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[Jotaka]

It has probably been stated, but isn't it a gross assumption to state a group of same gender/race can't have diverse opinions, tastes, perspectives, etc.? It's sexist and racist all rolled up into one.

Because we know ... Applied Statistics (Survey methodology)

For arguments sake. Lets say Giant Bomb was asked to nominate a man and a woman. Lets also for arguments sake say, that Giant Bomb don't have any capable female journalists employed or know any female freelancers they trust enough to act on their behalf.

What then?

Just don't be part OR find another outlet that only could send a woman.

But then we have previous problem here... why Giant Bomb? What are the criteria to be a selected outlet?

 

[Gotdatmoney]

Nope, I honestly wouldn't. Now would you like to discuss my question I raised or just "answer" it with another question

This itself is the genuine problem. Anyone who plays games and is open to trying any game no matter what it is is a ganer. Of you spend money on gamers you are a gamer.

All the millions in revenue made by Candy Crush is entirely relevant to gaming. Look at every major publishers attempt into mobile gaming. People need to wake the fuck up. Maybe if we had mpre tetris/candy crish only gamers actually speaking about what they like and interests then they may actually be nore interested in games as a whole.

I literally hate the mentality that shit has to be some AAA 100 million production or some obscure deep strategy RPG to be real gaming. Go away dinosaura.

 

[Ravensmash]

That split is pretty absurd, but not massively surprising considering the make up of these groups.

Something needs to be done to encourage more women into the field, but I don't think a situation like in the OP is something that can be fixed instantly by making sites nominate a male/female.

It wouldn't address the core issues that led to that initial bias in the first place.

 

[Alias03]

Yes she'd be a gamer by all accounts.

I never put a gender to it. I guess we will have to agree to disagree which is fine you're very much entitled to your own opinion. To me a "gamer" is someone who plays games on a PC or gaming console, not someone who downloaded Cut The Rope to pass time at the doctor office.

 

[Amused]

I have no "extreme loyalty" to the selection process. I'm simply asking why you think a hand-picked jury by a small committee would be better.

It would be better because they wouldn't have to go in blind, meaning they could make up a jury that is both qualified an diverse - thus bringing a broader perspective to the table - thus strengthening the jury and its legitimacy.

What? No. Please read what I'm writing. I'm merely asking - if you were picked based on your gender instead of your qualifications - how would you feel? More or less "equal"?

I don't understand your way of reasoning. With the system I proposed everyone would be picked based on what they bring to the table - both in terms of qualifications and I terms of their background. Why are you insinuating that the females wouldn't be able to make the cut based on merit alone? The maLes would be picked based on their gender (as well as their qualifications) too.

Anyway, I'm not saying this is the way to go - I'm saying it would have been better than the way they did it. Other approaches could be just as good or better. The one they went with produces a shit result.

 

[Gotdatmoney]

Oh please. Disagreeing with your point doesn't necesarrily make a person sexist.

Serious question. If you support and defend a sexist inatitution (any institution not just gaming) what does it matter whether you are or are not sexist? Does it change the fact that you're still a baricade to progress?

 

[shira]

Having 50/50 is a silly pipedream, you have to go on qualifications.

That said, they could have had way more women than that. Still these awards are not taken seriously by anyone, they are a joke.

Fighting game has one unreleased game, and one game that is closing down after the awards are done.

What are these qualifications?

 

[TBiddy]

It would be better because they wouldn't have to go in blind, meaning they could make up a jury that is both qualified an diverse - thus bringing a broader perspective to the table - thus strengthening the jury and its legitimacy.

I don't understand your way of reasoning. With the system I proposed everyone would be picked based on what they bring to the table - both in terms of qualifications and I terms of their background. Why are you insinuating that the females wouldn't be able to make the cut based on merit alone? The makes would be picked based on their gender (as well as their qualifications) too.

Anyway, I'm not saying this is the way to go - I'm saying it would have been better than the way they did it. Other approaches could be just as good or better. The one they went with produces a shit result.

I'd argue that a group of males could also have very different perspectives on which games are good and which games suck. Just look at NeoGaf. There are wildly different opinions on almost all games.

