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Well, this is certainly an unexpected finding

What this leaves us with, then, is a portrait of a gaming industry with deep-rooted toxicity and misogyny, problems that have been entrenched since the very beginning. The Activision lawsuit indicts not just gaming culture, but the broader dysfunction of tech culture, as well as the high-pressure, often exploitative environments in which games employees are all too frequently expected to thrive.

Concentrate every nerd and near autist on the planet into one industry and it turns out that it’s not a very lovedy dovey industry.

Surprises the hell out of me.

9 thoughts on “Well, this is certainly an unexpected finding”

  1. allegations of entrenched misogyny, gender-based discrimination, and rape culture throughout the corporation

    Who knew spotty geeks had it in them?

  2. “a social media movement which ostensibly began as a protest against biased games journalism in 2014, but really was focused on intimidating and harassing a handful of prominent, outspoken feminists in the industry”

    Interesting way of framing something that started when someone mentioned his girlfriend had slept with a game reviewer to get a good review.

  3. Dennis, Bullshit Detector

    First of all, this is Vox. They’ve fucked up the backstory because, well, they’re Vox. It’s what they do. The toxic culture wasn’t in the gaming community, it was in the journalistic community.

    What will be the result of this? Gaming companies relocating to Arizona and Nevada.

  4. Interesting way of framing something that started when someone mentioned his girlfriend had slept with a game reviewer to get a good review.

    Far beyond that. I believe she slept with 3 out of 5 of the judges to win an award for her game “depression quest”. She then made fake accounts on a depression support forum that she said were harassing her and got her “fans” to brigade and harass the legit forum members.

    Mix that in with games journalists colluding on general reviews and viewing their readership with contempt.

    And then mix that in with the general feminist philosophy that if a women wants something, in this case a video game for women, then men should make it and it’s misogyny that they haven’t yet made it.

  5. “Who knew spotty geeks had it in them?”

    It’s not about being spotty geeks much. The main thing with gaming companies is that they’re very male. From the 1980s onwards, men got hold of home computers and started writing games on them. When it’s an office full of blokes, they will tell Bill Cosby jokes. If you have one woman in there, but she’s not some stick-up-her-arse feminist, they still tell Bill Cosby jokes. Maybe she’ll tell them to pack it in, if she hears it, but she won’t go ratting on everyone for that.

    So, car companies aren’t much different to this. Because it’s cars, women stay away. It’s a bit smelly and working class and far from comfy offices with espresso machines and diversity awareness workshops. We had one woman in our team who took it all well.

    Once a place starts getting rich, it attracts middle class women who can have the comfy offices, espresso machines etc. HR turns from an admin function into a policing function, and every woman now knows she can go and complain about a man’s behaviour and fuck him up. The more this happens, the more the bureaucracy takes over and engineers leave. And a few years later, the place starts falling apart because the pipeline of great new stuff has run dry.

  6. A lot of input from Brianna Wu in that article. Similar to Tim’s previous post, it is interesting how many trans-women have interjected themselves to speak on behalf of the wimmins

  7. I believe she slept with 3 out of 5 of the judges to win an award for her game “depression quest”. She then made fake accounts on a depression support forum that she said were harassing her and got her “fans” to brigade and harass the legit forum members.

    Bitches be crazy.

    Brianna Wu

    But ain’t nobody crazy like fat bloke in a dress crazy…

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