“I’m surprised I survived.” This is how Nathalie Lawhead sums up her experience in the video game industry. The game designer made headlines in 2019 when she introduced Jeremy Soule, who composed the music for the popular role-playing game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim composed who accused of rape. “We’re at a point where pretty much every woman in the video game industry has her own horror story to tell,” she says. And then reports about women’s groups who have to warn each other about abusive colleagues and knockout drops at events like the “Game Developers Conference”.
The games industry likes to present itself as a “hip”, “diverse” branch. A look behind the scenes, however, reveals a work culture riddled with a toxic mix of testosterone-dominated macho posturing, a cult of genius, and a long tradition of masculine hubris.
Just how rotten the core of this industry is becomes clear thanks to the lawsuits against the world’s leading game developers. The focus is on Activision Blizzard, Riot Games and Ubisoft, with titles like League of Legends, Diablo, World of Warcraft or Assassin’s Creed are the top dogs in the gaming market. In a particularly tragic case at Activision Blizzard, an employee is said to have committed suicide during a company outing: her male supervisor had taken butt plugs and lube with him on the trip. A company executive, who asked not to be known because she is afraid of losing her job, told the Friday: “I know of many cases where victims turned to the human resources department for help. Instead of helping, HR broke their promise of confidentiality and turned against those affected.”
Nevertheless, more and more sufferers dare to report on their experiences. Employees of the studios protest in so-called walkouts. Men in leading positions are being fired: Alex Afrasiabi, Blizzard’s longtime creative director, lost his job in 2020 after it became known that he had sexually harassed women at the computer games fair “BlizzCon” seven years earlier. His hotel room there was notorious as the “Cosby Suite” – named after convicted sex offender Bill Cosby. Images from this suite also feature Jesse McCree, lead designer of the highly anticipated action game Diablo 4, who then also had to vacate his place at Blizzard. Even Bobby Kotick, the company’s CEO, is now openly discussing a potential resignation after allegations were leveled against him. Is the video game industry’s long overdue #metoo here?
Toxic Inferno: #gamergate
Much of the current discussion feels like déjà vu given the history of the industry. Since the 2000s, the topic has repeatedly come to the fore. In 2007, game developer Kathy Sierra had to relocate after receiving rape and death threats. In 2012, media critic Anita Sarkeesian was inundated with sexist comments and death threats. Photo montages circulated in which she was raped by video game characters. A game appeared where you could beat her to death. A veritable inferno of toxicity ignited in the wake of the 2014 online rampage known as #gamergate. Initially targeting indie developer Zoë Quinn, #gamergate soon degenerated into a digital rampage against women in the industry. Because of death threats, some of them had to change their place of residence at the time.
In 2012, game designer Luke Crane’s tweet (“why are there so few female game developers?”) triggered an avalanche. Under the hashtag #1reasonwhy, an overwhelming number of users posted countless reasons that became a digital “wall of shame” of abuses within the industry. But there are also approaches to change in the industry itself: The #1reasontobe panel has been taking place at the “Game Developers Conference” since 2013, which is intended to provide a forum for women and other marginalized groups. In 2018, Riot Games hosted a job panel specifically for women and non-binary people at the PAX industry trade show. Xbox Germany ran an International Women’s Day campaign in 2021.
But true equality and diversity in the video game industry is still more feel-good rhetoric than lived reality. “A mentality in which toxic behavior by men is tolerated has accompanied the games industry since its beginnings,” says Nina Kiel. As a game researcher, she is one of the leading voices on this topic in Germany. And refers, for example, to the catastrophic working conditions for women at the games manufacturer Atari in the 1970s and 1980s. Kate Edwards, who has worked in the industry for over 30 years and was Executive Director of the International Game Developers Association for many years, says: “The gender inequality in the video game industry can be traced back to its origins in the IT industry in the 1950s and 1960s But something is changing in the studios as well as in the games themselves. Female protagonists are conquering the game worlds, for example in the celebrated action game Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice. In blockbuster games like Dragon Age and Mass Effect the players can enter into same-sex love relationships. The indie sector in particular is once again a pioneer here. For example, the games developer Sweet Baby Inc., founded by Kim Belair in 2018 and who has long worked for major studios such as Ubisoft, Square Enix and Valve, describes itself as “black and queer-owned”. Or Studio Fein, which specializes in casual games for women. The current tremor is acting as a fire accelerator for a change that is gradual but has never lost sight of its goal.
$100 million fine
With Horizon: Forbidden West and A Plague Tale: Requiem 2022 will also see Triple A games that spotlight strong female protagonists. This is not necessarily due to a moral insight on the part of the studios: with a global share of now fifty percent, female players simply can no longer be ignored. However, this figure still stands in stark contrast to the proportion of women employed in the video game industry. It has increased to 30 percent now. However, the dominant sex is still male. “As the industry becomes more diverse, the extent of the abuse is yet to be revealed,” believes Nathalie Lawhead. “It’s like you pulled a thread and now the whole carpet is unraveling.” Does the tremor reverberate this time? That is to be seen. Riot Games settled the discrimination lawsuit in late 2021 and agreed to a $100 million payment benefiting more than 2,000 former and current employees. The verdict in the Activision Blizzard case is still pending.
nora beyer writes at Gamestar and Spiegel preferably about the gaming industry