I'm not insinuating that females wouldn't be able to make the cut. Please stop suggesting that. I'm only pointing out, that in my mind forced equality != equality. To really fix the issues of sexism in this industry, the gamers, the journalists and the industry have got to start having a positive attitude towards women instead of the shit-throwing that takes place on twitter especially. Forcing a random game show to select women for the jury is not the way to go, in my opinion.

Serious question. If you support and defend a sexist inatitution (any institution not just gaming) what does it matter whether you are or are not sexist? Does it change the fact that you're still a baricade to progress?

I don't support and/or defend a sexist institution. I don't consider asking 32 websites (or what the number was) to produce a jury member to be sexist. If they had asked for 32 males, it would be an entirely different matter.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

I never put a gender to it. I guess we will have to agree to disagree which is fine you're very much entitled to your own opinion. To me a "gamer" is someone who plays games on a PC or gaming console, not someone who downloaded Cut The Rope to pass time at the doctor office.

missed the male part, my bad.

This form of exclusion I don't understand as well, mobile games will become more and more important in the coming years and there's mobile games already being nominated for TGA.

Heck Hearthstone was nominated for 3 different categories and won the mobile category last year at TGA, among them GoTY.

 

[Spring-Loaded]

I never put a gender to it.

When talking about a theoretical person, you can say "he," "she," or "they."

Your criteria for what constitutes a gamer (i.e. someone who plays video games) is narrow and flawed. If you cared about video games, you would be more concerned with greater exposure for all types of games and all types of people who play games (i.e. gamers).

 

[benicillin]

This could have been easily rectified by anyone at TGA taking a look at the list, saying jeez we don't have much diversity here, and reaching out and trying to reach out to websites or places that have a more diverse staff or cater to a more diverse audience to include them. Why not get someone from The Mary Sue, or Paste Magazine/Paste Games, or Offworld, or any of the plethora of places they could have looked?

The reason people seem to be making such a big deal out of this is because, as the industry currently is, no one who was paying attention looked at the list and thought anything was wrong with it or took any steps to help.

 

[AyaisMUsikWhore]

Because what would be the point then? What would you say if they decided to bring in a male freelancer?



I have no "extreme loyalty" to the selection process. I'm simply asking why you think a hand-picked jury by a small committee would be better.



What? No. Please read what I'm writing. I'm merely asking - if you were picked based on your gender instead of your qualifications - how would you feel? More or less "equal"?



Clearly, from what you're writing, you would be picked based on your qualifications, not your gender. My question wasn't an attack on you, but merely a hypothetical question.

Your hypothetical question seems to be imply that being selected for your gender is bad because it's not your qualifications that's being considered and I'm telling you that, that has never and will never be the case. Your making up a hypothetical that doesn't exist because no professional field is picking someone from the bottom to represent.

If they want the best and they need to diversify... They are going to look for the best as well. Quotas are only used to make them look good and they don't care if the person is good or not, it's to save face... This is not the case.

 

[DumbNameD]

Just split the Game Awards into the Male Game Awards and the Female Game Awards. The thirty male jurors can vote for the Male Game Awards while the two female jurors can vote for the Female Game Awards.

In fact, it would be simpler on the female side since with two jurors, there wouldn't need to be any nominees. Just have each of the two jurors offer a winner for each category. I don't know how you would break ties if each juror decided to pick a different game for a single category. So maybe the original number of female jurors was correct, and there should just be the one-woman jury. This way you would not have to mess with ties or anything; you would just have a single legitimate opinion of the Best of the Best in video games as decided by female gamer(s) and for female gamers.

As for the Male Game Awards, you can probably just keep everything the way it is. It's all quite interchangeable, isn't it? Of course, why do you need a thirty-man jury to form a consensus when one or two jurors would do? Let's just choose two male representatives from the jury to decide the Male Game Awards. Oh, I forgot about ties and such. Actually, wouldn't it be cheaper and just as legitimate to have a guy (it could be Geoff Keighley, it could be Joel McHale, whoever just as long as he's qualified) go on youtube/twitch/twitter and say this is the GOTY, that is the best RPG, this has the best graphics, etc? One dude, one voice, one kickass GOTY (well, two if you include the other side, also)! C'mon, let's start handing out some awards.

