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EA Exec: Sexism isn't keeping women out of the industry

Rubius

Member
While she makes a solid case, her argument that sexism is not a direct cause or at the very least, an influence - combined with other factors of course - is flat out revisionist history. There are barely any games targeted at ladies to begin with and she questions why women would want to start jump a career in game development. Playing them is one thing, developing them is another.

I find that games with a lot of story or games with a lot of management like RPG are doing really good with womens. And the goal is not to make games for womens, the point is to make a good game. Saying it like that is like saying that all mens hate romantic comedy while all women hate action movies.
 
While she makes a solid case, her argument that sexism is not a direct cause or at the very least, an influence - combined with other factors of course - is flat out revisionist history. There are barely any games targeted at ladies to begin with and she questions why women would want to start jump a career in game development. Playing them is one thing, developing them is another.

Women play all kinds of games, trust me. Genre makes no difference, and just because a game is developed by 100 men doesn't mean it can't or won't appeal to a woman. Most books were/are written by men. Like the Bible for instance. There are at least 1 or 2 billion women who read the Bible. The fact it was written by men seems to be totally irrelevant.
 
Nobody cares nor do they want to know how the meat is made. They just want to order the cheeseburger and be handed a delicious cheeseburger. So, "how many women are in senior management at EA" or whatever other silly, pointless question is reserved for the absolute lowest level of discourse.

I don't think we're divided into groups based on our sexual orientations. It's not a necessary distinction as it makes no difference in nearly every aspect of life outside of who we lay in bed with when we come home at night. I don't understand what people mean when they say these groups all need equal representation. Representation for what? And who is going to force everything to be equal? Do we live in a democratic Republic or not?

Actually no, I live in a constitutional monarchy.

As for the rest of your post, the point is that different perspectives enrich any medium. It's not a matter of ticking arbitrary quotas or anything so base as that. It's simply about believing that encouraging a wide range of opinions and points of view has a noticeable effect on the works produced within the medium, an effect which I feel is unquestionably positive.

To put it simply, I don't need to know how many lesbian cowgirls worked on New Vegas (though I do). I can tell from the characters and situations represented in the game that it's the product of a diverse group of people, and is a better game for being thus.
 

Kazerei

Banned
Also, I'm pretty much against the concept of Feminism too. Dont like one sided concepts. I'm more a Equalist, Male and Women equal, instead of the Feminist point of view of female on top or the Machist point of view of male on top. I dont think Feminism is a solution to the problem of gender equality, since it does not seek equality, but rather superiority.

I think you're looking at some sort of literal definition of feminism, instead of looking at what feminism is in reality. Feminism does not seek superiority, it does seek equality.

Except that Sarah Palin was a puppet. She didnt have any power at all outside of being a republican barbie doll who said what she needed to say and nothing else. Not really a great women role model, except for the submissive wives.

This is inaccurate. Sarah Palin had a huge amount of political influence -- unfortunately.

Your statement "a Feminist group will never put down a women" is simply untrue, and when faceless pointed out a prominent example, you tried to downplay it. Not happening.

And what I obviously meant is for stuff like abortion, child, parenting, teaching, divorce. There is a lot of stuff where males are way under womens in term of powers. And feminists wont help mens work on those things. Removing power from womens cannot be done by Feminists because the word feminist is biased.

This is also inaccurate. Feminist groups are and have been helping men work on issues such as paternity leave, better representation in nursing and teaching, and support for male rape victims.

I don't know how to say it nicely. Your understanding is simply wrong.
 

SapientWolf

Trucker Sexologist
In the country where I live, the USA, men comprise the vast majority of legislators (those who make the law) and the judiciary (those who interpret and enforce the law). As a result, men are largely in control of birth control policy, educational policy, family law, etc. Women do not have a lot of practical or real power on these issues.

As for feminists, just who exactly are you envisioning that they need to work with? Men? You know, feminism isn't exclusive to women - lots of men are feminists and work on feminist issues as well. And gay groups, who do they need to be working with? Straight people? The vast, vast majority of people working to secure LGBT rights and organizing around LGBT issues in my country are straight. I'm not exactly sure what these imagined groups working in isolation and in opposition to the rest of the population you think are, but you don't seem to be very well informed on what actual feminists, activists etc are or do.

