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How The Most Expensive Game Jam In History Crashed And Burned In A Single Day

Sexism

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#1 Bloodangel

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Posted 01 April 2014 - 05:11 PM

As some of you know, I am writing a thesis on Geek/Nerd Culture. Over the weekend some very important articles came out regarding a Game Jam held by Polaris/Maker Studios. The company lost $400,000 due to the actions of one man's misogynist remarks. Full link down below. I am absolutely disgusted by what happened and it cost a lot of money just for individual participants to fly to California for a project that will never see the light of day. What are your thoughts?

 

http://indiestatik.c...nsive-game-jam/

 

 

 


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#2 seakingtheonixpected

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Posted 01 April 2014 - 05:25 PM

So this is a long long article, can someone summarize what Matti did?



#3 SushiKitten

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Posted 01 April 2014 - 05:31 PM

I was just reading about this like an hour ago. 

 

It kind of hits home, it definitely strikes an insecurity I have as a female in a male dominated career path that my skills and talents will always be in spite of being female. In the end though, it was just that one guy being an asshat and I'm glad that the YouTubers and developers (some that I actually follow) stood up to that.

 

This also reminds me of the small fiasco with My Strange Addiction that happened over Christmas. I follow this one girl on tumblr who was chosen to be a part of an advertised "Living Doll" series because of her obsession with lolita, they turned it around on her, created false drama, and they never knew it was actually My Strange Addiction until the episode aired.

 

Selling series is tough now, there's so much to watch that there's pressure to add drama where it doesn't need to be just to catch attention in a world saturated with content.. Really, you scroll through the TV guide and see over dramatized reality TV wherever you go. I wish this series had been filmed and aired the way it was intended. It would have been so interesting and a great resource for people who were interested in game development. 

 

So this is a long long article, can someone summarize what Matti did?

Tried to cause drama between the contestants, specifically two contestants who had disagreed with one another on a certain subject a while before. Cornered them with questions to try and get them fired up. Also bombarded them with questions like ""Do you think you’re at an advantage because you have a pretty lady on your team?" or "Do you think the other team is at a disadvantage because there is a woman on their team?" One of these ladies had designed satellites for Lockheed Martin and to reduce them to 'just a pretty face' or 'just a woman' is disgraceful and so disrespectful.



#4 seakingtheonixpected

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Posted 01 April 2014 - 05:59 PM

Nevermind, read this article instead http://tmi.kotaku.co...hell-1555599284

 

What the hell kinds of questions are those to even ask? Also got to love how women can't be referred to without beauty having to be a key aspect.



#5 The Robstar

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Posted 01 April 2014 - 06:57 PM

Bald head caused drama, gained bad publicity, investors backed out of project.....

 

The people being interviewed didn't really know how to deflect the constant barrage of provocative questions. He's just like every journalist/t.v personality who strives to bring people down in the hopes of getting that juicy story. You gotta know how to defend your product and stop before you dig yourself a hole. That's why politicians shut down and end the interview before they say something that makes them look bad.

 

Just end the interview with "Thank you for your questions but this interview is over, please come again." (In Apu's accent)

 

Don't give them a chance to bum rape you...... 


THE HELL YOU READING FOOL???

#6 Bloodangel

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Posted 02 April 2014 - 01:38 AM

Expect a lot more testimonials and articles coming out soon on the event/subject. Some of the developers have already given their opinion on the matter


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#7 Big_Willie_Styles

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Posted 02 April 2014 - 12:18 PM

This was a great article, primarily because I'm a fan of many of those involved in this insanity. Polaris and Makers stepped into a massive cowpile on this one.

 

Why is "Sexism" a tag on this?

 

Of course, Polaris and Makers make back probably several times the cost of this project daily from the massive YouTube enterprise they encompass now. Philly D is making out like a bandit as one of its original founders. He's easily a multi-millionaire now.


"The Curious Task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."

#8 Mister Sympa

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Posted 02 April 2014 - 12:54 PM

...Because it is sexism?


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#9 Big_Willie_Styles

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Posted 02 April 2014 - 12:55 PM

...Because it is sexism?

