@spacekatgal: I think you've made your position very clear, but I'm still trying to figure something out. It seems to me that much of Giant Bomb's content is funny, dumb, game videos on the internet. With the exception of Patrick's work, my impression is that the rest of the site doesn't really want to be anything more than that. You seem to be saying that Giant Bomb should be more involved in these issues. I guess my question is: should Giant Bomb's desire to "just be fun" be relevant to if they should become more involved or not? Why is it Giant Bomb's responsibility? Is it because they have a lot of influence to do good? Or perhaps because when they do nothing, it allows negative elements to fester?
Letter from the Editor discussion.
This topic is locked from further discussion.
A lot of people's dissection of how GB has dealt with this situation and whether it is appropriate relies on hindsight being 20/20 and forgetting it is damn hard to know the right thing to do when you are in the thick of a shitstorm and have a lot of facets to consider. I do not excuse anything or want to belittle anyone's opinion on whether they handled it well or poorly. I do wish GB's position had been stated loudly and clearly at an earlier time, but I cannot even begin to say I know why that was the case, whether it points to specific conclusions, or if any implication and assumptions would be based solely on hindsight and personal bias.
I don't know how to offer any sort of solution to this, so I will just echo the sentiments people have put forth that Patrick's "we can always do better" is a good way to look forward and try to improve when these sorts of nasty situations arise. I hope the community and industry can begin to heal and look forward to a better path forward.
@excast said:
It's tiring and I really don't feel as if anything this site or it's community does is going to please people that have made up their mind and decided to label us as some great horde of straight white neanderthal men who are out to hurt them personally and professionally.
I am friends with every one of those women. If that's what you think their argument is, it's because you aren't actually listening to what they're saying. To be blunt, they understand more about what women in this field face than you do, because they are women in this field.
I'm not trying to be hostile here - but guys. It would help the situation so much if you guys would listen when we tell you our experiences, and stop being such huge jerks about it.
THIS IS WHY IT'S HARD TO BE A WOMAN IN GAMES. THIS IS WHY IT'S HARD TO BE A WOMAN IN GAMES. THIS IS WHY IT'S HARD TO BE A WOMAN IN GAMES. THIS IS WHY IT'S HARD TO BE A WOMAN IN GAMES. THIS IS WHY IT'S HARD TO BE A WOMAN IN GAMES. THIS IS WHY IT'S HARD TO BE A WOMAN IN GAMES. THIS IS WHY IT'S HARD TO BE A WOMAN IN GAMES. THIS IS WHY IT'S HARD TO BE A WOMAN IN GAMES. THIS IS WHY IT'S HARD TO BE A WOMAN IN GAMES. THIS IS WHY IT'S HARD TO BE A WOMAN IN GAMES.
@spacekatgal - Very glad you took the time to be a part in this discussion here. It's informative to see your comments.
@koolaid said:
@spacekatgal: I think you've made your position very clear, but I'm still trying to figure something out. It seems to me that much of Giant Bomb's content is funny, dumb, game videos on the internet. With the exception of Patrick's work, my impression is that the rest of the site doesn't really want to be anything more than that. You seem to be saying that Giant Bomb should be more involved in these issues. I guess my question is: should Giant Bomb's desire to "just be fun" be relevant to if they should become more involved or not? Why is it Giant Bomb's responsibility? Is it because they have a lot of influence to do good? Or perhaps because when they do nothing, it allows negative elements to fester?
I think, if you make that choice to hire no women? HOLY GOD do you owe a woman an apology when your site destroys her career.
I would expect the staff and the GB community to call out anyone using the site as a launching point for harassment. GG plays at this same kind of "not us!" defensiveness, it doesn't behoove us to do the same.
@spacekatgal said:
@pr1mus said:
This site was always built on transparency and personalities and the reason people sign up in the first place is because they identify with the staff. That community is the staff's responsibility because they made it what it is today. That's Jeff's biggest failures with the site, not caring enough about its community and what it does.
Thank you. This is exactly my point. I appreciate you hearing me. I think this choice was both a personal and a professional failing. Giant Bomb might not understand how much their decision hurt my friend.
On some level, the depressing thing is that the forums and "community" have the same issue as an anonymous hashtag...absolutely anyone, with any motive, can join. I'm not sure what else can be done besides doubling up on moderation (which they've certainly done) to weed out the unwelcome people. But with no prerequisite to joining the site, how much power does Jeff (or anyone) really have to reign in people lashing out on twitter? That's what makes it difficult for me to lay this at the "company's" feet, the helplessness of it all is really frustrating.
