Girls in the UE Community

[AndrewO]

@;253573

First of all i want to say that fact i’m moderator here, all i say is my opinion is not Epic opinion. I know this topic is very sensitive, aspecially now days, so i want state that out.

I didn’t heard of any female gamer being called “fake gamer” other then female ultra liberals that talking about “change” the industry and being accused of not playing games. I think you base those opinions on that group of people, instead of real female gamers, especially that you also mention “death or rape threats” on twitter.

This is what I was talking about, blissful ignorance. Search Google for “XBox Live rape threats” or really any sort of combination of sexual harassment and gaming and you will find plenty. It’s not just the Anna Sarkessians and Brianna Wu’s of the world getting threatened. As for “fake gamers”, articles like this sort of answer that one:

://www.bbc/news/magazine-18280000

I don’t see issue for woman to join game development industry, in my opinion fact that male is majority here comes more of cultural alignment then some serious barriers that liberals think there is, it same as man is less interested in fashion shopping then woman. Before i joined more international groups on Internet (and i’m also from Poland btw), in my teen times for around year or two is was participating in “amature” e-sporting of RTCW:Enemy Territory, ofcorse majority of scene was male players, but if female appeared they usually been treated like a queen, being female you could easily get to clan, your skill don’t need to be high, just for staying for company. I believe this behavior was caused from fact that man feels alone in there hobby, majority of girls (atleast in my country) is not interested in gaming, not because boys won’t let them… because they simply not interested in gaming, i even meet girl once that was hurt that her boyfriend spend too much time on playing games then being interested with there relationship. I can also say something about LittleBigPlanet where i participate in community activities to this day (), it a game where if you get serious it’s a great entry point for game development industry, lot of people i know and that takes level making more seriuesly they aim for that goal (in fact since Media Molecule put LBP aside and give torch to Tasier and Sumo they hired a lot of top community members to make story levels for LBP and LBP3) and i know 2 female community members that are serious in aim on that goal. In this community males are still visible majority, but females part is not so small, at least to level that seeing female player or level maker is something common and not unusual. As somebody who gone deep in to this community i can ensure you i never ever seen or heard any female player or level maker being decriminalized female for sole reason of her being a female, if you meet aggression in this game (which sadly is common thing too) it’s mainly comes from immature kids or teens where there lot of them there too and male players get equile about of that stuff as much as female. And it not because character is uniform (in fact it still being called Sackboy, even through some gamers with liberal views protest to call him Sackthing all the time), it’s because game is more oriented on artistic work and hangout with friends (theres even house levels which only point is to sit there play around and talk) and fact that Sackboy is like doll which playing with is considered feminine thing, art is also thing that seeing woman in art is not something unusual (as eXi mention you see woman mainly in that part in game dev), so it makes LBP more attractive for them.

Thats why i don’t believe there some serious walls either in gaming and game development for woman to come in, in fact i believe majority of man would be more happy about it to shere there interest. If people really want to push female devlopers in to industry, i think best would be by pulling female artists where there a lot more of them. Working around indies teached me that any artist with skill regardless who he are and what kind of art he is doing is good to work with in game industry, if people really want to bring “change” they should start by doing that insited of accusing others for who they are not and for opinions that usually the don’t shere, i believe results would be more effective and at least more peaceful.

I also don’t think this thread should be closed as long as we have normal discussion, i think discussion is only good solution for industry boiling topics.

See, this is just a whole lot of opinion which ignores facts, which again is just blissful ignorance. That’s great that you don’t think it should be a problem, but that doesn’t make it so. So let’s counter your personal opinion with actual research and facts, which are dead easy to track down:

://www.latimes/business/la-fi-women-tech-20150222-story.html#page=1

://www.inc/kimberly-weisul/its-the-culture-bro-why-women-leave-tech.html

://www.fastcompany/3037075/strong-female-lead/why-are-women-are-leaving-science-engineering-tech-jobs

://www.businessinsider/women-programmers-stories-of-harassment-2013-3

://www.slate/articles/double_x/doublex/2012/08/sexual_harassment_in_the_gaming_world_a_real_life_problem_for_female_gamers_.html

://www.wired/2014/04/tom_pw/ (this is the github incident where a female engineer was harassed by a male employee and threatened by the wife of one of the founders)

://www.fastcompany/3036174/strong-female-lead/what-its-really-like-for-women-in-tech

://www.polygon/2014/7/22/5926193/women-gaming-harassment (this one is an opinion piece by Brianna Wu, so I’m sure many will ignore it)

://www.newsweek/2015/02/06/what-silicon-valley-thinks-women-302821.html

://www.marieclaire/career-advice/tips/a7664/geeks-attack/

I could add plenty more but I hope you get the point. There are serious problems in our industry right now, and while there are plenty of good people trying to improve it, it still isn’t improving nearly fast enough. But what I find weird is that people who aren’t in the industry who don’t know much about it go out of their way to not believe there are problems rather than keeping an open mind and doing five minutes of their own research.

This is why I thought this thread will be locked, because there really is no debate to why women are leaving (or won’t even enter) tech and gaming so even trying to make it one is just a waste of time. It’s like starting a thread on climate change and ignoring all the evidence it exists just for the formality of maintaing the illusion that there is a valid argument on the other side. Just a waste.

So as a moderator, keep it open or lock it, it’s up to you. But having white males come in and say they think the industry is fine, while hundreds, and in the case of the Harvard study, thousands of women disagree kind of puts it all in perspective. Like I said in my previous post, it’s like when my mother-in-law, a white, middle class teacher from New Jersey claims there is no racism in America anymore because Obama was elected. Sure, she has the right to her opinion, but that doesn’t mean it carry’s any weight.