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The Final Bosman Show

I thought it was a great episode.

I just want to point out that I don't think Bosman was saying that it should be the job of women in the industry to "censor" or "speak out" against things like poor or offensive character designs. The entire episode was more about the issue that having an extremely male-dominated game development industry creates a certain patriarchal culture within development teams. One in which the development team doesn't really understand women from a physical and psychological point of view and they seem more like objects and not realistic (for a game) characters. And the end result of having more women in the development team would change this culture. Not because the women would speak out against it, but because anyone in the development team could speak out against it because they no longer work in a culture where the team wants to make a game "for boys, by boys," because the development team doesn't consist of men so the end product will not necessarily end up as something that resembles the epitome of machismo.

Also, the games Kyle highlighted (MK9/Injustice, Tomb Raider, GTA5) were games he said should have more women on the development team, but he didn't say that they had to have a 50/50 divide between men and women, just "more women". He just said that he found Nintendo's Animal Crossing: New Leaf development team choice interesting.
 
Prototype said:
Kyle hasn't been in top form lately. I know you'll bounce back buddy, you've done it before!

Hiring women is fine, it should even be encouraged to a degree, but there should never be a "goal" of a 50/50 gender split or anything else. Who ever is qualified should get the job. Things in this society would go a lot smoother if it were more meritocratic.
Click to expand...

On the contrary, there should always be a goal of a 50/50 gender split, because anything else indicates a distinct bias against one group or the other given the approximate ratio in the population at large.

If society were more meritocratic, then there would pretty much ALWAYS be a 50/50 split. Because there are approximately as many (slightly more actually) women as men, the numbers would naturally be at around 50/50 for any profession that does not intrinsically favor the biological make up of a particular sex.

If your concern is that a woman would get the job over a "more qualified" man, then you should take in to consideration that the point made by the Verge article and reinforced by Kyle Bosman in this video, is that diversity is in and of itself a positive quality that must be accounted for when hiring.

If society went strictly by what you suggest in your comment, then throughout most of the world women would never have been able to enter professions outside of those which they were historically forced in to. Without laws specifically enforcing things like equal employment opportunities, all forms of hiring discrimination would have continued indefinitely. The evidence for this would be in the unprecedented change in the workforce which took place directly as a result of the passage of such laws.
 
Aegis Vanguard said:
On the contrary, there should always be a goal of a 50/50 gender split, because anything else indicates a distinct bias against one group or the other given the approximate ratio in the population at large.

If society were more meritocratic, then there would pretty much ALWAYS be a 50/50 split. Because there are approximately as many (slightly more actually) women as men, the numbers would naturally be at around 50/50 for any profession that does not intrinsically favor the biological make up of a particular sex.

If your concern is that a woman would get the job over a "more qualified" man, then you should take in to consideration that the point made by the Verge article and reinforced by Kyle Bosman in this video, is that diversity is in and of itself a positive quality that must be accounted for when hiring.

If society went strictly by what you suggest in your comment, then throughout most of the world women would never have been able to enter professions outside of those which they were historically forced in to. Without laws specifically enforcing things like equal employment opportunities, all forms of hiring discrimination would have continued indefinitely. The evidence for this would be in the unprecedented change in the workforce which took place directly as a result of the passage of such laws.
Click to expand...

It will never be the case realistically though. Not everyone in the population is equally qualified, or qualified at all to do a given complex job. Even in the impossible case that it were, and every applicant was equally qualified, there would still be other variables at work, such as personal creativity, an artists style, ect that would factor into hiring a specific person for a specific job. And yes, diversity can important, in many aspects of life, not only work. But, if a black guy, or a women get hired over a more qualified person, doesn't that just make these people "tokens"? They are just there to fill a role, and yes, the job will probably get done anyway, but if I was investing money into something I'd want the best people on it. If that meant a team composed of nothing but women, I'd be fine with that.

Your whole last paragraph seems rather speculative. There is a difference between barring certain people from work based on gender, race, ect, and hiring someone based on if they are the best for the job. You are trying to mix oil and water, there are 2 different arguments here. Imo, the fairest system would be one in which the person would is most qualified would get the job. Can qualifications include someone's personality or other aspects outside of their professional skill? Sure. A good Manager is going to take into consideration how a potential hire is going to mesh with the current work force that she has. Ultimately you want the best people on your team.
 
Prototype said:
Kyle hasn't been in top form lately. I know you'll bounce back buddy, you've done it before!

Hiring women is fine, it should even be encouraged to a degree, but there should never be a "goal" of a 50/50 gender split or anything else. Who ever is qualified should get the job. Things in this society would go a lot smoother if it were more meritocratic.
Click to expand...