Regarding Giant Bomb's community: The many regular posters, bloggers, reviewers and community content creators we have here on the forums is a very small part of what I would consider the Giant Bomb community. That community is also the huge threads on PA and NeoGAF and SA; it's the subreddits and the threads in /v/ and 8chan; and it's the YouTube and Twitch subs and commenters that give Patrick shit whenever his videos go up. It's everyone we've ever had to ban (or have stormed off the site in a huff after a less severe warning), but have been politely told that they can continue watching the videos and enjoy the site's content that they may or may not have subscribed to.
When someone complains about our community, they don't just mean those of us here in these forums who are usually unfailingly polite and have done nothing to incur the dispassionate wrath of the moderators and get themselves excluded. There's no need to be rude to anyone who makes the assumption that our community could use some work. Of course, there's no easy way we can acquiesce to their requests to improve the average temperament of the enormous number of people who enjoy this site either. Covering all those bases is a problem outside the purview of the mods, that's for sure, though there's probably something we could be doing to improve things all the same.
@bushpusherr said:
Again, to repeat,
1. He didn't have the professional courtesy to reach out to her with a phone call.
2. It was too little too late condemning the behavior of his site.
@whitegreyblack said:
A lot of people's dissection of how GB has dealt with this situation and whether it is appropriate relies on hindsight being 20/20 and forgetting it is damn hard to know the right thing to do when you are in the thick of a shitstorm and have a lot of facets to consider. I do not excuse anything or want to belittle anyone's opinion on whether they handled it well or poorly. I do wish GB's position had been stated loudly and clearly at an earlier time, but I cannot even begin to say I know why that was the case, whether it points to specific conclusions, or if any implication and assumptions would be based solely on hindsight and personal bias.
I don't know how to offer any sort of solution to this, so I will just echo the sentiments people have put forth that Patrick's "we can always do better" is a good way to look forward and try to improve when these sorts of nasty situations arise. I hope the community and industry can begin to heal and look forward to a better path forward.
The solution is to do exactly what this thread is doing and point out to what they did right so they continue to do it and what they did wrong so they don't repeat those mistakes again.
@rangers517 said:
@tehpickle said:
@rangers517 said:
@spacekatgal: So you're upset because they didn't like the new Tomb Raider as much as you did and that they don't sit around reading twitter drama and writing stories about it. You know this is a small site that mostly makes funny videos about video games, right?
Your friend decided to call GB out, a lot of people saw her tweets and obviously didn't like her criticism. It sucks she was harassed but I don't see how any of that is the fault of the site. It sounds like you should be calling out twitter for their moderation policies since all of that happened there.
Twitters piss-poor moderation practices has a part to play, for sure. That doesn't change the fact the some of that terrible behaviour came from inside this community. At that point, blaming Twitter is simply a smokescreen.
I didn't see or hear of any threads on GB calling for people to go harass anyone on twitter or anything else like that, so I don't know what you're talking about.
If that's the only conclusion you can reach based on what I said, then I don't think I can help.
I get the feeling from a lot of people here is "yes, people are going to try and ruin your life, but when you criticize the environments and circumstances that lead to that, we're not going to listen until you're a paragon of politeness."
I don't think many would care if they were polite. Extra polite, even. I think many would shrug it off as "just some trolls" or "not a real problem". Or just "i don't agree, sorry", and walk it off as the other people got to return to having their lives harassed and terrorized for doing... anything.
"It's just some trolls", right? Nothing can be done. That's the internet. So sorry, that's just what you have to live with now unless you decide to leave gaming and the internet entirely.
People don't seem to be willing to listen until it's a big enough problem that others are screaming, then they get mad that the aggrieved party screams. "Sorry you were harassed, but you were rude after it, so I'm not going to listen; I'm not even going to do much to acknowledge there is a problem".
Well said Jeff! I've tried to ignore reading or hearing anything GG related and still intend to, but I do hope that things can die down at some point. For the GB crew, keep up with the great and funny content on the site!
@digitalhughes said:
@spacekatgal said:
My suggestion to you is to understand - videogames are currently a scary place for women. You can either listen to what we say, or put your fingers in your ears and attack us. I would encourage you to try to do the former.
I think people are listening, absolutely they are but they may not be clear on what the argument is or maybe they disagree. How do you feel that videogames are currently a scary place for women? I'm just curious on your bullet point thoughts, excluding the actions of any specific people.
That seems like an odd thing to ask. "Explain how things are scary, except insofar as people are involved." I would assume that a collective sense of how people act based on multiple experiences dealing with specific actors in the field is precisely what makes it a scary place for women.