 

[Aurumaethera]

Yeah when I made this thread I actually didn't expect that there would be so much resistance and opposition grounded in sexist beliefs. It's pretty disheartening to witness.

If this is Gaf's response, the general mood of gamers clearly isn't at all progressive, despite lip-service to anti-gamergate and equality. Makes me sad.

 

[Gotdatmoney]

Do people actually understand the point of a quota? Are people aware that your pem and paper credentials dont mean shit if you lack the societal component necessary to complete the task?

 

[TBiddy]

Your hypothetical question seems to be imply that being selected for your gender is bad because it's not your qualifications that's being considered and I'm telling you that, that has never and will never be the case. Your making up a hypothetical that doesn't exist because no professional field is picking someone from the bottom to represent.

If they want the best and they need to diversify... They are going to look for the best as well. Quotas are only used to make them look good and they don't care if the person is good or not, it's to save face... This is not the case.

Of course they aren't going to bottom feed, but if you have two candidates - one male and one female - and you are forced to choose the lesser qualified candidate because of gender ratios, how would you, as a candidate, feel then? "The other candidate was clearly better, but they had to pick me because of my gender".

 

[Gotdatmoney]

I don't support and/or defend a sexist institution. I don't consider asking 32 websites (or what the number was) to produce a jury member to be sexist. If they had asked for 32 males, it would be an entirely different matter.

You ignored the question entirely. Not surprised. Read what I said, remove this situation entirely like I said, answer it again. What you have responded with has nothing to do with my qiestion at all.

 

[TBiddy]

You ignored the question entirely. Not surprised. Read what I said, remove this situation entirely like I said, answer it again. What you have responded with has nothing to do with my qiestion at all.

No need to be aggressive. We're having a pretty good discussion here. English isn't my first language, so if I missed something, it wasn't on purpose. I thought I answered your post, but if you disagree, feel free to post the question again. Perhaps rephrase it?

 

[MrS]

Does anybody here actually disagree with any of the nominations/feel there are glaring omissions?

 

[Aurumaethera]

Do people actually understand the point of a quota? Are people aware that your pem and paper credentials dont mean shit if you lack the societal component necessary to complete the task?

ITT: Lots of people who think boosting oppressed groups to begin undoing their oppression is oppressive.

I feel there's a real lack of awareness that "reverse-sexism" isn't a concept anyone in the know takes seriously. You can't oppress a privileged group by catering to a less-privileged one.

 

[bigpumbaa]

When you have a gender/diversity imbalance like this, it skews things in a way the industry has always been skewed.

There are certain games and genres that men just naturally, on average across the population, less attracted to.

An obvious and exaggerated example is Animal Crossing Happy Home Designer (and maybe even Amiibo Festival). The series is known for featuring way more female designers than most Nintendo games. A basically all white male critic industry has written both off.

Maybe that's a valid opinion - but I'm certainly enjoying the more relaxed nature of both, the cute graphics, and the subtle dialog and gameplay additions that fit in line with the more feminine AC gameplay principles.

That opinion can't/won't be heard enough to break through the consensus because the culture is male dominated/oriented and this reflects that.

When the medium is largely subjective and there are documented gender preference differences (not even covering potential geographic differences) it's a problem. And it has been for decades.

 

[chrominance]

Try to suggest that the Game Awards should have more women on its jury, and you get told it's because game critics are mostly male and hey what can you do that's how the industry is.

Try to suggest that game publications could hire a more diverse staff, and you get told that no, a more diverse staff isn't important, I want "the most qualified person for the job" based on criteria that conveniently privileges the status quo.

Both of these things are problems.

 

[Lime]

Most people seem to be echoing the just as problematic Twitter VP who told one of his employees that diversity means lowering the bar.

If you sincerely believe that asking for more diversity = lower qualified people, then try to understand the implications of what you just wrote.

This could have been easily rectified by anyone at TGA taking a look at the list, saying jeez we don't have much diversity here, and reaching out and trying to reach out to websites or places that have a more diverse staff or cater to a more diverse audience to include them. Why not get someone from The Mary Sue, or Paste Magazine/Paste Games, or Offworld, or any of the plethora of places they could have looked?

