Whats wrong with forcing a gender split? Solving a bias with another? That makes zero sense.
The Game Awards jury lists only 2 women out of 32 jurors (sites selected jurors)
- Thread starter Lime
- Start date
What? Of course it is. It's a big fucking problem. Have you not noticed people talking about the problem of women having low representation in STEM fields?
https://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/ostp/women
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_STEM_fields
Weltall Zero
Member
I find it hilarious and sad at the same time that the main argument against a more even split is that "it's impossible to find sixteen females qualified to review a game in all of the US". Apparently game reviewers are the gender-swapped version of the Bene Gesserit now.
Aaronrules380
Member
Each site picked one person independently, usually their eic
The issue is that those two white males' perspective is going to be taken more seriously, see more exposure, and be more widely accepted than the opinions of their female and PoC counterparts.
There's so much privilege in this thread
Totally agree with this!
Gotdatmoney
Member
Its neither racist or sexist to recognize that a world which does not let you separate your sex or your race from your identity should then accept that you will have unique view points. As a black male who grew up in an entirely white community my whole life do you think my average experience is going to be the same as many of the people I grew up with? I'm not the same as every other black male but there are things that a group of people will have in common.
If race and sex dont matter why the fuck are women and minorities significantly disadvantaged in career advancement or wealth? Are we just lazy? I want someone to actually address this. If women or minorities are equal and given a fair shot, why is it that in every statistic of success we constantly lag behind white males?
WickedLaharl
Member
He needs to not work for a hate site. Sorry but being associated with breitbart is terrible and should disqualify him.
Literally none of those are in the GOTY category :lol
Sephiroth_VII
Member
So we should fight for equal representation in every industry? Even industries where one sex might not, on average, be terribly interested in it?
Isn't that a whole other problem though? It's the same with the Oscars, indie movies almost never get nominated for GOTY.
Having a more diverse decision making body displays a positive effect on performance. So technically... forcing diversity would more likely than not make for a better Game Awards.
TheSlySoul
Member
I think the bigger issue is djWHEAT getting in the pool more than anything.
Never forget: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKqOCGJnwbo
Never forget: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKqOCGJnwbo
According to Polygon, it seems the publications were chosen and they decided the judge.
We are all people with vastly different experiences that can help stop an increasingly cookie-cutter industry from getting stale. A white woman is going to have a completely different life experience than a black woman, who will have different experiences from an Asian woman, who will have different experiences than a Latino woman and so on and so forth, all of which can help people look at stories and games in ways they hadn't considered. Homogeneity does no good for anyone.
Because there are very different cultural elements that influence people differently. It is a real thing. Everyone matters, but everyone is different.
For example, NBA2k16, most reviews I read for that game sort of chock the story campaign in that thing is an over the top and easily dismissible element that people can avoid if they want to. Most of those reviewers were white, and the story deals with a lot of very real issues that young black men trapped in the hood using basketball as a way out will have to deal with, but most white people will never experience. NBA2k16's story mode was so well written and well acted, It made me wish that 2k had given it a larger budget because the only thing tethering it down was the poor techincal elements that surrounded it. It was FANTASTIC.
But yeah, over the top, easily dismissible.
It's why we need multiple prospectives and why reviews matter less and less as the days go on.
Not what I am saying, all I'm saying is if everybody asks for things to change the way they want them to be, nothing would be possible to exists. Why not all people complaining get the lists of sites and juries (if possible), and try to come up with an alternative list which includes the 16 women you all want to see in there. Would be a little hard, some people who deserve to be a jury would need to be cut and there are sites with no women on staf due to their size.
People qualified... Really? What is required to be "qualified" to vote in this Award? As far I know they just need to play games and write something... so hard to be qualified
They are not devs... If you want award from real qualified people... check Game Developers Choice Awards
Why are developers more qualified to speak about how good games are?
