At the risk of sounding overly cynical, this is all true and everyone knows about it, people feign disgust at these articles but we're all complicit and understanding that this is way things are. If people are truly shocked by this I would contend they are either young and inexperienced or incredibly naive. This article will get some discussion going for a few days then we'll quietly return to the status quo. Nothing will change.
You do see that stuff, of course, but you see it mainly in children aged 10-15, and otherwise only in private, because anyone who keeps it up after that will be unemployable.
If this is commonplace in America workplace, then you truely are an odd country.
I've worked at a gaming company in Europe before where among other things female team members told me they've been asked by someone "how it feels to have the biggest boobs in the team" when another female in the team left.
The company later introduced an inclusivity effort and a code of conduct, and felt obliged to offer an AMA (because "new and scary thing" or whatever). They got questions like "should we now lower our hiring standards because we want to hire more women?" and "will there be any punishments if you break the CoC?" to which the answer was "of course not, don't worry". It felt like they just did these things to show an effort, not to actually follow through on them. Leadership was of course all white middle-age straight male.
This statement seems odd in this context. While Riot may be headquartered in the US, all of the events in the article took place in Ireland.
I'm sure there are plenty of managers at Riot Games who wouldn't tolerate the stories for a second, but there are a few at or near the top that will and that can ruin an entire workplace.
Cases like this exist, where managers are subsumed into the culture (or passively even actively foster it), but more common is behavior that's increasingly tolerated because nobody wants to speak up because of the cultural implications.
I realize it's gauche to complain about downvotes but ... what?
Brandon Beck and Mark Merrill as the business guys are ultimately responsible for the culture allowed to flourish under them - they made the hires that made this possible, and not stopping it is on them. I look forward to an expedient response, because the fact that its gotten so far to come to a post like this means they've been negligent for a long time.
Speak for yourself. As a manager, I've shut down far, far more innocuous things than described in the article. And now that I'm old and cranky, I'll call out those above me just as easily.
The problem is that I don't work at Riot, and likely never will, so I can hardly be accused of "knowing it's all true" nor of being complicit. I've briefly consulted at shops full of "bros", and usually ski-daddled right out (I mean, yeesh, do you never tire of being eternally 13 years old?). If they were over there calling each other "cocksuckers", I must not have stuck around long enough to find out.
So you're right about one thing: nothing will change, because decent people won't work at those places. Unfortunately, while all the decent human beings work elsewhere, some wide-eyed woman shows up once in a while.
Same here. Anything approaching the level of stuff in that article would be a "you're a hair's breadth away from looking for a new job" conversation. Hell, I had a crufty QA manager that reported to me that was a sweet human being, but I had to break him of the habit of referring to a dead server as being "tits up".
Going up the chain, I got into a very heated conversation with the EVP I reported to about his advice to a female Director that she needed to be "more agreeable". She was one of the most agreeable and accommodating people I'd ever worked with. Never mind that her peers (all male, myself included) were all very outspoken and opinionated, and never received similar advice.
TBH, if anyone described a company as having a "frat party atomosphere" that'd be an instant disqualification in my mind.
These things are highly cultural: If you land at a place (like, apparently, Riot) and you are outnumbered by a few hundred people who are more or less accustomed to this behavior, the insanity is like a tidal wave and will realistically be impossible to stem and I wouldn't assume anyone to have the strength to do it (although I very much applaud anyone who does!)
The beautiful part is, that you don't. This is not normal. You do not have to endure this or be complicit. Do not work with or for assholes.
In most of America things are nothing like that. These are immature people that got lucky and rich and still act like frat boys.
In most of America things are nothing like that.
Can't speak to America at large but the game industry in California is absolutely like this, tech seems to be in a similar situation. It's a v complex problem with no apparent fix.
This article rocketed to 180+ points in two hours, yet it's already on the second page and falling fast. Moderator activity? Flagging? Some algorithmic quirk?
Possibly the first article had the same problem. There's enough hidden behavior on HN that I don't think you can trust individual story ranking to express anything about the HN community. Unfortunately, because this is an interesting story.
Judging from the topic and actual discussion, I would think the flamewar detector, which is algorithmic, but not a quirk.
Imagine if we instead used classical scientific method of measuring and correlating. What is the correlating attributes of an employee and advancement in a major game studio. What is the correlating attributes of social rank within the local culture and do those positive or negative correlate with with advancement and wages. Does fear of loosing social rank correlate to increased negative behavior? Are the multiple competitions over social rank and does there exist inter-sex competition in connection to competition where both men and women compete on the same ladder?