The reason people seem to be making such a big deal out of this is because, as the industry currently is, no one who was paying attention looked at the list and thought anything was wrong with it or took any steps to help.

Good mentions all around. I think the reasons are:

1. Because the ones in charge seemingly don't care to do much if anything (this is the second year the sexist status quo is present)
2. Some gamers throw a hissy fit if women or other non-hegemonic identities get a leg up against the oppressive white dude system, so why rock the boat.

Try to suggest that the Game Awards should have more women on its jury, and you get told it's because game critics are mostly male and hey what can you do that's how the industry is.

Try to suggest that game publications could hire a more diverse staff, and you get told that no, a more diverse staff isn't important, I want "the most qualified person for the job" based on criteria that conveniently privileges the status quo.

Both of these things are problems.

I'm reminded of the extreme reaction to Samantha Allen who suggested that Giant Bomb did more to diversify their staff when they had a position open last year. Which ended up forcing her to quit talking about video games at all, because of the harassment she received for asking for a more diverse journalist staff.

 

[Amused]

Of course they aren't going to bottom feed, but if you have two candidates - one male and one female - and you are forced to choose the lesser qualified candidate because of gender ratios, how would you, as a candidate, feel then? "The other candidate was clearly better, but they had to pick me because of my gender".

This would never be a relevant problem in this case. First of all, TGA isn't getting one representative to do a job - they are getting 34 that should constitute the best possible composition. Secondly, there are no relevant criteria to differentiate the candidates when the goal is to build a jury that is to evaluate video game quality.

Both the qualities of the jurors and the composition is important if you want to build a team that has wide spread legitimacy.

 

[Hatty]

Why is this a problem this year, when the same thing happened last year?

 

[TBiddy]

This would never be a relevant problem in this case. First of all, TGA isn't getting one representative to do a job - they are getting 34 that should constitute the best possible composition. Secondly, there are no relevant criteria to differentiate the candidates when the goal is to build a jury that is to evaluate video game quality.

Both the qualities of the jurors and the composition is important if you want to build a team that has wide spread legitimacy.

Actually, I think we agree on most of the things mentioned. But I do think there needs to be a sort of "middle ground" between an all-male jury and a "forced equal jury". It's sort of a pet peevee for me, this whole "forced equality"

 

[Gotdatmoney]

No need to be aggressive. We're having a pretty good discussion here. English isn't my first language, so if I missed something, it wasn't on purpose. I thought I answered your post, but if you disagree, feel free to post the question again. Perhaps rephrase it?

To put it plainly, there are a lot of good people who don't necessarily recognize that even though they are for a positive cause if you partake in institutions that are against it you are making the problem worse. No one genuinely believes this was done purposely to be exclusive. However the result is still that it is. If you oppose action to correc the issue without any knowledge of why that action is positive, you arent helping. Panels and employment are not just about qualifications. Above all else its about productivity and producing qualitty.

When an organizatiin forms a team to tackle a challenge do they pick 10 extremely ecperienced pushy leaders or do they pick one leader and 9 qualified individuals to compliment the task at hand?

 

[Amused]

Why is this a problem this year, when the same thing happened last year?

Are you asking why this wasn't a problem last year, or why last years problem hasn't been fixed?

 

[JABEE]

The reaction of press seems to be more of a case of the old boys club looking in the mirror and having "visceral" reaction to what they see.

This isn't a problem with the Game Awards. This is the Games Media seeing what they are.

To quit and be disgusted seems to be a weird reaction. It's like showing up to a party and realizing everyone there is a dude. You showed up. You had the same reaction as all of those other guys who picked themselves. I guess it makes sense to leave the party, because you see the whole picture, and it makes you feel like a bad guy.

This is the games media though. I'm pretty sure game development teams are more diverse than the media itself. Journalists who are still able to work in this contracting business are the old guys with connections who existed in the business before there was any desire or cries for diversity.

 

[Carcetti]

Why is this a problem this year, when the same thing happened last year?

People are slowly starting to realize it's a problem.

'Why is people dying in car crashes suddenly a problem and we need these so called belts when we didn't need them before?'

