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Indie Game Jam Show Collapses Due To Interference From "Pepsi Consultant"
Sockatume (732728) writes "Would you like to see a half-million-dollar TV show in which four teams of indie developers and Youtube personalities compete to create amazing videogames? Tough luck, because GAME_JAM from Maker Studios has spectacularly imploded. Although a lot could go wrong with this kind of show, the blame isn't being levelled at game developer egos or project mismanagement but the heroic efforts of one Matti Leshem, a branding consultant brought in for Pepsi. After imposing Mountain Dew branding rules that even banned coffee from the set, his efforts to build a gender divide amongst the teams culminated in the competitors downing their tools and the production collapsing. Accounts from Adriel Wallick, Zoe Quinn, and Robin Arnott are also available."
"...culminated in the competitors downing their tools and the projection collapsing." huh?
We geeks are the doers.
We make things.
We create new stuffs.
We come up with new and exciting ideas.
But we are *NOT* tools for anyone.
That "pepsi consultant" can go eat shit and die - if he or she thinks he/she can push geeks to do whatever he/she likes.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Sorry these nerds had to learn the hard way that pretty much everything on TV is fake.
May I mambo dogface to the banana patch?'
Would you like to see a half-million-dollar TV show in which four teams of indie developers and Youtube personalities compete to create amazing videogames?
I'd rather play the game they made as a finished product instead.
The "consultant" thought he would make a name for himself by acting like Gordon Ramsay. Hilariously, he was right, just in the exact opposite of what he hoped for. Unlike the chef, he did nothing to earn any such position and tried to generate strife where there was none.
I find your ideas intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Not that anyone took Maker Studios and everyone it employs seriously to begin with.
These guys made a deal with Pepsi, the epitome of a soulless American corporation which will drown fat teenagers in high fructose corn syrup to get a quarterly profit, and they expected Fiji water and organic bananas on the set?
There are about a gazillion indie film makers looking for work. If you don't like corporate, don't do corporate. Your little vanity project is helping keep the lardasses in this country hooked on Taco Bell and buckets of Pepsi, so please don't expect sympathy that your precious self had to drink some Mountain Dew.
I don't know, maybe for their next project they can ask for $5 million from Nike, and do the entire project barefoot... or better, see if Fox has any interest in a "I'm a clueless techie dork" reality show...
Support microSD: in a post 9/11 world, it is unwise to carry your data on media that you cannot comfortably swallow.
Part of the problem here is "downing their tools" which is an idiom that is not used in American english. While I was able to take a guess at what it meant it is confusing and awkward to those who are not familiar with the idiom.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
Thas unpossible!
Seriously, do consultans ever actually improve the situation?
Really. It's not.
Is that even English? Seems more like some dystopian futurespeak loosely based on a form of English which has been coopted by media and communications majors.
Nice butt! The ripped jeans were a bit over the top though. I wonder how many hundreds of dollars she spent on them... And that little metrosexual behind the camera and the other with the glasses, oh dear!
Practically unreadable. It is far too long and contains many run-on sentences. Further it is filled with jargon that is not explained.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
Well, if the event was sponsored by Pepsi, yes. That's generally one of the conditions for sponsorship.
Otherwise the event will probably either not happen because there are no funds to organize it, some other sponsor is found (to which one has to follow THEIR rules), or some other form of fundraising is determined.
It's why sites like Wikipedia don't do advertising - because they refuse to abide by any sort of rules a sponsor might want to impose, and while it's possible there are few who are willing to sponsor anyways, the numbers are far fewer, and the money small enough that it's not worth the bother.
The fallout from this will likely be minimal unless Pepsi sponsors a large number of them - generally the event there is dead, but others will remain unaffected.
Plenty of blame to go around - Pepsi for being so demanding, the organizers for not reading the contract close enough to see what restrictions on sponsorship were, and developers for not asking questions about the sponsorship (and probably letting the "cool, I'm on TV!" factor play an excessively large rule)
Honestly, it sounds like it was a monumentally bad idea in the first place. Who thought anyone would even watch such a thing?
As others have commented: I'd be more interested in the end product of bringing these people together, not watching how they do it.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
not everyone falls into the same pitfalls as you do
http://www.tvrage.com/person/i...
"Even for Slashdot, that was a very obscure reference!" - Anonymous Coward
Could that article be packed with any more narrative fluff?
And then we'll still be better than idiots like you with no dignity or self-respect.
Not everyone who does things in the vague arena of entertainment wants to be a whore for a corporate product they don't actually endorse.
How does one "down" their tools, or "level blame" at someone? Americans love to reinvent and "coolify" the English language in the most creative and pretentious ways.
So you bring in someone from Pepsi and his requirements and strategies are crap and...the whole project collapses? Eliminate the consultant and end the relationship with Pepsi then find a different sponsor. So clearly there's more to it collapsing than just the Pepsi guy.
To much information. Please don't tell us the rest of your life!
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Such contracts are not godlike power, you don't get to tell people to do "whatever he/she likes", you are limited to what can reasonably be asked for for the money you are offering and the contract that was signed and all limited by the circumstances of the people you hire. If people will die if they quit then you can ask like this for all else there are limits! I see this idea that paying gives you unlimited power too often, it just is not true and worse it is also a justification for abusive, often unnecessarily abusive, behaviour.
It opens with paragraphs of him saying how awesome he is. Funk dat.
A good allegory to this is the Simpsons episode with the "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show" show. A bit long for my ADD, but makes the point.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Won't somebody please think of the time cards!?
...is exactly what developers need. I know, I know make for good TV. Wait, does it?
Or he applied the well known principle of "Management by Perkele." He's name is Matti, after all.
I'm only about a third of the way into the article, and it's already hilarious.
You generally don't read a lot of crash and burn stories, so this is great. The author needs more drugs, though, and some speed.
Well, if the event was sponsored by Pepsi, yes. That's generally one of the conditions for sponsorship.
There's a big difference between putting up Pepsi logos and branding (which everyone involved said they were fine with) and forbidding anyone to use any drink that isn't a Pepsi product, including water and coffee. No one could reasonably have expected the latter going in.
Nor does corporate sponsorship imply that a "branding consultant" should engage in aggressively sexist behavior that would get someone fired if they did it in any normal white-collar office.
I would like to point out how buzzword-y the Maker Studios website is.
Maker is a talent first, technology-driven media company. Entertainment is changing. Millennials are living a mobile, social, on-demand life.
That's not a thing, that's just a narcissist.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
I've been a professional game programmer for quite a while. Yes, female programmers are rare. I've worked with only three or four in the last fifteen years or so if I recall correctly. They're mostly to be found in the art, design, QA, and production/management departments. To be honest, this always made me a little sad, because one of the big strengths of working on teams comes from having different skill sets of course, but also different opinions and viewpoints. As with anyone else, their actual skills varied quite a bit from person to person. But I really don't think it comes down to sexism or anything that people should freak out about - it's just not a job that appeals, for whatever reason, to a large number of women.
I've never even heard anyone at work malign someone on the job because they were female. Granted, I'm not exactly in the position to hear that sort of thing, but most developers I know don't have that sort of mind set to begin with. They're there because they love making games, and don't really care about whether someone is male or female. It never really made much of a difference to me, at least.
I'm proud of the devs for not taking the bait and declining to participate in this idiotic "Pepsi Consultant's" little drama show. What a fucking moron.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
At least not for the typical US audience. It's always fun to see how the same branded show will focus more on drama in the US while other countries focus more on information. You can actually watch cooking competitions from other countries where there's actual cooking being taught and shown!
