I've really appreciated Patrick's work on the Interview Dumptruck, as well as his written pieces/interviews on the myriad of perspectives and viewpoints that different games and their devs try to explore. These viewpoints span beyond just the balance of gender representation in gaming. I also understand that more diverse voices could bring about greater consideration for a more diverse set of games. Compared to other gaming sites, I've found GB to be a breath of fresh air. That all being said, Giant Bomb, as much we I love it, is a business. I think Jeff actually mentioned in a recent Jarcast, something to the effect that he'd like to hire more people — even ones with more focused voices on a specific topic — but he has to justify it from a business perspective. Or at the very least, make enough money in the rest of the site that he can hire who he wants, so they can write whatever they see fit, so he can tell the CBSi folks, "Her's the money we made, leave us alone to do what we want." That is a reality in the whole industry, which probably leads other sites to cater to the "boys' club" atmosphere because their audience's most vocal/incendiary demographic _is_ a boys' club... it feeds into itself.
Admittedly, as much as I _personally_ may like Patrick's work (and I'm not alone), there always seems to be someone in the GB community/comments/boards that pitches a fit when Patrick has tried to address gender issues specifically (similar to comments in this thread, though please don't take this as a blanket generality). If Patrick's pieces cause even small incendiary comments/ill will toward the site from some users, what is going to motivate GB to push for more content like it? It is getting better, and I feel at times the community is maturing and more open to discussions of this nature without resorting to garbage mob mentalities. There can be well-reasoned opinions that don't agree with the articles being posted or with the general consensus. Those make for the best discussions, especially on issues which may never have a clear answer/resolution. The "Checking Your Blind Spots" episode of the Interview Dumptruck is an example of covering this ongoing discussion — and the comments on it are what they are, for better or worse.
But what would a Giant Bomb look like with say, twice the amount of news/content on games/devs representing the difficult social issues of the day? Is there even that much "content" to write about? I feel that one of Giant Bomb's strengths is its more pithy approach. They don't review every game or cover every "controversy" because much of it can be noise. Diversity balance in games is certainly not noise, but if there was an article about it every day, or if every game had some feature on the gender/race balance, it may start to _feel_ like noise — forced, unnecessary in some instances, and possibly a bit insulting. If you finished "The Last of Us" or "Gone Home" and thought, "Does this game need more badass girl characters?" you'd think, "Self, I just played two of the best games of the year and they had strong, well-written female characters in spades. Ellie, Tess, Samantha and Lonnie." Two games does not a gender balance make (three if you consider Lara's character strong, despite the hate storm around it's release for her pseudo-sexual grunts of pain and some god-awfully-wrong-headed comments by the games devs), but needless to say, moving the moss-covered boulder that is people's predispositions is generally slow going — but it one day will pick up speed. Giant Bomb is making good steps forward, and more steps than most in my opinion. Does that mean they're "the most diverse site" forever? Obviously not. If the site is to keep growing and maturing, that means a constant state of betterment. How they do that while still remaining "Giant Bomb" is frankly not for us, the readers to decide. But if any site has a shot at being a decent place where everyone of all kinds can think about and discuss games, Giant Bomb is that site in my book.
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