Does Social Justice have a place in Gaming and it's Culture?

[MadeManG74]

And more importantly, should it influence developers and publishers in their decisions, in as much as you believe it should affect any creative medium?


Discuss.

[Randroid]

I'm wary of it.

To me, it would appear to be just another talking point in committee meetings that would prevent certain games from getting made.

There are so many valid, real-life institutions where social justice is actually needed, that the social justice in gaming conversation just comes across as first world whining to me.

[pirovash88]

Not really sure, i don't want to flat out say yes or no to this question. While i do believe developers should have the liberty to create whatever they want, there probably should be some boundaries they can't cross. What those boundaries are, i don't know yet.

[inthesky]

It can be helpful, I think. A problem here is that there's never going to be consensus on what the concrete realization of social justice is, and what the best means of achieving it are. But it offers perspective to the industry.

[max_cady]

Ya know, there are so many more serious problems on the business side of the games industry that demanding social justice within the creative process feels irrelevant and it's reeks of "we need to be outraged / upset about something today, what will be?"

You have Capcom with on-disc DLC that you have to pay to unlock.
You got Season Passes on nearly every game now.
Selling a full priced game with half the content and sell the rest on DLC.
BS about early review copies, way too much content control.
EA, Activision and the like with somewhat shady business practices.
The line between journalism and PR are sometimes muddled in video games.

But rescuing a princess is blatant sexism and we can't tolerate that.

[MadeManG74]

This video seems relevant, I like the way Carmack handled this question.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzmbW4ueGdg

[JRcade19]

If Women want to fix the gender gap in tech, then they can start by enrolling in relevant classes.

Not that the blame entirely goes to them, but seriously, the drop out rates in such programs between genders can get pretty big. Most of the time it boils down to the fact that less woman have interest in tech than men do. Not trying to sound sexist, but that's how things usually roll. Can it be changed? Most certainly.

Carmack deserves praise for fielding the question, and the audience needs to be slapped for applauding such a silly question.

[pirovash88]

John Carmack is the man, haha, i honestly think he's awesome.

On another note. Some women would say that harassment is what causes them to drop out of certain jobs, classes, etc. I've heard of a few instances at comic con where men come on to business women thinking that they were booth babes, totally not cool.

[JRcade19]

Yea, I understand that many men can be idiots in that regard. I just want to address what I perceive to be the ultimate root of the problem of lack of interest or the subsequent Loss of interest in the field due to either self doubt or boredom.

Here is a great write up from Carnegie Mellon University on the subject

There are plenty of other factors such as the one you mentioned.

The stress of potential motherhood.
Potential hostile work environment ect....

[max_cady]

Computer Science is a slighty different realm, though, first of all, not gonna lie: Computer Science / Software Engenerring is one of the most advanced / mind-numbingly difficult courses. You can either finish it with flying colors or just completely break down and just despise humanity as a whole.

The article does point to some situations that I've dealt with in college. I don't want women to take this the wrong way, but part of this issue is also some women taking advantage of men's supossed affinity with computers.

Some of my collegues managed to graduate pretty early because they've essentially glued themselves to the smart good-looking kid in most of the major classes that had assigments with partners in which the smart kid did most of the work.

That could also lead to some bumps in the road with regards to employment.

But like I said, business aspect of the game industry is far more problematic than how many women are in the workplace.

However if people have the stones to say that women don't know how to make good days: Exibit a - F*** You, Reiko Kodama and the Phantasy Star series.