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
http://farm1.staticflickr.com/181/457089364_f970a20953_o.jpg
The chip you just developed will change your puny opinions!
Altus and Sockatume at Slashdot.
But we are *NOT* tools for anyone.
Obviously, you've never been to Silicon Valley. That place is chock full of tools.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Rule #1: Always read the contract carefully.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
So he tried to create a Jerry Springer kind of air by trying to antagonize the teams and getting them to go ad hominem against each other, and those geeks didn't go for it. Wow, who would've thought that geeks care more about content and less about form, more about what a person can do than who they are...
Matti, in case you're reading this: Don't. Just ... don't. You're not a Jerry Springer. You are, essentially, an oxygen thief.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If you sign up to do a reality tv show, you pretty much are whore of some sort.
Two reasons: One is that abuse on that level deserves walking out on as well as a damned fine finger flip at the stupidity it represents as demonstrated by the articles about what went on. Two is - I just really can't stand "reality" shows with their fabricated hate sessions, created and shoved into production by douches like that guy. I honestly feel that those who go along and make them have some dire moral shortcomings - you know, Bridzillas.
... and tried to generate strife where there was none.
Isn't that what "reality" shows are supposed to do? Isn't that what sells?
But we are *NOT* tools for anyone.
LOL, you're adorable.
I hope your dignity and self-respect keep your warm during your long wait at the bus stop.
Why? Does he live in downtown SF and work for google or something?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
I read Adriel Wallick's post. Basically he went on a game show where they agreed or were aware of producers being able to use anything for dramatic effect. Then one douchdb, asks them some inflammatory questions about women games and they lose their shit.
Ok in a normal office environment I would agree, but this is a TV show, you want people to watch it. it needs drama, not a bunch of nerds making video games because that is very boring by itself.
What happened on the set it seems is what happens on all those 'reality show' sets. Pump up the drama make contestants look like idiots. If you can't stand this shit maybe you should never have agreed to it at all.
did you forget to take your meds?
Rule #1: Always read the contract carefully.
If you read the articles, you'll see that not only did they read the contracts, they re-negotiated several provisions that were clearly unacceptable.
"his trilby, director’s scarf and lit e-cig " Pretty much sums it up.
"Would you like to see a half-million-dollar TV show in which four teams of indie developers and Youtube personalities compete to create amazing videogames?"
No. And I can't imagine what drugs somebody was smoking to even think it was a good idea in the first place. It's boring as hell to watch people talk and pound on keyboards. Essentially internal processes (like the excitement of creating a game) are invisible to the third party observer. There's a reason why reality shows are filled with drama real, fake, and everywhere else on the spectrum between the two extremes. That's what pays the bills.
The production company grasped that, the self absorbed prima-donna "indies" did not. Seriously, when the introductory paragraph and a good chunk of the overall text is the narcissistic writer bragging on himself and how cool the "scene" was... I could see the train wreck coming.
Yeah, I work at a company, and make software. I get paid real US dollars. For the software I make. I don't sell my soul, giving them free advertisement for their crap just because that's where I get my salary. They get my productivity. They don't need my honesty.
Remember when there were shows about actual reality? They called them documentaries.
The dude reminds me of "Sparky" from the movie "Bring it On"
Here (west coast Canada), "down tools" is used to say "abruptly stopped work". Interesting that it's not a thing in the States.
It sounds like the organizers of the show gave away too much control to the sponsor's representative. It's a natural thing to want to not aggravate the sponsor, but there is a line where you give up way to much control and bad things happen. The point is that you need someone on the management team to step up in these situations to reign in any loose canons. It sounds like this group was missing this key ingredient and everything ended up going off the rails...
The brits on /. have a different take on Gordon Ramsay
Our joke goes along the lines of - on any day he is making tv adverts, while making his branded biscuits in a factory in Northampton, and doing something for british airways, before working at one of those celeb resturants at lunchtime, the afternoon is tv time with a series to make, then he jets off to America to save a restaurant. I guess the cook books get written overnight.
Ramsay is a brand and not what you think he is.
That's like saying a woman doesn't realize her date wants "value" for picking up the dinner check. No, what they didn't realize was that Pepsi was going to waltz in and set the prostitution dial to 100% from the very first "hello".
You seem to think no show has ever turned a profit that depicts an interesting subculture without the insta-pimpover move.
To be honest, this always made me a little sad, because one of the big strengths of working on teams comes from having different skill sets of course, but also different opinions and viewpoints.
While better than saying, "We don't want women," I think it is odd to see this idea that women should be wanted for a different viewpoint, as opposed to just wanting people in general with different viewpoints. Opinions and viewpoints seem to be largely influenced by upbringing and life experiences. While there are still plenty of women around who were raised differently as girls than a typical boy was, and there are many women around with different experiences than that. There is still plenty of crap that women put up with when older, but experiences vary there too.
The result is that many of the same things that resulted in men ending up in a male dominated field can often be the same reasons some women get into the field, and there is little to no difference between them as a result, beyond the typical person to person difference. I've known several women who went into engineering, probably in part because they had parents that felt raised them with the attitude, "I don't care if you are a son or daughter, but you should learn how to use basic tools, and if you take an interest, we can work on projects together." As adults, they are not defined as a female engineer, but just as an engineer.
Banning coffee?
You better believe I'm walking.
I think he might be fictitious... Nearly all of his pictures have the same face, it's just his suit that changes or the people he is with. ... now copy and paste.
Stare straight ahead. Look confident with a hint of menace and an air of undeserving smugness
Sig. Sig. Sputnik
Especially at the top of the corporate ladder.
The problem here is that it looks like someone – maybe Maker, but that isn't quite clear – pulled a bait and switch on both sides.
The event was sold to the programmers as a "Game Jam", a contest of skill. But it was sold to Pepsi as a "reality show" – a heavily edited event that focuses primarily on playing up drama. These two expectations were mutually contradictory, and inevitably led to the clash that happened, and to the whole thing falling apart.
When the developers refused to sign the contracts until the boilerplate "reality show" language was removed or at least modified, this should have been a warning sign to Maker and Pepsi that this wasn't going to work out the way they wanted. But they didn't take the hint.
It is a ridiculously contrived concept for entertainment. I'm not surprised it ended like it did. It should have never got off the ground to begin with.
Plenty of blame to go around - Pepsi for being so demanding, the organizers for not reading the contract close enough to see what restrictions on sponsorship were, and developers for not asking questions about the sponsorship (and probably letting the "cool, I'm on TV!" factor play an excessively large rule)
You should probably read up on what actually happened before passing blame on people for not reading the contract.
A big part of the problem was that nowhere was it stated that Matti Leshem was supposed to call the shots. It was essentially a random person that was allowed to run around and be a complete dick without any formal acknowledgment from organizers. If only a director had made it clear what the intent was a lot of problems could have been resolved.
It is used in American English.
If you are an American and you don't know this idiom, you are simply an ignorant, illiterate American.
I clicked the link only to find my eyes literally BURNING after the page had loaded. I'm only able to type this by my knowledge of my home keys!
Why would anyone drink Pepsi or Mountain Dew? Drinking cat piss or dog semen would be a better way to spend your time.
Well, maybe dog semen, but cat semen? That stuff is nearly undrinkable, much worse than Pepsi or Mountain Dew.
This is different. I saw the word 'pepsi' and 'brand management' and knew the pepsi guy was the one who would mess it up.
