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The gaming industry is particularly conducive to a culture of misogyny and sexual harassment, Ms. Gordon said, because straight white men have “created the identity of the gamer as this exclusive property.” When women, people of color or L.G.B.T.Q. people try to break into the industry, she said, the “toxic geek masculinity” pushes back in ways that often lead to sexual abuse and bullying.

Gaming studios are often reluctant to defy those fans, Ms. Gordon said, but recently it has become clear that there is a demand for a variety of video games that appeal to all types of people, which requires more diversity among game designers and could necessitate changes in the industry.

So all the people who are not cis white males should band together to write games for all the people who want games written by non-cis-non-white-non-males.

After all, there’s a market for it, it’ll fly off the shelves, right?

Capital won’t be a problem either as all investors will see the market to be addressed as well.

83 thoughts on “Cool”

  1. Marxian scum try to take over gaming industry and fail.

    Still keep trying tho.

    Which is why socialism must be pro-actively smashed. You cannot win a defensive fight. We must attack and keep attacking. Which is one of the many reasons Johnson stands daily revealed as useless BlueLabour shite.

    Always thought he was but never dreamed evil could paint so large a canvas to show BlueLabour’s failings.

  2. Sorry but this a utter nonsense .

    The #Gamergate controversy was a reaction to excessive SJW/feminist control of the gaming industry, its associated press and industry awards.

    A classic case of projection as usual.

  3. “Capital won’t be a problem either as all investors will see the market to be addressed as well.”

    In principle this ought to be one of the stronger facets of capitalism – if there’s a profit to be seen in something, funders should be queuing up regardless of your creed, colour, class etc. Whereas in a country with more state-controlled investment then other more political criteria may need to be hit too.

    Having said that I’m not sure how well it works in practice, perhaps especially in tech where the investors, especially at start-up level, usually made their money in the industry and are drawn from a very particular geek subculture (though likely not the gamer subculture criticised in the article). So there may be issues around “cultural fit” and expectations.

    Now I know one difference between the success of men and women in tech has been the willingness of more men to come forward seeking capital for their idea whether women have, generally, tended to focus on following more defined career paths. But the experiences of some of those women who did go on to seek capital, perhaps the experience of some black founders too, does suggest investors were not as neutral, calculating and profit-focused as Timmy’s description suggests. And yes capitalism may punish them for it – means someone else can in principle get a bargain and a better return, since it weakens the founders’ position when they do manage to find a willing investor. But it’s perhaps understandable remembering that start-up investors are not as passive as your typical blue-chip investor, are more likely to be going to have a sustained relationship with the founders, and therefore may prioritise those they feel they’ll be a good cultural fit with. But in techworld, that requires fitting in to a somewhat weird subculture and it wouldn’t surprise me if this discriminates even inadvertently, against those who don’t meet traditional geek stereotypes.

  4. “whereas* women have, generally, tended to focus on following more defined career paths”

    Don’t type on a phone.

  5. Just look at the fuss over the recently released game ‘The Last of Us 2’, in which the male hero of the original game is killed off early on and the new protagonist is a butch lesbian. To say it has divided the gaming world is an understatement.

  6. Don’t women play those soppy games with fruit on the phone? Don’t lgbt stick to grindr?

  7. Mr Womby–Don’t play comp games but I’ve seen the stupid TV advert. Where the female appears to be battling a bunch who have either flowers where they should have heads (shades of the “Young Man from Leeds” I think) or have heads made up of an assortment of dishwashing sponges.

    Either way they can shove it.

  8. ” So all the people who are not cis white males should band together to write games for all the people who want games written by non-cis-non-white-non-males.”

    They’ll never do that though will they? They’re largely incapable of creating anything themselves.

    These people are like vampires: they see white, heterosexual men making something successful and want to attach themselves to it and suck the lifeblood out of it, for their own benefit of course, then discard the drained corpse and move on to the next victim.

  9. The last time I came across a Video Games company its CEO was a woman. So I thought that Tim must be quoting the Grauniad, but no it’s Bigmouth – even more predictable at departing from facts in order to rant.

  10. Mr Ecks – Are we talking about the same game or have you been eating the wild mushrooms again?!

  11. As of course with absolutely everything that comes from the left. Companies should be run like this, properties should be rented out like that, employees should be treated like the other.

    So fucking set up your own business and run it the way you think will work. Twats.

  12. if Carrie has the skills, I suggest he/she/it codes a shoot-em-up between ugly TERFs in dungarees and Doc Martens and even uglier bewigged blokes in lipstick and dresses using handbags and stilettoed shoes as the weapons. I’m not sure which side would qualify as the goodies though

  13. Jon – These people are like vampires: they see white, heterosexual men making something successful and want to attach themselves to it and suck the lifeblood out of it, for their own benefit of course

    Carrie is a white, heterosexual man (he is a father). Many (most?) trannies are middle aged hetero white men who’ve been feeding their crossdressing fetish for so long it’s grown into a monster that consumes them.

    Paraphilias work much like any other kind of addiction, diminishing returns from chasing dopamine highs lead to more extreme addictive behaviour and ultimately the collapse of the personality as the victim becomes a kind of fleshy robot trapped and ruled by his vices.

    This is why Gnostics gnost, why Taoists tao, and why Paul told the Galatians to temper themselves rather than be governed by their tempers. A society that places self-gratification at the heart of its “values” – as ours does – will inevitably succumb to crises of addiction and selfishness.

    Who are we to tell Gary Marshall he shouldn’t have abandoned his family to inject lady hormones and wear dresses and have weird sex?

    Well, the traditional English answer is Jesus Christ willingly ascended the Cross, suffered and died for our sins. Our lives don’t belong to us, they belong to Him. We merely have them on leasehold and should act accordingly like the good servant in the parable of the talents, for we will be judged when the Man comes around.

    If we don’t believe in Christ, or The Way, or Buddha, or the Vedas, or Mohammed and his magic horse, it’s actually pretty fucking hard to come up with cohesive and sustainable rules for life that work at a societal level. This is why the West has seen declining social capital and rising anxiety and madness since the early 20th century at least.