@digitalhughes said:
@spacekatgal said:
My suggestion to you is to understand - videogames are currently a scary place for women. You can either listen to what we say, or put your fingers in your ears and attack us. I would encourage you to try to do the former.
I think people are listening, absolutely they are but they may not be clear on what the argument is or maybe they disagree. How do you feel that videogames are currently a scary place for women? I'm just curious on your bullet point thoughts, excluding the actions of any specific people.
Just for one single example? Go read this piece I wrote for polygon. This is the horror of being a woman in this field.
@spacekatgal said:
@excast said:
It's tiring and I really don't feel as if anything this site or it's community does is going to please people that have made up their mind and decided to label us as some great horde of straight white neanderthal men who are out to hurt them personally and professionally.
I am friends with every one of those women. If that's what you think their argument is, it's because you aren't actually listening to what they're saying. To be blunt, they understand more about what women in this field face than you do, because they are women in this field.
I'm not trying to be hostile here - but guys. It would help the situation so much if you guys would listen when we tell you our experiences, and stop being such huge jerks about it.
THIS IS WHY IT'S HARD TO BE A WOMAN IN GAMES. THIS IS WHY IT'S HARD TO BE A WOMAN IN GAMES. THIS IS WHY IT'S HARD TO BE A WOMAN IN GAMES. THIS IS WHY IT'S HARD TO BE A WOMAN IN GAMES. THIS IS WHY IT'S HARD TO BE A WOMAN IN GAMES. THIS IS WHY IT'S HARD TO BE A WOMAN IN GAMES. THIS IS WHY IT'S HARD TO BE A WOMAN IN GAMES. THIS IS WHY IT'S HARD TO BE A WOMAN IN GAMES. THIS IS WHY IT'S HARD TO BE A WOMAN IN GAMES. THIS IS WHY IT'S HARD TO BE A WOMAN IN GAMES.
I've read their arguments. I just looked at Elizabeth Simins calling the hiring practices of this site "appalling" and their response "dishonest and selfish". I've seen Leigh Alexander make very personal attacks against the site's staff. I've seen Maddy Myers absolutely savage the site while simultaneously complaining about not being contacted back during the hiring process. Why is me reading these things and stating that they happened being equated to me being a jerk?
Women in this field face a lot. No doubt. Some of them certainly don't make it any easier for themselves with an attitude that seems to actively search for new people to label as enemies. I'm sure someone will now accuse me of tone policing or some other phrase that basically just equates as a desire for them to control the conversation and accuse people of whatever they want with absolutely no response other than a nod of the head and a round of applause.
@spacekatgal said:
@korlic said:
If you go to your doctor and they tell you you have 10 problems but they won't tell you what they are or how to remedy them then you may as well not have gone at all. It's not for me to say whether any rules or changes will be implemented but isn't it worthwhile putting some of them out there?
Most of the reason I stopped supporting Giant Bomb came from my slow awareness that they were actively indifferent to issues of women in this field. Take my GOTY article from January 1st. That was a MASSIVELY popular piece, so popular I was paid twice what I agreed to. I got rape and death threats from Giant Bomb users.
I never received an apology or commentary from any of the senior staff of Giant Bomb, though Patrick reached out. They chose to never discuss it. This was my first bout with threats to my life, and they scared the hell out of me.
As I've said many times, I was really horrified by them choosing to not stand up to what their site did to Samantha Allen. If I had to point to one event that shook my faith in the innate goodness of the men in this industry, this was it. As I understand it, none of the senior staff ever reached out to her to personally apologize. I know she found their statement lukewarm and very equivocal.
Look, if my company did something that cost someone their career, you'd better believe I'd reach out to them. Privately, publicly. They only delivered a statement after she'd chosen to leave the industry. I'm not trying to be dramatic, but I don't understand how Jeff Gerstmann sleeps at night. I can only guess that he doesn't care.
It made me realize they aren't the people I thought they were. As I said earlier, a woman who worked with them told me, "Great guys, but they love to put their head in the sand on women's issues."
I met Ryan Davis before I had a job in games. We talked about Resident Evil for about 15 minutes. He talked to me entirely like an equal, and was very nice to me when I was just a nobody. It's really hard for me to reconcile that Giant Bomb with the Giant Bomb that didn't stand up the bullies in the community.
This issue aside, the overall lack of awareness of the representation of women is troubling. I pointed to this in my GOTY piece, but when Vinny just blustered past the Tomb Raider reboot, which was written by Rhianna Pratchet? It made me realize that the things that were important to me weren't important to them.