 

[Gotdatmoney]

ITT: Lots of people who think boosting oppressed groups to begin undoing their oppression is oppressive.

I feel there's a real lack of awareness that "reverse-sexism" isn't a concept anyone in the know takes seriously. You can't oppress a privileged group by catering to a less-privileged one.

The privillaged group is always taught to place more focus on things in their controlbecause things out of their control purely benefit them. This thread is a prime example with all this qualifications talk.

 

[twobear]

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'.

Nobody accused them of malicious intent, only short-sightedness.

 

[bigbaldwolf86]

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.

Agreed. I don't care what sex or ethnicity they are, I just want some fair judgement on great games!

It would be worse to throw in people that aren't qualified just to have diversity.

Agreed on all counts

 

[Kuraudo]

Why is this a problem this year, when the same thing happened last year?

It's been a problem every year. People are just more aware of it this year and are taking a stand on it. This is generally how progress works. You don't just say "yeah, we're reinforcing inequality, but hey we've been doing it since the beginning of time so let's continue to do so".

 

[TBiddy]

To put it plainly, there are a lot of good people who don't necessarily recognize that even though they are for a positive cause if you partake in institutions that are against it you are making the problem worse. No one genuinely believes this was done purposely to be exclusive. However the result is still that it is. If you oppose action to correc the issue without any knowledge of why that action is positive, you arent helping. Panels and employment are not just about qualifications. Above all else its about productivity and producing qualitty.

When an organizatiin forms a team to tackle a challenge do they pick 10 extremely ecperienced pushy leaders or do they pick one leader and 9 qualified individuals to compliment the task at hand?

I'm afraid I'm not really following you. I agree, that if you support an institution that is outright against equality, you're part of the problem.. but how many institution are against equality?

 

[Vinland]

I mean, these are for the most part EIC's/senior editors that have been reviewing games for a while (long while). There is no diverse group of people in these positions. It's almost exclusively white males.

What's your idea of a pundit in the context of this award show? devs? That's not going to change much in the diversity make up either.

If people want them to reach out to popular youtubers/intedpendent bloggers to broaden the panel in terms of diversity that's fine, and considering the state of traditional gaming journalism it will come to that sooner or later. But there's not much other ways to broaden that panel.

A pundit could be a journalist like Jim Sterling. A developer, game designer or story writer that have a well received resume could work. Youtubers like EpicNameBro I think have pundit chops. Look to the podcast community as well.

Like I said, lots of work to build a recurring set of judges will take time and effort. And it takes people to stand out and/or stand up as well.

 

[Carcetti]

Agreed on all counts

When you put it like that, do you really think there's no qualified game writers in the world available to form even 70-30 or 60-40 jury with people who aren't white males?

 

[forrest]

a) no one said they can't be diverse and b) no it's not.

I've seen enough opinions in this thread to know some people do in fact, believe that having a large majority of a specific race or gender will not produce diverse results.

Since when is making blanket statements about a race or sex not considered racist or sexist?

Because we know ... Applied Statistics (Survey methodology)

And I can't tell you how many times I see a poll representing my race/sex that simply doesn't represent me as an individual. So no, I'm not buying the fact that we can assume this panel of judges won't have diverse opinions, tastes and perspectives.

 

[Gotdatmoney]

I'm afraid I'm not really following you. I agree, that if you support an institution that is outright against equality, you're part of the problem.. but how many institution are against equality?

The question isnt how many ate against it, the question is how many partake in destructive actions knowingly or unknowingly?

Here is anexample.a study was done that showed people with foreign sounding names were less likely to recieve a call back on resumes of equivalent experiemce vs white american names. To combat this we require that an HR department requires a committee containing atleast 2 minoritiy groups for huring purposes.

Is that forced diversity bad?

 

[Aurumaethera]

This is the games media though. I'm pretty sure game development teams are more diverse than the media itself. Journalists who are still able to work in this contracting business are the old guys with connections who existed in the business before there was any desire or cries for diversity.

Well I dunno. I started a year ago and I'm making a living? As are many of my peers, having been in the industry for less than five years. Quite a few of them are women.