    Carrie says:

    The streamer’s character walks up to one of these NPCs and says, “Hello, sir. I mean, madam. I mean, whatever.” He turns to another and says, “Well, hello, mid-op.” And then a third: “Hey, you need to keep taking your hormones!” And then he pulls out a crowbar and beats one of them to death.

    This is objectively hilarious and should result in ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: JKKK ROWLING

    in 2019, women who worked for GTA V’s developer earned 29.3% less than their male colleagues for similar jobs

    Similar jobs means the girl who does technical documentation or runs the Twitter account should be paid the same as the guys who work 90 hour weeks during crunch time to develop functioning AI and physics systems.

    When women, people of color or L.G.B.T.Q. people try to break into the industry, she said, the “toxic geek masculinity” pushes back in ways that often lead to sexual abuse and bullying.

    Much like the contents of Carrie’s knickers, this is big ol’ hairy bollocks. Due to high rates of autism, poor socialisation and internet porn, trannies are vastly overrepresented in coding. It’s true there aren’t many black fellas or real women who are experts in Python, but not because of a conspiracy agin them.

  14. I see that no comments are permitted at that “blog”… However,

    I call “Bullshit” on the claim that .. the Scottish developer of GTA is no exception. Engadget reports that in 2019, women who worked for GTA V’s developer earned 29.3% less than their male colleagues for similar jobs – which is, I’m damned-sure illegal.

  15. ” Many (most?) trannies are middle aged hetero white men who’ve been feeding their crossdressing fetish for so long it’s grown into a monster that consumes them.”

    I have this theory that the middle aged tranny is just a massive attention seeking act. Middle aged man gets to late 40s/early 50s, kids have left home so role of Dad is ended, wife is more interested in her gardening or book club than him, his career is going nowhere, he’s basically become invisible to everyone. So in order to become the centre of attention he starts the whole ‘I’m a woman really!’ shtick. Suddenly everyone at the office is talking about him, his wife certainly has to start dealing with him again, and there’s a whole horde of people in the big wide world who will be cheerleaders for his ‘Bravery’. And of course in today’s society it gives him a big stick to wield over all the people he considers have slighted him in the past. His position in life has gone from an insignificant nobody to a powerful someone. Job done.

  16. Mr Womby-the link below is to the nearest I can find on You Tube to the short TV ad I’ve seen.

    The clip is slightly longer I think than actual advert but you can clearly see at 0:11 that the female runs around the corner in a darkened building and runs right into the Flower/sponge people.

    I think my description is a fair one–they clearly–whatever their supposed problem–aren’t wearing hats/masks or the like.

    They are flower/sponge heads.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aanR55xFzP4

  17. Jim – perceived social incentives definitely play a role, most of these guys stayed in the closet when there were real social and economic penalties for being weird.

    Dunno tho – does Carrie seem… happy? There’s a disconnect between performative public approval of trannies and how people treat them in private.

    Instead of becoming UwU cute girls, they end up looking like Pennywise the Dancing Clown got dressed in the whore section at Primark. Typically the family shuns them. Women aren’t interested in having sex with men dressed as women, most men including gay men don’t want to fuck them. Their children are confused and humiliated when Dad announces he’s a laydee. People will say the socially appropriate trans-affirming liturgy in public, but they don’t practice it.

    These blokes usually end up physically ruined, financially drained and socially isolated, with only other trannies (who they despise) and desperate chasers (who they also despise) for company. Sounds like a physical manifestation of Hell.

    Is it any wonder why so many of them are bitter and angry?

  18. Thinking Tim’s market gap opportunity, It’s not necessary to to code a game all from Scratch. Just get a licence to on an existing/old game set up a modding operation similar to Tims 90’s porting biz. Move to Ladyboyville to get the right stuff. Take an existing game and mod it to carriemarshallfabulousuniverse. Hey presto your big money is now co-located with your big mouth.

  19. Mr Ecks – I stand corrected. Having had to endure many ads for this game I managed to miss this one. Most of the others seem to major on the girl on girl snogging.

  20. Steve:

    If we don’t believe in Christ, or The Way, or Buddha, or the Vedas, or Mohammed and his magic horse, it’s actually pretty fucking hard to come up with cohesive and sustainable rules for life that work at a societal level. This is why the West has seen declining social capital and rising anxiety and madness since the early 20th century at least.

    This is certainly a big chunk of it, as GK Chesterton said: ” When men stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing, they believe in anything.”
    The problem has been that belief in God has been replaced by beliefs that are actually harmful to both society as a whole and the individuals and families which make up society.

    Many (most?) trannies are middle aged hetero white men who’ve been feeding their crossdressing fetish for so long it’s grown into a monster that consumes them.

    Lol. About 30 years ago, I worked on the customer service desk of a big-box wholesaler, there were a couple of trannies who used to come into the store regularly – both were strapping 6-footers who were the lowest of low effort Larpers. They minded their own business and didn’t demand anything from anyone, and nobody paid much attention to them. Now they demand we bend the knee….

  21. Just how big is the potential LBTGPQRST market? I know they make a lot of noise but are there enough of them to make it economically sensible to satisfy the demand?

  22. Steve, Johathan . . . you guys are funny.

    Man existed without Christ for a hundred thousand years. Some say 250,000 years.

    “it’s actually pretty fucking hard to come up with cohesive and sustainable rules for life that work at a societal level.”

    No it’s not. ‘Religion poisons everything.’ – Christopher Hitchens

  23. I decided to develop a game which included loads of guys running round stabbing other people, having riots, stealing trainers and TVs from shops after smashing the window, etc etc. Just to appeal to the BAME market, the chief protagonist’s colour could be specified from nearly black through all the way to light brown. Guess what? We never sold a single copy.

    Da boys from the ‘hood said that there wasn’t much point in playing a game when it was so easy to go out and do it for real. The somewhat lighter skinned players said that the game was unrealistic, because you should shout ‘Alla Huh Ackbar’ before stabbing anyone.

