of a industry figure commenting on our working conditions.
An actual industry figure would have something to show. All you have is an iOS "game" that didn't make its money back and a port that is so far behind schedule it's laughable.
I think it’s multifactorial. Over on the developer side, our industry attracts a lot of men with Peter Pan syndrome. I was over at the Twitch offices recently, and it’s a giant room filled with toys on every desk. Comic book figures, memes stapled to the wall. There’s not anything wrong with loving those things, but there are a lot of people working here that never moved past being a teenager emotionally.
It's called work environment. While a strict set of rules at ones work place is a good thing, an oppressive atmosphere does nothing to make people want to work for you. If you can't find joy in what you do then you might as well not do it.
An employer that encourages you to be yourself is waht you wnat, but I guess all your employees are gone and you don't know any better.
A really good example – recently, a scandal came out for the Game Awards where only 1 judge in 52 was a woman.
I remember when a woman that was supposed to be a judge on a panel had nothing better to do that tweet while she was supposed to pay attention. I have forgotten the name.
I won’t tell you which major game studio, but I had a thoroughly unpleasant conversation with a lead developer defending this. It’s a blatantly sexist situation, and the guy with a lot of influence felt very strongly about defending it.
I would bet you money that the reason the gu was annoyed at you was because you offered an unsolicited opinion while he was attending an event he probably wwanted to enjoy. Where the positions reversed you would have accused him of mansplaining.
That unhealthy culture has been filtering into the game industry for over 30 years. We’ve essentially been telling straight, white, cisgender men that this is their space. Women are represented as oversexualized damsels in distress, black people barely exist, and in the handful of cases with a transgender character in a game – it’s always portrayed as a joke.
I'm a white gay male. You know what I enjoy sometimes? The oversexualized dude's in games. That piss poor "white straight dudes" argument holds no water.
There's also more than enough black people in video games. I know you only play 10 minutes of each new game you buy (as evidenced by your online profiles), so you might not see them.
Also:, and this is speculation on my end, some games try to at least emulate real life. Transsexual people are rare, even rarer than gay people, and that reflects in video games.
The toxic players are simply responding to the environment the men in our field have created for them. It’s a great system for white, cisgender men, and a terrible system for the rest of us.
Shut the fuck up.
It’s not exactly a mystery. It’s rampant transphobia.
Everybody is afraid of the big bad transsexuals. Woe is you.
I would really love to see some evidence for this absurd claim, because I've not seen anything that isn't just conjecture.
The portrayal of transgender women in GTA is deplorable. I have exactly one professional run in with Rockstar. As I was crossing the street at GDC, our industry’s most important professional conference, a woman in a bikini was standing in the street, freezing, handing out flyers to a recruitment party for the GTA team. That’s what their team sees as a good way to recruit professionals to their team.
Is it any wonder that transgender people are seen as a punchline with a team like that?
What is it now, the portrayal of transgender people or woman? Was the woman handing out fliers supposed to be a transsexual? How do you know?
You see characters like Bridget,
Psychologically, a lot of transgender people don’t feel comfortable with themselves starting at puberty especially, so they spend time in a virtual world instead. I have never met a transgender person under 40 that isn’t extremely into video games. It’s a substantial population of gamers, which is why it’s so important to treat them better.
You would know best wouldn't you John Walker Flynt?
I also think a lot of cisgender people simply don’t understand just how many transgender people are in software development.
Most people do not give a crap about the personal lives of the people behind a hard-/software product because they will never see them. It does not affect a thing wether or not they shout it from the rooftops. All that matters is that they are doing a good job and I'm sure most of them are.
There are, of course, some exceptions, right Brianna?
Unfortunately, I can’t think of a way forward that doesn’t involve getting most of the white, straight, cisgender men here to think about their privilege and grow up a bit.
I thought there's a lot of transgender people in tech? You can't have it both ways. Either trans people are underrepresented or there's a lot of them and people just don't know it. Make up your damn mind.