I think that depends. If your company has, say, a reputation for making games that degrade women or throws holiday parties that feature hired topless women, you're sending a message that will turn off a lot of potential female applicants. If a company isn't getting a lot of female applicants for their positions, I think at they very least they do need to consider (to an extent) how their corporate image or recruiting policies might be playing a role in shaping their applicant pool.

EDIT:

From the article:



From the first page:
Playboy may be an entertainment magazine for men, but "Bunny" isn't the only position available to female employees. From photography to publicity, women staffers influence the look, content and sales of each issue. Forty-six percent of Playboy staff are women and one-third of management, like the recently named publisher Diane Silberstein, are female.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...307_1_james-kaminsky-christie-hefner-magazine

Now how is Playboy able to employ a larger percentage of women than EA? Maybe it's just not interesting enough.
 
K

kittens

Unconfirmed Member
She says that sexism isn't the issue, but then goes on to describe how sexism is the issue.

Her analysis is garbage.
 
Halo doesn't belong in that list

I disagree, but it's not really relevant to this thread either way. Besides, ain't nothing wrong with casual games. The term may be used as a pejorative on GameFAQs and such but to me it just means something you can pick up and play easily. That doesn't mean there's no depth to them at all, just that they don't demand a lot from the player.
 

Rubius

Member
This is also inaccurate. Feminist groups are and have been helping men work on issues such as paternity leave, better representation in nursing and teaching, and support for male rape victims.

I don't know how to say it nicely. Your understanding is simply wrong.

Hell I hope I am. Maybe I was simply exposed to the bad side of the feminists. But I really hope they get a name change. I dont like the thought of feminism. For me it just yell Female power, which was the point of the name in the first place. Maybe I'm "ethymologing" too much, but I know a couple of girls who also do not really like the idea of having a group like that called Feminist.
Its kind of like having a group called Black power who want equality for all races. Do not represent the group very well.
 

Mew2

Neo Member
I don't think the problem is sexism it's image portrayal in pop culture...you know video game nerd guys and stuff. What girl wants to date the gamer?

I know girls who play all kinds of games, they may mostly lean towards RPGS and MMOs but there are tons of games that have a varied gender audience.

Take this picture for example...it's so true T_T

154488_394423050643170_1008626717_n.jpg
 

GrizzNKev

Banned
I don't think the problem is sexism it's image portrayal in pop culture...you know video game nerd guys and stuff. What girl wants to date the gamer?

I know girls who play all kinds of games, they may mostly lean towards RPGS and MMOs but there are tons of games that have a varied gender audience.

Take this picture for example...it's so true T_T

154488_394423050643170_1008626717_n.jpg

Skyrim is basically property of reddit at this point. It's as casual as it gets.
 

Rubius

Member
I don't think the problem is sexism it's image portrayal in pop culture...you know video game nerd guys and stuff. What girl wants to date the gamer?

I know girls who play all kinds of games, they may mostly lean towards RPGS and MMOs but there are tons of games that have a varied gender audience.

Take this picture for example...it's so true T_T

154488_394423050643170_1008626717_n.jpg

Girls want to date gamers, but well maintened one who also are cute. They dont want a fat guy who spend all his time playing video games, drinking cheetos and eating mountain dew/doritos cupcakes.
Also, most guys cant find a female who play video games because they dont go out. Because they play games. And the female gamers they want? Well they dont go out. Because they play games.
I will restart playing Magic exactly because it force me to go out and meet new people. Because, if I can find a female gamer in a inuit village, I can find one outside in a metropolis.
 

JohnDonut

Banned
I don't think the problem is sexism it's image portrayal in pop culture...you know video game nerd guys and stuff. What girl wants to date the gamer?

I know girls who play all kinds of games, they may mostly lean towards RPGS and MMOs but there are tons of games that have a varied gender audience.

Take this picture for example...it's so true T_T

154488_394423050643170_1008626717_n.jpg
The picture is funny though. I don't see why a joke has to feel like a personal attack against a person when it's a generalization.
 
