An unfortunately too common take. It's perfectly rational on the surface, but fails to take into account what we know about human bahavior and biases we all can have.
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Bonnie Ross of 343 Industries Wants To Close Gender Gap In Game Development
- Thread starter Cranster
- Start date
Absolutely this. You don't hire the best person for the job, you hire the best person for the team. It is a subtle, but important, difference.
Every time this comes up, bunch of dudes want to argue about the ethics of "affirmative action" based on the presumption that there just arent as many women "NATURALLY INTERESTED" in game development, while continuing to ignore the testimonies of women in the industry who were put off from applying by the hostile environment including:
- assumptions that we somehow weren't hired on our merits
- perception of our skills to be lesser because we're discouraged from upselling ourselves by societal biases
- perception of our skills to be lesser because of commonly held sexist beliefs
- perception that we're younger (and therefore less experienced) than we actually are. Then they make it sound like a compliment that we still look fresh 20 year olds, when actually it means they haven't considered asking us for help which would help us become more influential at work and be promoted
- (unconsciously???) tuning out female names in job applications and voices in meetings, see testimonies of trans women for some pretty solid evidence
- ambient sexist bants
- sexual harassment
- assumption that we wont fit a company culture that's casual and expects a somewhat unreasonable work/life balance because eventually we will do chick stuff like having babies and taking care of our health
- men favouring male colleagues that they form friendships with and expressing 'discomfort' at being seen to favour female colleagues in the same way.
- just abject misogyny and harassment from fans and the gamergate movement
- "Boys prefer games because we make games for boys because we make boys make games because boys prefer games because we make games for boys..." (and props to bonnie ross for trying to fix exactly this!)
but yeah, go on about all that minority privilege I don't see anywhere. Doesn't matter how many doors are open if whats inside is a bunch of insecure dudes giving you the side-eye. Like if you want some of this sexual attention, gaslighting and crippling self doubt i'd be willing to share?
Anyway i love the industry, because im emotionally numb and too obnoxious of a weeb to fit in anywhere else. And i luv 2 art. And it only takes one good ass bad bitch who'll fight your corner to make you feel welcome.
- assumptions that we somehow weren't hired on our merits
- perception of our skills to be lesser because we're discouraged from upselling ourselves by societal biases
- perception of our skills to be lesser because of commonly held sexist beliefs
- perception that we're younger (and therefore less experienced) than we actually are. Then they make it sound like a compliment that we still look fresh 20 year olds, when actually it means they haven't considered asking us for help which would help us become more influential at work and be promoted
- (unconsciously???) tuning out female names in job applications and voices in meetings, see testimonies of trans women for some pretty solid evidence
- ambient sexist bants
- sexual harassment
- assumption that we wont fit a company culture that's casual and expects a somewhat unreasonable work/life balance because eventually we will do chick stuff like having babies and taking care of our health
- men favouring male colleagues that they form friendships with and expressing 'discomfort' at being seen to favour female colleagues in the same way.
- just abject misogyny and harassment from fans and the gamergate movement
- "Boys prefer games because we make games for boys because we make boys make games because boys prefer games because we make games for boys..." (and props to bonnie ross for trying to fix exactly this!)
but yeah, go on about all that minority privilege I don't see anywhere. Doesn't matter how many doors are open if whats inside is a bunch of insecure dudes giving you the side-eye. Like if you want some of this sexual attention, gaslighting and crippling self doubt i'd be willing to share?
Anyway i love the industry, because im emotionally numb and too obnoxious of a weeb to fit in anywhere else. And i luv 2 art. And it only takes one good ass bad bitch who'll fight your corner to make you feel welcome.
Last year I started working for a company who's mission statement is to be the most creative company in the world.
Pretty hard to achieve that when the majority of the workforce is a straight white male in their 40's or 50's. Diversity isn't just box ticking but ultimately results in a more positive and creative working environment. Win Win.
I still don't get this need to get more girls in game industry. And surprise! I'm a woman working in game industry.
Sometimes it's just simply isn't fair. Why? Our new project manager wants the same (even if without that we still have plenty of girls in our team, and the atmosphere in our studio isn't toxic at all, male employees respect females etc.) We were looking for two writers. Who applied? 20 males and 2 females. Who got the job? Those two females. Do I need to say they're dreadful? And do I need to say that every time he's responsible for recruiting someone he always looks at gender first, not at skill?
Other female colleagues from my work agree with me. One of them even started to look for another job. You should look at SKILL first and don't ignore promising, talented people only because they're different. But say what you want, geez.
