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Video game developers at Activision Blizzard say they'll walk out Wednesday

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Re: Video game developers at Activision Blizzard say they'll walk out Wednesday

#251

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

jimbob45 wrote: post #222

Did the women go to HR? If so, just fire all of HR and get a new HR. Did they not go to HR? That's on them and no one should feel bad for them then. No one should be persecuted for not solving your problems for you . I know law offices like very much to get public opinion on their side with strategic leaks so that they can push for a settlement ASAP. If things go to trial, it's likely to come out that their clients a…

It's not clear whether HR was actually empowered to stop things here. The lawsuit alleges that in at least one case, a harasser's behavior was escalated multiple times to the Blizzard president, and multiple times he declined to fire the guy.

Re: Video game developers at Activision Blizzard say they'll walk out Wednesday

#252

Post by tsumnia »

andrewzah wrote: post #182
throwaway894345 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> considering women playing video games only became socially acceptable a few years ago. ... In Saudi Arabia? > It's still common for men to talk down to women on video games, to the point where the overwhelming majority of women do not use voice comms or make their gender known. It's common for men to talk down to men on video games too ("talk down to" is a very mild phrasing). Turns out there are a lot of jerks who…

"it's common for men to talk down to men on video games too" This is very tone deaf. I have spent probably thousands of hours playing games (with a mic) and the % of times I've been "talked down to" is very small, and it was never because of a natural property about me (that I'm male, etc). Literally every woman that I've played with who has used a mic or otherwise presented themselves as female has faced vitriolic h…

I think the poster's "talk down to" was more referring to the general "shit talking" people do in games. Even if you have a generic username and never speak, people will talk crap, be a jerk, or whatever. Even games that provide built in messages can get converted into trash talk (Rocket League, Overwatch, etc.). Having something "identifiable" just lets trash talkers switch from "you're terrible" to something else.

Re: Video game developers at Activision Blizzard say they'll walk out Wednesday

#254

Post by etempleton »

gambiting wrote: post #224
sandworm101 wrote: post #177

Appeal to public opinion is generally a great idea but there is a risk. Activision gets no sympathy from me, but I also don't think the answer will come from the masses. I'm not sure that most gamers really care about sexism in the gaming industry. Video games are synthetic, we don't really see the people behind them. At least in movies we see the actors. If push comes to shove, I think most gamers will still be lini…

The thing is, your "average gamer" won't know or care about any of this. I work in the industry and according to our own stats the "average gamer" is a 20-30 year old, owns a console, and buys exactly three games every year - fifa, CoD, and one other title that got the most advertising that year. I used to live with such guys at uni, had them as flatmates - you wouldn't catch them dead talking about video games, "ner…

I believe those stats for most games, but not for WoW, which is still Blizzards cash cow. Those players are invested in the community. Same largely goes for Overwatch. Blizzard has cultivated a community over the years and has their own convention.

Re: Video game developers at Activision Blizzard say they'll walk out Wednesday

#255

Post by MAGZine »

dleslie wrote: post #51
TameAntelope wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having worked with overseas contractors on a number of projects, I can say my personal experience is that the work product varies wildly in quality, shop to shop. I wouldn't say it's "relatively decent quality" in any universal or guaranteed sense. Not that American developers are necessarily more skilled, just that the lack of a culture and sometimes language barrier is pretty evident in the resulting work product,…

Considering the popularity of Japanese-developed, Polish-developed, German-developed, and other foreign-developed games... I don't think sharing American culture matters much.

You've missed the point. The point is, cultural (and time differences, language differences, etc) differences slow down collaboration. it has nothing to do with specifically american (or german, or polish) culture.

How many roles do you think to be outsourced by the polish or japanese? not a lot, which keeps them efficient.

especially in creative endeavours, its best to keep things colocated.

