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Worth Reading: 01/18/13

I'm insulted you'd even try to use that insult on me! As an apology, you should check out this stuff.

Maybe this would help me type up interviews faster. Off to eBay I go!
Maybe this would help me type up interviews faster. Off to eBay I go!

In an ideal world, I’d spend more time on Thursdays to prepare Worth Reading, since we’re starting this Unprofessional Fridays feature for premium members. The idea of Worth Reading going up earlier got in my head when Double Fine’s Brad Muir stopped by the office a few months back, and pointed out how he would often by in the midst of his Friday evening activities by the time it went live, and then managed to forget it by the time Saturday rolled around.

Just a brief update on something mentioned a few weeks back: I’ve found a way to speed up my transcription process with an outside service, which means more written features should be appearing on the site. It’s pretty easy for me to connect with a designer on Skype for 30 minutes, it’s finding four or five hours to write up our conversation that gets in the way of everything. Knowing that, if there are some feature ideas you’d like me to tackle, feel free to suggest away.

Getting these transcriptions back reminded me of an aspect of my job that’s really bothersome, too. A feature I’m running next week will be based on an email interview with a prominent developer, a game from last year I really loved. I didn’t want to conduct the interview over email, but the publisher insisted, despite my repeated requests for the opposite. It’s a foreign studio, so there are language resource reasons why the publisher was so insistent. The reason I almost never agree to email interviews has less to do with being worried a publisher will secretly edit anything out and more to do with my experience of knowing people say less interesting things inside a written format.

I still think I can salvage an interesting feature from the interview, email or not, but I was tempted to trash the thing outright. It wouldn’t be the first time, and I doubt it’ll end up being the last, either.

Hey, You Should Play This

No Caption Provided

LucasArts’ inability to figure itself out the last few years has been an absolute tragedy. When the company started focusing on retooling its classics with updated visuals, it seemed like it LucasArts was on the right path. (Guess we’ll never get that updated TIE Fighter game, huh?) The update for The Secret of Monkey Island was terrific, and marked the first time I’d played it. It holds up super well! A programmer at Karza Games used the source code for the game and put the insult swordfighting sections from the game online, which means you can play them in your browser.

And You Should Read This, Too

No Caption Provided

It’s healthy to examine why you like the things you like, and the underlying reasons behind that attraction. If you play video games on a regular basis, it’s impossible to avoid violence. There’s no shame in asking, then, what drives us to enjoy such violence. With games, it’s a little different. There are mechanics represented by violence that can be enjoyable for all sorts of reasons that have nothing to do with the violence depicted on the screen. You can extract joy from being skillful at the task in front of you, and that just so happens to involve blowing up people a bunch.

No Caption Provided

Wait, pinball machines were banned from New York until 1976? Color me surprised at that revelation, just one of many that came while reading through this wonderful account of the arcade scene’s emergence and eventual decline in the modern era. Laura June has culled together an an exhaustive account of the arcade at its height, and concludes with a look at today’s heroes working to preserve machines that are moving into the rear-view mirror.

If You Click It, It Will Play

Kickstarter Has Promise, And Hopefully Developers Don't Screw It Up

Yeah, Greenlight Still Has Issues, But Some Games Look Pretty Cool

Patrick's Watching TED Talks As Part of a New Years Resolution, So Here You Go

Oh, And This Other Stuff

Patrick Klepek on Google+

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Fuwano

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I've never played the Monkey Island games. Which one should I start with?

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You can make the argument that articles are not worth reading just because I'm paid to say they are, but c'mon. It’s different when it’s a woman, this is over the line, and starbucks hipsters should have known better.

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Finally managed to catch up on some worth readings.

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Good ol' TED.

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Thanks for the link to Insult Swordfighting. This is one of the best things I love about Monkey Island series.

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So AtheneWins actually became something? I remember when he was just starting out and using pictures of hot girls for his thumbnail just to get views.

Oh, wait....

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I still bet that controller still feels better than the 360 controller or DualShock!

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Getting these transcriptions back reminded me of an aspect of my job that’s really bothersome, too. A feature I’m running next week will be based on an email interview with a prominent developer, a game from last year I really loved. I didn’t want to conduct the interview over email, but the publisher insisted, despite my repeated requests for the opposite. It’s a foreign studio, so there are language resource reasons why the publisher was so insistent. The reason I almost never agree to email interviews has less to do with being worried a publisher will secretly edit anything out and more to do with my experience of knowing people say less interesting things inside a written format.

It's good to hear that you value audio interviews while most people seem to just rely on e-mails and Twitter. Half the people in my journalism class are just all "can't we just message them on Facebook?" instead of a face-to-face interview, and I was in the same boat for some time until I realized that it doesn't really make the actual interview interesting most of the time.

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@FierceDeity: Seen Temptest's video then?

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Bourbon_Warrior

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If the next consoles are based on a 7970 graphics cards, I will just skip upgrading my PC.

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@Wrighteous86 said:

@Crysack said:

@Dagbiker said:

@scarycrayons said:

@Crysack said:

@TwoArmed said:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeswomanfiles/2013/01/18/women-and-video-gamings-dirty-little-secrets/

In case people haven't seen this, I felt I should post it as a complement (yes, complement, not compliment) to one of the articles Patrick listed.