Sometimes it's just simply isn't fair. Why? Our new project manager wants the same (even if without that we still have plenty of girls in our team, and the atmosphere in our studio isn't toxic at all, male employees respect females etc.) We were looking for two writers. Who applied? 20 males and 2 females. Who got the job? Those two females. Do I need to say they're dreadful? And do I need to say that every time he's responsible for recruiting someone he always looks at gender first, not at skill?
Other female colleagues from my work agree with me. One of them even started to look for another job. You should look at SKILL first and don't ignore promising, talented people only because they're different. But say what you want, geez.
The most annoying assumptions opinions that creep their way into discussions about affirmative action are with the notion that companies are choosing to pass on outstanding white male candidates in favor of a minority candidates who can't carry their own weight.
If that's what you have to tell yourself to live with the shame of knowing a minority might be a better fit than you, perhaps it's your skills aren't what you think they are and your attitude makes you a terrible teammate.
Do bad hires happen sometimes? sure! But it's More likely, a bad hire benefited from NOT being a minority.
If that's what you have to tell yourself to live with the shame of knowing a minority might be a better fit than you, perhaps it's your skills aren't what you think they are and your attitude makes you a terrible teammate.
Do bad hires happen sometimes? sure! But it's More likely, a bad hire benefited from NOT being a minority.
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This doesn't help nearly as much as you think it does. I'm part of the Halo community, and it's clear that in specific there is an issue with misogyny. When one of the more prominent Halo content creators is a GGer, yeah, there's some concern to be had with the individual community.
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Yeah I agree. People like The Act Man and Gamecheat13 are perfect examples.
From reading some of these comments, the aggressive condescending tone in replies doesn't really espouse the 'diversity of thought' they are willing to hire on.
I would say absolutely there's an issue of interest in Computing Sciences if we look at the statistics of applicants. Inevitably, further reduce this number again, for women who choose (absolutely nothing wrong) to pursue parenthood and a less stressful livelihood to support it.
I would say absolutely there's an issue of interest in Computing Sciences if we look at the statistics of applicants. Inevitably, further reduce this number again, for women who choose (absolutely nothing wrong) to pursue parenthood and a less stressful livelihood to support it.
I mean, good on Bonnie for wanting 343 to have more diverse hires, but from what we've seen from Halo 4 and 5 it doesn't seem to be helping much. I'm not trying to discredit the idea of diversity hires but more so that Bonnie saying this comes across more like a PR statement to attract positive attention rather than something that just so happens to be part of the development recruitment process.
Maybe Halo Infinite will finally be the game that doesn't utterly suck in some major aspect, be it the campaign or multiplayer, but that remains to be seen.
Maybe Halo Infinite will finally be the game that doesn't utterly suck in some major aspect, be it the campaign or multiplayer, but that remains to be seen.
This is most likely a symptom of statistics. Men are more much more likely to be competitive and high in disagreement in comparison to women...and those are important factors in climbing the organizational ladder. A quick google search also confirms that John is the 2nd most popular name from 1965, a common birth year for those in positions of relative power now.
So I don't think that all men innately have advantages over all women, but I do think on average men are more competitive and disagreeable.
Nope not it. So many social biases are at play. From pressure to align with social norms from the early ages, to a lack of mentorship opportunities in male dominated field , to discouragement an pay disparities, to the fact that being competitive and willing to disagree are often viewed as negative professional traits in women. The deck is stacked against them.
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True, sad. What's the deal with the potato mentions in those replies, though?
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I don't disagree that there are deeper social elements at play, there always are and there always will be unseen consequences to how society works.
But did you know that even in the Scandinavian societies where there are more efforts to make the workforce as egalitarian as possible, women go into STEM even less than in the United States? The science shows that these differences may be rooted in biology, not culture.
That's great. More Studios and Publishers should be involved in getting young women involved in the community and programming at a younger age. I know that EA does a lot of work with the Girls Who Code foundation and there's a few others I can't remember the name of, but they're very big proponents of diversifying their work force with more women and minorities across every level of the publisher.
This is about fostering it in upcoming generations so that they go into the field, not about magically creating people out of thin air.Well, she already has her work cut out for her at 343:
I'm glad that someone is doing something about it, but this is such a structural issue that it needs to be an industry-wide solution fixed by cooperation and organization across companies.
Well, she already has her work cut out for her at 343:
I'm glad that someone is doing something about it, but this is such a structural issue that it needs to be an industry-wide solution fixed by cooperation and organization across companies.
I mean the structural issue must be in education, not at the game studios. She stated most companies are literally hiring every female STEM grad and they are just running out of candidates.
I hear every year about new initiatives to bring women into STEM but I guess its just blowing snoke and what Bonnie is saying is true and the rates of grads are going down.
The science doesn't show that women are less likely to succeed in STEM or have the attributes needed to lead, though. What it shows is that though girls are likely to perform as well or better than boys in STEM courses, they are also likely to be EVEN BETTER in other course work.