Re: Video game developers at Activision Blizzard say they'll walk out Wednesday

#256

Post by cableshaft »

cletus wrote: post #233

If you haven't read the state of California's claims here you should. It's the result of a two year investigation and the claims are.. shocking. I want to make a point about "culture fit". "Culture fit" in a company typically comes down to "we like you" and the reason why people like other people is that they are like them. Similar age, background, whatever. It's why Stanford grads probably like other Stanford grads.…

Bobby Kotick is worth $600 million according to a brief Google search. That's enough fuck you money I'm surprised he hasn't just retired yet. Of course, when you can convince the board to pay you $155 million more, that's a good incentive to keep working I guess. Especially since work at that level is probably just a handful of meetings in a boardroom and a few more on the golf course per year (I don't mean CEOs in general, but CEOs of large corporations like his, where the decisions boil down to pretty much "How many absurd microtransactions can we get away with in Call of Duty this year?").

Anyway I highly doubt his head can really roll from this.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2021-06-22-activision-bli...

Re: Video game developers at Activision Blizzard say they'll walk out Wednesday

#258

Post by input_sh »

fxtentacle wrote: post #118
madamelic wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look up what sparked Gamergate. It was largely based in men getting mad about women calling games out for being misogynistic. I am sure some was valid criticism. I am not really a fan of "every game must be progressive", etc. but the fact men got mad that women dared criticize video games should say a lot about the state of the video game industry. Not only that, but also, for a long time, video games just weren't ma…

If I remember correctly, the gamergate controversy was about a female indie developer dating a male indie game journalist. I can imagine why that would make people search for conflicts of interests.

Nope. Gamergate was about an abusive former boyfriend of a female indie developer stepping waaaaaay out of line, exposing details of their relationship in a blog post, while also claiming she slept with a game journalist (and then later saying he had no evidence of that).

That journalist briefly mentioned her work once (before she started dating that abusive boyfriend), so conflict of interest argument never made any sense, because... you know, he never actually wrote a review of any of her games.

It then spiralled even more out of control, targetting even more female developers for even more bullshit reasons. Brianna Wu was the target because she mocked Gamergate. Felicia Day was doxxed just for saying she was scared to even mock Gamergate (knowing what happened to Wu). Anita Sarkeesian for daring to kickstart a YouTube series about how women are represented in video games.

In other words, Gamergate was about absolutely nothing but misogyny.

Re: Video game developers at Activision Blizzard say they'll walk out Wednesday

#259

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

unsigner wrote: post #190
munk-a wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're almost guaranteed to see a shift to mobile games. HotS on mobile, Warcraft4 as a freemium mobile "strategy game" - ditto with SC3. They may occasionally sink cash into large PC primary titles but I think mobile is going to be the way they milk that cow from here on out.

But this is the sensible thing to do, talent leaving or not. A universe where Blizzard shifts to mobile because of business reasons is indistinguishable from a universe where Blizzard shifts to mobile because "everyone left", so your hypothesis isn't falsifiable.

But I don't think the Blizzard of 2005 would make that shift just because there's a sensible business case for it. It'd be like Paradox shifting to mobile.

Re: Video game developers at Activision Blizzard say they'll walk out Wednesday

#260

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

madamelic wrote: post #209
amatecha wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here are a few more... Battlefield: https://www.salon.com/2018/05/26/women-in-wwii-game-once-aga... Rust: https://www.vice.com/en/article/d7y7jj/this-game-is-forcing-... Outriders: https://www.reddit.com/r/outriders/comments/lyzmz3/srsly_so_... Horizon Zero Dawn: https://twitter.com/apexalphaj/status/1398826689992482819 Total War Rome 2: https://www.dailydot.com/parsec/total-war-rome-ii-female-cha... The Last Of Us P…

Rust is a _really_ fun one since not only does it force you into a gender, it also forces you into a race. It was _very_ telling about all the dudes getting mad that they were being forced to play not only as a woman but also non-white.

Same thing in Subnautica: Below Zero

...which it should be noted is actually a lackluster sequel with an incoherent plot regardless, so not all of the negative reviews are by racist misogynists.

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