    Potential female players all said that they were too busy looking after kids on their own to play games …

  24. @ MBE
    The standard example of female programmers is Steve Shirley and FI (later Xansa) which she started as a return-to-work aid for female programmers who had taken a career break and then became a software company employing females. Ironically when gender equality legislation was introduced it was forced to hire some men which means that anti-female prejudice was not great enough to create a space for an all-female company that paid less than all men would be paid for an equal job.
    PS I can’t type on a phone: they seem to be designed for women’s fingers, one of mine covers three letters on my smartphone (I suppose that if I had unbreakable thumbnails …)

  25. ” Steve, Johathan . . . you guys are funny. Man existed without Christ for a hundred thousand years. Some say 250,000 years.”

    Funny that you think ancient people did without religion….

  26. Well, the traditional English answer is Jesus Christ willingly ascended the Cross, suffered and died for our sins.

    Can’t help but admire your opportunism, Steve. But like Linus promoting the Great Pumpkin on his election platform, your timing is a bit off. Although it doesn’t seem to be obvious to you, it really isn’t entirely convincing to say that Carrie is wrong to keep rubbing his fetish, because his life is just a rental from a big giant Hertz who’s gonna want the keys.

  27. No it’s not. ‘Religion poisons everything.’ – Christopher Hitchens

    Maybe. The problem is that even when you get rid of religion, you don’t really get rid of religion. The current bout of insanity being a case in point.

  28. @john

    Steve Shirley is an interesting case but she founded her firm back in the sixties. And the gender equality laws you’re talking about are as early as the seventies.

    Going through the Silicon Valley funding rounds, from let’s say the dot com boom onwards, is a quite different cultural proposition.

  29. @ MBE
    The standard example of female programmers is Steve Shirley and FI (later Xansa) which she started as a return-to-work aid for female programmers who had taken a career break and then became a software company employing only females. Ironically when gender equality legislation was introduced it was forced to hire some men which proved that anti-female prejudice was not great enough to create a space for an all-female company that paid less than all men would be paid for an equal job.
    When I was a trainee programmer in the mid-’60s, there was no *actual* gender bias but there was a gender imbalance because most# of the pool of candidates were mathematicians and boys were better at maths and, in those days, most middle-class women (not just Oxbridge graduates) stopped work when they had children, so the programmers were 5 men to 2 women, the trainees were lads/lasses who had a relative working for ICI who had got a scholarship/place at Oxbridge to do maths and we split 3 to nil. The bias is in the eye of the beholder.
    Autism was not a required condition although it was more easily tolerated by and among programmers than in Sales or HR or “management”
    #The exception was a Chemical Engineer: gender ratio almost infinite in those days
    PS I can’t type on a phone: they seem to be designed for women’s fingers, one of mine covers three letters on my smartphone (I suppose that if I had unbreakable thumbnails …)

  30. Gamecock – ‘Religion poisons everything.’ – Christopher Hitchens

    I can see the appeal of Chris Hitchens. He was a fiercely intelligent, funny, pithy, entertaining alcoholic.

    He was also a world class bullshitter, and his fedora tier rage against Dad God always seemed childish and dumb to me, though not uncommon amongst Baby Boomers still rebelling against their parents’ (failed) attempts to transmit their values to the next generation.

    (His mother also committed suicide after running off with an Anglican priest. “Hmmm!”, said Sigmund)

    The errors in Hitch’s doctrines were many, but they all boil down to this:

    * Religion isn’t what Hitch, Dawkins, etc. think it is. They perceive it (because of their personal experiences of miserable upper middle class childhoods in the 50’s) as an external control mechanism imposed by stupid, staid and most importantly *boring* hypocritical authority figures. (Who may or may not have been paedophiles)

    This is like thinking an iceberg is the bit you can see above the water.

    * Because they don’t understand religion’s sociological purpose – a system for generating social cohesion and reproducing this in succeeding generations, they took for granted the enormous treasury of social capital they – as well-to-do 20th century Englishmen – undeservedly inherited from their more pious and serious fathers.

    That social capital doesn’t regenerate on its own, as we should now know. Turns out that normality is an achievement. Chaos and entropy is always the default, logos takes continual effort.

    Though if the sight of grown men voluntarily becoming eunuchs and being praised for it, if the sight of your enemies tearing down the statues of your ancestors and twerking in the ruins while policemen kneel in submission doesn’t tell you something has gone pretty badly wrong with the post-Christian West, because it’s the post-Christian West, I dunno what to tell you.

  31. @ MBE
    Sorry, I must have touched the “post” box part-way through.
    Yes, you are right – Silicon Valley is different and I wasn’t even trying to discuss the comfort that funders feel from talking to someone whom they think that they understand and can predict. My view, based on observation (mostly second-hand as my big sister took up programming after I quit and my elder son has been programming for more than a decade) is that there is no deliberate bias – and my feeling is that an awful lot of geeks have suffered bias against them [e.g. my son suffered really badly at school for being so obviously cleverer than the oiks], so they eschew bias when looking at whom to hire. There is also the different cultures in Britain and the USA, which makes my experience only partially relevant.

  32. They equate the producer and consumer. One is not the other. Absolute backwards nonsense.

  33. @john

    I think hiring and funding may be subject to different biases too. Hiring someone gets more scrutiny from HR, there are more legalities to obey, the fact you’re even interviewing means you almost certainly need to hire *somebody* and if you make the wrong choice there’s always the option of firing/not renewing their contract etc later. Agreeing to part with several million dollars in return for a slice of equity in a high-risk start-up is a different type of gamble, something the law gives you far more personal freedom over, you’re under no obligation to do, and you’re quite entitled to sit on your money until what strikes you as a better chance or better fit for you comes up. If you make the wrong call, or even the objectively correct call but get unlucky, you can wave goodbye to that investment.

    If a proposition comes along that a funder just doesn’t “get” (e.g. one answering a need specific to a group the funder doesn’t belong to, or because the founders come from a background that doesn’t mesh with with the funder’s own) then it’s harder to persuade them to part with the cash.