Isn't this the whole case of there aren't many women in the industry because the games that are made appeal to men more? This probably stems to males being more interested in violence and aggression than women.

To speak on the broadest terms about video games and what they are:

Video games are systems based on math.

The easiest way to manipulate these systems is to remove something from it.

The easiest way to remove something from a video game while keeping it engaging is to remove the thing the player is directly interacting with.

The easiest way to show this to the player is to show the thing your keeping and the thing you're moving to come in contact with one another.

The easiest way to do this is either showing the player's character intersecting with the object or to just draw a line between the player and the object.

To represent this to the player, the easiest thing is to show something familiar acting aggressively toward the object be it a physical object or a bullet.

This means that to be visually engaging, the easiest way to appeal to the player is to show violence which (mainly appeals to a male audience).

This isn't saying that games age inherently sexist but especially in the early days where visuals were so abstract, it was easy to make a tank or a space ship attacking another tank or space ship. Space War is what a lot of people the first single player video game. I feel like this logic snowballed from there, making people who were inspired by these type of games refining and improving on these core mechanics that are said to appeal to males and that's why there are less females in the industry today.

I'm not discounting the likes of text adventures, puzzle games or adventure games that wrote/designed these basic systems to appeal to a larger audience but I feel like games from the offset were targeted at males and its only relatively recently that games are put in the hands of females and targeted towards them. Its not to say that there wasn't women playing shooters and the like over the years and have decided to go into the industry because of them but I feel like in the next 10 or so years, we'll see more of a female influence in game development and game developed for them.
 

JohnDonut

Banned
Generalization or jokes based on a few people applied to the whole is pretty much a staple of all comedy.

for racism or sexism to occur there must be hate in the attack.
Right but there are people who will look at that picture and get super mad going "HES CONTRIBUTING TO SEXISM/RAPE CULTURE" as if that person was physically punched in the gut.
 

big_z

Member
There's a women run game studio in Vancouver founded by industry veterans. I saw an interview with the founders and the reasons they created the studio was because they were tired of working in a sexist man baby atmosphere and wanted to make games that appeal more to women.
 

laughingkizo

Neo Member
There's a women run game studio in Vancouver founded by industry veterans. I saw an interview with the founders and the reasons they created the studio was because they were tired of working in a sexist man baby atmosphere and wanted to make games that appeal more to women.

does this mean they wont accept you if your a male
 

Rubius

Member
There's a women run game studio in Vancouver founded by industry veterans. I saw an interview with the founders and the reasons they created the studio was because they were tired of working in a sexist man baby atmosphere and wanted to make games that appeal more to women.

Not sure I like the idea of making a studio who appeal more to women. I mean what exactly will they do differently?

I really dont see what a "women" game will have more than a "man" game. A game is a game. A good game is a good game.

Its the writing of a female writer (who hate games), who wanted to be more political correct and had a serious yaoi problem, that lead to the gay relationships of Dragon age 2 and Mass Effect to be so horrible in the first place, and still, those games are still popular with mens and womens.
 

SapientWolf

Trucker Sexologist
Playboy is a pretty good place for women. Female porn stars are respected, the management team have a lot of females too. I dont get why porn is always showed as a sexist place. Its really not.
That was more of a counterpoint to the implication that the mere presence of topless women indicates the presence of sexism, and that the sexism scares all the women away. Women broke barriers in a far more hostile working environment decades ago. They don't scare that easily.

I think there are tons of game related jobs that women would be interesting in doing, but programming in perpetual crunch time on a dudebro game might not be one of them. Doesn't mean that EA can't do a better job of attracting female talent. It just might not happen as quickly as they would like.
 