I was just about to post this. She takes a fairly alternative view to the 'women in video games' debate which doesn't really fit with how Patrick likes to paint the issue.

Thank you so much for posting this article, TwoArmed and Crysack.

I've always felt that the whole 'blame lack of women in gaming on stylised games, men, and tomb raider' to be misguided at best, and completely offensive at worst. Especially in Anita Sarkeesian's case, where Anita supports sex segregation on public transportation, the view that men are hardwired to assault women, the anti-sex viewpoint where women are never allowed to choose to be 'sexy' or to be models because they're really just 'victims of men', and the weird conflicting opinion that 'women shouldn't be shown to be equal as men, because that just makes them a Mrs. Male trope, and that's sexist!'.

I know it's unpopular to disagree with Anita, and I always get a lot of "well that must make you a misogynist too" comments for that viewpoint even though I'm female and a sex-positive feminist, but man, you've gotta admit that the whole 'blame everything on men, they're all pretty rapey, lara croft is the worst, who cares if she's an educated archaeologist she has big tits and women with big tits are gross' view is kinda fucked up.

I just wish that gaming website editors would see things from our side for once. The ones wanting equal treatment, rather than special treatment. The ones who know that the lack of women in the gaming industry is mostly due to far fewer girls growing up learning to code as a hobby compared to guys. The ones who know that if a game company is hiring ten people, and a hundred men who are super qualified and have technical skills apply, along with ten women who want to 'join the gaming industry because they really love games', the ratio shouldn't end up being '50% men, 50% women' being employed. It should be whoever is the most qualified regardless of sex.

It's such a rarity to an article speaking a more fair side of things, rather than the drama-fuelled 'attractive females in games are offensive to women' articles or posts by editors like Patrick, that kinda helps me speak up on the subject. The only 'gender problem' in the gaming industry is that way more girls grow up embracing their own interests, such as dancing, or fitness, or art, or writing, than studying technology and code. And that's completely fine, it's their own choice.

Trying to insist that more females become skilled programmers, from learning as a hobby to studying in full-time education, is as silly as trying to insist that more men spend all their time practicing ballet in all their free time, from their childhood until their adult life, so they can become ballet instructors. It might help the dancing industry, but more often than not, guys might just have other hobbies they want to get into instead. Just like women might have other hobbies other than engineering or coding, and want to follow their own interests, no matter how much people try to insist that the gaming industry needs them.

I work as a Graphic Designer, 2 of the 2 woman who work there play video games. They arnt as deep down the rabbit hole as any of us are. But one Loves her Xbox, and the other loves games like Uncharted, that have you exploring unique places.

I have known more woman who game then men.

Anecdotal evidence is all well and good, but the facts of the situation are markedly different. The vast majority of employees in the video games industry are software engineers of some description or another who typically have an education background in Computer Science. If you actually have a look at the statistics concerning the gender gap in the study of CS at a tertiary level, it's pretty easy to see why women are a minority within the industry. For reference, in 1984, 37.1% of CS grads were women, while in 2010-11 women made up a total of only 12% of all CS grads:

http://www.cra.org/uploads/documents/resources/taulbee/CS_Degree_and_Enrollment_Trends_2010-11.pdf

Add in the fact that the majority of these grads won't make any attempt to enter the video games industry at all and we thus have the primary reason why so few women end up in the industry - at least in a programming capacity. You can't hire people who don't exist.

You can take that argument further though, and say that women don't go after CS Degrees because it's still seen as a "boy's club". Not something I necessarily agree with, and certainly something that is changing with time.

Honestly who the fuck cares, Are these woman who aren't making videogames the Marie Curie of video games, because if they arn't then why dose it fucken matter. How many woman program games, or if games are made with guys in mind. What matters is that you treat woman with some respect. This is the only real way to get woman into this "boys club." Perhaps if people didn't all start trying to hit on the first female voice to speak in the COD lobby. Or Post comments about how someone looks like a whale.

FUCK YOU - YOU ARE MAKING THIS A SAUSAGE FEST. ( this isnt really aimed at anyone Im quoting, its just 3:00 at night, and Im sick )

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FengShuiGod

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Inane grammar, TED talks, and links to articles that are gussied up lists. Ugh.

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That 'six games every Libertarian should play' is a bit peculiar. It's not a particularly insightful commentary or anything, just dumb musings everyone knows by now. Patrick isn't a libertarian, is he? Fuck.

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Icecreamjones

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Articles from Reason? Ew. Koch brothers-owned organizations are a no go for me.

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I can't stand 99% of TED talks. It's nothing but populist, self-patting, utopian pseudo-science. It creeps me out.

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@Crysack said:

@Dagbiker said:

@scarycrayons said:

@Crysack said:

@TwoArmed said:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeswomanfiles/2013/01/18/women-and-video-gamings-dirty-little-secrets/

In case people haven't seen this, I felt I should post it as a complement (yes, complement, not compliment) to one of the articles Patrick listed.

I was just about to post this. She takes a fairly alternative view to the 'women in video games' debate which doesn't really fit with how Patrick likes to paint the issue.

Thank you so much for posting this article, TwoArmed and Crysack.

