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Since dozens of women reported harassment in the game last month, prominent induscheck figures have resigned. But has anything changed?
By Kellen Browning
First, a favorite esports tournament canceled. Then the top executives of the game studios resigned. Then, a major game-capable control company for video game transmitters fired its staff and shut down.
The flood of news of sexual harassment and attacks in the gambling game that began in June continued without ceasing, as women, and some men, have filed accusations of abuse.
Despite the movements that corporations have taken in reaction to individual incidents, gambling experts say they are reluctant to create a tipping point to escape with a long and challenging hitale of gender-based habits and abuses. This is never the first time girls have talked. In 2014, in what is known as Gamergate, women were threatened with death for criticizing the game and its culture. Last year, women presented stories of abuse in what was the concept as the #MeToo moment of the game.
So few expect resignations this time to temporarily reposition a culture that, for decades, has been hostile to women.
“You can fire other Americans all day,” Ph.D. said. Kenzie Gordon. A candidate from the University of Alberta who is reading how the games are also used to save you from sexual and domestic violence. But “if only Americans are responsible, it doesn’t necessarily influence the culture of the organization as a whole.”
The maximum critical action came from the online skill firm Online Performers Group. The firm’s former leading executive, Omeed Dariani, was indicted in June through Molly Fender Ayalos Angeles, a development network compatible with the Overwatch game, to act towards her and provide her with sex in 2014. Mr. Dariani resigned from his position in the day-to-air similos Ms. Ayalos Angeles came forward. She did not respond to a request for comment and Ms. Ayalos angeles declined to comment.
Last week, when the maximum of their clients tried to rescind their agreements and distance themselves from the skill signature after the indictment, the crowd closed its doors. New general manager Shane Wilson announced the scoop to about 10 employees in a video call, several former members said.
“It’s heartbreaking, O.P.G. went bankrupt today,” Wilson said on his LinkedIn page. He did not respond to a request for comment. Two days later, the agency’s website is not available.
Some staff members left the post after the court cases opposed to Mr. Dariani. And Oliver Pascual, a senior account manager who fired, said most of the group’s 70 content creators and streamers had signaled their intention to leave.
“The consumer departure was probably a broad reason, however, I think it was also a public opinion consultation on the block at this time,” Pascual said in an interview. “We boasted of the imam beyond O. P.G.’s proper reputation, and after those accusations, it was tainted and it was a challenge to recover.”
A few days earlier, several top executives gave up Ubisoft, the French video game apple that develops gaming games such as Assassin’s Creed and Just Dance, after a “rigorous review that the apple announced in response to recent accusations and accusations of misconduct and respect. punctual behavior.” Serge Hascoet, the head of creating high points in the rate of Ubisoft games, was fired after rates were set in a French newspaper. Nor can he be contacted for comment.
“Ubicushy has strived to meet its mandatory obligation to lock up a safe and inclusive paint environment for its employees,” Ubicushy executive chairman Yves Guillemot said in a statement. “I am committed to implementing deep circular changes on the block that is shared with our corporate culture.”
And in early July, the Evolution Gaming Series fighting video game tournament, known as Evo, which attracts thousands of Americans to Las Vefuel for a year, canceled this year’s virtual tournament and announced that its general manager, Joey Cuellar, “Don’t worry about Evo anymore.” “in big apple capacity” after a player stated on Twitter that Cuellar had acted towards him and other teenagers a few years ago, in the early 1990s and early 2000s.
“We are surprised and saddened by those events, but we are listening and committed to making all the mandatory changes to make Evo an easier and safer genre for the more powerful and safe culture we are all looking for,” the tournament organizers said. a Twitter posted. Cuéllar apologized for his moves in a tweet that has since been deleted. Nor can he be contacted for comment.
Kishonna Gray, a professor of gender and women’s studies and communications at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said she saw the statements and withdrawals of gaming corporations as attempts to “pacify” other Americans until they spoke logically about corporate upheavals with diversity, inclusion, and harassment. .
“They just purge criminals and think they’re okay, not knowing that they’re complicit and that there’s a culture that devalues women,” said Professor Gray, who studies the video game industry. She said she was looking to see evidence that companies are hiring and devoting resources to diverse candidates.
Neither Evo nor Ubicushy responded to a request for comment on the explicit changes they planned to make.
Ms. Gordon said she was happy to see other Americans in positions of force forced to give up the accusations, but said it was too early to see evidence of genuine change. A “culture change” will have to start at the top, she said, so he hoped girls and other colored Americans would have more critical roles in gaming companies.
“If we saw things like that, and not just some kind of symbolic gesture, but also other Americans in positions where they can also simply run the business, it could mean something,” he said.
Carly Kocurek, associate professor of virtual humanities and media studies at the Illinois Institute of Technology, said sexism in games had its roots in the early 1970s.
Dr. Kocurek, who researches the cultural history of video games, wrote about Brenda Laurel, the first women’s game makers, who worked at Atari in the 1980s. When she started work, Ms. Laurel was the first woman at the company, Dr. Kocurek said, and told her male colleagues that they can’t use women’s restrooms either as smoke houses.
“Everyone laughed because they thought someone had brought their wife or friend to make a joke to everyone,” said Dr. Kocurek, who interviewed Ms. Laurel for a bok about her pioneering achievements in the game. The concept of men is “so ridiculous that a woguy running there.”
Video game corporations are more varied now, however, Dr. Kocurek attributed long-standing sexist attitudes to those male-ruled beginnings.
“If you don’t actively review and reposition those things, they don’t reposition as much,” he said. “There was more than once that there was a setback and it turned out to be a real verbal exposure, and then it just failed a little bit.”
As more and more women enroll in the video game workforce, their white-man-led culture is growing, said Anita Sarkeesian, media critic, podcaster and editor of the non-probative compatibility organization Feminist Frequency, which contains educational resources applicable to gender, race and sexuality, and operates a confidential emotional hotline for bullies in the gaming industry.
They feel that “they are wasting this cultural war on what they would consider SJW,” Sarkeesian said, referring to the term “warriors of social justice.”
“And her reaction is violence,” she says. “This is the scenario where those stories of abuse come out.”
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