  34. Bloke in North Dorset

    MBE,

    About the funding, I think there is bias, but it isn’t racial or even sexual. It’s more like the “nobody go sacked for buying IBM” bias. The industry has a group-think picture of what a successful tech entrepreneur looks like and its difficult to see beyond that, even for savvy risk takers who boast about being happy to have 99 investments tank as long as the 100th succeeds.

    I also think that problem applies to many industries/walks of life eg the recent complaing about lack of black football managers.

  35. MBE,

    “Having said that I’m not sure how well it works in practice, perhaps especially in tech where the investors, especially at start-up level, usually made their money in the industry and are drawn from a very particular geek subculture (though likely not the gamer subculture criticised in the article). So there may be issues around “cultural fit” and expectations.”

    Most games are built by very small teams, often starting as a hobby, often funded by their own time and collecting the rewards. I know 2 developers like this. World of Goo was built like this. There is no “industry” meeting in a secret underground SMERSH lair deciding who writes games. Download Unity 3D or RPG maker, learn to code and start building a game.

    I’m going to make a general observation which is there’s a ton of women who just seem to knock on doors to get funding (this applies to movies too) rather than just fucking making something.

  36. Baron Jackfield,

    “I call “Bullshit” on the claim that .. the Scottish developer of GTA is no exception. Engadget reports that in 2019, women who worked for GTA V’s developer earned 29.3% less than their male colleagues for similar jobs – which is, I’m damned-sure illegal.”

    I can well believe that they earned 29.3% less because the blokes are going to be doing the coding and game mechanics, which are rare and hard, probably putting in 60+ hour weeks near the end, while women have producer, QA, character design or story writing roles, which pay a lot less. Learn to code, ladies.

  37. @ MBE
    I cannot discuss HR in public, even on Tim’s unmoderated site. I don’t want to sound like Mr Ecks.
    BUT I can say that HR bias is not in my favour. I have never been hired by HR – my first job was an automatic choice directed by higher management when I passed Oxford entrance, my second, and longest, was thanks to the “Deputy General Manager and Actuary” while the Staff Manager was on holiday, the third and current was by the then Research Director, impressed by a qualification that I had picked up for ethical reasons. During my second, longest, job HR was so visibly prejudiced that I could make jokes about it (so why didn’t I quit? – because I’m no good at interviews, although my “oppos” rated me highly).
    An individual investing his/her own money has maximal freedom but a fund manager investing other people’s money does not so he/she has to pick something that feels safe. THAT is the root of bias towards “normal”.

  38. The problem is they are demanding to direct a creative endeavor. They’re demanding that Charlotte Bonte write westerns, that Jeffrey Archer write science fiction. You can’t direct creativity, you can’t demand that somebody who has the creative muse to write one genre just *chose* to have the muse to write something else.

    If you want westerns, find somebody who writes westerns, and buy *their* output. Don’t try and force a period drama writer to write westerns, unless you want a crappy period drama with cowboys.

  39. ” ‘women who worked for GTA V’s developer earned 29.3% less than their male colleagues for similar jobs’ – which is, I’m damned-sure illegal.”

    No it’s not. If they are earning different amounts, then by definition they are *NOT* similar jobs. If they are being ******(PAID*(U******( different amounts for similar jobs, then *****(THAT***** is illegal.

  40. @BoM4

    At the level of small/indie games I think that’s right. Actually tricky for a lot of them to make a living the same way it is for budding novelists these days – some immense success stories but lots of perfectly competent yet unexceptional content sinking into perpetual obscurity on Steam or the App Store. Like you say, best not to give up the day job. And those people aren’t being discriminated against on grounds of race, gender or sexuality – I imagine more fail by being decent at coding but less inspired at the creative stuff, or even worse, made a good product but didn’t have a clue how to market it.

    But then they’re not the people who need to go out and raise a big wad of capital. That’s for people with slightly bigger ideas. I think @BIND is correct to say there’s an element of “if your face fits” with that.

  41. HR is how business tries to up it’s proportion of wimmen in top jobs. The old Personnel Department could be just about trusted to photocopy a CV – now they rule the roost on recruitment and, more importantly, enforcing compliance with soft Left stupid policies. Somewhat like Beancounters getting control of engineering companies and running them with spreadsheets rather than any technical know-how.

    Tim had an article on CT about the “Lifecycles of Companies” – Stage 4 is HR and Beancounters.

  42. @ MBE
    “I think @BIND is correct to say there’s an element of “if your face fits” with that.”
    Of course, but I, whose face never fitted with HR despite getting high ratings from professional colleagues, didn’t set up a blog site to moan like Bigmouth

  43. @Bloke on M4 July 4, 2020 at 3:27 pm and @jgh July 4, 2020 at 3:45 pm…

    I think that we are all agreed that they are, ipso facto, not similar jobs, otherwise they would, by law, have to be paid similar amounts.

    Hence my call of “bullshit” on BigMouth’s claim…

    QED

  44. Steve:

    “…they don’t understand religion’s sociological purpose – a system for generating social cohesion and reproducing this in succeeding generations, they took for granted the enormous treasury of social capital they – as well-to-do 20th century Englishmen – undeservedly inherited from their more pious and serious fathers.

    “That social capital doesn’t regenerate on its own, as we should now know. Turns out that normality is an achievement. Chaos and entropy is always the default, logos takes continual effort.

    “Though if the sight of grown men voluntarily becoming eunuchs and being praised for it, if the sight of your enemies tearing down the statues of your ancestors and twerking in the ruins while policemen kneel in submission doesn’t tell you something has gone pretty badly wrong with the post-Christian West, because it’s the post-Christian West, I dunno what to tell you.”

    Excellent!

  45. * Because they don’t understand religion’s sociological purpose – a system for generating social cohesion and reproducing this in succeeding generations…

    Er, the purpose of Christianity is the achievement of eternal salvation of the soul with God through acceptance of Christ as saviour (thereabouts, give or take). It doesn’t have a sociological purpose, it has a divine purpose. Indeed, it was deliberately and specifically subversive of the societies of its founding.