I've always felt that the whole 'blame lack of women in gaming on stylised games, men, and tomb raider' to be misguided at best, and completely offensive at worst. Especially in Anita Sarkeesian's case, where Anita supports sex segregation on public transportation, the view that men are hardwired to assault women, the anti-sex viewpoint where women are never allowed to choose to be 'sexy' or to be models because they're really just 'victims of men', and the weird conflicting opinion that 'women shouldn't be shown to be equal as men, because that just makes them a Mrs. Male trope, and that's sexist!'.

I know it's unpopular to disagree with Anita, and I always get a lot of "well that must make you a misogynist too" comments for that viewpoint even though I'm female and a sex-positive feminist, but man, you've gotta admit that the whole 'blame everything on men, they're all pretty rapey, lara croft is the worst, who cares if she's an educated archaeologist she has big tits and women with big tits are gross' view is kinda fucked up.

I just wish that gaming website editors would see things from our side for once. The ones wanting equal treatment, rather than special treatment. The ones who know that the lack of women in the gaming industry is mostly due to far fewer girls growing up learning to code as a hobby compared to guys. The ones who know that if a game company is hiring ten people, and a hundred men who are super qualified and have technical skills apply, along with ten women who want to 'join the gaming industry because they really love games', the ratio shouldn't end up being '50% men, 50% women' being employed. It should be whoever is the most qualified regardless of sex.

It's such a rarity to an article speaking a more fair side of things, rather than the drama-fuelled 'attractive females in games are offensive to women' articles or posts by editors like Patrick, that kinda helps me speak up on the subject. The only 'gender problem' in the gaming industry is that way more girls grow up embracing their own interests, such as dancing, or fitness, or art, or writing, than studying technology and code. And that's completely fine, it's their own choice.

Trying to insist that more females become skilled programmers, from learning as a hobby to studying in full-time education, is as silly as trying to insist that more men spend all their time practicing ballet in all their free time, from their childhood until their adult life, so they can become ballet instructors. It might help the dancing industry, but more often than not, guys might just have other hobbies they want to get into instead. Just like women might have other hobbies other than engineering or coding, and want to follow their own interests, no matter how much people try to insist that the gaming industry needs them.

I work as a Graphic Designer, 2 of the 2 woman who work there play video games. They arnt as deep down the rabbit hole as any of us are. But one Loves her Xbox, and the other loves games like Uncharted, that have you exploring unique places.

I have known more woman who game then men.

Anecdotal evidence is all well and good, but the facts of the situation are markedly different. The vast majority of employees in the video games industry are software engineers of some description or another who typically have an education background in Computer Science. If you actually have a look at the statistics concerning the gender gap in the study of CS at a tertiary level, it's pretty easy to see why women are a minority within the industry. For reference, in 1984, 37.1% of CS grads were women, while in 2010-11 women made up a total of only 12% of all CS grads:

http://www.cra.org/uploads/documents/resources/taulbee/CS_Degree_and_Enrollment_Trends_2010-11.pdf

Add in the fact that the majority of these grads won't make any attempt to enter the video games industry at all and we thus have the primary reason why so few women end up in the industry - at least in a programming capacity. You can't hire people who don't exist.

You can take that argument further though, and say that women don't go after CS Degrees because it's still seen as a "boy's club". Not something I necessarily agree with, and certainly something that is changing with time.

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@Dagbiker said:

@scarycrayons said:

@Crysack said:

@TwoArmed said:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeswomanfiles/2013/01/18/women-and-video-gamings-dirty-little-secrets/

In case people haven't seen this, I felt I should post it as a complement (yes, complement, not compliment) to one of the articles Patrick listed.

I was just about to post this. She takes a fairly alternative view to the 'women in video games' debate which doesn't really fit with how Patrick likes to paint the issue.

Thank you so much for posting this article, TwoArmed and Crysack.

I've always felt that the whole 'blame lack of women in gaming on stylised games, men, and tomb raider' to be misguided at best, and completely offensive at worst. Especially in Anita Sarkeesian's case, where Anita supports sex segregation on public transportation, the view that men are hardwired to assault women, the anti-sex viewpoint where women are never allowed to choose to be 'sexy' or to be models because they're really just 'victims of men', and the weird conflicting opinion that 'women shouldn't be shown to be equal as men, because that just makes them a Mrs. Male trope, and that's sexist!'.

I know it's unpopular to disagree with Anita, and I always get a lot of "well that must make you a misogynist too" comments for that viewpoint even though I'm female and a sex-positive feminist, but man, you've gotta admit that the whole 'blame everything on men, they're all pretty rapey, lara croft is the worst, who cares if she's an educated archaeologist she has big tits and women with big tits are gross' view is kinda fucked up.

I just wish that gaming website editors would see things from our side for once. The ones wanting equal treatment, rather than special treatment. The ones who know that the lack of women in the gaming industry is mostly due to far fewer girls growing up learning to code as a hobby compared to guys. The ones who know that if a game company is hiring ten people, and a hundred men who are super qualified and have technical skills apply, along with ten women who want to 'join the gaming industry because they really love games', the ratio shouldn't end up being '50% men, 50% women' being employed. It should be whoever is the most qualified regardless of sex.

It's such a rarity to an article speaking a more fair side of things, rather than the drama-fuelled 'attractive females in games are offensive to women' articles or posts by editors like Patrick, that kinda helps me speak up on the subject. The only 'gender problem' in the gaming industry is that way more girls grow up embracing their own interests, such as dancing, or fitness, or art, or writing, than studying technology and code. And that's completely fine, it's their own choice.

