MR ARCADE FOREVER
Member
How many blacks?
how many latinos?
how many asians?
how many latinos?
how many asians?
The Game Awards jury lists only 2 women out of 32 jurors (sites selected jurors)
- Thread starter Lime
- Start date
Living Proof
Member
Of course this type of thing leads to passionate and heated attention from all facets of the industry, but it seems a little overblown when considering the lack of details.
I mean, did Geoff/staff allow each individual site to choose their own judge? Did they all act independently from one another without meeting or interacting as a group aware of the makeup of one another? Being specifically hand-picked would certainly be more damning than simple coincidence.
Just continuing from the train of thought above, the panel could hypothetically have had only 1 male. This may say quite a lot about the structure of the industry and the makeup of the websites and publications that the judges come from, but to boycott the show and point fingers without solid clarification is pretty embarrassing-- condemning the industry itself for propagating this inequality is perfectly reasonable, but not the award show for having to pull from that environment.
I mean, did Geoff/staff allow each individual site to choose their own judge? Did they all act independently from one another without meeting or interacting as a group aware of the makeup of one another? Being specifically hand-picked would certainly be more damning than simple coincidence.
Just continuing from the train of thought above, the panel could hypothetically have had only 1 male. This may say quite a lot about the structure of the industry and the makeup of the websites and publications that the judges come from, but to boycott the show and point fingers without solid clarification is pretty embarrassing-- condemning the industry itself for propagating this inequality is perfectly reasonable, but not the award show for having to pull from that environment.
equippedwithtowel
Member
People going off on merit like a diverse panel doesn't better represent the gaming audience of 2015.
People need to unironically check their privilege.
People need to unironically check their privilege.
Finale Fireworker
Member
Jesus Christ, buddy. Check yourself before you wreck yourself. Your misogyny is showing.
bananafactory
Banned
What the fuck. Yeah, women should stick to fashion shows.
Jesus Christ.
And yes - obviously the most IMPORTANT thing is that the jurors are qualified. But an effort should also be made to aspire for diversity. People of different backgrounds (race, religion, gender) bring unique viewpoints and approaches to things including critiques. This isn't specific to video games.
Surely you people can see why having nothing but 30 year old white dudes evaluating the same things is a problem.
This. Half of gamers are women. They aren't represented here. If you think male and female gamers both have 100% identical perspectives on what they enjoy in games you are off your rocker.
wowwww
You don't think it's worth looking at why this body is NINETY THREE PERCENT MALE when both the general population and the game playing population look absolutely nothing like that?
This in a nutshell.
It's not that the selection for this award ceremony was slanted, it's that the industry itself is inherently slanted and that makes it difficult. Most of the big names of women in games journo land are freelancers and have no permanent home.
Ascenion
Member
I'm asking myself this same question. I'm not sure how you can mandate such a ratio. I agree that 52 men and 2 women isn't right, but then neither is having women on the panel simply because they are women. It's a very complex situation imo. But yeah again 2 women against all those men is unacceptable.
I'm all for diversity...
But diversity for the sake of diversity is just bad. Is like they're doing it to attract attention rather than actually caring.
Heck, of the jurors, how many are hispanic? Asian? Gay?
Is like when movies, games and TV shows that put one black guy, one gay guy, one woman, one lesbian, one asian, along the main character...to cover all bases.
50/50..of what? Men and women only? Quite diverse!
But diversity for the sake of diversity is just bad. Is like they're doing it to attract attention rather than actually caring.
Heck, of the jurors, how many are hispanic? Asian? Gay?
Is like when movies, games and TV shows that put one black guy, one gay guy, one woman, one lesbian, one asian, along the main character...to cover all bases.
50/50..of what? Men and women only? Quite diverse!
Something about saying prefer just doesn't sit right with me. Especially if it's true that these are mostly the lead editors of whatever gaming place they picked or they picked who to send.
Edit: Wait, I think you edited that.
To the people saying "just pick the best critics".
There are dozens of excellent women critics/journalists that could have been invited to participate. TGA just instead decided to almost exclusively invite men to participate.
In my view Keith's decision to withdraw was the only honourable course of action, and I respect him greatly for taking it.
The other male judges are participating in erasing women's contribution to games.
There are dozens of excellent women critics/journalists that could have been invited to participate. TGA just instead decided to almost exclusively invite men to participate.
In my view Keith's decision to withdraw was the only honourable course of action, and I respect him greatly for taking it.
The other male judges are participating in erasing women's contribution to games.
Seriously? You better have a good explanation for this fucked up statement.
ElectricBlanketFire
Member
Do jurors have to be critics or do they just have to be involved in gaming in some capacity?
Jeff Gerstmann on the jury selection process:
http://jeff.zone/post/133377547466/whats-it-like-to-be-a-judge-for-the-game-awards
Not sure if that first is response to "Would you like to be a judge this year?" or "Who from your publication should be a judge this year?"
http://jeff.zone/post/133377547466/whats-it-like-to-be-a-judge-for-the-game-awards
Not sure if that first is response to "Would you like to be a judge this year?" or "Who from your publication should be a judge this year?"
Word. Don't see the problem.
I'm assuming Keighley just selected the sites and let them decide who to send.