    There’s something perverse about a believer promoting faith in the terms of secularists who have tried to rationalise the existence of religion. The ongoing-social-cohesion argument belongs to “Darwinists” and applies to all religions; every head-shrinking, child-sacrificing, child-shagging one of them. In that sense it doesn’t matter what the totems are, so long as they are worshipped and defended in a manner that strengthens societal bonds.

    It is certainly true that the enlightenment eroded the power of the irrational belief system that had held for a millennium. It is certainly true that this caused disruption. It is certainly true that other irrational belief systems have emerged to fill the vacuum. But none of that means it’s not worth continuing to strive to move beyond irrationality.

    We should retain hope. Two hundred and forty four years ago a nation was founded by religious peoples who had the sense to realise that they could forge lasting societal bonds between them without recourse to their religions. They created a secular constitution that they could unite behind. Despite great pressures from without and within, they are still united behind it today. Happy Independence Day, America.

  46. “Funny that you think ancient people did without religion….”

    Funny you didn’t read what I said.

    Where were God and Jesus for the vast majority of human existence?

  47. but recently it has become clear that there is a demand for a variety of video games that appeal to all types of people,

    So says a person who knows nothing about games, gaming history, or gamers. There have always been a variety of games that appeal to all types of people – if by ‘all types of people’ you mean ‘people who like different genres of games’.

    If by ‘all types of people’ you mean ‘games with narratives that feature someone who shares a characteristic with the player standing in as the player’s avatar’ – then no, its not become clear that there’s a demand for those types of games.

    What is clear is that the ‘cis-white gameplayer’ *is* perfectly fine with playing a non-cis-white avatar (and has been for the history of computer gaming, really) AS LONG AS THE FUCKING GAME IS GOOD.

    FFS, ‘No One Lives Forever’ was a hit and you play as a FEMALE super-spy. No one hated any of the Tomb Raider games (even the latest one where Lara is a wuss). Jill Valentine kicks ass. Nobody was upset to play a Cherokee in Prey.

  48. Its also funny to see these people defending a company where a cis-white man *literally kicked a woman out of her job* in order to make the game they’re defending as a ‘woke masterpiece’.

    I guess pwning the ‘manbabies’ is more important than that precious diversity in corporate management.

  49. Theo – thank you

    PJF – the purpose of Christianity is the achievement of eternal salvation of the soul with God through acceptance of Christ as saviour

    True.

    It doesn’t have a sociological purpose

    Of course it does, religion in general does. Just as the Trinity is simultaneously a triskelion and unicamera, or as Robert Plant warned us, some words have two meanings. Religion serves multiple purposes at different levels, simultaneously. Or it dies.

    There’s something perverse about a believer promoting faith in the terms of secularists who have tried to rationalise the existence of religion.

    Maybe, but theology and geometry don’t need to be enemies, do they? Western Christianity was never anti-Science, it’s Science that revolted against Christianity. Or so I feel sure Elwin Ransom would tell us.

    In that sense it doesn’t matter what the totems are, so long as they are worshipped and defended in a manner that strengthens societal bonds.

    There’s a certain (perverse?) pleasure in heterodoxy and relativism, but is it unreasonable to suggest it depends on what level we’re looking at?

    Aztec heart-rending ceremonies damned the participants to Hell and wasted lives, otoh it served as a functional basis for a relatively advanced society for over 2,000 years. I mean, say what you want about the tenets of human sacrifice, Dude, at least it’s an ethos. How do our abortion stats compare to the body count of bloodthirsty pagan priests with obsidian knives?

    Two hundred and forty four years ago a nation was founded by religious peoples who had the sense to realise that they could forge lasting societal bonds between them without recourse to their religions.

    This is, unfortunately, revisionist bullshit.

    The people who settled and founded what is now the United States would’ve soberly and righteously burned a fair percentage of its current inhabitants in a pyre while singing psalms.

    They would’ve had absolutely zero tolerance or sympathy for the idea that the United States is a secular society, they were mostly fervent Christians and the only point of not importing European denominational struggles was to avoid pointless intra-Protestant bloodshed – though Catholics were still widely regarded as foreign devils until after WW2.

    As recently as the 1950’s, Septics changed their official national motto to “In God We Trust”. The subsequent decline of Christianity in the US correlates neatly with its decline as a cohesive national culture.

  50. Gamecock – Steve, your ad hominems are unconvincing.

    I know, but they’re not meant to be convincing (that’s too much to hope for on this topic), they’re meant to be explanatory.

    Childhood trauma makes sense to me when you examine Hitch and Dawk’s backgrounds and their books entitled “God Is A Big Stinky Poo Poo Head And I Am Very Clever” (I paraphrase slightly).

    And I completely understand where they’re coming from, anybody who watched the inter-generational theology spat between the (arrogant and dismissive) Bishop of Southwark (born during WW1) and the Pythons (bright men from the same generation and class background as Chris and Dick) couldn’t help but have sympathy for the devil. I don’t blame baby boomers for thinking irreverence and licentiousness was groovy. Even Saint Augustine would understand.

    Still. “Repent, Boomer!” Said the Lionman.

  51. @Gamecock,
    “No it’s not. ‘Religion poisons everything.’ – Christopher Hitchens”

    yes, likely it does, however it may be that godlessness is worse. We perhaps, in these very times, are finding out.

    @Steve – u on form today, mate.

  52. They would’ve had absolutely zero tolerance or sympathy for the idea that the United States is a secular society, they were mostly fervent Christians and the only point of not importing European denominational struggles was to avoid pointless intra-Protestant bloodshed…

    Like I said, religious people united behind a secular constitution. Not revisionism. Fact. You hallucinated a strawman and went to town. You naughty boy.

    As recently as the 1950’s, Septics changed their official national motto to “In God We Trust”. The subsequent decline of Christianity in the US correlates neatly with its decline as a cohesive national culture.

