Charlie Huguenard

There’s been a lot of talk about equality in the game industry lately. Well, there has been a lot of talk about it for a long time. Now’s just the time when the issue has taken center stage, largely thanks to social media, GDC, and a bunch of amazing people brave enough to get up and talk about it. GDC week was so inspiring and provided so much to think about that I’m just now beginning to process it.

The concept of privilege has wormed its way through my brain for the past couple of years, and just recently I feel like I have a good handle on it. Being a white cis male who primarily dates women comes with a hefty serving of privilege, meaning the vast majority of people I come in contact with in the industry can instantly relate to me. That makes them more comfortable and confident in me, because I’m like them. That means it’s easier for me to get a job, get a promotion, or talk to a superior about problems I think should be addressed.

That part I understood, even if I didn’t like the implications. But I had no idea what to do about it, or even if it was my place to do something about it. Would the white dude trying to step in to help gender and race representation be just as insulting as the behavior causing the problem in the first place? Would I be treated with suspicion or mocked for my naiveté?  I did nothing for fear of looking like an ass or pissing someone off.

Doing nothing is obviously not a valid strategy. In the case of institutionalized sexism, the problem is we’re in an industry that is overwhelmingly male. If only women work to right these wrongs, nothing’s gonna happen. Similar logic works for all the other representation discrepancies. The rest of us have to jump in and help if we want to see change.

It is the responsibility of those with privilege to use that privilege to achieve balance.

A really smart business person told me recently, “when you’re young, the ratings are the most important thing. When you’re old, the profits are.” On the surface, it sounds a bit cynical, albeit pretty accurate based on my experience. After thinking about it for a bit, I ended up concluding that he was nearly right. The extrinsic motivation of choice is not really an age thing at all, but dependent on your role in your job. 

In such a competitive field, we all want to be the best at our job. Since the game studio environment doesn’t provide a very good way to assess performance, we turn to external benchmarks. For people on the development end of games, the metric of choice is critical acclaim. That’s how we can show people outside of our team that we did a good job. Some people even put Metacritic scores on their resumes. For the business folks, no one knows if they did their job well unless the company made a bunch of money. Remember the last interview you had with a C-level where they spent the first 10 minutes rattling off investment/revenue numbers? They wanted you to know they were good at their job, and you were in good hands.

But while these goals are often at odds, the tug of war and the eventual compromise that arises from it is vital to sustaining a game studio. In fact, I would say that participating in this struggle is a requirement of everyone’s job. If you don’t advocate for your goal, you’re not helping to maintain the balance that will lead to a successful project.

Okay, now to put something in here. :)