It's not to suggest that every person of a certain race or gender has the same experiences. Obviously a poor white man in New York City will have a different experience from a wealthy white man in New York City. But there ARE certain shared experiences and privileges among groups of people, such as white Americans not experiencing systemic racial discrimination as a regular part of their lives.
Diversifying the jury pool helps to increase the likelihood of that diversity of experiences, rather than hoping that's the case with (hypothetically) a group of 32 white men. Diversity also helps minimizes the negligence of certain games being completely ignored.
It's not like these jurors would be replaced by women who don't write about games, or don't even review games, or don't even work in games press. These women would be qualified games writers (people like Leigh Alexander or Susan Arendt or whoever). What would be lost here?
Because people have different opinions depending on their race, gender, and ascribed status.
The games industry has serious diversity issues and it's so disheartening to see how narrow minded people are on this forum.
Aaronrules380
Member
It depends. Usually you want at a bar minimum to be representative of interest. But usually, fields where one gender is less interested are that way because society is actively discouraging it in a number of ways, and the culture withinh the fields isn't accommodating to diversity. Which is absolutely an issue
Mufti Nabiyu Erin
Member
You can have 100% of the judges be men, 100% of the judges be women, have a 50/50 split, or whatever ratio you so desire; but no matter the ratio, odds are that they're all going to hand out awards to the same AAA garbage that dominates these ceremonies. Okay, yeah, you can have the judges be a 50/50 split between men and women, but what difference does it make in the end when they all pick the same damn games to nominate and award, especially given that there is so much homogeny in mainstream review scores?
Diversity comes from thought, not genetics; you can have a panel full of people that look nothing alike, but if they're all the same people who lavish broken, shallow games like Fallout 4 and Battlefront with near-perfect scores that gloss over many of their shortcomings (or even outright trying to excuse them, such as that Forbes article today on how Fallout's bugs are just soooo awesome), then you don't really have much diversity, do you?
Diversity comes from thought, not genetics; you can have a panel full of people that look nothing alike, but if they're all the same people who lavish broken, shallow games like Fallout 4 and Battlefront with near-perfect scores that gloss over many of their shortcomings (or even outright trying to excuse them, such as that Forbes article today on how Fallout's bugs are just soooo awesome), then you don't really have much diversity, do you?
Yes. And it's far worse than you realize.
When I was in school for compsci, we had 45 men and 5 women in one class. All 5 women dropped out halfway through the course.
He's also a major proponent of equal representation of females in gaming, he had a really good vlog about it a few months ago.
That said, he is a gator and kind of an asshole, and buys into the whole sjw thing. I say this as a somewhat fan of his that tolerates his shortcomings because of his content.
Weltall Zero
Member
How is having a jury actually representative of both the general and gaming population "a bias"? If you mean that women have a better chance of getting in, which itself is questionable, what does it even matter? This is not hiring for a job, it's selecting who in your staff gets to enter a GOTY ballot. In the end, having the results accurately reflect more diverse tastes is far more important than who gets to vote.
benicillin
Banned
Clearly they should have found a class they were more qualified for because they lacked the qualifications to be qualified to be in compsci.
Yes, absolutely. You do so by encouraging people to go down that path and honestly, going down a path where you are alone surrounded by others who aren't like you is scary. You fight for it by being inviting and nurturing.
I mean, I know you're being snarky, but yeah. They went to women's studies, where the other women were, a more inviting, "safe", place to be where they weren't considered outliers or strange for even being in the room. And they didn't look back. Which is why we have this problem now.
Because then you are giving the jobs based on gender and skin colour. Which is one thing the world should be stopping, it should be flat out based on qualification and merits nothing more nothing less. Otherwise its discrimination.
SolidSnakex
Member
Sure, but it seems like he was chosen because of who he is in he eSports world rather than "representing" that site. A quick search shows that he was Daily Dot's eSports writer until September of this year.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
Why? It's already starting to be deployed more and more in recent years or considered in much more important fields than video games.
except the people that would determine that are already skewed in the current system and knowingly or unknowingly have their bias.
