Support NeoGAF

[Weltall Zero]

ITT white males saying they have no issue with a jury composed almost exclusively of white males. Color me utterly shocked.

The "I only care about the jurors being fair" holds little weight when white males have been systematically been shown to often been oblivious to many issues (among others, recursively, issues of inclusion themselves). You don't just care about the judges being fair, you just don't care that judges don't care about issues that you yourself don't.

Saying this as an often oblivious white male. You may fling the inevitable SJW and white knight accusations now.

Edit: to clarify, this is really nobody's fault specifically, just a sorry state of things. The solution would be simply to ask sites to resend jurors, but ask them specifically to keep inclusion in mind. I'm sure most sites would have no issue sending a less homogeneous juror.

 

[Gentleman Jack]

If they're qualified or established critics, I don't see the problem. Also, don't they need a large portion of the judges to have played every major release?

I hope that terrible female critic for Kotaku doesn't get drafted in.

So the status quo is that the white male critics are better qualified than that one 'female critic for Kotaku' that you don't like because reasons.

Yep, no problems here, stop griping for diversity guys!

 

[Bony Manifesto]

Like, help here, I am having a very hard time thinking of women in the games industry who have a permanent fixture in the journalism side of things. I can think of women who USED to be in those positions like Tina Sanchez or Kat Bailey, but they have either moved to actual game developer positions or have exited the market entirely. The fact that struggling to find female voices of note in the games journalism business is hard is a far larger and more endemic problem than who gets chosen to do a glorified GOTY list.

Kat Bailey is still in the press (and I suspect will end up taking Jeremy Parish's slot as representative of USGamer on this list), but I can see your point.

 

[mgs2master2]

If they're qualified critics, I see little issue. There could be 32 women and that would be fine.

Maybe the outlets they pick from don't have enough women that are in positions or have the length of 'experience' to be considered "qualified"? Perhaps most of the women he did ask to be on the jury didn't want the spotlight or something? I doubt Geoff has a malign agenda or purposefully left out women.

Both these points are how I feel on the matter. Geoff is one of the most humble guys in the industry. I highly doubt this occurred with an agenda of sorts.

 

[Kamina777]

Agreed but I'm surprised they don't at least have Keza McDonald on there. Otherwise I don't know any other female journalists.

This is the heart of the matter and the fault doesn't lay where everyone likes to think it does.

I also think a 50/50 split is asinine all things considered, affirmative action turned up to 11 is not going to help anyone.

 

[Mesoian]

Keza at Kotaku UK is the only one that I can think of.

And, correct me if I'm wrong, Kotaku elected to have female writers for their UK and AUS sites participate in this award show last year. And that's great, but that's also not something that every publication can do, because let's face it, this industry is dominated by white male 30 somethings. That's not a good or bad thing, it's just how it is.

 

[Trago]

Keza at Kotaku UK is the only one that I can think of.

Strange that she wasn't included then. She's definitely up there in terms of game critics.

 

[Nirolak]

Not that this matters to the discussion but according to their corporate site:

73% Male
Average age: 32.1 years old

I tried to look for Polygon, but all their advertising stats list is their ranking among males 18-34: http://www.voxmedia.com/brands/polygon

 

[Gotdatmoney]

Why lessen the potential quality of judges by having to acheive an arbitrary mix of gender and colour?

If the judges are reflective of the industry (as it should be, why would it reflect society) then it is an industry created by and dominated by white men. Most of the high profile and successful members of the industry are white males.


Should Olympic or dance competitions for example meet a quota or should it be comprised of the most qualified?

It's obvious which is the important.


Shoehorning societal issues into and onto everything is a poor method of operation.

People always make this argument based on some phantom concept of quality. Anytime the desire for more diversity is asked people are like "bu bu bu it should be merit based!!1!". News flash, no one is going to put a woman in the panel who does not meet the basic requirements. This just in, their is an inherent value added to having a diversity of opinions that are formed not only based on professional experience but also gender. More at 11, there are far more than 32 women in this industry qualified to vote on a panel of games.

Like what is this none sense. As much as people wanna spew this crap, there is an inherent value to having people capable of doing a job not be white males. The value is this industry and this planet is not just white males.