 

[aeolist]

This could have been easily rectified by anyone at TGA taking a look at the list, saying jeez we don't have much diversity here, and reaching out and trying to reach out to websites or places that have a more diverse staff or cater to a more diverse audience to include them. Why not get someone from The Mary Sue, or Paste Magazine/Paste Games, or Offworld, or any of the plethora of places they could have looked?

The reason people seem to be making such a big deal out of this is because, as the industry currently is, no one who was paying attention looked at the list and thought anything was wrong with it or took any steps to help.

yeah this. people saying TGA didn't do anything wrong are missing the fact that they specified the outlets that would provide jury members, all of whom are overwhelmingly male.

there's plenty of women in the space if you take a half-step outside the usual set of gamespot/ign/giant bomb, and it would be stupid to suggest that they're less qualified just because they don't work for the right publications.

 

[Ooccoo]

Everything is scandalous

Give me back the 90s, I'm sick of it

 

[twobear]

There is a funny dimension to this though, which is that the publications self-select the person they're sending to judge. So they basically all selected men and are now outraged at that fact.

 

[Aurumaethera]

Everything is scandalous

Give me back the 90s, I'm sick of it

With respect, these problems have always existed. They're just being called into question, and for those who are oppressed by social structures, that's a good thing. It broadens every school of thought and makes everything better for everyone.

The 90s had the exact same stuff going down. You just didn't see it.

 

[MisterR]

That's good to hear. There are places where things have gotten better, but sadly they still seem to be the exception rather than the rule.

While I did put Government in my comment, Government seems to do better with diversity than companies (especially in the software field) in part because at least in the US governments tend to always have one hell of a paper trail when it comes to hiring. There's still a lot of cronyism (I live in Massachusetts and we're on the tail end of a big hiring patronage scandal), but on whole diversity is one place where Government tends to do better than the Private sector.

Very true. We have to closely document everything about our hiring process and it's all subject to open records laws.

 

[Gotdatmoney]

yeah this. people saying TGA didn't do anything wrong are missing the fact that they specified the outlets that would provide jury members, all of whom are overwhelmingly male.

there's plenty of women in the space if you take a half-step outside the usual set of gamespot/ign/giant bomb, and it would be stupid to suggest that they're less qualified just because they don't work for the right publications.

People think that if something isn't malicious it isnt problematic or reflective of a troubling thought process.

 

[Lime]

There is a funny dimension to this though, which is that the publications self-select the person they're sending to judge. So they basically all selected men and are now outraged at that fact.

Where's the outrage though? The only ones who have actually commented on this are: 1. Killscreen, 2. Polygon, 3. The Guardian. All 3 have made their stance accordingly.

Otherwise, everyone else is being silent and not talking about it and doing white dude business as usual

 

[TBiddy]

The question isnt how many ate against it, the question is how many partake in destructive actions knowingly or unknowingly?

Here is anexample.a study was done that showed people with foreign sounding names were less likely to recieve a call back on resumes of equivalent experiemce vs white american names. To combat this we require that an HR department requires a committee containing atleast 2 minoritiy groups for huring purposes.

Is that forced diversity bad?

That isn't forced diversity, though. Forced diversity would be if you forced a company to higher someone, purely based on the ethnicity, in order to have a more diverse set of employees.

 

[Gormless Noodle]

When you put it like that, do you really think there's no qualified game writers in the world available to form even 70-30 or 60-40 jury with people who aren't white males?

It's good that you mention the word "world". Is there any list of outlets that have judges on there? Do they even invite any European ones outside of the UK? I'm guessing Japanese experts are out of the question as well. Including those territories would probably solve non gender diversity a lot and probably give a whole lot of female candidates as well.

Otherwise, they should just call it the American (suburbian) Game Awards if it's just the US with an occasional Brit in it.

 

[Aurumaethera]

That isn't forced diversity, though. Forced diversity would be if you forced a company to higher someone, purely based on the ethnicity, in order to have a more diverse set of employees.

Whereas the status quo is people, based on their ethnicity, being denied employment due to racism inherent in society. So the company's just being forced to have white employees without realising it.

The current system is unfair. It is not equal. Action must be taken.