Ever heard of the concept of privilege broski =/?
 
Prototype said:
It will never be the case realistically though. Not everyone in the population is equally qualified, or qualified at all to do a given complex job. Even in the impossible case that it were, and every applicant was equally qualified, there would still be other variables at work, such as personal creativity, an artists style, ect that would factor into hiring a specific person for a specific job. And yes, diversity can important, in many aspects of life, not only work. But, if a black guy, or a women get hired over a more qualified person, doesn't that just make these people "tokens"? They are just there to fill a role, and yes, the job will probably get done anyway, but if I was investing money into something I'd want the best people on it. If that meant a team composed of nothing but women, I'd be fine with that.

Your whole last paragraph seems rather speculative. There is a difference between barring certain people from work based on gender, race, ect, and hiring someone based on if they are the best for the job. You are trying to mix oil and water, there are 2 different arguments here. Imo, the fairest system would be one in which the person would is most qualified would get the job. Can qualifications include someone's personality or other aspects outside of their professional skill? Sure. A good Manager is going to take into consideration how a potential hire is going to mesh with the current work force that she has. Ultimately you want the best people on your team.
Click to expand...

No one is disagreeing with this. The Verge article talks about how when creative groups were more diverse, the quality arose. They pointed to the writing staff of Community, and how even the men begrudgingly admitted that having more women was a good idea. Kyle is saying that if that's the case, then those developers need to diversify and pick up more binders.
 
Prototype said:
Kyle hasn't been in top form lately. I know you'll bounce back buddy, you've done it before!

Hiring women is fine, it should even be encouraged to a degree, but there should never be a "goal" of a 50/50 gender split or anything else. Who ever is qualified should get the job. Things in this society would go a lot smoother if it were more meritocratic.
Click to expand...
Then the goal should be a 50/50 gender split in the number of qualified male and female applicants?
Besides, hate to break it to you, but most of the industry's highly regarded vanguards of creativity actually wouldn't be qualified for a career in video games had they not been a part of it since the 80s.
Can we get this semantic argument out of the way now?
 
Aegis Vanguard said:
If your concern is that a woman would get the job over a "more qualified" man, then you should take in to consideration that the point made by the Verge article and reinforced by Kyle Bosman in this video, is that diversity is in and of itself a positive quality that must be accounted for when hiring.
Click to expand...

My concern would be that there just aren't enough women to give every development studio a 50/50 split.

I only took a couple programming classes in college, but they were utterly dominated by guys when I did.
 
atr0cious said:
No one is disagreeing with this. The Verge article talks about how when creative groups were more diverse, the quality arose. They pointed to the writing staff of Community, and how even the men begrudgingly admitted that having more women was a good idea. Kyle is saying that if that's the case, then those developers need to diversify and pick up more binders.
Click to expand...

So you're saying the argument is actually:
To hire more women, even if they are slightly less qualified, but because of the value that having a women's opinion on something can lead to shedding more light on a given problem that a team of only men may not see?

If this is the case, the I agree as well. Though I feel that still makes the women the meritocratic choice, and thus still operates under a meritocratic system, because the women in that case is the best choice. She is able to offer something another man on said team can't, the insight/perspective shift that diversity brings.
 
Prototype said:
Kyle hasn't been in top form lately. I know you'll bounce back buddy, you've done it before!

Hiring women is fine, it should even be encouraged to a degree, but there should never be a "goal" of a 50/50 gender split or anything else. Who ever is qualified should get the job. Things in this society would go a lot smoother if it were more meritocratic.
Click to expand...

Point_missed.gif


"I'm trying to like this guy, but I keep disagreeing with him lately. Step your game up, buddy!"

The 50/50 split is an exaggerated case study to analyse the end result of diversity. This is about encouraging the diversity of ideas to make the end product better.

Character Modeler A has a slightly more impressive portfolio, but has the exact same tastes and viewpoint as 20 other people already on staff. Character Modeler B's work is slightly less impressive, but has imagination and comes from a completely different background than any other current Character Modeler. Character Modeler B happens to be a woman, but it would be un-meritocratic to hire her, amirite? Even if the team's next game could be better for it?
 
To be fair to Mortal Kombat, all of the characters are aesthetically repugnant, visual abominations. They don't need to hire more people, they need to fire the people that are currently working there.

About the actual episode, that was a strong, important subject matter and it doesn't seem like Kyle put much thought into it.
 
Haha I loved the part about Mortal Kombat. Character models in MK9 are terrible.

Also, people need to learn that your "intelligence" (as in, programming skills or something) are not the only important thing when you're applying for a job. Especially in jobs that require a lot of teamwork (like making games!), employers look for a lot more than just talent. Having a diverse team of qualified people (not necessarily the most skilled programmers) is very valid.
 