    Yes, that’s quite funny. For the period “E Pluribus Unum” (Out of many, one) was the national motto, the US had a cohesive national culture. But once that secular totem was toppled and replaced with a religious one there was a subsequent decline in religion. Why, it’s almost as if those Founders had a fucking clue about the nature of their project.

    Aztec heart-rending . . . served as a functional basis for a relatively advanced society for over 2,000 years. I mean, say what you want about the tenets of human sacrifice, Dude, at least it’s an ethos.

    Thanks for reiterating my point. If the bat-shit-crazy works for social cohesion it doesn’t matter what the bat-shit-crazy is. Believing in the power of heart-rending or believing that heart-renderers endure eternal supernatural torture achieves the same purpose.

    My point about the purpose of Christianity was not to deny a consequential societal function (which mostly came about after adoption by the Romans). It was made in the context of you engaging in opportunistic evangelism, as a believer in Christ and His mission, using secular arguments to justify your religion. Jesus wasn’t interested in an ongoing stable society (those were already there), He was interested in people achieving redemption through Him.

  53. The industry has a group-think picture of what a successful tech entrepreneur looks like…

    Elizabeth Holmes seemed to have little difficulty in obtaining capital.

  54. @dcardno

    But interesting she’s the exception that proves the rule. Firstly Holmes was doing her bit to emulate “the look” physically (as I understand it this was a conscious decision to enhance tech credibility), plus the backstory (Stanford, engineering, college dropout) was similar to many. Secondly, look at the frankly astonishing family connections that played a role in her getting the money thrown at her. My jaw dropped the first time I read about those details. Almost certainly led to insufficient scrutiny – if she was coming in as a true outsider, I don’t believe she would have got anywhere near as far as she did. As a result I’m not convinced she’s particularly strong evidence that tech investors are rational, calculating return-maximisers with no social/cultural/personal barriers or preconceptions for founders to pass through. If that’s the kind of woman who gets trotted out as an example of women who do get funded, it’s closer to the reverse.

  55. Re “In God We Trust”, I’m not an expert in American cultural history but I thought it had a rather long history in America and the formal change of motto was quite late – a quick check on wiki suggests it started to appear on Union coins during the Civil War. Often when that kind of symbolic formal change does happen, it’s a sign of weakness in the people doing the changing – why do they all of a sudden feel so sensitive and desperate to make a point, particularly about something that – if they were “winning” – ought to be culturally accepted as self-evident?

    I think you can see something similar in the EU demands that the EU flag be planted here there and everywhere every time the EU funded something (or in the case of my car license plate, even when it just regulated it). Desperation to be loved precisely because it wasn’t getting much. And similarly why the Tories proposed sticking big UK flags and “funded by the UK government” on Westminster-funded Scottish infrastructure projects. If the SNP were still getting five MPs on a “good” election night and were third or fourth party in Holyrood, the idea wouldn’t even have crossed their minds.

    My possibly very weak understanding of the matter is that “In God We Trust” was seen as a stronger differentiator from the godless (indeed religion-suppressing, which was inimical to American values) communist forces that the US was grappling with both abroad and at home. But if there was no perceived threat from increased godlessness, there wouldn’t have been the drive to declare just how ungodless the US was.

  56. Bloke in North Dorset

    BoM4,

    I’m going to make a general observation which is there’s a ton of women who just seem to knock on doors to get funding (this applies to movies too) rather than just fucking making something.

    That reminded of a pitch in the early Dragons Den when it was worth watching. A couple of women were pitching a website they wanted to build. They hadn’t even done a mock up of what it might look like, let alone any of the basic HTML for the presentation. As they were getting grilled it became apparent they didn’t have a clue what they were doing and what they wanted in money terms showed a complete lack of business sense. It was real head in hand stuff.

    Anyway, when they went to the first Dragon, probably Peter Jones, he just said something along the lines of, “that was appalling, you have no idea and you want me to fund you to sit in front of a computer for 2 years, I’m out”. Needless to say the other Dragons weren’t interested.

  57. Septics changed their official national motto to “In God We Trust”.

    No, *we* didn’t. Some people in government looking to score points for an election did. With no input from the rest of the country – not even a vote. It wasn’t some public upwelling of Judeo-Christian pride.

    And in any case – this is America, ‘official motto’ means nothing here.

  58. Let’s not forget that ‘in god we trust’ was put in place *in opposition* to the public culture changing from strict public adherence to Christianity. It wasn’t because we wanted to affirm our nature as a Christian nation but as a reaction by people with power to the countries moving away from ‘old’ Christianity to a more ‘liberal’ version that’s barely recognizable as such.

  59. MBE

    Oh, sure. It may be even better evidence that if you present the right image you have a better shot at funding. It’s also interesting that Theranos didn’t have any ‘traditional’ VCs on board since they got enough money from people who (obviously) weren’t capable of doing good due dilly and so didn’t have to risk rejection from the Sand Hill gang, which would have tarnished the story at least a bit.

  60. Dawkins is a superb populariser of science; an eminent genetic biologist; a mediocre philosopher; and a lousy theologian. If only such people would stick to what they’re good at.

  61. @dcardno

    Well there’s Tim Draper, but even he wasn’t doing it qua proper VC guy and didn’t do the DD. More a family favour sort of thing I think. The top names hoodwinked into it were probably more gullible for being so “big-league”. Looking back at it, I’m surprised people hadn’t worked out the empress’s new clothes just by looking at the corporate stuff, let alone the fact the science was so questionable conceptually. I can understand people not wanting to publish too much for fear of lawsuits but it seems like the kind of thing tech/business/bioscience bloggers could have unravelled quite quickly, back when the blogosphere was a stronger and freer force especially. Or maybe it was an open secret and I didn’t have my ear to the ground for the gossip. (It started unravelling publicly back in 2015 but the clues must have been there a few years before.)

  62. Johnny – thank you

    PJF – I didn’t mean to invoke Wurzel, but it seems like an important point that the United States was conceived and founded as a Christian nation, not a secular one.

    A better term for their constitution as written would be “non-denominational”. It’s pretty obvious in context (the Declaration of Independence).