Trying to insist that more females become skilled programmers, from learning as a hobby to studying in full-time education, is as silly as trying to insist that more men spend all their time practicing ballet in all their free time, from their childhood until their adult life, so they can become ballet instructors. It might help the dancing industry, but more often than not, guys might just have other hobbies they want to get into instead. Just like women might have other hobbies other than engineering or coding, and want to follow their own interests, no matter how much people try to insist that the gaming industry needs them.

I work as a Graphic Designer, 2 of the 2 woman who work there play video games. They arnt as deep down the rabbit hole as any of us are. But one Loves her Xbox, and the other loves games like Uncharted, that have you exploring unique places.

I have known more woman who game then men.

Anecdotal evidence is all well and good, but the facts of the situation are markedly different. The vast majority of employees in the video games industry are software engineers of some description or another who typically have an education background in Computer Science. If you actually have a look at the statistics concerning the gender gap in the study of CS at a tertiary level, it's pretty easy to see why women are a minority within the industry. For reference, in 1984, 37.1% of CS grads were women, while in 2010-11 women made up a total of only 12% of all CS grads:

http://www.cra.org/uploads/documents/resources/taulbee/CS_Degree_and_Enrollment_Trends_2010-11.pdf

Add in the fact that the majority of these grads won't make any attempt to enter the video games industry at all and we thus have the primary reason why so few women end up in the industry - at least in a programming capacity. You can't hire people who don't exist.

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mrfluke

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@towolie said:

@scarycrayons said:

@Crysack said:

@TwoArmed said:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeswomanfiles/2013/01/18/women-and-video-gamings-dirty-little-secrets/

In case people haven't seen this, I felt I should post it as a complement (yes, complement, not compliment) to one of the articles Patrick listed.

I was just about to post this. She takes a fairly alternative view to the 'women in video games' debate which doesn't really fit with how Patrick likes to paint the issue.

Thank you so much for posting this article, TwoArmed and Crysack.

thank you! this is exactly how i feel about this subject, " it should be whoever is the most qualified regardless of sex." thats the way it should be!

this is definitely how you should approach this, excellent piece, totally agree.

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Dagbiker

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@Gyrfal said:

@Dagbiker said:

@scarycrayons said:

@Crysack said:

@TwoArmed said:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeswomanfiles/2013/01/18/women-and-video-gamings-dirty-little-secrets/

In case people haven't seen this, I felt I should post it as a complement (yes, complement, not compliment) to one of the articles Patrick listed.

I was just about to post this. She takes a fairly alternative view to the 'women in video games' debate which doesn't really fit with how Patrick likes to paint the issue.

Thank you so much for posting this article, TwoArmed and Crysack.

I've always felt that the whole 'blame lack of women in gaming on stylised games, men, and tomb raider' to be misguided at best, and completely offensive at worst. Especially in Anita Sarkeesian's case, where Anita supports sex segregation on public transportation, the view that men are hardwired to assault women, the anti-sex viewpoint where women are never allowed to choose to be 'sexy' or to be models because they're really just 'victims of men', and the weird conflicting opinion that 'women shouldn't be shown to be equal as men, because that just makes them a Mrs. Male trope, and that's sexist!'.

I know it's unpopular to disagree with Anita, and I always get a lot of "well that must make you a misogynist too" comments for that viewpoint even though I'm female and a sex-positive feminist, but man, you've gotta admit that the whole 'blame everything on men, they're all pretty rapey, lara croft is the worst, who cares if she's an educated archaeologist she has big tits and women with big tits are gross' view is kinda fucked up.

I just wish that gaming website editors would see things from our side for once. The ones wanting equal treatment, rather than special treatment. The ones who know that the lack of women in the gaming industry is mostly due to far fewer girls growing up learning to code as a hobby compared to guys. The ones who know that if a game company is hiring ten people, and a hundred men who are super qualified and have technical skills apply, along with ten women who want to 'join the gaming industry because they really love games', the ratio shouldn't end up being '50% men, 50% women' being employed. It should be whoever is the most qualified regardless of sex.

It's such a rarity to an article speaking a more fair side of things, rather than the drama-fuelled 'attractive females in games are offensive to women' articles or posts by editors like Patrick, that kinda helps me speak up on the subject. The only 'gender problem' in the gaming industry is that way more girls grow up embracing their own interests, such as dancing, or fitness, or art, or writing, than studying technology and code. And that's completely fine, it's their own choice.

Trying to insist that more females become skilled programmers, from learning as a hobby to studying in full-time education, is as silly as trying to insist that more men spend all their time practicing ballet in all their free time, from their childhood until their adult life, so they can become ballet instructors. It might help the dancing industry, but more often than not, guys might just have other hobbies they want to get into instead. Just like women might have other hobbies other than engineering or coding, and want to follow their own interests, no matter how much people try to insist that the gaming industry needs them.

I work as a Graphic Designer, 2 of the 2 woman who work there play video games. They arnt as deep down the rabbit hole as any of us are. But one Loves her Xbox, and the other loves games like Uncharted, that have you exploring unique places.

I have known more woman who game then men.

I work as an artist in the game industry, as does my girlfriend. We met at school, and while it is anecdotal, there are much fewer females attending school for the industry than males. Schools don't have any sort of gender discrimination towards who they admit, so not having enough females in the industry is not necessarily the result of discrimination in the workplace, but a larger problem with how jobs in this industry have a gendered connotation in society as a whole.

