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Industry veterans get candid on ageism in gaming

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Re: Industry veterans get candid on ageism in gaming

#31

Post by everdrive »

"Ageism" itself is something of a strange concept.

Often, what is described as discrimination just seems to be a sane collection of valid trends:

- Older people are less willing to work longer hours.

- Older people are more aware of their rights as an employee.

- Older people may struggle to pick up new skillsets.

While it would be bad to find myself unemployable due to these factors, I find it hard to argue that they're not generally true. Obviously these are trends, and not things which are always true. Some of them aren't even discrimination against older folks. eg; it's easier to take advantage of younger workers. That's more of an indictment of corporate culture than the older folks themselves. In other words, it's discriminatory hiring, but not discrimination against the group of people who are older.

A common retort here is that an older person might not necessarily fall prey to these issues, even if they can be true in a general sense. I'm not sure what to do there. People don't seem to know what to think about stereotypes. Some stereotypes are true. Some stereotypes are bigoted falsehoods. Even if you're most interested in fairness, how can you know ahead of time whether you've encountered an outlier. Or, how can you know when your stereotype should not actually inform your decision? The social justice crowd provides no answers here: they claim that all stereotypes are as malicious as they are false, and this causes cognitive dissonance when you can tell for sure that some of them are true.

Further, "Ageism" is one of the only isms which can turn back on itself eventually. If I'm racist against black people, there's no chance that I become black later in life and become the target of the ire I've helped foster. However if I discriminate against the older generation when I'm in my 20s, I will eventually become the older generation myself. It doesn't necessarily work out this way in practice, but I would think I'd want to make things _better_ for the older generation, even if that requires unfairness, as I will eventually become older and reap the benefits.

Re: Industry veterans get candid on ageism in gaming

#32

Post by bluedino »

LanceH wrote: post #23

Only 9% of game developers are 50 years or older. The answer to this is dead simple. Let's take a developer who has made it a lifelong career. They started post college at age 22. This means they began working in games in 1996 or before and are still at it. The number of game developer from this time is miniscule compared to today, which itself might result in 9% or less. Additionally, games being the difficult indus…

> there just weren't that many 20 year old developers in the 90's.

John Carmack was 21 in 1992 when Wolf3D came out, Romero was 25

Tim Sweeney was 21 in 1991 when he released ZZT

Ken Silverman was 21 in 1996 when Duke Nukem 3D was released, Todd Replogle was 27

Cliff Bleszinski (19) and Arjan Brusse (22) released Jazz Jackrabbit in 1994

Shawn Hargreaves (sp?) was in his 20's in the 1990's when he created Allegro and went on to Probe entertainment etc.

The games industry seemed to be dominated by 20-somethings in the 1990's

I could go on all day. Also, hundreds of teenage 'bedroom coders' were doing ports of coin-ops to home PC's.

Re: Industry veterans get candid on ageism in gaming

#33

Post by slg »

LanceH wrote: post #23

Only 9% of game developers are 50 years or older. The answer to this is dead simple. Let's take a developer who has made it a lifelong career. They started post college at age 22. This means they began working in games in 1996 or before and are still at it. The number of game developer from this time is miniscule compared to today, which itself might result in 9% or less. Additionally, games being the difficult indus…

Nothing you said here is incorrect, but it doesn't eliminate the possibility of discrimination. In my experience, it makes discrimination even more likely when the discriminated class is smaller due to other nondiscriminatory reasons. It is a lot easier to discriminate against a handful of people than a larger group and it is a lot harder to stand up against discrimination when you don't have a lot of peers.

Re: Industry veterans get candid on ageism in gaming

#34

Post by slg »

everdrive wrote: post #31

"Ageism" itself is something of a strange concept. Often, what is described as discrimination just seems to be a sane collection of valid trends: - Older people are less willing to work longer hours. - Older people are more aware of their rights as an employee. - Older people may struggle to pick up new skillsets. While it would be bad to find myself unemployable due to these factors, I find it hard to argue that the…

>Or, how can you know when your stereotype should not actually inform your decision? The social justice crowd provides no answers here: they claim that all stereotypes are as malicious as they are false, and this causes cognitive dissonance when you can tell for sure that some of them are true.

Maybe just me, but if you are talking about enacting policies that negatively impact a protected group, I think the burden of proof should be on the people doing the discriminating rather than the group that says don't discriminate. Can you show that given two otherwise identical candidates, the older candidate would perform worse on the job? If not, then why are you so confident in these stereotypes?

Re: Industry veterans get candid on ageism in gaming

#35

Post by photochemsyn »

beaeglebeached wrote: post #29
photochemsyn wrote: post #19

Employers want cheap labor, and firing older workers who've climbed a ways up the salary/wage ladder and replacing them with new hires is one of the most consistent methods for doing this. The only way to avoid this in the merciless capitalist culture we live in is to get a contract, and of course employers don't want to hand out contracts (unless you're in the executive suite, where everyone gets a contract). Indeed…

I want at will employment for myself and to offer my labor with less termination friction. What you mean by "all employees" is to say, take away the bodily autonomy of the employee to enter mutually consensual arrangement and instead smash them with third party imposition of the union. A great deal for certain union barons, no doubt, who can act as a middleman cartel .