Aegis Vanguard said:
On the contrary, there should always be a goal of a 50/50 gender split, because anything else indicates a distinct bias against one group or the other given the approximate ratio in the population at large.

If society were more meritocratic, then there would pretty much ALWAYS be a 50/50 split. Because there are approximately as many (slightly more actually) women as men, the numbers would naturally be at around 50/50 for any profession that does not intrinsically favor the biological make up of a particular sex.
Click to expand...

How would this apply to the issue of racial diversification? By you're logic using ratios and racial statistics, there should be less African American athletes in basketball, because African Americans make up about 13% of the U.S. population, and therefore they are over-represented in the sport. So should the league aim to build rosters so that every race is represented equally, or divide it based on the census data? As far as society being more meritocratic, the notion there should always be a 50/50 gender split is simply ridiculous. You're never going to see a 50/50 split of female/male firefighters, for example.

Nintendo is an interesting example because they are so far afield of what the Western game development landscape looks like today, you'd almost expect to see a more even gender split. Part of it is because they develop games aimed at a younger demographic. Another is that they favor art + design over photorealism. And another is that they rarely if ever develop games with a high level of violence. And yet even at a company like Nintendo, the Animal Crossing team was an anomaly, and despite building a Sims-like game, they somehow overlooked the issue of racial diversity.

From what I have read, the average game company prefers to hire qualified women when and where it can, simply because the workforce is male dominated and they recognize that diversity is beneficial. I'm not saying that women don't need to (or do not) work as hard as their male counterparts, just that qualified female applicants will likely grab more attention than men during the hiring process because of this lack of diversity. However, even with this advantage so few women apply that the gender split is still uneven. We need to solve the problem of why so few women are interested in game development before the gender split can begin to equalize.

Granted, there are undoubtedly companies where sexism does play a role in the hiring process, and I wouldn't be surprised if a team developing a game like Mortal Kombat or Gears of War had less than favorable views of bringing women into their ranks for fear of how it would impact their boy's club mentality.

jnWake said:
Haha I loved the part about Mortal Kombat. Character models in MK9 are terrible.

Also, people need to learn that your "intelligence" (as in, programming skills or something) are not the only important thing when you're applying for a job. Especially in jobs that require a lot of teamwork (like making games!), employers look for a lot more than just talent. Having a diverse team of qualified people (not necessarily the most skilled programmers) is very valid.
Click to expand...

Yeah, he was spot on about that. But it doesn't take a woman in the office to bring it up, it's just plain awful art direction and untalented modelers at work.
 
The bonus bit was great.
But in the main part wasn't all the way thought out, you shouldn't go into a topic like this if you haven't considered like every detail and wording of it. A bit dull.
 
This show is great, I usually get turned down by this kind of discussion and I was worried once he started to single out developers, but it was fine.

MK feels like it was developed by 13 years old for better or worse and Tomb Raider was written by two woman, if that helps (I didn't play the game).

The 50-50 split is certainly extreme, but more woman in developing teams would probably result in games with a broader appeal. Games feel a lot like mainstream comic books the way things are now, excessively focused on a specific targeted demographic to the point it gets hard to relate to it (even if I'm supposed to be part of that demographic).

Now, Bosman's own GT Time could use a woman as a regular, I think Willems did very well on the last one, I think the 3 other guys could alternate.

edit: I hope he gets an interview show on GT, he handled Will Arnet interview really well, it would be great to see him interviewing Reggie, Kojima, etc.
 
I'm not saying that targeting more women is a bad idea, just that I don't think there's anything wrong with targeting a demographic. Not everything (or even most things) have to be for everyone.
 
Kinyou said:
"So then I poison my fake twin brother, put on sunglasses and dance in the most wonkiest way out of the room while he dies on the couch"

Maybe Bosman needs more diversity in his production team as well when pitches like that get through ;)
Click to expand...

eheh.

I honestly enjoyed the great variety in GTAV's missions, but they seem to have lost the very spirit that pushed the satire, and are now just going through the motions, when it comes to that aspect.
GTA was never a bastion of incredible writing of course, but whereas GTA3 or Vice City felt more genuine in their spoofs, GTAV felt more like they knew what people expected from a GTA, and had to keep up their reputation as satirical, impertinent outsiders, not afraid to target whoever, with their humor.
So they go for actually very bland targets, with very obvious humor, which is actually very ironic, given their current position as absolute top-dogs in the industry.

It's hard to make fun of the "Cloud", when you're doing just that with GTAOnline.