Let me regale you of a tale from my younger days. We were having a meeting with the BIG customer Pepsi.
The lead dev was busy in the basement coding away. He was called and summoned up to the meeting as the BIG customer wanted to ask some questions. He grabs his drink off his desk and walks in. Answers their questions. They are happy, everyone is happy. Until the second meeting.
'We have decided to fund the project but you can not have that one developer anywhere near the project'.
The PM leans back in his chair and says 'Why is that?'
'he brought a coke can into this meeting'
''We can do what you ask but the project will never be completed'
'WHAT *WE* are paying for it'
'you just fired the lead developer of the project and the only one who knows how to do what you want'.
I have heard numerous stories like this one about Pepsi. I may like their drinks, but their management is cray cray. Everything is about the brand and not the customer.
If a couple inane questions caused them to run crying about being personally offended, they apparently have never seen a reality TV show or watched Chef Ramsey rip into someone. Sad. The competition as a whole was at a disadvantage for having these clueless people in it and it had nothing to do with their gender.
Once you have their money, you never give it back.
You might be thinking of rule #17:
A contract is a contract is a contract ... but only between Ferengi.
Do not meddle in the affairs of geeks for they are subtle and quick to anger
So you're saying that the "consultant" should have free reign to troll the "contestants" and anyone else on the set as much and as hard as he wants just because he worked for the sponsor?
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
No, it's that most English speakers are illiterate.
"Down your tools" is a perfectly cromulent idiom and quite an elegant turn of phrase.
Or how-to shows.
There are even documentaries and how-to shows still around; they're just no longer on channels like Discovery. (Instead, they're where they've always been: PBS.)
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I've only taken one thing away from all this: Traditionally, an individual had to get to their 60s before they turned into a curmudgeon. With pop culture being what it is and trends changing so rapidly you'll now be one by your 30s.
After being incredibly turned off by "reality" shows that contain no reality at all ("Dangerous Flights" is the most egregious example I've seen lately), I was totally absorbed by Penny Arcade's low-budget reality show offering of Strip Search last year. (The site is slightly misorganized, but you can find stuff if you try).
The show was a dozen web comic artists in competition. The premise of a single artist being funded and supported by Penny Arcade for a year was motivational, and the simple act of appearing in an episode granted even the entrants ousted first an audience for their work. While it was clear the producers provided for the possibility of backstabbing and conflict, they didn't go out of their way to insert any, and in the end the show was all the better for it. I'd actually put PA's Strip Search above 90% of professional, high-budget, high-production-values TV series.
My point being, it's totally possible to structure an interesting show where game dev competition is friendly and rewarding for all, and producers with zero-sum on the brain don't exist. It just hasn't been made yet, apparently.
It's the polite way of saying they told the show to F off while they all walked out the door.
No water? No coffee?
So Aquafina and prepackaged Starbucks coffees aren't produced by Pepsi Co?
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
While better than saying, "We don't want women," I think it is odd to see this idea that women should be wanted for a different viewpoint, as opposed to just wanting people in general with different viewpoints. Opinions and viewpoints seem to be largely influenced by upbringing and life experiences. While there are still plenty of women around who were raised differently as girls than a typical boy was, and there are many women around with different experiences than that. There is still plenty of crap that women put up with when older, but experiences vary there too.
The article, if you read it, was largely about an artificial attempt to inject sexism and conflict into the show where none at all existed. Thus, I'm commenting on women's roles as game developers as I've seen it from inside the game industry as a programmer.
I simply feel that women tend to bring a unique viewpoint to the table. I would never pretend to be able to represent the viewpoint of a black man or a gay man. Nor would I be able to represent the viewpoint of a women, because those factors tend to fundamentally alter one's life experience, giving people unique perspectives. Don't read into it any more than that.
Anyhow, the entire point of my post was that, in my experience, most game developers *don't* actually give this much thought in a professional environment. We're too busy trying to make fun games that we (and hopefully others) will enjoy. I'm also not claiming sexism hasn't been a problem either - just that I've never seen it personally. All I have is a perspective of one person's life, so take that for what it is.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
After reading all three articles, I'm glad the developers walked out. Now they need to stop apologizing about it. They were recruited by misrepresentation, and when they found out, they didn't like it. They have nothing to apologize for. They don't need to justify their actions. That the sponsor lost $500K is not their problem.
There are pervasive differences in the experience of living in the US based entirely off gender (and others based on, say, race), so having someone female on a team will give you insights into things that an all-male team is extremely unlikely to be aware of. And vice versa, although that's much rarer.
That people aren't aware of this is, to some extent, part of the problem.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
That is really excellent advice for members of a species which isn't ours. Humans, however, really do have emotions, and they can't just shut them off. Furthermore, your proposed policy for what things should be like is basically the all-time champion of the Law of Unintended Consequences: If we adopt this policy, then the winning strategy is to constantly be an asshole to everyone, because if you can push them over the edge they lose.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
"downing their tools" which is an idiom that is not used in American english.
I'm American and I didn't have to think about that, I knew what it meant instantly... I don't remember learning it from British sources.
"Put down your tools" is pretty clear and since English is full of moments where you make up words like "downing", I don't think many people would be confused.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The TV took a nice fun but whacky activity, and tried to pump up the comedic aspect.
I like it, but...
Rule #1 of Slashdot: NEVER read the fucking article.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Of course the tools were not up to par. Of course there are PAs everywhere. Of course there are cameras in your face wherever you go. Of course they misrepresent what you say for dramatic tension. Of course they try to designate one the "bad boy" and try to get people yelling at each other. How did they expect this to be otherwise? Did they expect an average day at the office? These were supposed to be intelligent people, and yet they willingly walked into a lion's den for what, money? The story isn't how badly developers were treated, it's that they were dumb enough to go on the show in the first place.
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
The "consultant" thought he would make a name for himself by acting like Gordon Ramsay. Hilariously, he was right, just in the exact opposite of what he hoped for. Unlike the chef, he did nothing to earn any such position and tried to generate strife where there was none.
It's my understanding that he already had a name for himself. His wiki page seems to agree. This was him being him trying to promote his client.
That was kind of mentioned at the end of the first paragraph of the post you replied to. The nature of that experience will vary a lot though, from women who had to deal with some blatant BS in their life, to stuff subtle enough that they might not even be aware of the influence themselves, assuming it has any influence relevant to whatever field they are working in and is not dwarfed by some other big influence in their life. Having seen a lot of discussions on how to encourage women to get into physical sciences, I've seen women who can clearly cite bad things in their life that had to be overcome, others that can cite good things that encouraged them, and yet others that have no idea what to do because they can't see how the path leading them into such fields was any different than their colleagues. Assuming progress is being made, that last category is or will grow.
Hmm. What got me was that it all fell apart when the Mountan Dewd Bro started instigating sexist shite.
"Do you think you're at an advantage because you have a pretty girl on your team?"
and
"Do you think the teams with women on them are at a disadvantage?"
As expected the indies didn't putting up with corporate sell-out nonsense or reality-TV false shit-stirring of sexism in games. Marketdroids should have known better.
Protip: Developers are not the players. That's really two separate communities, and there is zero barrier to entry, just like romance novel writing. There are far more female romance novelists. There are far more male indie gamedevs. It's not sexist. Different sexes make different choices in general since Men and women are different. A generalization doesn't limit the individuals who are free to be outliers. To get rid of the sexism and racism we've got to stop looking at things in terms of those constructed identity labels, and focus on what the individuals are actually creating and deciding and experiencing for themselves.
No water? No coffee?