Right, its like nurses or teachers, but I don't think anyone has railed for more men to get those jobs.

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@scarycrayons said:

@Crysack said:

@TwoArmed said:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeswomanfiles/2013/01/18/women-and-video-gamings-dirty-little-secrets/

In case people haven't seen this, I felt I should post it as a complement (yes, complement, not compliment) to one of the articles Patrick listed.

I was just about to post this. She takes a fairly alternative view to the 'women in video games' debate which doesn't really fit with how Patrick likes to paint the issue.

Thank you so much for posting this article, TwoArmed and Crysack.

I've always felt that the whole 'blame lack of women in gaming on stylised games, men, and tomb raider' to be misguided at best, and completely offensive at worst. Especially in Anita Sarkeesian's case, where Anita supports sex segregation on public transportation, the view that men are hardwired to assault women, the anti-sex viewpoint where women are never allowed to choose to be 'sexy' or to be models because they're really just 'victims of men', and the weird conflicting opinion that 'women shouldn't be shown to be equal as men, because that just makes them a Mrs. Male trope, and that's sexist!'.

I know it's unpopular to disagree with Anita, and I always get a lot of "well that must make you a misogynist too" comments for that viewpoint even though I'm female and a sex-positive feminist, but man, you've gotta admit that the whole 'blame everything on men, they're all pretty rapey, lara croft is the worst, who cares if she's an educated archaeologist she has big tits and women with big tits are gross' view is kinda fucked up.

I just wish that gaming website editors would see things from our side for once. The ones wanting equal treatment, rather than special treatment. The ones who know that the lack of women in the gaming industry is mostly due to far fewer girls growing up learning to code as a hobby compared to guys. The ones who know that if a game company is hiring ten people, and a hundred men who are super qualified and have technical skills apply, along with ten women who want to 'join the gaming industry because they really love games', the ratio shouldn't end up being '50% men, 50% women' being employed. It should be whoever is the most qualified regardless of sex.

It's such a rarity to an article speaking a more fair side of things, rather than the drama-fuelled 'attractive females in games are offensive to women' articles or posts by editors like Patrick, that kinda helps me speak up on the subject. The only 'gender problem' in the gaming industry is that way more girls grow up embracing their own interests, such as dancing, or fitness, or art, or writing, than studying technology and code. And that's completely fine, it's their own choice.

Trying to insist that more females become skilled programmers, from learning as a hobby to studying in full-time education, is as silly as trying to insist that more men spend all their time practicing ballet in all their free time, from their childhood until their adult life, so they can become ballet instructors. It might help the dancing industry, but more often than not, guys might just have other hobbies they want to get into instead. Just like women might have other hobbies other than engineering or coding, and want to follow their own interests, no matter how much people try to insist that the gaming industry needs them.

Pretty much sums up my views towards sexism within ANY industry. If you show you're skilled enough to a company, they will more than likely hire you, no matter what sex you are. Women, more often than not, just aren't interested in the STEM fields. I can count on my fingers the number of women currently in my major (computer science) at school, and guess what? Some of them are totally better at programming than me, and that's fine. They've worked hard to learn a skill, and they absolutely deserve to be chosen over myself during job interviews.

I really dislike Anita's "men are the problem" attitude, as it hurts both sides on the argument. For one, it shows that she paints all men as folks that can't be trusted, so anything we say is immediately rebutted. This is what irks me the most about her and her campaign, she acts like we still live in the world of "Mad Men". The other is that she basically wants women to be empowered (which I agree with), but they can't be good looking or "flaunt" their sexy parts in any situation, because that's sexist (which I disagree with).

Goldiblox is at least a step in the right direction to getting girls interested within the engineering field, and hopefully the upcoming children's show Circuit Playground will appeal to both girls and boys.

@supertuna said:

People should watch Onion Talks instead.

Agreed

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m16mojo2

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I'm dating myself but, that Ultima Online conference was spectacular. I wish they had more time. They had a really valid point about current MMO's being too guided. What made UO a huge success was player choice, creativity, and just running amuck. They weren't punished for being creative, instead the devs had to plug a hole OR, just run with it!

The only thing I can compare it to today is Minecraft with old style RPG elements.

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@scarycrayons said:

@Crysack said:

@TwoArmed said:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeswomanfiles/2013/01/18/women-and-video-gamings-dirty-little-secrets/

In case people haven't seen this, I felt I should post it as a complement (yes, complement, not compliment) to one of the articles Patrick listed.

I was just about to post this. She takes a fairly alternative view to the 'women in video games' debate which doesn't really fit with how Patrick likes to paint the issue.

Thank you so much for posting this article, TwoArmed and Crysack.

thank you! this is exactly how i feel about this subject, " it should be whoever is the most qualified regardless of sex." thats the way it should be!

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koolaid

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The violence blog post is fantastic. It was also one of the best pro girls in gaming pieces I've read in a while. That is probably because it isn't confrontational and instead very personal. People don't like being confronted...

@SirOptimusPrime said:

I am absolutely loving that piece on the Doom 3 code. My programming knowledge is pretty meager, but I always enjoy reading/hearing a developer talk about their craft.

I loved it too. I wish every Kotaku article could be like that. It was so... positive.

