Blacklightning

Nov 17 2015, 08:41 AM

So Bubsy 1 & 2 got added to Greenlight recently.

Now I know what you're all thinking, and before you start laughing I'm going to interrupt: the original creator of the franchise has cancer, and is almost certainly re-releasing the games to pay off his $36k medical costs.

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That would have been my call, and no, we would not have. I think the issue raised here is interesting and worthy of discussion, but I don’t read the gender ratio of the judges as intentional exclusion that would compel me to protest the awards.

In my experience, the voting winds up being a collaboration among those of us at the outlet—male, female, whatever skin colors we have, whatever political or religious views we have, everyone pitching in. That’s because no single writer can play all the games worthy of discussion for all the categories for any gaming awards. I play a shitload of games, but it’s impossible to keep up with everything. Because of that, I don’t look at the names and faces on this game award list and think of those judges as the sole deciders of what’s going to win. I assume their staffs have input. But given that the staffs of many of those sites (and ours) are predominantly male, I think this is as good an opportunity as any to discuss the preponderance of men in positions of influence in gaming culture.

As Patrick noted, it’s a very complex issue, and I don’t think badly of anyone for disagreeing over particular points on the matter. You could argue that adding women doesn’t automatically make the selection of games more diverse. You could argue that adding a guy who focuses on much more obscure but excellent little indie games might make the selection more diverse. But when I walk into a gaming shop, particularly where I live in NYC, I see a more diverse crowd than I see when I’m at a press event or at GDC, and I think it’s a worthy goal for the press and the development scene to achieve even a decent fraction of that level of diversity.

I tend to not get that outraged by this stuff, which I know frustrates some people. But that doesn’t mean I don’t care or don’t think it’s worth discussing.