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| The video games industry isn’t yet ready for its #MeToo moment | The video games industry isn’t yet ready for its #MeToo moment |
| (about 1 month later) | |
| A couple of weeks after the Weinstein revelations, the emails started coming. Some weren’t even personalised. “Hello, prominent woman in the video games industry. I am a reporter trying to unmask sexual predators. Is this something you would be willing to talk about? If not, do you know anyone else who will?” Women working in video game development and media, especially those who are outspoken about gender equality in the games industry’s notoriously unbalanced workforce – which, according to the most recent Independent Game Developers Association survey, is 79% male – have been getting these missives for months. | A couple of weeks after the Weinstein revelations, the emails started coming. Some weren’t even personalised. “Hello, prominent woman in the video games industry. I am a reporter trying to unmask sexual predators. Is this something you would be willing to talk about? If not, do you know anyone else who will?” Women working in video game development and media, especially those who are outspoken about gender equality in the games industry’s notoriously unbalanced workforce – which, according to the most recent Independent Game Developers Association survey, is 79% male – have been getting these missives for months. |
| There is nothing inherently wrong with a journalist trying to dig up leads. It’s what we do. But on this topic, at this time, it is extremely misguided. Women do not want to be pressed to share their trauma. And if women in the video games industry do decide to speak out, they will do so on their own terms, not at the insistence of the press. | There is nothing inherently wrong with a journalist trying to dig up leads. It’s what we do. But on this topic, at this time, it is extremely misguided. Women do not want to be pressed to share their trauma. And if women in the video games industry do decide to speak out, they will do so on their own terms, not at the insistence of the press. |
| The video games industry has not yet had its #MeToo moment. There have been rumblings: last year IGN, the biggest video games and entertainment site, dismissed one employee and, more recently, its editor-in-chief , after a former member of staff alleged harassment and the company’s editorial workforce demanded a change in its working culture. Another games media outlet, Vox Media’s Polygon, fired a video producer after it came to light that he’d been sending sleazy messages to women in the games industry for years. | The video games industry has not yet had its #MeToo moment. There have been rumblings: last year IGN, the biggest video games and entertainment site, dismissed one employee and, more recently, its editor-in-chief , after a former member of staff alleged harassment and the company’s editorial workforce demanded a change in its working culture. Another games media outlet, Vox Media’s Polygon, fired a video producer after it came to light that he’d been sending sleazy messages to women in the games industry for years. |
| On the development side, studio heads at French outfit Quantic Dream denied accusations from employees that management had fostered a toxic and sexist working environment. But there has been no mass movement of women coming forward with their stories of workplace harassment – much to the frustration, it would seem, of reporters working in the space, whose fishing activity has only intensified. | On the development side, studio heads at French outfit Quantic Dream denied accusations from employees that management had fostered a toxic and sexist working environment. But there has been no mass movement of women coming forward with their stories of workplace harassment – much to the frustration, it would seem, of reporters working in the space, whose fishing activity has only intensified. |
| There are extremely good reasons for this. It is not, funnily enough, because there is no workplace harassment in the video games industry. It’s because women don’t want to publicly relive painful things that have happened to them. | There are extremely good reasons for this. It is not, funnily enough, because there is no workplace harassment in the video games industry. It’s because women don’t want to publicly relive painful things that have happened to them. |
| #1reasonwhy is one of many examples of moments where women have shared their experiences of discrimination | #1reasonwhy is one of many examples of moments where women have shared their experiences of discrimination |
| It’s because any woman who goes public with allegations of this variety opens herself up to further harassment, victim-blaming, and unpleasant professional ramifications. | It’s because any woman who goes public with allegations of this variety opens herself up to further harassment, victim-blaming, and unpleasant professional ramifications. |
| It’s because the consequences of bad reporting on this subject, exemplified by the fallout from Babe.net’s stomach-churning story about Aziz Ansari, are huge. Even when sources are anonymised, there are so few women in the games industry that it would hardly be impossible for trolls to discover their identities and wreak retaliatory havoc. There is enormous risk and sacrifice involved in coming forward – on top of whatever emotional damage the original abuse itself might have wrought. | It’s because the consequences of bad reporting on this subject, exemplified by the fallout from Babe.net’s stomach-churning story about Aziz Ansari, are huge. Even when sources are anonymised, there are so few women in the games industry that it would hardly be impossible for trolls to discover their identities and wreak retaliatory havoc. There is enormous risk and sacrifice involved in coming forward – on top of whatever emotional damage the original abuse itself might have wrought. |
| There’s also the fact that, actually, women in the games industry have been talking about sexist working culture for a very long time. The #1reasonwhy movement back in 2012 is one of many, many examples of moments where women from all over the games industry have shared their experiences of discrimination, and their reasons for persisting nonetheless. Though it is encouraging that people are finally starting to listen, it is more than a little galling that they are only doing so now. | There’s also the fact that, actually, women in the games industry have been talking about sexist working culture for a very long time. The #1reasonwhy movement back in 2012 is one of many, many examples of moments where women from all over the games industry have shared their experiences of discrimination, and their reasons for persisting nonetheless. Though it is encouraging that people are finally starting to listen, it is more than a little galling that they are only doing so now. |
| It would have been helpful for people to listen during Gamergate, a 2014 harassment campaign that almost exclusively targeted women working in video games under the smokescreen of “ethics in video games journalism”, and whose effects are still very much felt. A dispiriting proportion of the games press, which should have stood up for women without hesitation, chose to either ignore it until it became unavoidable or engage in prevaricating instead. Is it any wonder that women do not trust reporters with their stories now? Why does it feel like the games industry is only interested in what women have to say when it’s about their trauma? | It would have been helpful for people to listen during Gamergate, a 2014 harassment campaign that almost exclusively targeted women working in video games under the smokescreen of “ethics in video games journalism”, and whose effects are still very much felt. A dispiriting proportion of the games press, which should have stood up for women without hesitation, chose to either ignore it until it became unavoidable or engage in prevaricating instead. Is it any wonder that women do not trust reporters with their stories now? Why does it feel like the games industry is only interested in what women have to say when it’s about their trauma? |
| The New York Times investigation into Harvey Weinstein represented over a year of work and trust-building. You don’t just pull this kind of reporting out of a hat. Women in the games industry, meanwhile, are being approached as potential leads rather than as people who might have been through something horrible. | The New York Times investigation into Harvey Weinstein represented over a year of work and trust-building. You don’t just pull this kind of reporting out of a hat. Women in the games industry, meanwhile, are being approached as potential leads rather than as people who might have been through something horrible. |
| The sudden impatience for there to be a reckoning is at odds with the hesitancy that the games press has generally displayed when talking about the long-running – and hardly secret – problems with sexism in the industry. Anyone looking for further evidence of that culture would do well to start by listening to men, rather than hassling women for names of bad actors. | The sudden impatience for there to be a reckoning is at odds with the hesitancy that the games press has generally displayed when talking about the long-running – and hardly secret – problems with sexism in the industry. Anyone looking for further evidence of that culture would do well to start by listening to men, rather than hassling women for names of bad actors. |
| The games industry’s #MeToo movement may yet happen. When it does, it will be on women’s terms. | The games industry’s #MeToo movement may yet happen. When it does, it will be on women’s terms. |
| • Keza MacDonald is video games editor at the Guardian | • Keza MacDonald is video games editor at the Guardian |
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| Gamergate | Gamergate |
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