But I digress. The only change this kind of articles has can be seen in comments here and the linked one. More polarization, more generalization, and in a few days replaced with the next article to repeat over.
What exactly are you describing? I don't see the same world you do. These stories are top concern and referenced in almost every forum from niche game communities to political discourse (ie everywhere). The underlying causes are assessed and measured in various countries (eg http://www.thejournal.ie/gender-equality-countries-stem-girl...) and is a topic of serious discussion. Seriously, what are you talking about, that you think it's being ignored in any fashion?
Then the worst get get no negative feedback and continue to be assholes, and the whole culture / Overton window of the environment is perceived to be shifted in that direction.
People need to take the perceived risk and tell each other to grow the fuck up. The worse thing that can happen is you end up getting a new job somewhere else less dysfunctional that you needed but deluded yourself into not getting sooner.
Usually this works in your favor in the long term no matter what.
> ...people feign disgust at these articles... My disgust is not feigned. So would guess many feel genuine disgust because it's disgusting behavior.
> ...but we're all complicit... I don't think so. One has to participate, condone or accept it to be complicit. Are you're making an oblique confession?
> ...and understanding that this is way things are. Absolutely not! There is no reason it needs to be this way, even at a game company.
> ...Nothing will change. Perhaps, perhaps not. It would certainly be a shame if nothing did. Riot may not find it as easy to continue in this vein as they have in the past now that it's been exposed to daylight. Many of their customers certainly don't care if even like it. But many do. Hopefully they will see the light and figure out how to grow up.
I'm male, I can't even imagine what its like for Women.
I feel for the author. It is sad that her dream job turned into a nightmare. I just hope some positive change comes from this at Riot and other companies.
To compare, I've played some games of CS:GO this week and got called "fils de pute" in one of them. In another one, a guy spammed the n word for 5 minutes before being kicked manually by his team. It's also common to heard people arguing about how they will fuck or kill each other.
I'm not sure if I'd consider that a better player experience...
You hear that about most games that are competitive. Teenagers interested in games where you are trying to pwn everyone, are gonna be crude and awful a lot of the time.
Granted, we didn’t have any women in leadership positions either, but I’d like to think that was more because we were relatively small and it was Kalamazoo.
what is perhaps even more surprising is that they seem to somehow be able to cooperate enough to deliver a undeniably popular game.
don't get me wrong, I don't doubt for a second that what Meagan says is true. I am simply surprised they manage to produce anything at all in such a culture, let alone a hit game.
Furthermore juvenile behaviour is commonly encouraged by both gaming and SV companies/corps: aside from being convenient to pull in just out of college without necessitating their adaptation to adulthood, it also serves as distraction/misdirection from work environment issues (permanent crunch, burnout, comp'): people who complain can just be feminized and dismissed as needing to "man up".
In fact, regular introduction of critics (and their following violent rejection) serves as both outlet for frustration and a strengthening of in-group bonds.
Opinions don't happen in a vacuum, usually they are formed after carefully consulting a group of peers. It follows that men would form opinions of women after discussion with other men, women of men in discussion with other women. A couple of things that OP describes read to me like this discussion playing out in a work environment, without understanding of how the woman listening in feels about it. I can sympathise, I'd hate to hear a frank discussion of my potential as a partner or have it floating around as watercooler gossip; that talk does not belong in a workspace.
But is there any evidence that the work-as-family-and-friends atmosphere makes these discussions more public? Or are they just a general problem of workplaces? I'd believe either and I don't know where the evidence is.
The same culture you can find in Holywood, where hundreds of successful movies with unrivaled popular impact were produced.
I could blindfold myself and throw darts at a board. The fact that I hit the board sometimes doesn't mean that the blindfold isn't an impediment.
Many more movies fail before even reaching the screen. Just because we see some success doesn't mean that the culture isn't an impediment to success. Perhaps a different culture would produce many more successes.
We would need a lot more data before we could draw any such conclusions.
Edit: I see that's exactly what you're saying from your reply; "...such culture is not an impediment to success." I disagree; we cannot draw that conclusion from the data.
Extra edit: Oh, your answer has vanished.
Game devs tend to be gamers who've reached adulthood but would like to stay within the gaming culture. That means they're either acclimatized to or actively enjoy the shittiness.
All this stuff used to be "standard business culture" in the West, and the campaign against it has been a long road since women got the vote.