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paulwade1984

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That Athens bomb was like a year ago...

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@Dagbiker said:

@scarycrayons said:

@Crysack said:

@TwoArmed said:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeswomanfiles/2013/01/18/women-and-video-gamings-dirty-little-secrets/

In case people haven't seen this, I felt I should post it as a complement (yes, complement, not compliment) to one of the articles Patrick listed.

I was just about to post this. She takes a fairly alternative view to the 'women in video games' debate which doesn't really fit with how Patrick likes to paint the issue.

Thank you so much for posting this article, TwoArmed and Crysack.

I've always felt that the whole 'blame lack of women in gaming on stylised games, men, and tomb raider' to be misguided at best, and completely offensive at worst. Especially in Anita Sarkeesian's case, where Anita supports sex segregation on public transportation, the view that men are hardwired to assault women, the anti-sex viewpoint where women are never allowed to choose to be 'sexy' or to be models because they're really just 'victims of men', and the weird conflicting opinion that 'women shouldn't be shown to be equal as men, because that just makes them a Mrs. Male trope, and that's sexist!'.

I know it's unpopular to disagree with Anita, and I always get a lot of "well that must make you a misogynist too" comments for that viewpoint even though I'm female and a sex-positive feminist, but man, you've gotta admit that the whole 'blame everything on men, they're all pretty rapey, lara croft is the worst, who cares if she's an educated archaeologist she has big tits and women with big tits are gross' view is kinda fucked up.

I just wish that gaming website editors would see things from our side for once. The ones wanting equal treatment, rather than special treatment. The ones who know that the lack of women in the gaming industry is mostly due to far fewer girls growing up learning to code as a hobby compared to guys. The ones who know that if a game company is hiring ten people, and a hundred men who are super qualified and have technical skills apply, along with ten women who want to 'join the gaming industry because they really love games', the ratio shouldn't end up being '50% men, 50% women' being employed. It should be whoever is the most qualified regardless of sex.

It's such a rarity to an article speaking a more fair side of things, rather than the drama-fuelled 'attractive females in games are offensive to women' articles or posts by editors like Patrick, that kinda helps me speak up on the subject. The only 'gender problem' in the gaming industry is that way more girls grow up embracing their own interests, such as dancing, or fitness, or art, or writing, than studying technology and code. And that's completely fine, it's their own choice.

Trying to insist that more females become skilled programmers, from learning as a hobby to studying in full-time education, is as silly as trying to insist that more men spend all their time practicing ballet in all their free time, from their childhood until their adult life, so they can become ballet instructors. It might help the dancing industry, but more often than not, guys might just have other hobbies they want to get into instead. Just like women might have other hobbies other than engineering or coding, and want to follow their own interests, no matter how much people try to insist that the gaming industry needs them.

I work as a Graphic Designer, 2 of the 2 woman who work there play video games. They arnt as deep down the rabbit hole as any of us are. But one Loves her Xbox, and the other loves games like Uncharted, that have you exploring unique places.

I have known more woman who game then men.

I work as an artist in the game industry, as does my girlfriend. We met at school, and while it is anecdotal, there are much fewer females attending school for the industry than males. Schools don't have any sort of gender discrimination towards who they admit, so not having enough females in the industry is not necessarily the result of discrimination in the workplace, but a larger problem with how jobs in this industry have a gendered connotation in society as a whole.

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@patrickklepek: One of my favourite features on GB is Worth Reading. I wouldn't mind if you did two a week.

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@scarycrayons said:

@Crysack said:

@TwoArmed said:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeswomanfiles/2013/01/18/women-and-video-gamings-dirty-little-secrets/

In case people haven't seen this, I felt I should post it as a complement (yes, complement, not compliment) to one of the articles Patrick listed.

I was just about to post this. She takes a fairly alternative view to the 'women in video games' debate which doesn't really fit with how Patrick likes to paint the issue.

Thank you so much for posting this article, TwoArmed and Crysack.

I've always felt that the whole 'blame lack of women in gaming on stylised games, men, and tomb raider' to be misguided at best, and completely offensive at worst. Especially in Anita Sarkeesian's case, where Anita supports sex segregation on public transportation, the view that men are hardwired to assault women, the anti-sex viewpoint where women are never allowed to choose to be 'sexy' or to be models because they're really just 'victims of men', and the weird conflicting opinion that 'women shouldn't be shown to be equal as men, because that just makes them a Mrs. Male trope, and that's sexist!'.

I know it's unpopular to disagree with Anita, and I always get a lot of "well that must make you a misogynist too" comments for that viewpoint even though I'm female and a sex-positive feminist, but man, you've gotta admit that the whole 'blame everything on men, they're all pretty rapey, lara croft is the worst, who cares if she's an educated archaeologist she has big tits and women with big tits are gross' view is kinda fucked up.

I just wish that gaming website editors would see things from our side for once. The ones wanting equal treatment, rather than special treatment. The ones who know that the lack of women in the gaming industry is mostly due to far fewer girls growing up learning to code as a hobby compared to guys. The ones who know that if a game company is hiring ten people, and a hundred men who are super qualified and have technical skills apply, along with ten women who want to 'join the gaming industry because they really love games', the ratio shouldn't end up being '50% men, 50% women' being employed. It should be whoever is the most qualified regardless of sex.