I personally think they want to move on, GTAIV and RDR kind of prove that, but they feel like they have to adhere to that style, given the backlash with GTAIV's more serious tone, the result is that GTAV feels kind of all over the place in tone.

I really liked GTAV, i think it's miles better than GTAIV, and in many respect better than RDR, too (mission design being one of these things) but it feels very very weird as a game, like Gee Golly Jeepers asked to perform one more time the sketch he'd like to move on from:

PBF247-Catch_Phrase.jpg


Not today.
 
Woowww Didn't realise how bad Wonder Woman's character model was.

Did they really look at those shoulders and think that's how a woman should look?
 
Camoxide said:
Woowww Didn't realise how bad Wonder Woman's character model was.

Did they really look at those shoulders and think that's how a woman should look?
Click to expand...

She was 5 foot 6, two fifteen
A beach blonde mama with a streak of mean
She knew how to knuckle and she knew how to scuffle and fight
And the roller derby program said
that she was built like a 'fridgerator with a head
 
I hadn't even heard of the game before, it really sounds like the most effed up game ever. I'm interested to see what Nintendo will make of this.
 
Thought it was gonna be a silly little "for fun" episode but then he actually got into some interesting points at the second half.
 
I actually think this is a better model than most free to play. In traditional free to play, you are generally paying to speed up some intentionally unfun part of the game. This creates a weird problem for the designers where they need to make parts of a game irritating in some way to induce you to pay up. I think shifting away from annoyance being a key component of games is a good thing.

In Rusty, the games can be designed to purely be fun and you are paying to get access to more games. Instead of paying to a avoid certain parts of a game, the player is rewarded for playing more. Pay more to play less vs. Play more to pay less.

It's a very Nintendo solution really, they are at their best when they look at everything through the lense of "play". Like the awesome, cheezy E Shop music or the silly way you "unwrap" your downloads, or the weird playfulness of Wii U's online features. They bring the whimsy.
 
Episode was incredibly hilarious. Loved it.

How has Rusty's Real Deal Baseball been selling on the eShop? At first I couldn't imagine that a game about buying games would sell too much, but the way Kyle describes it sounds almost...fun?
 
Wow, this was an excellent episode. I hadn't heard about this game before, but Kyle's great analysis gave me a very good idea of the essence of the game. I wish we could see more analysis like this about games. The way he draws parallels to the real world, the future, Nintendo's strategies and the circumstances in which this game was made reminds me of literary criticism, except it's also taking into account the unique possibilities of the gaming medium. I am a relatively new watcher of his show and hope to see more videos of this calibre.

#thecitizenkaneofgamesjournalism
 
Uncle Rupee said:
How would this apply to the issue of racial diversification? By you're logic using ratios and racial statistics, there should be less African American athletes in basketball, because African Americans make up about 13% of the U.S. population, and therefore they are over-represented in the sport. So should the league aim to build rosters so that every race is represented equally, or divide it based on the census data? As far as society being more meritocratic, the notion there should always be a 50/50 gender split is simply ridiculous. You're never going to see a 50/50 split of female/male firefighters, for example.
.
Click to expand...


Specifically, I am not saying that hiring practices in the video game industry need to demand quotas in order to reach a representative ratio, rather that hiring practices should actively take in to account the inherent advantages that a diversified workforce has to offer. The 50/50 ratio is in reference to idealized conditions, and is useful as a measuring tool, not as a litmus test.

To answer your specific question: Yes, the percentages of black athletes in the NBA and NFL should be lower than they currently are. Black men currently dominate those sports because of significant socio-economic factors which limit the the available paths for them to escape poverty. The imbalance in racial diversity is actually representative of an imbalance in economic stature. Women, on the whole, do not face the same level of inherent economic hardships that black people do. So, the approach to correcting imbalances should reflect the unique challenges to each group. These are general statements, of course, and do not speak for every black person or woman.

In theory, if young black men had the same opportunities in other fields that white men do, then the numbers would gradually correct themselves.

On the other hand, hiring practices for coaching and administrative jobs in those leagues needed to, and in the recent times have, specifically changed to demand greater representative diversity.

As far as firefighters, I specifically noted jobs which have biases based on biology, so this should not be an issue. Speaking as a former firefighter/emt myself, the position demanded physical qualities that occur in a significantly lower percentage of the female population than the male population. As such, there will be many more men participating in this profession until technology produces sufficient tools to eliminate the differentiating aspects of the job.
 
Great episode. I would have liked to try the game out, but Europeans don't seem to be allowed in this experiment :p
Have you noticed that Rusty's nose hair disappeared when he gave him a donut?

Bonus was also great :D
PHILLLIIIIIPP
 
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