I don't think that's entirely true. even if they use sexual and racial slurs, it's apparent from the article that they are used as insults directed at each other. I'm a white hetero male developer (not game-dev though) myself, and I'm not sure I'd be able to work in a environment such as the one described for too long. I mean it'd certainly be easier for me, given my biological "fitting in" with the rest of the group. I'd still have a hard time in such a culture.
they are lucky, largely. there are enough people who put in just enough work to keep all things happening and there is roughly (my estimate, dont hold me accountable) 50% who are just there doing nothing. you could not do this at amazon or other performance focused companies because it would be obvious after very little time that you are not pulling your weight, but since Riot does not have the same level of management, tooling and insights into employee performance they don't care. the money is flowing in, all good.
https://www.businessinsider.com/bro-culture-harassment-discr...
If you have been exposed to the same culture through school, higher education and then finally the workplace, it is not suprising some people find it acceptable or even normal...
I mean the pay is nice too, but it was less important to me before I got used to it. Now it would be hard to give up though ;P
They produced a hit game about a decade ago, as a far, far smaller and probably less dysfunctional company. Beyond maintaining it, they don't seem to have done much of note since.
I'm somewhat torn between what I would personally enjoy (all workplaces clean of the "boys" culture) and what I fundamentally believe is right (people should be free to express themselves in whatever way they choose to, and this way of communication clearly works for certain groups of people).
Sure. In non-professional capacities. But in professional areas, we expect a bit of blandness so everyone feels welcome.
While some groups might be comfortable mocking or using language that people deem derogatory towards minorities, women, different cultures, different sexual orientations, etc., we've decided that their preferred communication type does not trump the right of a person to feel safe and respected at work. If they'd like to be foul with their own sort outside of work, whatever, people who don't appreciate it can avoid them.
Quitting my job to avoid feeling attacked, on the other hand, is an unreasonable burden placed on someone just so some dude can say bitch, fggot, and/or ngger or comment on someone's physical appearance.
Basically, I think women should be able to work wherever they want without having deal with coworkers commenting on their tits. I'm extremely fine with limiting people's speech in the workplace.
In the meantime, however, we live in an imperfect society where people are terrible, this does have consequences, and there does need to be some counterbalance against that - otherwise we’d be living happily in an anarchist utopia already.
This...can't possibly be true. Is this true??
The lampoon in Tropic Thunder was eerily prescient.
We can have a non-phobic, egalitarian swear-off!
Much the same way that the medical word for what used to be called retardation and I don't know the current PC word for has to be constantly rotated. Whatever that word is, is precisely what people want to call each-other.
This is kind off-topic, but why wouldn't she be able to get home if she didn't agree to their mandates?
Also look at e.g. Japan where women in the workplace are generally treated quite badly. There was a thread on HN yesterday or the day before which reinforced this trend.
I would probably do something that would get me fired if this happened to me.
(yes, I know you were originally implying that you'd commit violence, but in a lot of dysfunctional workplaces reporting a manager for something they did will have almost the same negative consequences to the reporter as if they'd just punched them)
It's kind of hard not to suspect brigading...
I've found myself unable to access a bunch of US-based local news sites from Europe without using a proxy, and I'm more annoyed with the EU for trying to enforce laws beyond its borders than I am with the sites for seeing geoblocking as the most expedient solution.
What’s wrong with the tech sector when it comes to computer science? Maybe the science is no longer required?
It's like the old joke about the limit of Engineering as GPA tends to zero is Business Administration.
That's part of it. I'm a CS grad, but I'm "rare" in my circle. Some of it comes from this "natural born programmer genius" vibe.
Don't misread me, I work with some truly talented programmers that weren't CS and some mediocre ones that were, but it has gotten to the point where people are specifically looking at degrees that aren't CS for dev jobs.
That's gaming culture, plain and simple. Is it a new necessity to change gaming culture to pander to people who've never played games? I believe this is being done for the sole reason of extracting more money by tapping into markets that weren't being exploited before.
Case in point, woman-friendly games like Fortnite or Overwatch. This is not a problem by itself, but it's sad that some companies are pushing this narrative to make it look like they care about social issues and gain the favour of those who do, when they just want more money.
Targeted harassment sure, that's not something to just blindly protect but as a homosexual, i see more harm in trying to police jimmy calling his friends faggots playing CoD than I see in allowing people to speak their minds.
Until someone can posit a great explanation for why its funny for me to call my friends faggots when they have kids and I don't and why that is in the end bad for society as a whole, I don't buy the argument we need to be policing speech along these lines.
