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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

#291

Post by throwaway894345 »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #203
madamelic wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 'm not sure which game you're talking about, but I suspect you misunderstand the criticism. There have been thousands of female video game characters going back to the dawn of the industry. Many titles which prominently feature female characters have done very well (e.g.., Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy, etc). I'm guessing there has never been significant controversy because a video game featured a female character, th…

People also got mad about Tifa's bust size apparently being reduced to a more realistic level in FF7R. It's nuts that we just kind of accept this as a culture.

We also accept a whole lot of impossibly jacked shirtless dudes but there's barely any public outcry against this. Even worse, video games are extraordinarily violent (I play lots of FPS games, so I'm not criticizing fans of violent games per se) and anyone concerned about the effects of violence on society is lambasted as a pearl-clutching conservative parent from the 1980s.

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

#292

Post by ballenf »

t-writescode wrote: post #215
oceanghost wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't conflate "white men" with these assholes. I'm so tired of being blamed for the behavior of folks with the same genitalia/skin color as me.

I believe the common response here to this sort of comment is "yes, not all men, but too many men", and that it's the responsibility of men to call out the men they see being that kind of deplorable on their actions, to reduce the frequency of those men.

It still feels so strange to me to criticize an entire race or gender lump for a perceived trait of that group (here, the trait of not calling out sexism enough).

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

#293

Post by 15155 »

munk-a wrote: post #120
Daishiman wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's debatable. CS was overwhelmingly male and wasn't prestigious until recently. We're talking about the same career that's been known as a money-printing machine for the past 25 years?

And fifty years ago it was incredibly female dominated - the "male shift" in CS is easy to observe and pretty handily defeats any of those false claims you'll see about "men's brains being wired" for programming. It's important to remember that men muscled women out of programming initially once the field became seen as something more than a secretarial position.

Were the bulk of these programmers solving problems with engineering and logical reasoning as they might today?

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

#294

Post by hinkley »

thesausageking wrote: post #208
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…

Where they'll feel it the most is in hiring. Everyone in the industry is watching and if they don't fix their house, it will be very hard for them to hire and retain the engineers and designers who build and run their games.

Project oriented companies have the luxury of trying out new cultures one team at a time - if they get management buy-in.

The real danger comes when the project fails, for any reason at all. People who like the new direction self-select into the experiment, and if the experiment fails they are more likely to find themselves laid off, give notice, or be disillusioned and stick around anyway.

I am very suspicious, for instance, if this is what happened at GM with the EV1. Effectively the rabblerousers got put onto a project, which they cancelled it quite abruptly and then backed away from the green vehicle space for a very long time.

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

#295

Post by beerandt »

etempleton wrote: post #254
gambiting wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Which is more of a reason that they probably won't stop giving Blizzard money over this.

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

#296

Post by andoriyu »

slg wrote: post #89
bin_bash wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Think about all those men complaining that a video game _dared_ have a female character or even more so, a non-conventionally attractive one gasp. That was in 2018... That's the _average_ person who is making a video game. What game are you referring to?

There are literally too many to name, but this one comes to mind[1]. [1] - https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/horizon-forbidden-west-aloy... EDIT: 4 responses within minutes of each other all pointing to a different game just underlines my "too many to name" comment.

That was satirical, lmao.

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

#297

Post by 0x500x79 »

postalrat wrote: post #130
0x500x79 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The video game company I worked at was a disaster of spaghetti code that was written by engine developers/jack-of-all-trade developers with no semblance of caring about maintainability. Every milestone was a new disaster of tech debt that was built upon the foundation of previous tech debt. It was difficult to hire new grades or less experienced developers because the cost to train them in the custom frameworks, infr…

If it's so had to train in new people it sounds like you already have a spaghetti code problem. You might want to get an outsider to take a look at your custom frameworks, infrastructure, and other technologies to see what can be done to straighten that out.

Absolutely, that is exactly what I was saying.

However, When the leadership is not aligned with this goal of approachability or maintainability of the software then it is not possible for new engineers or people to bring change. The old guard needs to be influenced or removed, which is a challenge when they are the ones who created (and continue to promote) the crap that causes this.

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

#298

Post by hkt »

overgard wrote: post #287
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.…

> 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. I mean I do kind of agree, but I'm not sure if "hire people you dislike" works either? It probably needs to be more of a situation of like "if…

Maybe the main thing is that hiring needs to be done in a way that is more about assessing fitness for the task than culture fit.

Professionals should be able to cope with culture clashes. Fundamentally, if someone isn't professional enough to get along with people who aren't from the same monoculture, they're not fit to work in a modern office.

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

#299

Post by [deleted] »

Hamuko wrote: post #270
thrower123 wrote: post #161

Last I heard, Blizzard was hemorrhaging WoW users as well. Not a great run for them over the past couple years, with the terrible Warcraft III remaster as well.

Hasn't WoW been "hemorrhaging" users since the days of Wrath 11–13 years ago?

[deleted]

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

#300

Post by madamelic »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #203
madamelic wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 'm not sure which game you're talking about, but I suspect you misunderstand the criticism. There have been thousands of female video game characters going back to the dawn of the industry. Many titles which prominently feature female characters have done very well (e.g.., Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy, etc). I'm guessing there has never been significant controversy because a video game featured a female character, th…

People also got mad about Tifa's bust size apparently being reduced to a more realistic level in FF7R. It's nuts that we just kind of accept this as a culture.

I was thinking about that after walking away for a bit.

I don't _hate_ sexualization of characters. Like, totally. Let's make sexy characters that we all adore, but let's not make it a default where female characters _have_ to be sexy.

I am all for the ridiculous boob sliders or boob physics or whatever, I think it is just that there is an expectation in video games that a female character has to either be sexy or not exist.

If there was a widely accepted place for female characters that are just another character, just a human being existing, just like male characters are, then we could have a space where you have those like hyper-attractive female characters just like games currently have the Adonis-attractive male characters.

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