If they came to me tomorrow and asked me how they could make the site more welcoming? Here are three things I'd suggest.
A. Patrick cannot be the only person trying to reach out to women. The rest of the staff needs to make an effort and they need to prove it to their audience.
B. They need to put women on staff.
C. They need to raise their consciousness on the industry issues that affect women. Again, heads in the sand.
Jeff Gerstmann has the privilege of staying out of this. For women like me, Zoe Quinn, Samantha Allen - we DO NOT HAVE A CHOICE. I can't ignore a freight train coming towards us.
Giant Bomb feels silence is not consent. That's because they don't understand very much about the realities we face.
I've mostly stayed out of this because I could not associate with the corruption aspect of GG since I trust the GB guys(especially Jeff) quite abit. Until I read the above...
This is ridiculous... why should Jeff have trouble sleeping at night? Do you think he has any more power over what GG does than he has alleviating poverty in some developing country? Patrick is a journalist, he should not be jumping on the issue at all, its his job to be providing us with news and critical thinking on game design not be switching us to his liberal perspectives. Obviously we need to informed about the true output of GG in the form of death threats but nothing more, we can judge by ourselves, I don't want this site turning political(quotas are inherently a political subject).
Why should they put women on staff? They will choose whoever they feel is competent or if they feel the person in question would add something to the team, why should they even consider the gender dimension? Why can't I come in here demanding that there be an African American on staff(who are a bigger demographic for the kind of games talked about here than women)? Its ludicrous to expect them to meet quotas... the only criteria for selection is competency, your views are totally incoherent.
I've met a few women who work in the video game industry, and they have great lives(apart from the ridiculously long hours), no death threats or discrimination, its possible you are not representative because of your preaching. Don't get me wrong, it sucks that you are getting death threats and those people deserve punishment, however you are NOT representative of women in the industry because you are taking political stands. You are just one of those loud feminist liberals that is applying their ideology to their work environment.
The market is what it is, the world isn't a game you are designing, its what has worked so far. It could change, or it could not, its not up to one person to decide.
@spacekatgal said:
@koolaid said:
@spacekatgal: I think you've made your position very clear, but I'm still trying to figure something out. It seems to me that much of Giant Bomb's content is funny, dumb, game videos on the internet. With the exception of Patrick's work, my impression is that the rest of the site doesn't really want to be anything more than that. You seem to be saying that Giant Bomb should be more involved in these issues. I guess my question is: should Giant Bomb's desire to "just be fun" be relevant to if they should become more involved or not? Why is it Giant Bomb's responsibility? Is it because they have a lot of influence to do good? Or perhaps because when they do nothing, it allows negative elements to fester?
I think, if you make that choice to hire no women? HOLY GOD do you owe a woman an apology when your site destroys her career.
I guess I mean more generally, not specifically when it comes to Samantha Allen. You wrote "C. They need to raise their consciousness on the industry issues that affect women. Again, heads in the sand."
Beyond doing more to condemn shitty behavior from the Giant Bomb community?
@spacekatgal said:
If they came to me tomorrow and asked me how they could make the site more welcoming? Here are three things I'd suggest.
A. Patrick cannot be the only person trying to reach out to women. The rest of the staff needs to make an effort and they need to prove it to their audience.
B. They need to put women on staff.
C. They need to raise their consciousness on the industry issues that affect women. Again, heads in the sand.
Jeff Gerstmann has the privilege of staying out of this. For women like me, Zoe Quinn, Samantha Allen - we DO NOT HAVE A CHOICE. I can't ignore a freight train coming towards us.
Giant Bomb feels silence is not consent. That's because they don't understand very much about the realities we face.
I feel like what you are asking for (politicizing Giant Bomb) would destroy the site, for me. I bet the same is true for others.
More and more, it seems like 3rd party gaming sites are about politics, and less about games. There is definitely room on the internet for sites that deal with those issues, but I don't think is should be a requirement to be a "good" site.
It is poisonous for a "with us or against us" mentality to take hold. I do not want Giant Bomb to go on a crusade for women, but that doesn't mean I don't want women to be successful in gaming.
@spacekatgal: I can't really imagine what it's like to get death or rape threats. I'm sure saying it must be upsetting and frightening is an understatement. It doesn't seem fair to me though to blame the actions of some crazy, evil people on the entire community or on the Giant Bomb staff. I'm confused as to why you think they should apologize on behalf of people they've never met who just happen to be members of their community? To my knowledge there were never any threats made on Giant Bomb and any posts that were over the line in terms of being assholes were deleted by the mods, like they always are. Their responsibility for members of the community starts and stops on the site.