You can say nasty things to each other without being racist or homophobic, especially at a place of work.
"A place of work", that's another matter; I agree it's unprofessional. I'm talking purely about videogames and those who play them at home.
Provoking an opponent into irrational behavior seems like a valid game strategy. In other words the language is not necessarily used for its face content but for its psychological effects.
It feels like you are saying 'well, boys will be boys', and that's honestly just a way to rationalize unacceptable behavior by refusing to taken ownership of it.
To those who disagree, lemme put it this way: it's not only videogame culture, it is plain old trash talk. Boxing, basketball, soccer, UFC, tennis, you name it, you have it in most competitive sports.
It shocks pretty much anyone who hasn't taken part in a competitive sport/e-sport community before, and find it backwards, but from my perspective, they haven't been socialized in that environment. It's not LGBT-phobic, though many insults come off as that because they've traditionally been insults, that's all.
If the FIBA or FIFA start having mixed gender leagues, the same would happen: women offended when they stopped being oblivious about how men behave in these environments. Actually even in soccer, many women are turned off when they find out female players spend a significant part of the time calling each other b/c* (in some amateur UK leagues at least).
This is just happening with videogames because it happens to be one of the few competitive fields where men and women's ability differs the least, having them playing together more often than most of all other disciplines.
There are no "out" male professional footballers. This is statistically implausible; the homophobia is sufficiently bad that they have to remain closeted for their career and maybe safety.
Football fans also occasionally produce "ultras" notorious for physical violence: fights with each other and the police, which can be fatal.
And here in Scotland, we've the joy of sectarianism added to the mix as well, with cheerful songs about Fenian blood.
These things can change. Thirty years ago black players had bananas thrown at them on the pitch. After a lot of work, racism is now rare at football grounds, and generally stamped on when it appears. We could do the same with anti-gay slurs too, if we cared enough.
Companies have a culture, it might not be your culture, and it's mental to expect to be able to walk in and attack it in the first six months then everything be sweetness and joy. Joining a gaming company and complaining about female outfits is roughly equivalent to joining the NRA hierarchy and then in your first six months standing up at the AGM shouting about restricting assault rifles.
Asking people about their sex life is dangerous territory but depending on the context people have conversations about that at work. It's probably the worst thing in this article I think and worth a HR complaint.
Other than that it's almost all "I saw men acting the way men do in a very male environment and objectifying/trying to sleep with women." Well yeah, if I joined the NRA they'd be discussing hunting and stuff I don't care about or even find offensive but it's kind of expected.
You can argue that every single company should have an extremely corporate/restricted culture when any talk about the opposing sex is banned, the upside is that people would have less opportunity to be offended, the downside is that you've just substituted a system of state police where people play very Machiavellian games with HR and don't see each-other as humans because the way that they can interact is extremely restricted.
I'm sure if I joined a small enough female-dominated company I could feel really uncomfortable with the conversation topics, and the way that men were talked about. I could then pin my colours to the mast in some way (it's a company making vegan stuff and I stand up and extol meat eating), get quietly ostracised and instead of being horrified by aggression and blunt social nuances, be horrified by gossip and social politicking.
Maybe everything should be completely corporatified but I just find the idea deeply depressing.
Enough with the boys will be boys angle. That behavior doesn't have to be the default male behavior. It shouldn't be the default male behavior.
Enough is enough, that's not ok anymore. And we men need start calling each other out on it.
Is it that trying to sleep with women is immoral or that considering their looks is immoral or that discussing it is immoral?
I guess the core way I disagree with modern culture is that there's this idea that women are either viewed as objects or as humans. It's kind of obvious that they're both, if you say that women are absolutely not sexual objects or to be seen as such then OK but you've blinded yourself to 50% of how the world unavoidably works. You can and should view women BOTH as objects and humans, and everyone is capable of doing so. I don't think objectification is the offense, I think dehumanisation is and they're not the same thing.
I'm a man and I do none of this, even in a "very male environment."
It’s interesting how men generally don’t “whistleblow” on those sorts of scenarios. Yet only men ever get nailed with “ugh, pigs!” as if women never have open sexual thoughts.
It wasn't a big deal. I wasn't offended.
I don't think that's prescriptive for anyone else. I'm older, and I tend to just believe I don't/can't understand what makes one thing right and another wrong. I have enough of my own problems to police the actions of others.
It does seem strange everyone else seems so sure of how everyone else should be. That sort of confidence I only have towards technical topics.