    Thanks for reiterating my point. If the bat-shit-crazy works for social cohesion it doesn’t matter what the bat-shit-crazy is.

    Yes, Sanity is a crowdsourced project. An ecosystem of them, in fact.

    It was made in the context of you engaging in opportunistic evangelism, as a believer in Christ and His mission, using secular arguments to justify your religion.

    I understand, but I’m a frightfully bad example of a Christian.

    MBE – Communism is the credited response. It seems unlikely there was an upswelling of popular atheism in 1957 America, though of course academia had already begun to tilt in directions hostile to Christ (and all good things). “God and Man at Yale” came out in 1951.

    Agammamon – Some people in government looking to score points for an election did. With no input from the rest of the country – not even a vote.

    According to Wikipedos:

    The 84th Congress passed a joint resolution “declaring IN GOD WE TRUST the national motto of the United States”. The resolution passed both the House and the Senate unanimously and without debate.

    It wasn’t some public upwelling of Judeo-Christian pride.

    Quite so. There is no such person as Judeo-Christ.

    Chris – Mildly disagree. Dawkins is indeed a brilliant and eloquent man, and a lousy theologian. However, I’m also a lousy theologian and a positively weevily biologist, so I’d encourage him to say whatever he feels like sharing, even if it’s daft.

    If only he applied the same intellectual curiosity he brought to evolutionary biology, he might have something insightful to say. His critique of religious faith is lazy and flabby, though he does have a wicked sense of humour and a deft hand with rhetorical shivs. He’s a Poundland Voltaire (which isn’t a bad thing, many of us would be pleased to be an Aldis William McGonagall) and there’s something amusingly ferrical about preaching atheism to the converted.

    I like him. He’s a splendid example of an Englishman, and that’s not faint praise.

  63. @Steve

    Though the US had just been through the Second Red Scare, so communism (and its accompanying philosophy) would have been seen as both an internal and an external threat at the time, which is why I am dubious about interpreting it purely as an external signal intended to reassure foreigners of what the USA stood for. For political reasons it must have been driven by some perceived need for internal consumption. Also fears of “moral and religious decline” have been ever-present have they not? The fifties was a time of cultural transition, Hays code weakening in the face of television, roots being laid down both for the counterculture of the sixties but also the Fourth Great Awakening. I don’t know enough about the era or culture to know just how defensive US Christians were feeling but certainly some aspects of their worldview were under threat. Not just from communism but also the Triumph of Modernity, Age of Science, development of youth cukture, rawer aspects of consumerism etc. On the one hand Buckley was quite far-sighted but on the other, I’m pretty sure I’ve read comments or complaints about professors bringing Marxist or Darwinist atheistic teachings to colleges even by the 1900s. Scopes “monkey” trial was in the twenties and so on. So I dunno. But the motto change certainly smells a lot like a defensive move, something a more self-confident (largely) Christian nation with tradition of separation of church and state could just have said “nah, we don’t need to do this”.

  64. MBE–Socialism IS a massive evil threat regardless of the staus of other religions and McCarthy and others were CORRECT about Red scum infiltration.

    Don’t be pegging the Scum of the Earth as just another set of players.

    If we fail to beat them you may well discover the nature of real evil first hand.

  65. His critique of religious faith is lazy and flabby

    It may appear that way, but that’s because, whilst many brilliant men have argued ceaselessly and exhaustively over the centuries over the minutiae, interpretation and implications of their creed – it does, after all, take real brilliance to propagandise a barbaric daemon into a loving father – it doesn’t take a corresponding effort to refute the actual notion of magic pixies, which can essentially be dismissed out of hand. Such a simple observation may seem lazy in comparison to two millenia of apologetics, but it is anything but flabby.

    There is no shortage of people who can point out at length all the errors and contradictions in the Bible, and who can illustrate the Yahweh/Jesus character’s barbaric nature, but Dawkins in not one of them.

  66. So Much For Subtlety

    Wat, I am not sure any of that is true. Can you dismiss magic pixies out of hand? I would think that we have agg deep need to see meaning in the world even when there is none. People explain German bombs as being aimed even when they were not. Under stress people seem to need a God. So it is psychologically true even if it is not True True.

    Simple observation tends to confirm the existence of God for that reason. Belief comes natural. We have to learn to doubt. And when the state undermines the traditional Gods, people just believe in crystals instead.

    Dawkins is dishonest because there is nothing in the texts Christians have not noticed. Indeed most of his criticism has been part of the Christian tradition since Augustine. But it would take too long to work out what people like Augustine had to say and why. Dawkins prefers to argue with textual literalists – a tiny minority in the Christian world. It is like saying evolution must be false because monkeys are still around.

  67. Funding will look at the product. More importantly it looks at the team bringing the product to market.
    Funders will avoid a bad team, people hard to work with, a company with deep divisions.
    The best programmers in the world with the best product will not get anywhere if they can’t sell both the product and the team to investors.

    There’s a process called ‘due diligence’ – its pretty common.
    Claims that xxx will sell – but claim turns out to be false? Claims that we can produce xxx by Christmas – but turns out to be false?
    Funders can withdraw support, refuse additional money etc.
    Get granted a 5 million funding – its not a single cheque. Meet this milestone and get first payment of 500k. Hit this next milestone and get another 500k. Hit another milestone and get next payment.
    With investor setting conditions and amounts.

    And walking away if needed partway through, taking ownership of whatever with them.

  68. MBE,

    “At the level of small/indie games I think that’s right. Actually tricky for a lot of them to make a living the same way it is for budding novelists these days – some immense success stories but lots of perfectly competent yet unexceptional content sinking into perpetual obscurity on Steam or the App Store. Like you say, best not to give up the day job. And those people aren’t being discriminated against on grounds of race, gender or sexuality – I imagine more fail by being decent at coding but less inspired at the creative stuff, or even worse, made a good product but didn’t have a clue how to market it.”