So Aquafina and prepackaged Starbucks coffees aren't produced by Pepsi Co?
The product in question wasn't Pepsi Co products in general, it was Mt Dew, and only Mt. Dew.
I don't disagree about him being a brand now but he had to work his name up by being a great chef and restaurant owner. Household brands names are rarely born over night.
Let me suggest an alternative. The consultant was very smart. He knew that without strife and discord, there would be no show. Nothing that people would watch. Reality programs need drama.
So, he worked to create strife. He forced the participants to drink Mountain Dew (so, more caffeine than they were used to) in order to get them hyped up. He made deliberately provocative statements. He did everything possible to get the participants out of their comfort zone and arguing with each other, deliberately, in order to make a show that would sell.
Arguably, although his plan failed, the show might have also failed without his influence, simply because of a lack of drama.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
While Pepsi may indeed be utter twats, it was fucking poor showing by the developer.
Show some fucking respect for your client.
For starters the main story is down, and no cache appears to be available. But from the other 3 viewpoints here's what I takeaway:
A person whose job it was to make the "story" aspect of the videos engaging asked a purposefully hurtful question to incite conflict (since conflict sells). Rather than consistently using that as a launching point into educating the masses (people who will be watching the videos - obviously the person asking has no need for education) the teams decided to SHUT DOWN. First they shut down by ignoring future incursions. Then they shutdown entirely. Seems like the guy was giving you a soap box for you to talk on.
Joseph Elwell.
To be fair, most (all?) of those sogennante "celebrity chefs" are a brand now, whether or not they are skilled in the kitchen, or may once have been.
I take it you haven't looked at Karmashock's posting history?
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
If it's elegant to down my tools, is it equally cromulent to up yours?
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
Live an learn, you can't *make* some people live your reality.
TL;DR: Start at the section titled "The Set-Up" for actual content.
The first ten paragraphs are personal background for the point of... I'm not even sure, actually. The section "The Press" is at least tangentially related to the actual topic, but the introduction is not. You're not the only person to find it really hard to read, either.
I don't know what the fuck the author is smoking, but I can only imagine this is supposed to be some hipster version of reporting, "oh, comprehensible language is totally a sellout, it's so mainstream". Actual I-shit-you-not comment from the original author "Writer here. I work in a writing style called gonzo. It's extremely polarizing..." He doesn't *quite* say "you've probably never heard of it" but I, for one, sincerely hope I never do so again!
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Just another plea for the rest of the world to dumb things down for Americans. The rest of the world can go through the effort to work out what American's understand and accommodate that, so that American's need not go through the effort of attempting to broaden their own understanding.
My company frequently encourages us to Tweet/Facebook product/PR announcements on our private feeds. We're a couple steps short of being required to do so, but if we ever hit that point, that's when I'm looking for a change of employment. I expect to be paid for the software I write, not for flogging said software. Given a sufficient raise, I'd sell out (it's not as if I have a moral objection to the product I work on). If they don't want to pay me enough, there are other development companies in the area, and I'm sure that one of them would like to pay me just for writing software.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
The main difference is the approach the producers take in the US vs. the UK shows. The US ones are all about highlighting him being confrontational.
One of the best shows of his I've seen was the kid version of MasterChef. His personality really shone through, by being very supportive of the kids while also focusing his critique on their dishes, rather than them. Well worth a watch IMO.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
I'm sorry, but Wikipedia apparently doesn't have a list of people punched by astronauts. Can you get right on that please?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
That's what you get when you try to play mindgames and try to artificially set up people against each other who are used to team work. Those tricks definitly work better when your panel is drafted from anything from egoists to sociopaths on shows like like "Big Brother", "Bachelor" or "$COUNTRY Idol"
bickerdyke
I think the main thing that js3 missed is that Adriel isn't a "he" at all... which says all that anybody really needs to know about Eir reading comprehension, doesn't it?
Also, no, TV shows don't need drama. There are lots of shows, and even big-budget movies, with very little interpersonal drama. You can get by on excitement (action, sports, etc.) or interest pieces (documentaries, anything with a specific topic like "cooking" or "travel") or suspense (mystery, horror, etc.) or romance (self-explanatory), any of a number of others. Usually there's some mix of these, and yes, drama is *usually* part of that mix... but it's not the only part, and often it's not even an important one. Personally, I dislike drama and *hate* over-dramatized shows (which has largely pushed me away from traditional TV, which seems to be oversaturated with shallow people being nasty at one another).
This was *supposed* to be a documentary about the process of indie game development, specifically a particularly fun kind of short-time development called a "jam". It metamorphosed into a competitive "reality" show, but at least it was still supposed to be about a game jam. If you can't get all the drama that you could want out of a few clips of team members deciding what goes into the game and who does what parts and all that, then you are not the intended audience. The rest of us are more interested in what indie game design is like, and what rapid development is like, and what a development jam is like, and so on.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Rule #2 of Slashdot: You do not talk about Slashdot.
This is one of the more hilarious hypocrisies of feminism, that women are both equally capable and are functionally indistinguishable from men, and can somehow simultaneously bring unique abilities and perspectives to the table. Which is it? And what the fuck ever happened to unique abilities derived from merit rather than what's between your legs?
Yeah..I think you are over generalising just a tad...
Also perhaps confusing the open source movement and other free creative endeavours with geeks in general.
Geeks are used as tools for the corporate masters just as much as everyone else.
As far as the show goes...
You put the dick of a corporate in your mouth, don't be surprised when you walk away with a bad taste in it.
See: Internet trolls. Tempted to mark Karmashock as a Foe right now just because it's hard to imagine anybody thinking that way *not* being a troll, but I suppose I'll wait to see if they actually act that way or just think it.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
"Let me suggest an alternative. The consultant was very smart. He knew that without strife and discord, there would be no show. Nothing that people would watch. Reality programs need drama. "
Let me offer an opposing view, you didn't read the article and have no idea what you are talking about.
Since the actual show wasn't a reality show, it was something more akin to "http://www.amctv.com/shows/the-pitch" or home makovers where the homeowner comes back to see their renovation and the show follows the technical aspect of the renovations, there was no need for "manufactured" drama.
In fact, making an indie game from scratch, involving all the technical aspects from both veterans and novices (the programmers and youtubers respectively), and having to do this on an imposed deadline would create all the "real" drama needed to make the show interesting. Not to mention the inside look at what most people never get to see, creatives making entertainment out of nothing.
what this douchebag did was take a creative environment, strip all of the creativity out of it and then throw in heaps of sexism, forced strife, corporate policy and "reality" fakey crap (like forcing a game programmer to re-enter a "scene" 5 times to get the "shot").
the biggest stupidity was that he was just some corporate douche who used the sponsorship ties the program had to force changes he thought would make the program better, he wasn't even someone there to make those decisions, only by throwing his corporate money weight around was he able to get the ones who were in charge of that stuff to concede to his input.
at the end of the article everyone pretty much agreed if this douche had never been there, there would have been no issue...
TL:DR the adults would have gotten along fine without this mental 3yr old.
The "gender nonsense" was not a real question. It was an insult...and it came at a time when a significant portion of the gamer community has just begun recovering from an uproar about women developers...and it's been such a hot-button issue that one of the women on this show not that long ago was receiving death threats from the members of the gaming community. Jimquisition has some great thoughts and insights on this issue.