Less gender-equal countries also tend to also have generally weak social support, and STEM careers tend to offer more certain financial stability. So you find a high persentage of women entering those fields.
Scandinavian countries that are more gender-equal and also have high level of social security. This indirectly empower women (and everyone else) to pick whatever careers they are best in, rather than what offers the most financial security or social mobility.
If women in America were choosing to pursue careers outside of STEM, because society was empowering everyone to do whatever they want and still have a great quality of life - that would be a great problem to have. But we know that isn't the case for many Americans - a fact that would typically push women towards STEM were in not for other social barriers at play.
Some great posts in this thread, and thanks to some industry folk for speaking up and adding some extra credence and support to the notion. I hope when/if I enter the industry it's much less... Homogeneous. This medium needs to be turned on it's head already.
It's not a "need", striving for diversity is a worthy goal in an overwhelmingly non diverse industry like video games. Not that you don't manage to make it sound ridiculous, but the failings of your project manager are just that, too bad you don't "get it". It's not about forcing unqualified women to take poor men's jobs, it's about attempting to even the playing field.
Maybe if you had read what you're commenting on you could have answered your own question. She's not forcing anything and acknowledges there's less female candidates. She sees the value in diversity and wants to bring in already interested women and change perceptions around the field with younger girls:
It's not as simple as just wanting to be there and poof! all obstacles gone!
And where is Bonnie "forcing" women into the industry? Any examples?
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Women aren't in CS/STEM/Game Dev because guys are pushing them actively out by acting like idiots, paying less and not wanting to work with them because of the false idea that women are less capable than men in such industries.
If it takes some "forcing" to enable women to get into these jobs, so be it. Maybe in 10 years we'll have equality in this regarde and we won't even be needing to help women to get there.
I dont think the available data supports your stance. Im absolutely against forced equality of outcome regardless tho
I don't accept that 100% of the reasons as to why women aren't in STEM is because of societal structures of a tyrannical patriarchy. There is surely some interest disparity at play as well.
You just explained most of those programs. Its the thing I liked least about CS. It was very isolated, self motivated and you really had to work to find other people willing and able to work with you. It's just the nature of the field I feel.
It's less than 18% and has been shrinking. Stable now only because of numerous incentives.
I'm not saying 100%. One of my former bosses at a game dev studio (a woman) told me they have trouble finding women because most women they hired left after a while because it was too stressful for them. There were about 10 women for a 110 employees company.
But it's definitely a huge factor.
Not to mention the reduced number of candidates. Is all the stress attributable to 'the boy's club' and not the actual work? As a developer yourself, you would know unless you live and breathe it, that you will burn out from the demanding workload.
where are the African Americans? Its good to diversify! It just needs to be done on a much broader scale in my opinion. companies should have extra spots for more highers if they are serious about it.Well, she already has her work cut out for her at 343:
I'm glad that someone is doing something about it, but this is such a structural issue that it needs to be an industry-wide solution fixed by cooperation and organization across companies.
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Glad to see this. We need more studio heads speaking up about these things.
Our interests and drives are mostly shaped by societal norms and expectations.
What you say essentially boils down to the assumption that biological factors somehow cause women to be less interested in game development than men, which is ridiculous.
Whats actually the case is that game development and computer sciences have societally been framed as mostly male fields and industries, its a constructed reality. But it still guides peoples interest in the field, it still informs the nature of the work environments and these are all factors that lead to the gender discrepancy we see in game development (and STEM overall).
The only proper solution would be changing the way STEM is portrayed and viewed and that requires multi-facetted approaches. But one of those approaches certainly would an effort to get more women into leading and senior positions, which could be achieved through quotas.
To argue against that along the lines of "qualifications should determine that" kind of misses the point, because if one of your goals is to reshape the public perception of the industry, female leaders might be inherently much more qualified than male ones who would partially and unintentionally reproduce the status quo.
After all, one of the main growing areas for the video game industry is expanding its female audience and this requires more female input.
In other words, you can't change the bias in a system if you adhere to the standards the biased system set.
Thats a very naive way of looking at things.
Our interests and drives are mostly shaped by societal norms and expectations.
What you say essentially boils down to the assumption that biological factors somehow cause women to be less interested in game development than men, which is ridiculous.
Whats actually the case is that game development and computer sciences have societally been framed as mostly male fields and industries, its a constructed reality. But it still guides peoples interest in the field, it still informs the nature of the work environments and these are all factors that lead to the gender discrepancy we see in game development (and STEM overall).
The only proper solution would be changing the way STEM is portrayed and viewed and that requires multi-facetted approaches. But one of those approaches certainly would an effort to get more women into leading and senior positions, which could be achieved through quotas.