    Novels are a very good parallel. There’s huge numbers of novels, lots about someone living in London or New York and the general ennui about it all. And you’ve got to ask yourself why will someone pick mine over someone else’s. And it’s a similar problem with games. Why is someone going to pick my platform game over the sea of platform games. The indie games that have done well have been distinctive, like Rocket League, Fez, Besiege.

    I have the skills to develop a game, but I’d want the game to be different. That’s the hard part.

    “But then they’re not the people who need to go out and raise a big wad of capital. That’s for people with slightly bigger ideas. I think @BIND is correct to say there’s an element of “if your face fits” with that.””

    Well, maybe. But how do you deal with that? The simple thing is to make something, make it sell and prove you can do it. Prove the industry wrong by making a low-budget but effective game.

  69. Chris – Mildly disagree. Dawkins is indeed a brilliant and eloquent man, and a lousy theologian. However, I’m also a lousy theologian and a positively weevily biologist, so I’d encourage him to say whatever he feels like sharing, even if it’s daft.

    Thanks Steve – I wouldn’t wish to stop Dawkins or anyone else from pontificating on matters they know nothing about, but they should be aware that it devalues what they say on other matters: falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus

    You’re a better theologian than I, though that isn’t setting the bar very high. There’s a perfectly respectable scientific case for deism. That the universe exists at all, let alone in a form that would appear to be carefully ‘tuned’ to permit the existence of complex beings such as ourselves, seems to demand a creator. And alternative explanations that there are simply zillions of other universes that we’re unable to perceive don’t strike me as any simpler or more attractive.

  70. Agammamon – Some people in government looking to score points for an election did. With no input from the rest of the country – not even a vote.

    According to Wikipedos:

    The 84th Congress passed a joint resolution “declaring IN GOD WE TRUST the national motto of the United States”. The resolution passed both the House and the Senate unanimously and without debate.

    Exactly Steve – like I said, some people in government got together to push this with no input from the rest of the country – not even a vote.

  71. “Gaming Industry”
    – Until I reached “a variety of video games” on line 7 I was reading this as Gaming Industry not Video-Game Industry and it made no sense

    It’s usual Feminazi bollocks, nothing is stopping women but their own negativity

  72. @ wat dabney
    Firstly Dawkins was lazy – claiming that he knew God did not exist until people pointed out very publically that his claim presupposed omnipotence on his part i.e. that he, Richard Dawkins *was* the God whom he said did not exist.
    Secondly, what barbaric daemon? The Old Testament prophets, from Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses onwards all practised distinctly more humane behaviour than prevalent in their time.
    It’s the combination of arrogance and incompetence (in misquoting the Bible, almost always, but also in arithmetic and other things) of most atheists that is so irritating to a pendant like myself.

  73. I grew up in the 80’s when the home computer boom first took off.
    I’m pretty familiar with how many of the big name software houses got started.
    They bought a computer, scoured magazines and books for info, and cracked on with creating their own software and games. Raised their own finance, did their own marketing, cut their own distribution deals.
    Barriers to entry? Talent, smarts, hard work and to a large extent, obsession.
    Many people involved in the industry then, as now, tended towards the oddball.
    Today we would class them as ‘on the spectrum’.

    There has never been, nor is there ever likely to be, an industry more open to entrants from any geographical, cultural or racial sector. The only limiting factor being talent and motivation.
    That the history of software is replete with white nerdy blokes is simply because they were the ones who put in the time and effort to create the industry.
    Today, times have moved on. Modern games can be multi-million pound franchises with budgets and personell to match. But at the heart of every game is the core design, logic and ai, and programming talent that make it happen.
    And still we find that it is mostly a small, close knit team of young,nerdy blokes, usually white or asian, who are responsible.They often work extremely long hours under intense pressure to deliver and burnout is common. Which is why they earn the big bucks.

    So what are the barriers to entry for women and alphabet people – none. The software world is famously egalitarian. Want to work in the industry? Make a real contribution to an Open Source project. Get on Git Hub and make a name for youself.

    Write your own software or game. Prove to backers/software houses that you have an app/game/idea that is worth developing and that you have the track record and drive to see it through. No one is going to turn you down because of the way you dress, the colour of your hair, or who you f*ck.

    All this is, is more tiresome whingeing by those who are not smart enough, hard working enough, or driven enough to compete on a level playing field. Fuck them, and the horse they rode in on.

  74. Steve,

    “* Religion isn’t what Hitch, Dawkins, etc. think it is. They perceive it (because of their personal experiences of miserable upper middle class childhoods in the 50’s) as an external control mechanism imposed by stupid, staid and most importantly *boring* hypocritical authority figures. (Who may or may not have been paedophiles)”

    I don’t think boring can be stated enough. Nice, dull vicars who had zero passion, when it was not a bad job ruined it. And then built a synod of boring people to attract the boring. Most of these people are more interested droning on about politics than souls.

    Why are Pentecostal churches almost full? Because they’ve got soul. They’ve got passion. It’s about the devil and damnation and the light. You don’t have to be religious to feel the power of it. Mumbling along to a church organ isn’t in the same league. A vicar with a nice little sermon isn’t like passionate people just taking the microphone and testifying how they were lost and Jesus saved them.

  75. It’s the bureaucratic mindset writ large.
    More interested in the process and appearance than in saving souls.

    Jesus was the ultimate rebel, an anarchic force there to disrupt the status quo. Not some limp wristed, lettuce eating simp, who wants you to feel good about youself by singing Kum Ba Yah.

    The entire Church of England has become pussified from top to bottom.
    Which is why of course, anyone with any testosterone flowing through their veins steers well clear.

  76. Can you dismiss magic pixies out of hand?

    I’m guessing that you don’t really want to die on that hill.

  77. “Jesus was the ultimate rebel, an anarchic force there to disrupt the status quo. Not some limp wristed, lettuce eating simp, who wants you to feel good about youself by singing Kum Ba Yah.”

    [Citation needed]

    There is no record of ‘Jesus’ til ~70 A.D. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John K. Rowling fantasy books.

    It’s all completely fake and can’t stand even the simplest examination.

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