Cartman86

Banned
Ehhh sounds like bullshit to me. Saying sexism isn't the issue, but sexism is a reality AND it's the woman's responsibility to get into the industry anyways? Yeah no fuck you. Clean up our own house if we expect people to want to come over. Yes we need more women getting into tech education in schools and this will require parents and society sparking those feelings in girls. When boys are pushed toward the sciences throughout all sources of society its not a surprise that it's male dominated. Go into the little kids toy aisle and see the difference in what is pushed onto girls versus boys.
 

laughingkizo

Neo Member
I don't know where you got the idea that one must hate a group of people to be discriminatory towards them but it is simply not true. Intent does not automatically excuse racism or sexism.

i may not have been as clear as i should have been.
what i am trying to say is in order for something to be raciest or sexist there need to be an analog context of HATE in the message
you just cant run the message through a digital machine for key words to determine whether or not it is raciest or sexiest

the intent determines the product
 
But that picture is sexist. You can argue that it's ironically or sarcastically so, but the joke is predicated on the idea that women should be in the kitchen making sandwiches. I don't understand your argument.
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
Do we really? I don't see researchers trying to figure out why more men aren't becoming elementary school teachers.

That's probably because we don't pay elementary school teachers well. Although I'm just assuming that different grades get different pay.

There's also the social factors where we have been conditioned to think that women are "natural" nurturers and should be in charge of small children.
 
That was more of a counterpoint to the implication that the mere presence of topless women indicates the presence of sexism, and that the sexism scares all the women away. Women broke barriers in a far more hostile working environment decades ago. They don't scare that easily.
Except I didn't say that topless women intrinsically make a company sexist, or that sexism in the workplace guarantees that no women will apply.
 

sleepykyo

Member
While she makes a solid case, her argument that sexism is not a direct cause or at the very least, an influence - combined with other factors of course - is flat out revisionist history. There are barely any games targeted at ladies to begin with and she questions why women would want to start jump a career in game development. Playing them is one thing, developing them is another.

If we accept the 50-50 she gives, then regardless of whether the games are targeting females, there are plenty of games that appeal to females. The distribution of across genres and games might vary though.

She isn't looking at through revisionist googles, she admits on the third point there aren't that many female engineers. The whole article is more like selling females on a career in video games,

1. If you like playing maybe you would like playing them
2. Companies do want and need a diverse workplace
3. If you are a female that made it though a STEM program, you're a rare commodity.

In marketing terms, such a thing definitely exists. I didn't say "there are only games for women and men, not both". I merely pointed out that the number of games advertised, marketed, and aimed at are men as a target audience. You would have to be a fool to refute this. Look at any promotional material for most major big games.

Look at Killer Is Dead, just unveiled yesterday, and what do we have? A chick wearing a leather jacket half open to don her assets for the whole world. That sure is Girl Power! Or more likely it's just another petty statement from a developer as if to say,"here, jack off to this but remember to buy our game." Who do you think is the core demo for such a game?

Now, let's multiply this by almost every major big budget game release.

How big do you think Killer is Dead is going to be?

There are zero half naked females in Call of Duty. I guess there might one in the form of Samus for the Brawl/Melees. I don't remember any females in 3 out 4 Warcraft ads. It was simply a panda beating up a bunch of ogres, William Shanter, Chuck Norris and then Mr. T.

Killer is Dead, DOA, etc are drops in the bucket that only become relevant when someone wants to act like half naked females are as common and popular as Starbucks.
 

laughingkizo

Neo Member
an example of my argument is with my Canadian friend( i live close to the border). my friend and take pot shots at each other all the time except we don't ever mean it
 
In my VFX School there are a lot of females, they aren't the majority but it is close to equal. And they usually are the ones to get jobs first... perhaps because a lot of developers want more females? But I don't know, I've been to a lot of studios and a lot of them were pretty evenly distributed. I dunno, but I hate this subject, so I'm out.
 

Rubius

Member
Playing a game like that is one thing, but wanting to make one? From what viewpoint have games like that ever felt like they wanted a female viewpoint? Of course, it does heavily depend on the genre and that's why games like Final Fantasy, even Dynasty Warriors, are so popular with women. But they are also niche genres in a highly competitive field.

There is a major difference between making a game and giving your point of view on a game.
Its one thing to make a chocolate cake, its an another to decorate it. Look at Mass Effect or Dragon age. Both have female lead writers. She does not make a good job, but its a female point of view.
You cant really give your point of view on things outside of the story or the visual in a game, because the gameplay, the code, its solid. You cant give your point of view on a if else.
And Writing and design teams have a lot of females in them. So yeah. Outside of female indie, I dont get what game dont have a female point of view.
 

kirblar

Member
In my VFX School there are a lot of females, they aren't the majority but it is close to equal. And they usually are the ones to get jobs first... perhaps because a lot of developers want more females? But I don't know, I've been to a lot of studios and a lot of them were pretty evenly distributed. I dunno, but I hate this subject, so I'm out.
Does that involve a lot of design work though? The arts/graphics part of the process doesn't seem to be where the gender gap is usually most prominent.
 