A. I think that is an unfair comment. There have been plenty of women featured on Giant Bomb in guest content in the past. It's not 50/50, sure, but they don't seem to be particularly closed off to women in any regard. It seeming as though it's only Patrick reaching out probably says more about the types of content Patrick produces compared to the rest of the staff than it does about any of the other members attitudes towards including women.
B. You're right. Female staff would be very welcome to shake things up and add more diversity. Everything I've ever read on the forums seems to indicate the community is favor of this too. People certainly have their favorite dream choices for new hires as we saw back when they were hiring, which definitely included women.
C. That's fair enough. I think heads in the sand is a little extreme, but there's nothing wrong with discussing issues surrounding the topic of women in games more. If anything, Giant Bomb is probably the best place to have this discussion in a broader community context due to the fair moderation that allows people to express their views no matter what they are, provided they behave themselves and are civil.
@excast: Honest question: Why do you feel the need to defend Giant Bomb, and thereby defend yourself?
@the_patriarch said:
@excast: Honest question: Why do you feel the need to defend Giant Bomb, and thereby defend yourself?
What do you think is the point of this thread?
@excast said:
@spacekatgal said:
@excast said:
It's tiring and I really don't feel as if anything this site or it's community does is going to please people that have made up their mind and decided to label us as some great horde of straight white neanderthal men who are out to hurt them personally and professionally.
I am friends with every one of those women. If that's what you think their argument is, it's because you aren't actually listening to what they're saying. To be blunt, they understand more about what women in this field face than you do, because they are women in this field.
I'm not trying to be hostile here - but guys. It would help the situation so much if you guys would listen when we tell you our experiences, and stop being such huge jerks about it.
THIS IS WHY IT'S HARD TO BE A WOMAN IN GAMES. THIS IS WHY IT'S HARD TO BE A WOMAN IN GAMES. THIS IS WHY IT'S HARD TO BE A WOMAN IN GAMES. THIS IS WHY IT'S HARD TO BE A WOMAN IN GAMES. THIS IS WHY IT'S HARD TO BE A WOMAN IN GAMES. THIS IS WHY IT'S HARD TO BE A WOMAN IN GAMES. THIS IS WHY IT'S HARD TO BE A WOMAN IN GAMES. THIS IS WHY IT'S HARD TO BE A WOMAN IN GAMES. THIS IS WHY IT'S HARD TO BE A WOMAN IN GAMES. THIS IS WHY IT'S HARD TO BE A WOMAN IN GAMES.
I've read their arguments. I just looked at Elizabeth Simins calling the hiring practices of this site "appalling" and their response "dishonest and selfish". I've seen Leigh Alexander make very personal attacks against the site's staff. I've seen Maddy Myers absolutely savage the site while simultaneously complaining about not being contacted back during the hiring process. Why is me reading these things and stating that they happened being equated to me being a jerk?
Women in this field face a lot. No doubt. Some of them certainly don't make it any easier for themselves with an attitude that seems to actively search for new people to label as enemies. I'm sure someone will now accuse me of tone policing or some other phrase that basically just equates as a desire for them to control the conversation and accuse people of whatever they want with absolutely no response other than a nod of the head and a round of applause.
I said this yesterday, and I'll say it again: being aggressively critical is something that's often lauded as an assertive leader-like quality in men. When women exhibit the same qualities, they're called "bossy," or, in the cases of some of the women mentioned above, harassed and threatened. Women shouldn't have to "make things easier for themselves." They should feel comfortable to express the opinions they have without the kind of egregious and severe penalties that have come up so often.
@beb said:
It is poisonous for a "with us or against us" mentality to take hold. I do not want Giant Bomb to go on a crusade for women, but that doesn't mean I don't want women to be successful in gaming.
Beb, this is what you fundamentally do not understand here. Women are treated like crap in this field. It's not politicizing anything to ask to be treated more fairly.
YES. YOUR ATTITUDE MEANS YOU DO NOT WANT WOMEN TO BE SUCCESSFUL IN GAMES.
Read this piece about the harassment we face. Read the horror timeline of what women have suffered this year in this field. Read about what happened to me.
Guys. Look. Here's the plain truth. You are on a cloud of privilege, while women are leaving the field in droves. We leave at rates three times that what men do.
Your attitude is simply a whine, "I do not want to think about that."
Done. Locked. Locked it early. I'm tapping out. This thread will not be unlocked. The moderators will use their discretion as to whether they want to allow GamerGate discussion in other threads, but after 4,000? 5,000? posts this week, I suspect that if someone were to have Cracked The Code on all this, it would've happened by now.
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