As far as the actual consumers? I don’t know how you even begin to change gaming culture. You’re dealing with a large population of Peter Pans that genuinely think the biggest problem in the world is someone might laugh at them for being a gamer.
For the longest time being a gamer meant you were a bit of a social outcast. I don't think you know how gaming culture and the perception of it has evolved in the last ~10 years.
For 30 years, the game industry has told them this is their space and catered to their every adolescent whim – and the rest of us are paying that price. With every female protagonist, with every small effort at inclusion – they feel their culture is being taken away.
OF course the gaming Industry wants to make it's target audience happy. That's just logical you dumb fuck.
I have never seen anyone get so mad about a playable woman in a game that they were frothing at the mouth though. Show some examples or stuff it.
I don’t know what else you can do but stand up for what you believe. It’s got to change. I often am contacted by teenage girls, some of them transgender – and they tell me about their dreams of working in this industry. I just can’t accept that they’ll have the same shitshow we deal with now. We’ve got to make it better for them by making it better for us.
Hire them yourself? If you're such an advocate for woman in tech your company should be full to the brim with woman and trans woman that want to break into the industry. You are, after all, an important figure in said industry are you not?
It’s certainly part of it. Gamergate is just the fringe extreme of gamer culture. The truth is, I’m a pretty visible woman in a very small field. I think they see the changes I’m advocating, and it scares them. They see the industry changing and they know they will lose, though they can’t admit it to themselves.quote]
What small field? The multi-billion dollar industry that is the video game market? I'm sure you stand out like a sore thumb. It couldn't be that you are an obnoxious idiot that has no idea what they are talking about 99% of the time which makes people interested in you.
And stop talking about Gamergate, it makes you look daft
It’s absolutely unconscionable. There are so many reasons Gamergate is a hate group, but they’re also one of the most transphobic movements operating today. They maliciously slander and out transgender people, an act that could literally lead to someone getting murdered.
I haven't seen any of that happening that was directly linked to gamergate in ANAY way whatsoever. Methinks the lady doth protest too much.
I also distinctly remember you outing a trans person on your podcast because they did... something... you didn't like.
If there’s any good that’s come out of this, it’s that Gamergate’s behavior has been so terrible I’ve been able to talk to most of the major tech companies about their policies on people outing transgender people against their will. In fact, there’s probably nothing I’m prouder of in the last year than getting these user policies updated. Expect to see more announcements in 2016 that specifically do not allow transgender people to be targeted on major tech platforms.
Oh :jaysus: you PERSONALLY made all that happen. That is truly amazing. And you know what they say, amazing claims require amazing evidence to back them up. I will be over there, waiting.
Cisgender people desperately need to educate themselves. There needs to be a real understand that willful ignorance is getting transgender people killed. Your transgender friend is not your teachable moment – and transgender rights are not a fun debate like the ending of lost.
I actually agree, people need to understand what being transgender means because it's a very foreign concept to the vast majority of the population. But what do you suggest doing other than "using" your transgender friend as a "teachable moment" Does that mean you're not supposed to ask about what their life is like and about the reasons behind the decision? That would mean you have to rely on information provided by non-trans people. And that would be very transphobic.
One of the most painful events of my life was the death of my friend Evelyn. She was transgender, and the last thing she ever said to me what she couldn’t accept a life with no dignity. That’s something I think of every day I see a transphobic joke.
Dont turn her death into a teachable moment for cis people.
I realize she’s discovering who she is on a very public stage, but her views on the transgender experience and womanhood are extremely privileged and shallow. I hope she’ll be a more positive public figure in a decade than she is today.
Whoa re you to critique the exeriences and opinions of a transgender person you horrible shitlord?
Literally Wu maybe?
My friend Katherine Cross is one of the people I most respect in the entire world. I think Laura Kate Dale is doing excellent work for Destructoid. My friend Crystal Frasier is one of the smartest, gutsiest women I know. Any of these women has 1000 times the depth and perspective of Jenner. We need more positive stories like theirs in the media.
Good to know that Jenner's story isn't a positive one. Are you a trans person Brianna Wu? How can you even begin to judge her?[/quote]