It's such a rarity to an article speaking a more fair side of things, rather than the drama-fuelled 'attractive females in games are offensive to women' articles or posts by editors like Patrick, that kinda helps me speak up on the subject. The only 'gender problem' in the gaming industry is that way more girls grow up embracing their own interests, such as dancing, or fitness, or art, or writing, than studying technology and code. And that's completely fine, it's their own choice.

Trying to insist that more females become skilled programmers, from learning as a hobby to studying in full-time education, is as silly as trying to insist that more men spend all their time practicing ballet in all their free time, from their childhood until their adult life, so they can become ballet instructors. It might help the dancing industry, but more often than not, guys might just have other hobbies they want to get into instead. Just like women might have other hobbies other than engineering or coding, and want to follow their own interests, no matter how much people try to insist that the gaming industry needs them.

I work as a Graphic Designer, 2 of the 2 woman who work there play video games. They arnt as deep down the rabbit hole as any of us are. But one Loves her Xbox, and the other loves games like Uncharted, that have you exploring unique places.

I have known more woman who game then men.

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vaiz

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@gladspooky said:

@Humanity said:

@Prestige said:

@m16mojo2 said:

@thabigred said:

@m16mojo2 said:

"The idea of Worth Reading going up earlier got in my head when Double Fine’s Brad Muir stopped by the office a few months back, and pointed out how he would often by in the midst of his Friday evening activities by the time it went live, and then managed to forget it by the time Saturday rolled around."

Can some one translate this into English for me?

Patrick started a sentence walked away then started writing it again and the result what what you see here. I've done it before, everyone has. He'll fix it when he sees this.

Okay, just making sure I wasn't going crazy. I'm still not sure what he's trying to get across though. I sort of do... I don't know? Thanks!

Well, that sentence makes sense in context. Patrick's just explaining why he's thinking about posting Worth Reading earlier in the day each Friday. The confusing part is that he doesn't indicate whether he decided to.

It's just this part that ran away from him I guess

"Brad Muir stopped by the office a few months back, and pointed out how he would often by in the midst of his Friday evening activities by.."

I think something was supposed to go in there. Just find it funny cause I read it a few times over and also wondered if I was reading it wrong or something. It's like that awkward moment where you can't tell if someone is mumbling or not speaking english at all and it takes a few seconds to distinguish between the two.

Here's four people who should be making more money than Patrick.

I think the solution is way simpler than you guys are making it out to be; replace 'by' with 'be' and the sentence makes sense. I've made the typo before, and I'm sure everyone else has too.

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granderojo

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@gladspooky: It's a common mistake. Like I said I do it all the time as well.

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"Six games every libertarian should play"

Ethical vertex, how does it work?

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'I'm gonna post an interview next week, but I think the guy is actually kind of boring so who cares.'

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In my opinion you're an introvert if you "Recharge your batteries" when you're alone. I don't think there's much more to it than that though. You either get your energy from a group, or you feel like being with a group drains your energy, and I wouldn't read much more into it than that because of how vastly different we are as people.

I don't think shyness and how outgoing you are and how well you interact with people and deal with public speaking etc. are related to introversion. I'd say they're more to do with confidence.

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When the woman giving the talk called for a kibosh on constant group work, I wanted to jump through the screen and hug her. I fucking hate group work.

Nice collection, as usual, Patrick.

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@kwang2000 said:

@claybrez said:

man, i don't know about TED sometimes

The secret to TED's success is that they tell people what they want to hear: school actually DOES suck, social dysfunction is actually GOOD for you, anyone can be creative, unlock your potential, you're differently smart, think outside the box. So if you're ever feeling dull, or dumb, uncreative, introverted, unmotivated, or bored, go to ted.com, listen to a smart person tell you that your weaknesses are actually special and awesome secret strengths, and feel good about yourself.

^

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@Humanity said:

@Prestige said:

@m16mojo2 said:

@thabigred said:

@m16mojo2 said:

"The idea of Worth Reading going up earlier got in my head when Double Fine’s Brad Muir stopped by the office a few months back, and pointed out how he would often by in the midst of his Friday evening activities by the time it went live, and then managed to forget it by the time Saturday rolled around."

Can some one translate this into English for me?

Patrick started a sentence walked away then started writing it again and the result what what you see here. I've done it before, everyone has. He'll fix it when he sees this.

Okay, just making sure I wasn't going crazy. I'm still not sure what he's trying to get across though. I sort of do... I don't know? Thanks!

Well, that sentence makes sense in context. Patrick's just explaining why he's thinking about posting Worth Reading earlier in the day each Friday. The confusing part is that he doesn't indicate whether he decided to.

It's just this part that ran away from him I guess

"Brad Muir stopped by the office a few months back, and pointed out how he would often by in the midst of his Friday evening activities by.."

I think something was supposed to go in there. Just find it funny cause I read it a few times over and also wondered if I was reading it wrong or something. It's like that awkward moment where you can't tell if someone is mumbling or not speaking english at all and it takes a few seconds to distinguish between the two.

Here's four people who should be making more money than Patrick.

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@the_OFFICIAL_jAPanese_teaBAG said:

Hey Patrick, did you know a band called Protest the Hero went on Indiegogo to raise funds for its next project because it stopped getting label support and it hit its goal within 24 hours? The perks look pretty cool too. You can go to a pizza party at one of the band member's house if you donate $2500

Oh how I wish they were based in the Whitby north of me, not the one in Ontario :(

But damn I didn't realise they'd finished that up already.