Traditionally, that kind of arrangement would classify you as an 'independent contractor' - but notice, you're still getting a contract, it's just a contract for something like a finished product. (Here I am ignoring the con game of corporations attempting to reclassify employees as independent contractors so they don't have to pay taxes into SS or provide health care etc.).

Re: Industry veterans get candid on ageism in gaming

#36

Post by autoexec »

beaeglebeached wrote: post #29
photochemsyn wrote: post #19

Employers want cheap labor, and firing older workers who've climbed a ways up the salary/wage ladder and replacing them with new hires is one of the most consistent methods for doing this. The only way to avoid this in the merciless capitalist culture we live in is to get a contract, and of course employers don't want to hand out contracts (unless you're in the executive suite, where everyone gets a contract). Indeed…

I want at will employment for myself and to offer my labor with less termination friction. What you mean by "all employees" is to say, take away the bodily autonomy of the employee to enter mutually consensual arrangement and instead smash them with third party imposition of the union. A great deal for certain union barons, no doubt, who can act as a middleman cartel .

> is to say, take away the bodily autonomy of the employee to enter mutually consensual arrangement

No union ever forced someone to accept a job they didn't want. If you had a contract you'd know exactly what the terms are and you'd be entirely free to accept them or not.

Also, while I'm sure your default position is "union bad!" and that you're unlikely to change that view, I'd remind you that union employees are not powerless slaves to "union barons". If a union isn't serving the needs of its members they can vote out union leadership or in extreme cases even disband the union and form a new one that will better support them.

Re: Industry veterans get candid on ageism in gaming

#37

Post by dfxm12 »

everdrive wrote: post #31

"Ageism" itself is something of a strange concept. Often, what is described as discrimination just seems to be a sane collection of valid trends: - Older people are less willing to work longer hours. - Older people are more aware of their rights as an employee. - Older people may struggle to pick up new skillsets. While it would be bad to find myself unemployable due to these factors, I find it hard to argue that the…

That's more of an indictment of corporate culture

Like you say, these are common issues that affect workers, regardless of age.

It always boils down to some form of those to have vs those don't. Those who have fear a united front, in this case, the corporation fears a united workforce, so they will distract the employees by trying to get them to fight amongst themselves. "Oh you're younger colleagues accept less pay for more work, blame them, not me".

Re: Industry veterans get candid on ageism in gaming

#38

Post by meheleventyone »

bluedino wrote: post #32
LanceH wrote: post #23

Only 9% of game developers are 50 years or older. The answer to this is dead simple. Let's take a developer who has made it a lifelong career. They started post college at age 22. This means they began working in games in 1996 or before and are still at it. The number of game developer from this time is miniscule compared to today, which itself might result in 9% or less. Additionally, games being the difficult indus…

> there just weren't that many 20 year old developers in the 90's. John Carmack was 21 in 1992 when Wolf3D came out, Romero was 25 Tim Sweeney was 21 in 1991 when he released ZZT Ken Silverman was 21 in 1996 when Duke Nukem 3D was released, Todd Replogle was 27 Cliff Bleszinski (19) and Arjan Brusse (22) released Jazz Jackrabbit in 1994 Shawn Hargreaves (sp?) was in his 20's in the 1990's when he created Allegro and…

I think they mean there are way more 20-somethings now than there were in the 90s so proportionally over the growth of the industry older developers are naturally going to be underrepresented.

Re: Industry veterans get candid on ageism in gaming

#39

Post by renewiltord »

bluedino wrote: post #32
LanceH wrote: post #23

Only 9% of game developers are 50 years or older. The answer to this is dead simple. Let's take a developer who has made it a lifelong career. They started post college at age 22. This means they began working in games in 1996 or before and are still at it. The number of game developer from this time is miniscule compared to today, which itself might result in 9% or less. Additionally, games being the difficult indus…

> there just weren't that many 20 year old developers in the 90's. John Carmack was 21 in 1992 when Wolf3D came out, Romero was 25 Tim Sweeney was 21 in 1991 when he released ZZT Ken Silverman was 21 in 1996 when Duke Nukem 3D was released, Todd Replogle was 27 Cliff Bleszinski (19) and Arjan Brusse (22) released Jazz Jackrabbit in 1994 Shawn Hargreaves (sp?) was in his 20's in the 1990's when he created Allegro and…

That's a nice nostalgic list, but it sort of proves the point, doesn't it? There were so few that we remember most of them. Today there are 300k game devs in the US.

Re: Industry veterans get candid on ageism in gaming

#40

Post by bee_rider »

psunavy03 wrote: post #16
johnday wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's older than the median age of a human being. Granted, people don't tend to play games before the age of about 7, but that still seems suspect.

Why? Elder Millennials and younger GenXers (born late 70s and early 80s) were arguably the first generation to grow up where video games were mainstream, and that's just a little older than that age bracket. I'm in my early forties, and I've enjoyed everything from the original Final Fantasy to Baldur's Gate 3 over the years. And I'm sure there are folks older than me who picked them up in their 20s and 30s.

It seems suspect in the sense that we’d expect gaming to be at least as mainstream in the subsequent generation, right? The median age of a gamers should be approaching the median age of the population from below, I’m fine with believing it is pretty close, but how’d it get higher?
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