Hatten

Member
I can lap circles around my cousin in fighting games, but if he takes out Madden it's over for me; I have no idea how to play that. And yet Madden is deemed a casual game.

Are you even a gamer or just come here to lecture?

Madden casual? hey overtly-P-C guy here's a news flash: popular != casual

BTW those chicks who played farmville have move on to other similar games: they are not still playing farmville nor playing core games, they only want a good timewaster so they are CASUALS

They dont care about graphics, story or gameplay, just like most people dont care about deep independent cinema, they want rush hour 2 and dont even care about the name of the director

Yes I have met female core gamers, but they were so rare I might as well have taken a picture because everywhere else is phone/browser games

You know whats the biggest impediment to female core gamers? other women mocking them for playing games.

Within the female population perception of gamers is stuck in the eighties: back then a grown man was also mocked for playing "games for kids", but now those gamers are 30 or older and for younger guys like me its totally OK to see my boss playing TF2.

A girl same as my age will get a lot of crap from non-gamer females. I know, I have seen it, they will call her immature, ask if she has aspergers or some other asocial problem.

You try being open about your hobby with most of your friends openly mocking you for it.
 

laughingkizo

Neo Member
I didn't say that women don't work in the gaming industry. They clearly do exist. I'm just explaining reasons as to why there may be a supposed lack of women in the industry. Also, Mass Effect and Dragon Age are anomalies in the gaming industry being lead written by a woman. Can you tell me any other examples of such a thing occurring?
liar there a lot of games written by females.
i would estimate to say more the male video game writers
 
Here's my question. When they say half of all gamers are female, where do they come up with this statistic? I thought someone pointed out previously that it's based on people who make the game purchase. I'm not saying that a lare amount of women don't play games, but if it's based on purchases it doesn't make sense to me. My mom is in her sixties. If she buys me a game I asked for my birthday does she get lumped into girl gamers even if she's never held a controller in her life? What about Jane Doe mom that is buying Skylanders for little Timmy? Same thing with age groups. If my 72-year-old dad does the Cristmas shopping and buys me a game that doesn't make him a gamer nor does it throw in the xx percent of gamers are above 50 grouping.

To me it seems like game development is a very specific field that can take advantage of people. There may be less women studying STEM fields, but I'd find it more likely that those that do would enter more traditiona careers instead of gaming-related ones. The EA exec makes it sound like women are too stupid or aren't studying STEM fields to be able to enter the field. To me it sounds like most women are smart enough to find a better paying, less shitty job than game development. Why enter a field that has zero job security and constant crunch hours when you are skilled enough to enter another career? Yeah, it'd be cool to be like a concept artist, but wouldn't it be better to be a graphic designer, make more money and have a normal 9-5 job like most humans.
 

laughingkizo

Neo Member
To most core gamers, yes, Madden is deemed as casual to many. Yet it is extremely deep. Want a better example? Let's try The Sims. Mention The Sims 3 on this forum, and I am sure a whole army bro gamers will storm in and call it a casual game, when it has a lot of depth going for it.

As for the rest of your post, that is an ineffective argument at best. Anecdotal evidence isn't going to win any arguments here. You say that women make fun of other women for playing games when most women I know had or have an interest in games growing up. So we can both use anecdotes, but I'll back it up with actual evidence. Mention Sega and they'll light up, gleaming about Sonic the Hedgehog and Street Fighter II with their brothers. I think the idea that women find video games to be immature to not be very true anymore, especially with this generation of women who grew up with Game Boys and Nintendo DS' systems. It simply is not true.



You call me a liar when I merely asked for data. Asking for evidence makes me a liar how, exactly?
what you are asking me is to go though imdb and pick off methodically
who the writer was only to invalidate it in the next post, you are not worth it
 
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