Edit: Yeah, looking at Polygon's note they selected their own person.
I imagine this will be a slow road since looking at the list, sites overwhelmingly chose their EIC or longest running review editor.
Edit: Yeah, looking at Polygon's note they selected their own person.
I imagine this will be a slow road since looking at the list, sites overwhelmingly chose their EIC or longest running review editor.
paragonpro
Banned
I dont see what the issue is here. Something tells
Me this wasnt meant to be a direct mysoginistic attack on women in gaming, but rather just the way the cards worked out. They got 32 well qualified game critics, their genders are hardly the most important thing.
Me this wasnt meant to be a direct mysoginistic attack on women in gaming, but rather just the way the cards worked out. They got 32 well qualified game critics, their genders are hardly the most important thing.
capitalCORN
Member
There was never a harder time to justify yourself as a white male than now. 
HAHAHAHA, oh you poor naive soul. This is ABSOLUTELY one big fat fashion/talent show.
There was never a harder time to justify yourself as a white male than now.
I mean...sure?
giancarlo123x
Banned
If there isn't 6 Peruvians on the panel I refuse to watch.
Haint
Member
Exactly, what an incredibly ignorant, try hard sensationalist stance. No idea who/what killscreen is, but they should direct their ire at the media outlets, not Geoff or the awards show.
Anton Sugar
Member
What the fuck?
weevles
Member
Gamesgbkiller
Member
haha no.
I'm saying it doesn't matter who the judge is. Just pick the suitable judge and that's it.
The pic from kieth about 1 women is absurd. Who cares of all the judges are women ? or men? If they are suited for the job, it's done. That's what I'm trying to say
1. They could have taken a more active stance
2. Plenty of sites have women and/or no-default identities as their employees and/or editors.
There was never a harder time to justify yourself as a white male than now.
oh poor fucking baby
people actually questioning whether literally everything on the planet should be filtered through a white man's point of view
how will you survive?
Lord of Ostia
Member
The obvious problem is that there weren't enough women to select from the various sites and publications asked to participate. Basically, very few of the top editors or critics from gaming sites are women, or even non-white. I think Polygon's decision is a good one as they clearly had staff qualified for the position and thus took the opportunity to provide some much needed diversity. However, I don't see this as a problem with the Game Awards itself; this is definitely an industry wide problem of lack of diversity in the gaming press. Perhaps a solution would be to ask people outside of the typical gaming editorial community to participate? I.E YouTube people, Twitch people or something?
If Polygon was able to choose Megan to represent their website, I would imagine the rest of the jury were selected as outlets, and the outlets themselves picked who best to represent them?
Edit: The point I'm making is that, if that is the case, I doubt every outlet had a discussion with each other about what gender the representatives of every other outlet are.
Edit: The point I'm making is that, if that is the case, I doubt every outlet had a discussion with each other about what gender the representatives of every other outlet are.
Architechnophile
Member
Per the page, The Game Awards provided advance copy to the jury members in some cases.
The awards had the exact same problem last year. Anyone doing their due diligence should have noticed this and fixed it a long time ago. There are plenty of women who are perfectly qualified to participate--there's no reason that one should need to be an EIC to pick a preferred game from a small list. It's untenable.
Basically this.
EDIT: Well, no, sort of. I think you could find plenty of female voices to include. You could probably even make the whole panel female if you wanted to. It's just that none of them are really in the positions at this point to be nominated by their host outlets. So, it's a weird bit of both.
bananafactory
Banned
I am absolutely positive you could find 15 women people from major gaming press to be jurors.
Hell, IGN and Gamespot alone could probably provide 10
But yes, the lack of women in the gaming press is a problem entirely
iamsirjoshua
Member
I'm white, straight, and male, and most of my favorite games this year are ones that probably resonate best with a female audience. I don't even feel represented well and I look like 93% of the panel.
I don't think you want to be watching "The Game Awards" if you're looking for good critique on games.
Isn't this the problem with game publications/websites rather than the Game Awards itself?
It certainly is the problem with gender bias, but the one to fix this should be the publications. It's not Geoff's role to dictate who they send to represent them. Shouldn't Killscreen or Guardians let women cover for the award instead?
It certainly is the problem with gender bias, but the one to fix this should be the publications. It's not Geoff's role to dictate who they send to represent them. Shouldn't Killscreen or Guardians let women cover for the award instead?
It's both, to varying degrees.
internetwolf
Banned
I'd say so.
Though it sounds like they only asked for that after they heard about the make up of the whole jury. At the top of the story Chris says "I did not know the makeup of the voting jury when I agreed to participate." Which sounds more like going "yeah, I'll be a juror" then "I choose myself to be a juror for my outlet".
paragonpro
Banned
Okay seriously? I think thats a bit much. Gender should have nothing to do with this. They chose who they felt was the most qualified. Thats not to say there arent really great women games journalists. But something tells me this was chance coincedence rather than some attack.
Hibiki Kurosawa
Member
If that's what you meant, then I have no idea what you implied with your fashion show comment.haha no.
I'm saying it doesn't matter who the judge is. Just pick the suitable judge and that's it.
The pic from kieth about 1 women is absurd. Who cares of all the judges are women ? or men? If they are suited for the job, it's done. That's what I'm trying to say