The question of women's contributions and the benefits or disadvantages of women in a dev team is completely valid to extremely ignorant masses, and the answers could be very interesting and inspiring, but Matti's questions amounted to "What do you think Chett? Do women suck at this?" "What about you? You're a Woman...do you suck at this? or do you think the fact that you're pretty might help your team with the judges?"
fuck him, the worthless fucking fuck.
The consultant was obviously following rule 34: "War is good for business"
It also sounded like he wasn't really "in charge" officially, but that he just took on that role without being challenged.
Yet another reason to hate product placement.
now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to finish my Bacardi Rum and Coke-a-Cola before I finish installing my new Antec power supply into my new Intel i7 system, on top on my Ikea BESTÅ Workstation.
The backstory sounds interesting but oh boy is it told in a longwinded and self indulgent way.
I've worked with many women programmers and engineers, and overall they are perfectly average; some are smarter than the average male and some are less smart than average, nothing surprising.
Except that in some programming or computing areas that they are much more rare and thus it seems those average or lower veer off to other jobs. In this case it does seem like the only 2 women (out of 11) were very much above average. Maybe the everyone there is well above average, I don't know since I've never heard of any of them before. Surprised that both of them had an extensive blog, which to me automatically puts someone in the category of going above and beyond the call of merely doing a job (though as an indie developer that sort of forces a person to be their own management/marketing/PR team).
At least no one will attempt to adapt the process of game development into yet another phony "reality" show ever again.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
Remember when there were shows about actual reality? They called them documentaries.
They still do.
"Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
I take it you haven't looked at Karmashock's posting history?
Just because Karmashock doesn't believe in manbearpig and refuses to be bullied into submission by the orthodoxy does not, ipso facto, make him an asshole.
That only works when you get the people drunk first. The contestants were way to sober and strung up from drinking Mountian Dew.
By asking "Which is it?" you make it sound like those two beliefs are contradictory and I don't believe that they are.
So long as feminists acknowledge that men are also capable of "bringing unique abilities and perspectives to the table" then it is not hypocritical.
Warning: This sig is not thread safe. For more information see Slashdot's sig policy.
Umm that "consultant" is a very powerful media exec. He MADE his career doing exactly what he did during this game jam. The difference is he is used to targeting Jersey Shore/reality tv of the week on MTV type of audience, 20 something party all night didnt go to college OMG camera lets scream and show our tits people.
Matti Leshem is Pepci go to guy when tehy want to reach young and loud retard crowd. He is not going away anywhere. If anything Pepsi will drop the idea of targetting geeks, after all they are akward and hard to work with.
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
I don't see any reason to give people a license to behave like children.
You're either an adult or you're not.
As to behaving like an asshole, that doesn't mean you have to respect or work with people.
If someone shows you a lack of respect or you simply don't like them. Then you don't have to work with them. There are many ways mature adults can express their dissatisfaction or frustration with another human being short of a hissy fit.
Simply excuse yourself from the interview, contact someone higher up the chain of command, and tell them that unfortunately you can't work with that individual due to personality problems.
That's entirely reasonable. If they prompt you for clarification, you can say that he appears to have a tendency to denigrate your gender which makes your environment uncomfortable.
Done.
Nothing more need be said. That gives everyone all the information they need to deal with the problem. Isolate that guy from the women or simply remove him the project, or maybe management just pulls him aside and explains that he needs to be more careful.
That's all that needed to happen. This media campaign on the issue that is destroying the project for everyone is a massive waste.
They killed everything over a minor issue that management likely would have been very happy to fix. Do you think Pepsi hates women? Do you think they want to be known as the company that hates women? Obviously not.
Pepsi only did this because they thought it would make them look good. And instead of that, the whole thing blew up in their faces because one of their marketing guys rubbed some people the wrong way.
Well, guess what pepsi is going to do going forward? What do all companies do when they get their finger bitten off by issues like this? They go into siege mode. They close everything down and only make safe decisions.
Which means this project is dead and projects like it are less likely.
So who wins here? No one.
This reaction by these women was IDIOTIC. They hurt themselves and they hurt their peers... male and female.
The smart move... the adult move... would be to find a reasonable solution to a minor issue in a way that inconvenienced the smallest number of people and kept the machine going.
They destroyed it for nothing. That's dumb.
The first rule of big business and big government is KEEP THE MACHINE GOING. Everything else is secondary. That is how upper management at any big company thinks. The primary thing they hear is the heart beat of that machine in their ears. Beat. Beat. Beat. If you're the sort that likes to jam up the works then that machine doesn't want you anywhere near it. And the money it was going to pump into your organization... Gone.
Just deeply foolish.
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While Pepsi may indeed be utter twats, it was fucking poor showing by the developer.
Show some fucking respect for your client.
Exactly, Dance monkeys DANCE!
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
Well, if the event was sponsored by Pepsi, yes. That's generally one of the conditions for sponsorship.
There's a big difference between putting up Pepsi logos and branding (which everyone involved said they were fine with) and forbidding anyone to use any drink that isn't a Pepsi product, including water and coffee.
umm, no
1 they were allowed water
2 event was PAID FOR by Pepsi. If Pepsi says naked hoola hoops, and you signed contract that stated naked hoola hoops, then shut the f up and dance monkey dance.
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
No. I am saying that if you have a problem, you can express it like a rational civilized educated adult.
aka... Calm down. Collect your thoughts. Then go to the relevant authority in this case which is not the pepsi consultant, and inform them of your problem.
In the event that you can't get them to change, you can try various other things.
1. Suck it up. Lots of people have work environments that are occasionally uncomfortable. Yet people do the job every day. Its part of being an adult is occasionally dealing with unpleasant things and not whining like a baby when things get rough.
2. Quit. Quitting is always an option if you don't like your job. Quitting doesn't mean flipping your desk over and screaming at people or starting a social media campaign against your boss. Even if your boss is a prick, you part on good terms because its in everyone's interest that you do that. Its in their interest because they don't need a scene or bad moral in the office. And you need it because leaving a company with a pissed off boss is bad for your resume. Doubtless you find this unjust... tough shit... its reality. Anyone that really can't accept this needs to grow the fuck up.
3. You could always try taking the guy out for a cup of coffee and talk to him person to person. Express your position as respectfully as possible and there's a good chance he'll moderate his behavior.
Look... you have a lot of options sort of what these people did. What happened here is that Pepsi was made to look like assholes when they didn't do anything. They had a consultant that likely did things they wouldn't have approved of and took licenses with his authority. So be it. Does that mean you have a massive freak out every time that happens?
No... I shouldn't be seeing this on Slashdot. This should have been peacefully and mutually resolved at the scene with no hurt feelings. That was entirely possible and if not, then the people refusing to be reasonable need to go.
I have ZERO regard for adults that believe they have a license to act like children when they get upset. I can accept this sort of behavior from people under 20. Over 25... I would give them the cold dead fish eye.
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"Contracts" or not, the developers' reaction was the correct one.
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Not because he worked for the sponsor, because sponsor WANTED it and PAID for it and contestants AGREED to it by signing contracts.
Whole game jam was supposed to be a documentary, but along the way someone decided that money is nice and he wants some of it = half a mil sponsorship deal and change of format.
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
There are pervasive differences in the experience of living in the US based entirely off gender (and others based on, say, race), so having someone female on a team will give you insights into things that an all-male team is extremely unlikely to be aware of. And vice versa, although that's much rarer.
That people aren't aware of this is, to some extent, part of the problem.
On the other hand, if everyone insists it exists, then it will always be a problem. Gender is a social issue, only minimizing the importance we place on gender will minimize the issue.