To argue against that along the lines of "qualifications should determine that" kind of misses the point, because if one of your goals is to reshape the public perception of the industry, female leaders might be inherently much more qualified than male ones who would partially and unintentionally reproduce the status quo.
After all, one of the main growing areas for the video game industry is expanding its female audience and this requires more female input.
In other words, you can't change the bias in a system if you adhere to the standards the biased system set.
This is the kind of issues where becoming better as a community is the first step.
We can't really pin the blame on corporations if girls don't try to enter this world at all. The blame is probably on the community that pushes them back and make them feel like they don't belong.
We need to let women be fans before we can ask them to become creators.
We can't really pin the blame on corporations if girls don't try to enter this world at all. The blame is probably on the community that pushes them back and make them feel like they don't belong.
We need to let women be fans before we can ask them to become creators.
There is a lot more that can be done, certainly.
Some of it is about promoting opportunities, some of it is about creating work environments where women feel welcome. In that sense the industry providers getting better, but still have a way to go. The wider audience of gamers still has a lot more to do as a whole though.
That said, there are some roles that can, sometimes, skew inadvertently, towards people with certain characteristics.
For example, there is a disproportionately high number of people with autism with high-level skills at computer programming. This is irrefutably true.
Similarly, autism levels in boys are significantly higher than in girls. There are many theories about this and plenty of science still to do, but current diagnoses have it at up to a ratio of 16 > 1.
None of the above is a statement that women cannot programme or that programmers are all autistic, but it does contribute to some of the difference.
That said, much more needs to be done to provide an environment where women feel that an opportunity is worth pursuing if they are interested in it.
Some of it is about promoting opportunities, some of it is about creating work environments where women feel welcome. In that sense the industry providers getting better, but still have a way to go. The wider audience of gamers still has a lot more to do as a whole though.
That said, there are some roles that can, sometimes, skew inadvertently, towards people with certain characteristics.
For example, there is a disproportionately high number of people with autism with high-level skills at computer programming. This is irrefutably true.
Similarly, autism levels in boys are significantly higher than in girls. There are many theories about this and plenty of science still to do, but current diagnoses have it at up to a ratio of 16 > 1.
None of the above is a statement that women cannot programme or that programmers are all autistic, but it does contribute to some of the difference.
That said, much more needs to be done to provide an environment where women feel that an opportunity is worth pursuing if they are interested in it.
Good luck with that, Bonnie.
To be fair it got slightly better over the past few years but it is still a long way to go. At my work place it must be something like 70/30 I think, with mostly women in Art, CS and Marketing.
Game Design and Programming is almost 100% male though. But looking at recent pictures from Games Academy graduates I get the feeling that we might see more female designers soon.
To be fair it got slightly better over the past few years but it is still a long way to go. At my work place it must be something like 70/30 I think, with mostly women in Art, CS and Marketing.
Game Design and Programming is almost 100% male though. But looking at recent pictures from Games Academy graduates I get the feeling that we might see more female designers soon.
As someone who has worked for one of the largest companies in the gaming industry for a few years now, almost non-existent would be a good term to use here. The workforce is fairly diverse with the exception of African Americans and Hispanics.
Briefly looking up statistics, they seem to back up my experience.
https://mashable.com/2018/01/09/video-game-diversity/#mt20XyeIWOq5
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It's nice to have a studio be upfront about it considering other work places are still behind on it. It's better to give space for new diverse people to grow their skills, which is rare in AAA development.
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I'm sure they jumped on it mere microseconds after that article was published
I have not worked in this industry.
But not getting equal pay and treated badly by men are solvable issues. These leaders need to act and make changes instead of talking about it to make a stir.
So I am a female software developer. I also happen to be trans.
When I presented as a man my technical competence was never in question. Now when I answer the phone people think they landed at the reception instead of the IT-department and I cannot even buy a nintendo switch without being asked 3 times if I am really sure that I know how it works.
If such things had regulary happened in my youth like they do now it's likely I might have choosen a different career path.
When I presented as a man my technical competence was never in question. Now when I answer the phone people think they landed at the reception instead of the IT-department and I cannot even buy a nintendo switch without being asked 3 times if I am really sure that I know how it works.
If such things had regulary happened in my youth like they do now it's likely I might have choosen a different career path.
I'm more surprised at how many white people their are, not at all representative of any Computer Science/Engineering or even math class I was ever a part of.
I have to imagine maybe the asian/south asian graduates are moving to more traditional companies instead of videogame developers for some reason?
I mean I hear that traditional fields have better pay for workload than the videogame industry so maybe you just really have to have a passion for development to work as a game programmer instead of a software engineer for apple or google or something like that.
I think the "should not" is very important in the sentence.