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@Prestige said:

@m16mojo2 said:

@thabigred said:

@m16mojo2 said:

"The idea of Worth Reading going up earlier got in my head when Double Fine’s Brad Muir stopped by the office a few months back, and pointed out how he would often by in the midst of his Friday evening activities by the time it went live, and then managed to forget it by the time Saturday rolled around."

Can some one translate this into English for me?

Patrick started a sentence walked away then started writing it again and the result what what you see here. I've done it before, everyone has. He'll fix it when he sees this.

Okay, just making sure I wasn't going crazy. I'm still not sure what he's trying to get across though. I sort of do... I don't know? Thanks!

Well, that sentence makes sense in context. Patrick's just explaining why he's thinking about posting Worth Reading earlier in the day each Friday. The confusing part is that he doesn't indicate whether he decided to.

It's just this part that ran away from him I guess

"Brad Muir stopped by the office a few months back, and pointed out how he would often by in the midst of his Friday evening activities by.."

I think something was supposed to go in there. Just find it funny cause I read it a few times over and also wondered if I was reading it wrong or something. It's like that awkward moment where you can't tell if someone is mumbling or not speaking english at all and it takes a few seconds to distinguish between the two.

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I usually can't stand TED talks, but that one was genuinely excellent. A little ego-strokey perhaps, yes, but considering the kind of society we live in, I don't think there's a problem with us introverts occasionally giving ourselves a pat on the back for doing our bit for society in our own way.

I'm exactly the kind of person she describes. I value my time alone, I'm quiet, contemplative and spend a lot of time wandering about in the woods on my own and have my most profound revelations, be they philosophical, theosophical or artistic, in such states. Things have been a bit weird this month, and I feel like I needed to hear what she had to say right now, if only to give myself a little boost. So, thanks Patrick.

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@JohnstonThistle said:

eSports in its early days? It just celebrated its 30 year anniversary.

Early days for eSports as a relatively mainstream entertainment medium.

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People should watch Onion Talks instead.

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Wie passend du kämpfst wie eine Kuh

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I feel your pain with transcriptions, I had to do one as part of an assignment and the 20min conversation took 2 hours to type up At least I got useful stuff out of it

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Gas Powered Games is one of my favorite developers, I have some great memories of playing Dungeon Siege I and II and the Supreme Commander games were mighty fun as well.

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eSports in its early days? It just celebrated its 30 year anniversary.

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@Crysack said:

@TwoArmed said:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeswomanfiles/2013/01/18/women-and-video-gamings-dirty-little-secrets/

In case people haven't seen this, I felt I should post it as a complement (yes, complement, not compliment) to one of the articles Patrick listed.

I was just about to post this. She takes a fairly alternative view to the 'women in video games' debate which doesn't really fit with how Patrick likes to paint the issue.

Thank you so much for posting this article, TwoArmed and Crysack.

I've always felt that the whole 'blame lack of women in gaming on stylised games, men, and tomb raider' to be misguided at best, and completely offensive at worst. Especially in Anita Sarkeesian's case, where Anita supports sex segregation on public transportation, the view that men are hardwired to assault women, the anti-sex viewpoint where women are never allowed to choose to be 'sexy' or to be models because they're really just 'victims of men', and the weird conflicting opinion that 'women shouldn't be shown to be equal as men, because that just makes them a Mrs. Male trope, and that's sexist!'.

I know it's unpopular to disagree with Anita, and I always get a lot of "well that must make you a misogynist too" comments for that viewpoint even though I'm female and a sex-positive feminist, but man, you've gotta admit that the whole 'blame everything on men, they're all pretty rapey, lara croft is the worst, who cares if she's an educated archaeologist she has big tits and women with big tits are gross' view is kinda fucked up.

I just wish that gaming website editors would see things from our side for once. The ones wanting equal treatment, rather than special treatment. The ones who know that the lack of women in the gaming industry is mostly due to far fewer girls growing up learning to code as a hobby compared to guys. The ones who know that if a game company is hiring ten people, and a hundred men who are super qualified and have technical skills apply, along with ten women who want to 'join the gaming industry because they really love games', the ratio shouldn't end up being '50% men, 50% women' being employed. It should be whoever is the most qualified regardless of sex.

It's such a rarity to an article speaking a more fair side of things, rather than the drama-fuelled 'attractive females in games are offensive to women' articles or posts by editors like Patrick, that kinda helps me speak up on the subject. The only 'gender problem' in the gaming industry is that way more girls grow up embracing their own interests, such as dancing, or fitness, or art, or writing, than studying technology and code. And that's completely fine, it's their own choice.

Trying to insist that more females become skilled programmers, from learning as a hobby to studying in full-time education, is as silly as trying to insist that more men spend all their time practicing ballet in all their free time, from their childhood until their adult life, so they can become ballet instructors. It might help the dancing industry, but more often than not, guys might just have other hobbies they want to get into instead. Just like women might have other hobbies other than engineering or coding, and want to follow their own interests, no matter how much people try to insist that the gaming industry needs them.

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Could an updated TIE Fighter even be any good in this age when no one has a flight stick? I'll play TIE Fighter with another input device when they put it in my cold, dead hands.