Constantly drawing attention to gender specific ideas is essentially creating gender problems in addition to the ones that already exist. Rather than doing away with sexism, it reinforces it by saying gender is central to your identity whether you like or not.
Professionals do the job and get paid.
They did neither.
End of argument.
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Of course it doesn't help that no matter how politely and quietly you quit a situation that becomes untenable, you always end up with someone claiming you threw a childish tantrum, and that you didn't try hard enough to reach out to someone. Of course there are people that over react, and those that a reasonable conversation will fix a lot of problems. But there are also people who seem to think every asshole in the world is one nice conversation away from changing their behavior, and that any reaction is a tantrum.
Anyone who has had the slightest experience with the media would know to expect something like this. Read any author's description of how he gets treated when his book is bought by Hollywood for example. ... advertising, product, whatever. And they don't particularly care who gets hurt in the process or even if the overall impression they leave is accurate. (The movie "Absence of Malice" with Paul Newman and Sally Field comes to mind. )
"News" casts are never just about the facts.
Face it. If you being covered by media (paid or not) it is because they want to use you to sell something
pgmer6809
Except its on slashdot. Which means they did throw a temper tantrum because they went to the fucking media with it.
Why are people so fucking retarded? Can you not grasp the glaringly obvious fact that if we know about then someone flipped out and decided to air their dirty laundry in the public.
I don't mean to be rude to you, brother. But seriously... wake the fuck up. Obviously they had a hissy fit. Because we know about it.
And frankly, I have lots of experience in my own life of childish people pulling these sorts of stunts. They get upset about something and rather then deal with it in a reasonable, responsible, and mature fashion... they decide to make a giant dramatic production out of it. Its infantile.
And no where in here am I legitimizing what they were upset about or saying that management or pepsi or whomever was right and they were wrong. I am rather taking issue with the WAY these people protested the action.
Guess what doesn't make two rights?
A wrong. Taking this issue to social media or the media at all was wrong. Did the pepsi consultant screw up? Obviously... he pissed off some people for some reason. Legitimate or not that's always wrong. Ideally you shouldn't offend anyone even if you're not trying to offend anyone.
Just don't.
And on the flip side, if someone does something that offends you... Explain it to them in a calm and respectful manner then wait to see if their behavior changes.
If it does not... then either explain it to higher management to see if they'll get lower management to change, suck it up, or quit.
Those are the reasonable solutions. Going to the media is what you do when there is a threat to public safety that upper management refuses to deal with... I'm struggling to think of another justification for ever doing that.
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the Pawn Stars gang are a bunch of flaming Mickey$oft shills!!
I'd say this again, keep these liberal arts oppertunist shitheads away from all things in the nerd world.
All this do is stir up all shits to revel in the conflict, and create problems for themselves to solve.
I think I am slowly comming about to this type of "consultant" getting what they reffer to as a "boot party".
Why are people so fucking retarded? Can you not grasp the glaringly obvious fact that if we know about then someone flipped out and decided to air their dirty laundry in the public.
Sorry, didn't realize that the submitter Sockatume was one of the developers there and is submitted it to Slashdot to spread their tantrum. I must have also misread the main (badly written...) story linked a lot of places, to have thought it was by some journalist as opposed to one of the childish devs.
Explain it to them in a calm and respectful manner then wait to see if their behavior changes.
Because people have such high hopes of that working when someone is disrespectful to the point of being in the 99th percentile of issues. Hey, if someone says, "Women are unable to have a intelligent opinion on this and should have no reason to be upset," like one time I've had to deal with, I should expect him to listen to listen to a woman explain themselves politely.
If it does not... then either explain it to higher management to see if they'll get lower management to change, suck it up, or quit.
Sounds a lot like what happened here, there was a lot of complaining to others involved, trying to dealing with it, and eventually quitting. Or do you mean explaining why things went wrong as a warning or lesson to others can't be part of quitting? I guess the people who act like an ass are the only ones allowed to get an explanation of what happened...
I am beginning to wonder if this is feminism, or agitators looking to make problems
What do all companies do when they get their finger bitten off by issues like this? They go into siege mode. They close everything down and only make safe decisions.
....
The smart move... the adult move... would be to find a reasonable solution to a minor issue in a way that inconvenienced the smallest number of people and kept the machine going.
So are you saying companies act childish too by only making safe moves and quitting situations that are inconvenient or problematic? Or are the individuals supposed to be the only ones that take one for the team and deal with crap while companies can bail on whatever they want to?
We geeks are the doers.
We make things.
We create new stuffs.
We come up with new and exciting ideas.
But we are *NOT* tools for anyone.
That "pepsi consultant" can go eat shit and die - if he or she thinks he/she can push geeks to do whatever he/she likes.
Yeah, us nerds aren't manipulated at all by the latest tech or gigabit fiber. We've never been accused of buying shit on pure impulse, or simply because it's the latest and greatest version.
No, that never happens. The trillion-dollar nerdgasm industry that has exploded all over itself is just a myth.
Speaking of eating shit, feel free to lick your lips to get some of that you're spewing. Then you can swallow it down with that branded energy drink you claim you weren't manipulated into buying while banging away on your overpriced Macbook there, fanboi.
A lot of your "advice" seems to be not far from what they actually did, considering they did spend time talking to management and got changes made, they did spend time trying to suck it up and move on, and ultimately quit. And it still amounts to them getting name calling and advice on how not to throw a tantrum from someone who has trouble handling disagreement comments on the internet.
Really? I took it as they got pissed and walked off. Amazing and I'm American!!
This type of corporate control as gone on for years, only I'm reading more and more people 'walking off' or 'losing interest' or simply wanting nothing to do with corporate idiocy. If it isn't the stupidity of broadcasting stations taking an actually great idea and turning it into a bastard, it's idiot corporate sponsors coming in dictating what "they demand".
This is the very problem with the US. From TV, to the political system, to citizens everyone can be bought off for the right price. It is great to see people tell them to get f**ked and walk away.
This group should have ran the show on YouTube or some other video driven web site. I can promise you with word of mouth, and a small marketing campaign, they would far exceed any TV ratings among viewers. Its even possible to run it live which may be a better strategy, people, I think, would be more engaged with a live show like this.
Except it they do get paid for their jobs, and being professional doesn't mean taking every job available or being responsible for fixing other company's management problems. Unless they were supposed to be "professional" reality tv stars instead of professional game developers, in which case grabbing for attention and emotion reactions are part of the job, or at least human in response to someone repeatedly trying to evoke an emotional response.
bzzzt. the choice is cat piss or dog semen. "dog semen" is not a choice. pretty soon you'll want some dog piss and walk off the set.
Thank you. Would mod this up if I could.
- In Soviet Korea, only old people loose all their bases to Natalie Portman's petrified hot grits overlords.
Yes, how dare you make a personal choice about something that does not align to the interests of the people who are paying you to do something totally unrelated to this personal choice.
There are a lot of people who find the false drama of unreality shows to be an utter turn-off. I would have loved to watch something like this without the injection of false drama. Unreality TV plays to the least common denominator, which is why they tend to perform poorly when targeting technically literate people as a demographic.
Picking up a can of coke knowing you're going into a meeting with Pepsi is provocation or naivety, and just unprofessional in that context either way.
If Pepsi came in to sell you their products then sure, do that to put pressure on them, exert competitive tensions, make a point. But not when they're the client.
I've been a professional game programmer for quite a while. Yes, female programmers are rare. I've worked with only three or four in the last fifteen years or so if I recall correctly. They're mostly to be found in the art, design, QA, and production/management departments.