Gotdatmoney
Member
We should make it so peoppe who desire to get into the industry face no unfair barriers. Whatever the split then moves to we can observe. But you cant even have that argument when people dont want to try.
Aaronrules380
Member
You're assuming background like race and gender have no impact on how people think, and that big websites are hiveminds
Then what difference does it make if they're women or not? Why not add more women to it?
Diversity comes from thought... which is heavily influenced by genetics.
benicillin
Banned
I believe there's a study somewhere where white men were put in a room that was 50/50 men and women and when asked thought that women vastly outnumbered the men. What a phenomena.
Sephiroth_VII
Member
Had that been proven? I'd be very interested in reading any studies about that. Until then, I'm of the conviction that men and women are, on average, predisposed to be interested in different kinds of jobs. Might be wrong though, and I'll happily admit it if you can give me some good sources.
OK. I think you are nuts, but to each his own.
Especially on a site with so many people who complain about the stale nature of games nowadays.
So why did the 5 women all drop out? Because they are women?
No! There are scientific studies that prove that better gender representation leads to better decisions made by a group.
THIS GROUP INHERENTLY HAS MORE MERIT THAN THE MALE ONE how does that not come across
I said games of the year awards talking about the award show itself, not game of the year category.
Aaronrules380
Member
It's been proven that other than certain things related entirely to sex and reproduction habits, male and female brains are pretty much identical
Gotdatmoney
Member
Argh facepalm. Those people dont get those jobs precisely because they are women or minorities. Its already happening.
Its literally like no one has bothered to look into hiring statistics.
Finale Fireworker
Member
Come on, man.
Try to imagine what it must to constantly be overruled and overwritten by a dominating perspective other than your own.
Why do you believe that though? Why do you think men and women gravitate toward different jobs? Do you think that societal and cultural norms have nothing to do with that? That media has nothing to do with that?
Sephiroth_VII
Member
No, I'm arguing this is not the right way to go about it. The end doesn't always justify the means.
benicillin
Banned
I think they're trying to say that womens brains dont math good so they cant STEM.
And a black woman from a rich background will have an entirely different life experience than a black woman from a poor background. An asian woman from the US is going to have an entirely different life experience than an asian woman from the UK. A latino woman who was bullied in school will have an entirely different life experience than a latino woman who was homeschooled. A white man who had an abusive father is going to have a different experience than a white man who was raised by a single mother.
People are unique individuals, not representations of whatever ethnic, gender or sexual groups they may fall under.
And that is correct.
But I think the other actual criteria here is being employed at a major publication.
And if you aim for diversity in that pool, you'll find it to be painfully shallow.
And if you aim for diversity outside of that pool, you end up with people who, at their best, are not interested in traditional games coverage.
And if you aim further outside that pool, you end up with personalities, many of which have no actual experience in any sort of journalism. Most of them just have interesting things to say.
This was some time ago, but the general response was, It was weird being the only girls in the class. Which you know, makes sense, they're 18/19...I wanna be where the people are, right?
For what it's worth, the course was taught by a woman.
Keep in mind, I'm not even saying you're wrong. But my point is that if there are people who want to do things that aren't of a certain disposition, they should be welcomed and not made to feel like outcasts. Women can be cage fighters. Men can be nannies. We need to get past this idea that such things are weird.
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
Woooooow.
No need for gut feelings. It already happened with the new Canadian Prime Minister's gender-balanced cabinet. All of a sudden people were questioning the merits and qualifications of his cabinet, which they never did for past PMs, who mostly appointed their friends and shuffled ministers around from one unrelated department to another. Because, of course, they were white males, so no one questioned their "qualifications".
And this was for leading a country, not judging video game awards!
Ayup.
We have no idea if what you're saying is true or not because it has literally never happened. You're making assumptions based on cynicism that has nothing to do with representation.