 

[Mihael Mello Keehl]

If they are qualified I don't see the issue at all really. It's not Geoffs fault that this industry has white men in leadership positions.

And diversity for the sake of diversity doesn't help anything either

Im sure theres more qualified people out there. Like someone said they arent trying.. and even if there isnt how the hell you supposed to be "qualified"

 

[Hoo-doo]

While obviously skewed, I fail to see any malicious intent.

The gaming industry and press is largely a world dominated by men. Wrong as that might be, it's what we're dealing with right now.
If a review outlet is getting an invitation to put forward a critic, without knowing any of the makeup of the rest of the group, it's very likely they'll send their more experienced editors or editors-in-chiefs to represent the site. As of right now, most of these positions are claimed by males.

So the problem is not about this award show, it's about there being a relative shortage of qualified women working in these positions. Which is obviously a problem. But It's not a problem that should be artificially solved by The Game Awards by putting in more women 'just because diversity'.

 

[funkystudent]

Looking at the list and the majority of the people on it seem to be very high up people for their respective sites. EIC's. Vice Presidents of the company that owns the site. etc...

I feel like there has a big wave of writers in the press the last 3-5 years who are not just white middle class dudes from New York or California. They probably should have a voice here but it seems like the selection process TGA's have goes for experience which unfortunately leaves young, new comers out of the show.


Geoff and the team should totally think about ways of how they can get prominent younger critics involved somehow. A lot of good young writers out there these days.


Then again you probably dont want it to be a mess of attention seeking and collusion like the IGF. I dunno. Tough balancing act.

 

[post-S]

I imagine this is how the jus are selected:

Basically Geoeff invite a certain outlet to send jury to the event, and he give those outlet a certain number of spots. For most of the outlets, they probably only got 1/2 spots. Shouldn't those outlet send THE most qualified person they have? And I think the chance that that person is a men is quite high.What's the problem with this? Shall we really get equal representation just for the sake of equal representation?

 

[stuminus3]

Should be called "A" Game Awards not "THE" Game Awards.

Let's be honest about what this actually is. NeoGAF itself used to be similarly directed towards a certain audience (not sure if that's still an official policy) but at least the staff were honest about it.

an old boys club ey

Yup.

Actually... not even that. This is a PlayStation generation thing. The old old boys club were weird and antisocial but at least they were a bit more open minded about their games.

 

[El-Suave]

If you want to actually affect change make sure that the ratio of men vs. women is more equal at E3's judges week. Game Awards don't mean much but E3 awards are somethng the industry actually cares about. Those should be equally male dominated I'd guess.

 

[Sushi Nao]

You trying to tell me that there are only 2 qualified women journalists in gaming?

You gonna say that with a straight face? I could list female journalists, independent and not, that run circles around many of the male selectees.



It absolutely does.

Yeah, this. This is absolutely symptomatic of a clique-y old boys' club, and is seriously a problem.

Canada's new Prime Minister just appointed a 50/50 gender split in his cabinet, and you never heard so many white men caring about meritocracy.

 

[Zel3]

I don't see anything wrong with this.

The most qualified individuals should be chosen. If it happens to be 30 guys so be it, I would have no problem if it was 32 woman either, its all about who is qualified.

 

[Sheiter]

If you look at the list of jurors and where they're coming from, it looks like the game awards invited 30 groups to send a juror and as the games journalism industry is mostly men it was a matter of probability that almost all of them would send a man. A better way to do it would to offer more than one spot to these groups and increase the number of judges. If they were to send 2 people each and the board was a total of 60 people, the odds of something like this happening should go way down. It's not an issue of the women at the groups invited being unqualified, merely outnumbered to the point where their odds of being chosen for the one spot to represent their group is extremely low.

 

[McDougles]

It seems to be more of an issue of sites not submitting females as their representatives than Geoff Keighley organizing a bro's night out.

Funny that Polygon champions progressive thinking for others, yet it's only when a non-gaming outlet like HuffPo out-progressives them they act, themselves, in a progressive manner.

I don't see anything wrong with this.

The most qualified individuals should be chosen.

If only 1 in 32 (2 in 32 after Polygon's hand was forced iirc) are the "most qualified" people at their outlets, isn't that indicative of a big problem?