I call bullshit. I've been a professional game programmer for 20 years, and it that time I've met three or four female game programmers, but dozens and dozens of female artists, designers and producers. If you've been in the industry for 15 years you must have tried really fucking hard to avoid women if you've only encountered three or four of them in total.
Why the hell should they even CARE? What the coders drink is not their business. It's unprofessional to bring a drink in to a meeting unless it was assumed to be that informal, perhaps, but otherwise...
The are pervasive differences in the experience of everyone, and everybody has their own insights that others would never pick up on. I have no idea why people focus on gender so much.
It should be a complete non-issue because for most of us it simply doesn't matter.
If Pepsi caused fuss about a can of coke on someone's desk then I'd agree that they were unreasonable.
When someone brings a can of coke into a meeting - and nobody's brought a can or bottle of coke or pepsi to any meeting I've been in for months - then I can understand that this is interpreted as either antagonism or a lack of business sense, and either are reasonable grounds to challenge the competence of the developer.
Well, maybe dog semen, but cat semen? That stuff is nearly undrinkable, much worse than Pepsi or Mountain Dew.
Holy mother of god! You were modded informative. Just. Wow.
ROFLMAO
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
Considering the antagonist of the situation was purposely trying to cause an emotional reaction, touching on a subject that some of the people involved with have had big issues with on purpose, there are limits beyond which one should expect an emotional response and it becomes difficult to fault people for getting upset. While business would be so much easier if people didn't become emotional, nearly everyone has some line that can be crossed that throws the chances of that out the window. In this case some of the developers have had to deal with constant, heavy harassment including death threats on the issue of being a female game developer. Complaining that things touch on that got emotional seems kind of disconnected from the reality, in the same way as watching someone who just lost a close family member trying to deal with a business associate trying to make that part of their business dealing or even watching someone getting poked with something sharp, and then telling them they should have had a calm, calculated reaction.
Well, maybe dog semen, but cat semen? That stuff is nearly undrinkable, much worse than Pepsi or Mountain Dew.
Holy mother of god! You were modded informative. Just. Wow.
ROFLMAO
Yeah, I was a little horrified to see that!
Playing it safe in a volatile environment is not childish. It is often prudent. Think of it like going below deck in a storm or grabbing your kids and taking them to storm cellar when there is a tornado. Avoiding the stock market when it starts see sawing all over the place.
Its not childish to avoid volatility. Its childish to create it without purpose.
The only time you want volatility is when you want to hurt people or destroy things. That is the use of volatility. Its destructive. In wars you love volatility... but only amongst the enemy. You want their whole world to be nothing but volatility.
Interesting times as the Chinese curse went. But in business? Its bad. And from employees, business partners, etc... unacceptable. Don't rock the boat because the damn thing will tip over and then everyone is fucked.
Its bad for business. Don't do it.
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Are you agreeing with me or are you so confused that you didn't realize you just made my point?
Just curious.
As you said, part of that job was providing entertainment... the consultant as you likely gathered was grasping for some tension or something that he could use to spice the show up a bit so it was more interesting.
That's not unreasonable. The people in question want to be upset about that? Express that frustration in a reasonable way. Tell the interviewer why that is offensive and make that part of the show.
That's good television.
Killing the show... bad television.
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You're right, the best response to a work related problem is to take your issue to social media and destroy the project and burn your relationship with companies that wanted to do business with you.
You're a genius. Never change.
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All I'm getting is "blah blah blah I don't believe in science". When you can demonstrate the ability to completely and perfectly control your emotions in a controlled experiment, I will totally fake caring about what you say. Until then I'm not gonna even bother pretending.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Sometimes, context is a thing. In terms of raw abilities, there is very little (apart from a few very specific biological functions) that cannot be done by both men and women. There might be some statistical variance, but in practice you are much better off evaluating individual competence only.
However, there are specific experiences that only some people will have had, and those can lead to perspectives differing between people.
Friend of mine once happened to go to lunch with some coworkers, and by coincidence ended up in a car in which she was the only white person. And so when the topic of conversation naturally turned to "places where the police pull you over and claim it was random", she was supriseed to find out that she had never experienced this, but that everyone else in the car had an actively-maintained mental map of the locations of "random" police stops. Because they had to assume that if they drove through a few of those, they would get pulled over at least once, and it would add a few minutes to how long it would take to get somewhere.
This isn't a reflection of some kind of innate quality people get from their skin color that affects their ability to remember where the cops do or don't "randomly" pull people over, but it is a case where different people will have very different experiences.
Men and women are both capable of being comparably-skilled programmers. But skill at programming is not the only useful thing in software development; awareness of the experiences users will be bringing to the table can be relevant.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
While the big thing is sports game sales, Pepsi will insert themselves into every aspect of your work life.
We used to have vending machines stocked and owned by an EBA. Pepsi said NO! They were removed, and replaced with Pepsi owned machines, selling only Pepsi owned company products.
Pepsi made all of the coffee services in our (and every) building use only Pepsi owned coffee machines and Pepsi owned coffee
It was beyond belief the amount of money PepsiCo made for a few million dollars given to the University. My guess is their payback over the length of the contract was something like a few weeks, then - 4.PROFIT!
The ill will it generated was also something to behold. There was now a market in contraband soda and snacks. People would "smuggle" Coke products into the workplace. Illegal coffee machines were not hard ro find. Their snack machines sat largely unused for years. Many of us still refuse to buy any PepsiCo products
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I think the key here is:
The vast majority of people who have spent any time as an adult woman in our society would never dream of claiming it "doesn't matter". That you benefit from most of the ways it matters, and take them for granted, is the problem, not the solution.
I think most people would agree that, if we could eliminate the disparities, there would be no real reason to pay attention to the issue any more, but that won't happen until we go through a period of being aware of them enough to do something about them.
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Is this another of those "hope I don't get aids" idiots.. Different offense, but still Stoopid.... In fact what ghe did was worse.. That woman's text was a stupid impulse, but this guy really went at it.. with an overblown sense of self-importance.
Household brands names are rarely born over night.
I have one word of rebuttal for you: Kardashian.
Where did I say I didn't believe in science? What in fact does science have to do with this discussion at all?
You believe in science therefore you have a right to act like a spoiled brat? Show me the equation that backs that up?
Frankly, your whole post is irrational and baseless. It shows a lack of understanding for the subject matter and a lack of education as to how to construct rational thoughts. Beyond that, it appears to show a lack of intellectual integrity since it looks like the whole thing was really a very sloppy attempt at a strawman argument.
In short... you sound like a degenerate moron.
Would you like to try again... this time with less drool?
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
This guy must have been mentored by some prick who puts the average American through this kind of a crap on your standard American reality show.
The myth that gender is cultural and a matter of nurtuing was pretty much debunked when it was proven that homosexuality is genetic.
Unless you believe it's a choice, too.
So now we're comparing the experiences of women to the experiences of black people in the urban US, are we?
Saying that all of one gender gets treated uniformly the same is pretty simplistic. A tall, athletic, handsome and charismatic man in his 20s will be treated completely differently (and likely objectified, even fetishised) in various situations to a short, awkward, overweight balding man in his late 40s. A wealthy billionaire will get treated very differently to a Filipino man working over smoke mountain looking for roofing materials for his lean-to.
Why then are there no calls to include their voices on various projects? Given the economic disparities that exist, shouldn't there be consultations of people living in poverty, as they constitute a significant percentage of the population and have zero representation in most software development groups?
