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Inequity and Diversity in the Game Dev Sector
Thumpah writes "J, the Damned Vulpine, has just posted a report on the inequality panel from the latest meeting of the Austin Game Developers group. The panel consisted of Sheri Graner Ray of Sony Online Entertainment's Austin studio, Ellen Hobbs of Amaze, Chris Smith of Lois Earl Entertainment, Denise Fulton of Midway Austin, Matt Crump of Amaze, Suzanne Freyjadis-Chuberka of the Women's Game Conference, and Susan O'Conner (a freelance game author) to moderate the panel. He ties the discussion in with the recent IDGA Game Developer Demographics Report."
Microsoft, Microsoft, Microsoft, Microsoft, Google, iPod, game developers, game developers, game developers, shaaria-compliant Simpsons in Arabic, game developers...
Slow day at Google today -- it's a good thing someone stepped into the breach to sue them!
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Why is diversity so important? Why does every industry HAVE to have diversity? Discrimination is one thing, but I think its pretty obvious that thats not going on here. I just don't buy the whole "lets encourage everyone but young white men to get into [ insert field/acedemia here ] because the industry needs diversity argument."
Top 10 Reasons To Procrastinate
10.
This number strikes me as astonishingly high. Looking at the raw data: as I'd figured, 5% of that is dyslexia/ADD/whatever (which is still pretty high). But 2% blind?!? 1% paraplegic/ALS? 5% saying yes to "Mental illness (eg, depression, schizophrenia, etc)"?!?!? Yikes!
Either there's some huge skewing in the study sampling or the game industry is, to put it mildly, a demographic outlier. It's interesting how all the discussion of the report fails to take any note of a supposed 5% rate of severe mental illness.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
The Austin Game Developers group is not the same thing as the Austin Game Conference. The AGD meets periodically and holds discussions like this; the AGC happens annually and is a for-profit conference.
I am a bit surprised by these numbers:
"Male = 88.5%, Female = 11.5%
White = 83.3%, Black = 2.0%, Hispanic/Latino = 2.5%, Asian = 7.5%, Other = 4.7%"
Sure most employees have college drgrees and therefore there are few blacks and lations (not PC, but sorry, I can't change relaities of different cultures)
but asian is ONLY 7.5%!! WTF? What happened to all the japanese and korean developers?
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
you're wrong: men and women are equal. however, being equal doesn't mean identical.
Some people are just naturally more inclined toward certain abilities, skills, lifestyles, careers, etc, based on who they are and how they're born. think of it in terms of the asian "yin/yang" symbol: both pieces are the same shape, but in order to interlock, one has to be facing the other direction, one has to be upside down in comparison to the other, and for the sake of making it easily notable that one is different from the other, its a different color. however, both sides of the symbol are equal, just different.
Umm...because we're talking about a field whose product is creative in nature? Just a guess.
On an unrelated note, does your dick get chafed from all that waving?
It's funny how it remains legal almost everywhere to discriminate on gender alone when recruiting front-line military personnel then.
Maybe political correctness isn't the first thing you're concerned about when your unit is coming under fire, one of your guys is hit, and someone else needs to carry them to cover.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Maybe, or maybe it's the fact that a society can lose very large amounts of men and still recover within a generation (as one man can father many children simultaneously) whereas one woman can only produce one child at once, and only for a limited span. Therefore it makes precious little sense to send women to the front lines, in the same way you don't send your university educated males to the front line either.
Except that graduates generally train to become commissioned officers, and front line units are frequently led by a lieutenant...
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Don't forget that captured women get raped, which makes males feel bad, and their capture is also very demoralizing since they're chicks.
Out of 27 programmers where I work on my current project (totals add to > 27 since some overlap):
5 are female, and 2 are only working part time as both have recently had babies.
1 African American
1 UK American
10 are originally not from America
5 Indian
2 Asian
So it's a pretty good ratio of females for a hard core technology profession. However, it's obviously biased against Americans proper, which is more indicative of our educational system and/or our powerful economy needing highly intelligent, technical minds.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I was using graduates as a shorthand for "smart people". Obviously you don't want Einstein running at artillery with a bayonet. Anyway, to paraphrase Bill Hicks "Anyone stupid enough to want to be in the military...should be allowed in."
And Sony Online Entertainment was on that panel? Muhahahaha !
I generally don't reply to these threads because they often degenerate into rantings, but for the sake of clarity I have to say diversity is important because it is American. It is one of the single-most defining characteristic of what this nation is about: different cultures coming together for the pursuit of happiness. I know it's a cliche, but it's true, I'm a game developer in New York City and I see it every day.
But seriously, what diversity gives you is a difference of opinion. You have a larger creative pool to pull your ideas from. Different backgrounds. Experiences. Let's say there were more Blacks in the industry, perhaps there would be less blackploitive games out there like GTA, 187 Ride or Die, Saint's Row, etc. Maybe there might be more. Who knows? At least there would be some authensity and respect for the culture (check out 187 Ride or Die if you don't believe me).
As to the numbers, it's not the college that's the problem. I went to a historically Black college and a career in Video Games was never on the table. That was a long time ago, 1996, and you couldn't even find books on Game Development. Now B&N has a whole section. Go figure. The whole point is that there is a whole chunk of the population that never considered VG as a career. I only did it because I grew up on M.U.L.E, Seven City of Gold, Adventure... but I'm crazy.
Secondly, college is an inventment. Parent expect results. Historically, Black families expect their college graduates to be doctors, lawyers, business majors. Careers that's going generate money. Making games for a living? That 60k is a lie. And you do a ton of hours. Truckloads. Honestly game development is more art than science. And it reflects in the salary.
But it's getting better, I'll seen more people of color in this industry in the last few years, so we'll see. So yeah... diversity is a good thing.