 

[LiegeWaffle]

That's a good point, Keza is very qualified and honestly perfect for this kind of event. Makes you wonder why she wasn't picked. Guess it's possible she was either busy or didn't have an interest, but still she'd be a great pick.

I think she was on the previous jury. It's interesting that Kotaku is not found on the list in any of its many branches.

 

[thomasmahler]

I doubt Geoff or whoever was in charge did that on purpose.

The fact of the matter is that there are still WAAAAAY more men in the games industry than women. We at Moon actually have a pretty good female ratio, but just even judging from the resumes that we receive, for every 20th male resume we get, there's 1 female.

 

[Lime]

1.) Sure, though that would take the selection, deliberation and voting process to be more than 3 emails as described earlier
2.) Are they permanent mainstays or talent? For example, I was surprised to see that Mary Kish or Elise Williams weren't on this list as they are permanent fixtures for gamespot and game trailers respectively, but then I remembered that they are hosts who does not write reviews. Furthermore, the selection process seems to be more fixated on publication first, personality second. If Polygon is any indication, the actual choice of person could be shifted without issue.

Like, help here, I am having a very hard time thinking of women in the games industry who have a permanent fixture in the journalism side of things. I can think of women who USED to be in those positions like Tina Sanchez or Kat Bailey, but they have either moved to actual game developer positions or have exited the market entirely. The fact that struggling to find female voices of note in the games journalism business is hard is a far larger and more endemic problem than who gets chosen to do a glorified GOTY list.

1. Go through the different sites listed and check if there are any women regularly employed (yes there are)
2. Look towards other sites/publications that could improve things or help you out making sure that you're doing this correctly. Sites such as Offworld, US Gamer, The Mary Sue, FemHype, FemFrequency, Bitchmedia, SpawnOnMe, Not Your Mama's Gamer, Justice Points, etc.

 

[sheamus]

It odd that Andrea Rene isn't included. She has a really interesting opinions but i'm not really sure who she works for so that might be the issue

 

[diaspora]

I don't disagree. I just think a 50/50 split is a really lazy way to get that gender balance.

You're trying to force that balance. It's basically based on a lie. You shouldn't need a preset rule just to be more gender balanced.

Having a board composed of a forced 50/50 split is still better than a board that's not forced to be 93% homogeneous. I mean that as far as judgments are concerned for both The Game Awards where they're critically analysing artistic works (commercial sure) as well as something like Canada's cabinet which is better off mandating a gender split.

 

[Shredderi]

Because outlets themselves chooses the representatives the problem is on their end, not Geoff's or TGA's.

 

[Ansatz]

Not that this matters to the discussion but according to their corporate site:

73% Male
Average age: 32.1 years old

Why wouldn't it matter? It's not THE factor but probably a factor.

Gaming sites cater to their main demographic, which seems to be male young adults.

 

[Real Hero]

I guess no women are qualified for this position.

 

[jeffers]

Also wondering if you just all send your EIC/top reviewer, they've probably all played fairly similar subset of games? so skews the awards.

 

[FranXico]

If they're qualified critics, I see little issue. There could be 32 women and that would be fine.

This. 32 men or 32 women, it shouldn't matter.

 

[Hades Hotgun]

There seems to be a problem here with people recognizing that a judging panel which is made up almost exclusively of men is drastically unrepresentative of a society which is majority female.

For those suggesting that the make up of the panel simply reflects a greater gender imbalance and should not be addressed here, I would say that such imbalances can and should be addressed at every level of society since there is absolutely no logic behind insisting that an issue must be completely resolved before it is allowed to be specifically dealt with.

The panel should be redrawn to account for the massive imbalance present in the current make up. It should not require any one to lose their composure over it. I am perfectly willing to believe there is no intentional or overt malice here, but the problem can and should be acknowledged, adjusted, and avoided moving forward.

 

[LewieP]

There are also a bunch of publications who have a far less male skew with their editorial staff that were not invited to participate.

I suspect because the publications I have in mind are far less corporate or mainstream, which is obviously the direction TGA is leaning.

 

[Mesoian]

Im sure theres more qualified people out there. Like someone said they arent trying.. and even if there isnt how the hell you supposed to be "qualified"

It's a bigger problem than that. The problem isn't that there are no women on this list, the problem is that you have to go to these places and search every nook and cranny to find anyone who isn't a white male working there PERIOD.