This is a bit like the way that women, despite being in the majority, obstinately still vote for male politicians much to the frustration of feminists who want to turn the world into a juvenile playground where boys have cooties. Women identify themselves first as human beings, not as women as a class (which would probably be somewhere behind their nationality and their career), and use their voting power not to gain some female perspective but to put the best candidate that best represents their views into office.
Calls to include women simply because they are women are blatantly sexist, in fact.
The latter.
A little gender diversity (and diversity of any and all kinds, really) goes a long way to not only keeping group-think out, but keeping the worst impulses of humanity out.
It happens all of the time. "Hollywood" people don't actually know what makes a show successful, so they go with whatever seems to be in the last successful show. They don't undestand what -really- made it work, so they sieze on what they can do easily. They often end up forcing stuff that was actually bad for the show, or stuff that can't work in the new show.
It's basically a form of superstition, like "what was there must be the reason for it."
The consultant has destroyed something that might have been a big success. If you want to be successful, listen to consultants but take what they say "with a large grain of salt".
"90 percent of -anything- is bullshit."
Oh there is MORE to this story.
He did not know it was pepsi. They did this to him all the time with random clients. We always bring our drinks off our desks...
They had us remove the coke machines from the building before they would have the first meeting with us. Like I said cray cray...
Coke does the same thing BTW...
I've been a professional game programmer for quite a while. Yes, female programmers are rare. I've worked with only three or four in the last fifteen years or so if I recall correctly. They're mostly to be found in the art, design, QA, and production/management departments. To be honest, this always made me a little sad, because one of the big strengths of working on teams comes from having different skill sets of course, but also different opinions and viewpoints. As with anyone else, their actual skills varied quite a bit from person to person. But I really don't think it comes down to sexism or anything that people should freak out about - it's just not a job that appeals, for whatever reason, to a large number of women.
I've never even heard anyone at work malign someone on the job because they were female. Granted, I'm not exactly in the position to hear that sort of thing, but most developers I know don't have that sort of mind set to begin with. They're there because they love making games, and don't really care about whether someone is male or female. It never really made much of a difference to me, at least.
I'm proud of the devs for not taking the bait and declining to participate in this idiotic "Pepsi Consultant's" little drama show. What a fucking moron.
The biggest thing keeping women out of programming is other women, calling them nerds, or ugly, or fat. It's mother's worrying their daughter won't be able to find a man and deliver grandchildren. Women are getting the status quo from both genders and it's bullshit.
In 2013, at the NCAA basketball play-in games in Dayton, the Pepsi and NCAA staff would not let media people take Coke products to their tables, courtside. The solution was to pour the Coke into Pepsi cups. Of course, this pissed off the media, who promptly wrote stories about this. Similar stories exist about the Olympics and other events that rely on sponsorship. And it is no different than how TV controls game start times and schedules.
Bullshit
"Hey, kid. If you get down in that mine, dig out the coal, and bring it back to me, I'll pay you. ...What? You want a light? Why did you take the job if you don't have the tools to do it? Batteries cost money, kid. ...What? What's all this whining about dust and poisonous gases and how you can't carry more than two lumps because you're only six years old? I'm paying you; do your job. You don't want to be thought of as unprofessional, do you?"
What self-serving sophistry.
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
You're right... throwing a hissy fit and running off to social media to complain is the most reasonable response.
Twit.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Some people pass joints around their business meetings. Not everyone works in stuffy, fscked up environments that require robotic conformity.
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
Why do you think shows need drama?
Is drama the single, the only interesting thing in the world?
I believe female programmers are at an advantage. It makes me very sad, I think that not only do female programmers do a good job, but it's so wasteful that not more girls have followed this path, when so many would be so good at it.
Although I tend to avoid game programming myself; it seems to be full of stress, hurt and stupid management decisions.
(My SO is a female embedded programmer.)
Yes, it is a reasonable and measured response.
After all, you're calling people twits over far less.
I'm an American and I was highly confused, too. The problem, I think, is that all three words of the phrase are ambiguous, in ways that compound the confusion. I've never heard "downing" used in the context of taking something you hold in your hands, and putting it down on the table. We always say we "put it down" for that. We reserve "downing" for somewhat more aggressive contexts. That amplifies an ambiguity on the word "their": does "their" mean the programmers themselves, or the Pepsi consultants? Finally, the word "tools" is being used here in a metaphorical sense. We Americans know well the term "programmer's tools", but you don't really hold compilers and debuggers in your hands, do you? So the phrase takes the analogy that compilers and debuggers are like hammers and saws, and extends it to say they are putting them down on the table as if they were hammers and saws. Only it doesn't say they've put them down, it says they've downed them. And it doesn't say "programmer's tools", it just says "tools", which might conceivably have a couple of completely different idiomatic meanings: male body parts, or people who are cluelessly obnoxious.
And reacting to that can is NOT unprofessional?
Good-bye
Remember when there were shows about actual reality?
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
They're the client. They don't have to act professionally.
And this is Pepsi. Everybody knows they're complete cocks when it comes to their main rival, and vice-versa. Deal with it, or don't deal with them.
I am beginning to think that what the world needs is more female hackers, so we can beat the agitators to the punch. We also need more minorities.
the intent is to keep the scene the scene without letting corporate agitators use race, sex, etc... as an excuse to divide the scene and force agendas.
Think about how everytime some alternative brand of politics is brought up, and the usual corporate tools spend weeks harping that the effort to buy minority votes the major party spent means we are not racist/sexist for following them.
We see these proffesional activists show up in the geek/hacker scene trying to make a name for themselves by cherry picking examples to blow up for fame and fortune, while meanwhile they don't contribute anything, either personality or code.
--Gordon Ramsay has HIGH STANDARDS - that's why he excoriates people who settle for mediocre/unseasoned/not done well. Watch him in some other stuff besides Hell's Kitchen - he's actually a pretty cool guy.
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== WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??
Might have failed? No might about it - would never have gotten to screen being that boring. Code-code-code, this is cool! Code, code, code...zzzzzzzzzz.
Actually, yes.
I wouldn't expect a director making a horror movie to hire someone who disdained horror movies. Sure, maybe the camera work would be exactly the same, but you want people excited to be working on a project.
If you work at Pepsi, and you're really bought into the brand, then you care about it. And you think it's a core part of business. So someone drinking Coke would be a pariah.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
And what if the client was Toyota? Would it be unprofessional to come to work in your own car?
If your definition of professional conduct includes pointless subservience to wealthy clients, then you're not making a point here. You're just announcing that you're the kind of twat we're all complaining about.
You have actually said: "Show some fucking respect for your client."
Somehow you've equated a can of soda with "fucking respect". What else is disrespectful in your world? Wearing the wrong neck-tie? Not combing your hair? Not having enough pieces of flair on your uniform? People will quit their jobs to avoid working with people who say things like that. How long do you want to be that guy?
So being professional means you need to treat your client like they are spoiled children who throw tantrums at the slightest sign of being displeased, and so walk on eggshells when they are around?
You want your brand in the game, fine. That is what you paid for. That is what the customers see. Are the customers taking tours of the office? No. Does the game show scenes of workers drinking Coke? No. Does the contract specify that all workers of the company must give up other beverage choices? No.
You can have your crazy brand obsession, after all, it's your job. To expect others to convert to the Pepsi religion is crazy and unprofessional. Taking offense at other beverage choices in a context where it doesn't matter is crazy. Unless you can seriously make an argument that drinking different beverages during development will negatively effect the way Pepsi is represented in the game.