The entire thing wasn't about sexism. That one douchebag asked a question that set everybody off, but that was really just a death blow to an already mortally wounded event.

 

I read about this two days ago because Jim Sterling Tweeted it out to everybody. I am a nerd culture aficionado. I try to learn about all the cliches and niches of it. Some of them are horrifying (oh, God, the furries,) but some are interesting little dedicated weirdos. I love weirdos. They're my people.


"The Curious Task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."

#10 seakingtheonixpected

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Posted 02 April 2014 - 12:57 PM

And those questions were sexists...

#11 Mister Sympa

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Posted 02 April 2014 - 12:59 PM

...And this thread is about that incident.


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#12 Big_Willie_Styles

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Posted 02 April 2014 - 12:59 PM

And those questions were sexists...

The whole story is about a lot more than that. That's not supposed to be the takeaway. The takeaway is how Polaris managed to build a house of cards so terribly it failed in a spectacular fashion from start to early finish.

 

If you read the whole thing, it isn't about that. The whole thing falls apart for like two dozen different reasons.

 

Read the whole article first.


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#13 Mister Sympa

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Posted 02 April 2014 - 12:59 PM

Ask Bloodangel. This is his thread. It just seems to be what HE was talking about.


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#14 Bloodangel

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Posted 02 April 2014 - 04:35 PM

I forgot to put in some other tags, sorry about that folks. But yes this was about more than just the sexist remarks of Matti.

 

The project had potential but could have been better orchestrated.

 

And I wouldn't feel badly for Polaris/Maker, Disney did buy them just last week


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#15 seakingtheonixpected

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Posted 02 April 2014 - 07:16 PM

The whole story is about a lot more than that. That's not supposed to be the takeaway. The takeaway is how Polaris managed to build a house of cards so terribly it failed in a spectacular fashion from start to early finish.

 

If you read the whole thing, it isn't about that. The whole thing falls apart for like two dozen different reasons.

 

Read the whole article first.

Just because you see a story one way doesn't mean there aren't other points of interest. You not caring about sexism doesn't make it go away.



#16 Big_Willie_Styles

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Posted 03 April 2014 - 11:24 AM

I forgot to put in some other tags, sorry about that folks. But yes this was about more than just the sexist remarks of Matti.

 

The project had potential but could have been better orchestrated.

 

And I wouldn't feel badly for Polaris/Maker, Disney did buy them just last week

Wait, really? Disney bought them out? So, PewDiePie and Mace Windu and The Incredibles and Nick Fury could technically make a legal appearance together now?


"The Curious Task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."

#17 Big_Willie_Styles

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Posted 03 April 2014 - 11:27 AM

Just because you see a story one way doesn't mean there aren't other points of interest. You not caring about sexism doesn't make it go away.

I never said I didn't care about it, only that it was a minor reason why the whole thing collapsed.

 

On that point, sexism is a minor problem in America. Plenty of Middle Eastern and African countries have far larger concerns.

 

Women are getting a majority of college degrees now, among non-married twentysomethings women earn more, and women are just doing better in school overall than men at every and all levels. So, women won. (And if you quote the completely discredited 77 cents statistic at me, uuuuuugggggh.)


"The Curious Task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."

#18 SushiKitten

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Posted 03 April 2014 - 03:19 PM

I never said I didn't care about it, only that it was a minor reason why the whole thing collapsed.

On that point, sexism is a minor problem in America. Plenty of Middle Eastern and African countries have far larger concerns.

Women are getting a majority of college degrees now, among non-married twentysomethings women earn more, and women are just doing better in school overall than men at every and all levels. So, women won. (And if you quote the completely discredited 77 cents statistic at me, uuuuuugggggh.)

It was not the only reason it failed for sure but it was one of the major ones, and it was the last straw to the total collapse of this project.