And maybe that doesn't matter since this weird brick and mortar system of games reviews is starting to crumble away anyway. It's a real strange world this whole games journo land is becoming.

 

[diaspora]

Decision making bodies are more than the sum of their parts, when you want a group to critically look at commercial works of art like games, having a body composed of journalists and critics coming from different backgrounds and walks of life will always, always yield better results than ones that are homogeneous.

This. 32 men or 32 women, it shouldn't matter.

Either situation would be poor.

 

[StrongBlackVine]

This. 32 men or 32 women, it shouldn't matter.

Agreed.

 

[mgs2master2]

I just noticed the thread title says site selected jurors. If that's the case wouldn't the blame of all this fall to the selected sites who picked their jurors and not Geoff? Or am I understanding this wrong?

 

[ElectricBlanketFire]

Why wouldn't it matter? It's not THE factor but probably a factor.

Gaming sites cater to their main demographic, which seems to be male young adults.

The content creator can be of a different demographic than the target audience.

 

[Doctor Ironic]

The Game Awards are always going to be shit as long as Keighley (or whoever's running the show now) feels the need to use it as an awards ceremony and an announcement platform. The capitalism that produces the arts is deleterious to them, and holding a night that's supposed to be all about celebrating them as a craft while simultaneously putting advertisements in the very framework of it is an inherently flawed concept that will never, ever work. It's literally the awards show we deserve, not the one we need right now.

The fact that the show can't escape the sexism of a classist structure while gleefully participating in it is a fact that is hardly surprising, but is kind of amusing nonetheless.

 

[GavinGT]

I clicked through like two dozen articles on Guardian Games and 1 of them was written by a woman...

 

[Jotaka]

"Gender should have nothing to do with this".

Game players are 45 percent female, 55 percent male.

This jury is 7 percent female, 93 percent male.

There is a problem somewhere.

This whole process of electing the winners is wrong somewhere if they don't take in account the above

 

[WrenchNinja]

Always impressed that people love going to the "most qualified" argument, as if a woman or minority is somehow always less qualified which is why we don't see them

 

[cameron]

People are being super dense by tearing down a "malicious intent" argument that doesn't exist. No one is saying Geoff or the Game Awards hates women.

 

[HoodWinked]

lets just go all the way whats the ethnicity breakdown of these judges.

 

[inky]

I guess no women are qualified for this position.

It's very prestigious after all. We don't want just anyone voting if Fallout 4 or Call of Duty 12 is the best Doritos(tm) game of the year.

 

[WickedLaharl]

Dudebros who will pick the most boring games of the year.

Yeah they'll probably pick mediocre crap like mortal kombat x

 

[mrlion]

Suppose there are 32 women in the panel. What would happen?

 

[Some Nobody]

Interesting that everyone just assumes out the gate it has to be 50/50. I mean, it should be, but that doesn't account for how many women actually work as gaming journalists. But there's a lot of numbers between 2 and 16, and all of them would be better than 2. If you just had eight, for instance, this article (and this thread) wouldn't even exist.

 

[Shredderi]

I just noticed the thread title says site selected jurors. If that's the case wouldn't the blame of all this fall to the selected sites who picked their jurors and not Geoff? Or am I understanding this wrong?

You understand it right.

 

[Sephiroth_VII]

Could it be that there are more males in the industry than female? You don't solve that problem by forcing a 50/50 split, especially since it might mean experienced members get kicked out in favor of less experienced ones, just because they're male.

I think that is way more sexist than just choosing the most experienced members, personally.

 

[Henkka]

I'm guessing it's the outlets who decide who will represent them?

So why would it be Geoff's fault?

 

[Lime]

If they wanted to choose the judges, they would have just chosen the judges. That wasn't their goal so why would they ask for requirements?

You can argue that this is a systemic problem in the gaming press, not TGA's fault.

It's as simple as writing in your e-mail or whatever they used to get in touch with people that inclusion should be kept in mind or that they value diversity.

But then again, we're talking about a glorified GOTY show that relegates non-AAA games to the "Games for Change" ghetto, so...