While it's cool that women are getting more degrees, women are still a minority in STEM careers. At only 29%, my university has the highest female enrollment in an engineering faculty in Canada, and the majority of those women are either in the first year or the major regarded as the easiest, civil engineering. It's the very little presence and the general stereotype that women are bad at tech, programming, and science in general that dissuade more women from getting involved in things they may enjoy. It's even more apparent with games and game development. Zoe Quinn, who was one of the women in this thing had a game greenlit on Steam and she got a lot of backlash for it. Sure, it was more of a text RPG thing, but regardless, harassing her to the point where she had to change her number was undeserved. Jenny Haniver's website Not in the Kitchen Anymore shows the sexist and rude comments she gets on a daily basis while playing games like CoD online. I've personally had people pass off my hard earned grades as 'sleeping with the prof', to my face no less. I've had people assume that my male lab partner does all the work when nothing could be further from the truth, we both put in an inhuman amount of effort into our work.

And I think this is the heart of the issue and why this has gotten so big. These women had the choice of 'take this guy's abuse and continue' or 'leave and risk reinforcing the stereotype that women cannot take the environment of game development' and they shouldn't have to feel that way.

This isn't anything radically ridiculous like Anita's videos in the other thread, and I'm not trying to say that I agree with all the feminist stuff(I've seen a lot of silly campaigns in the name of feminism on campus), but especially when it comes to STEM, I believe in this whole heartedly: women deserve respect in this field too and no one should feel that their talents and skills are great in spite of something they can't control, like sex/gender or race.

#19 seakingtheonixpected

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Posted 04 April 2014 - 07:55 AM

And if you quote the completely discredited 77 cents statistic at me, uuuuuugggggh.

Why not? you are quoting completely unbacked up statistics at me.

 

Also just because things are worse somewhere else has nothing to do with whether or not it is a problem here.

 

So if I understand you correctly you are telling me that, women are treated equally in America. So you honestly think that women and men are harassed equally as much? Oh and women are no longer objectified right?

 

If your answer to either of these is yes then I honestly challenge you to go into a random chat room with a name that is obviously feminine and see if you are tried the same as if you went in with a masculine name.



#20 Big_Willie_Styles

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Posted 06 April 2014 - 11:06 AM

Why not? you are quoting completely unbacked up statistics at me.

 

Also just because things are worse somewhere else has nothing to do with whether or not it is a problem here.

 

So if I understand you correctly you are telling me that, women are treated equally in America. So you honestly think that women and men are harassed equally as much? Oh and women are no longer objectified right?

 

If your answer to either of these is yes then I honestly challenge you to go into a random chat room with a name that is obviously feminine and see if you are tried the same as if you went in with a masculine name.

It has been discredited. It's good for stirring up passions but it is not accurate. The conceit of those using it is that it is caused mostly by explicit discrimination. The way the number was crafted was over a lifetime of earnings and it doesn't correct for several factors that change around the numbers due to this formulation. Because if women were really paid 77 cents on the dollar than men, why would a company concerned with the bottom line ever hire a man over a woman, all else being equal? They wouldn't, which is why the number is a "lies, damn lies, and statistics" thing.

 

Women and men are fundamentally different. Men are pigs, for instance. Unfortunately, men also have an innate physical advantage over women, so some of the pigs use that to "their advantage." Evil exists in this world and always will. Free will and liberty being what they are, we can only punish rapists after they commit their vile acts. That's the world we live in. There will always be murderers, rapists, thieves, and general assholes, as humans are fallible.

 

Women will always be objectified as long as men care about looks (or specific traits instinctively.) Women care less about looks, per the studies, and seem to crave status more than looks in a mate (although your standard issue of Cosmo shows that some women care about sex just as much as your average male.) I would presume that has something to do with valuing security in a mate back in the caveman era when ensuring a woman survives long enough to deliver a baby was a much smaller chance than today. The one with the stronger mate would have a greater chance at surviving long enough to raise the child and continue the circle of life. Darwin stuff, really.

 

When it comes down to it, I have my biases. But this isn't related to the topic at hand.

 

Polaris is an interesting off-shoot of Makers. It has the biggest YouTube channels by subscriber count under its umbrella. PewDiePie, the Yogscast, and the Game Grumps all call Polaris home. This was a potentially good idea that failed spectacularly from start to finish. Why they let a guy run around trying to gin up fake drama is beyond me.


"The Curious Task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."