Blizzard is not the first, nor the last in this situation. This is present all across the industry, and in other indusrties as well. This feels worse, because you feel closer to the company than any other maybe. You’re free to boycott them, by never buying from them, but cosider the fact, that then you shouldn’t buy anything ever again, from other companies, because there’s a chance that those have the same issues, or other issues that are toxic and immoral, they are just not highlighted. And if after this Blizzard dosen’t need to shut down complitely, they deserve a chance to redeem themself.
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The fact that there are a lot of bad leaders out there should hardly be shrugged off with ‘it is what it is’. People should fight to get better leaders then.
Part of Nevs post was a story about how that is not the case.
Can’t say it has been my experience either.
Definitely true. People can ‘game the system’, sell themselves for more than they are worth, but that is still quite different from the allegations described by Nev and others. Where it isn’t about some individuals being able to oversell themselves, but rather nepotism, bigotry etc. being the determining factors. Which emphasizes not the role of the person receiving the promotion, wage increase or whatever, but the person giving it.
People can take a stance against something terrible, without also having to take a stance in every single scenario in the world. Fighting one good fight is not invalidated by the existence of other problems in the world.
(please forgive this post’s length but I hope you find it passably fulfilling…)
I hardly ever post on game forums, but this issue has really irked me. Nev was treated horribly during her tenure at Blizzard…she certainly had many, many reasons to leave and I hope she’s in a much better place now (both financially AND mentally/emotionally). I’ve been stuck in some crappy jobs myself (including my current employment but I should be finally leaving for much greener pastures soon) and they are absolutely NO FUN! I’ve had many, many days where I’ve left work in a totally foul mood, and I’m sure my worst days don’t equal the torment Nev endured all these years. The true tragedy of it is that this happened at Blizzard!
Way back, when I had a (very unrealistic) dream of getting into the video game industry, Blizzard was where I wanted to go. That was where they made fantastic worlds of magic…it was supposed to be the dream destination for any gaming geek’s career. Now though, the veneer isn’t just tarnished, it has rotted into decay. Nev’s re-telling of her accomplishments at Blizzard almost mimics the toils and perseverance of the heroes in the games that Blizzard makes. She worked hard to earn her “six-piece set bonus” there; her tale of working on Team 3’s game jam sounds equivalent to mastering one of the more trying set dungeons. Yet, for all her efforts, her worth was no more than one of Warcraft’s lowly peons – ready to work hard on assigned tasks, but ultimately cheap and disposable.
I’ve largely lost my interest in working the video game industry (my artistic talent is no where near that level) but the overall glamour of that industry has also faded a lot as video games have become much more of a serious business. Blizzard now seems to have fallen from its pedestal and really can be seen as a horrible example. Blizzard used to be a special place in the video game world…they prized the control they had over the quality of their products, proudly cancelling the (in)famous “Warcraft Adventures” to avoid a potentially embarrassing blemish on their record. Undoubtedly, working at Blizzard must have been much more enjoyable back in those days as well (horror tales of the Diablo II crunch notwithstanding). Now though, Blizzard’s products have suffered over the years, and Nev’s tales of her trials reveal a toxic and discriminatory workplace.
Sadly, as others have mentioned, the workplace at Blizzard is far from a unique example and is way too common place. I’m male, and while I have not had a very fruitful career myself, I know how frustrating it is to work your butt off and never receive proper recognition (or reward!) so really feel for anyone that gets a raw deal like that…and it’s a real shame that women (and minorities too!) are so easily trapped in that cycle.
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Make yourself at home. I write longer posts than that. At least 2 screens long and are garbage, making way less sense yet people read them. Just separate long blocks to smaller paragraphs and people won’t feel like looking at an eyesore.
I can relate to your thoughts as well.
Pffft. Nobody has anything on my novellas. 
Dear Brandy Camel,
if by any chance you read this I want to sincerely apologize for any troubles I may have caused you in the past. It was never my intention, I had and have nothing against you personally. I’m serious. Please accept my heartfelt apologies.
I am aware that the community gave you a bit of a hard time during your tenure, and I too am guilty of that. You have to understand though, us, the community, have been at the receiving end of Blizzard’s antics for 10+ years as well, and it has been a stressful and frustrating experience. We are passionate about this game, and unfortunately we cannot simply quit Blizzard if we want to play it. The only way to get something done is to complain endlessly, and that’s what we do. It sucks for the CM to be stuck between a rock and a hard place, I realize now.
Sorry.
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I have something against them 
I probably would have gone on longer several years ago but I’ve tried to be more concise (and brief!) in my writing. Thanks for the kind words as well. =^-^=
Thanks for your hard work and best of luck… ALL ATTENTION TO D4!
Few days late on this and haven’t been keeping up on the forum entirely, but I’d mainly just stress to not correlate “bikini armor” tropes and similar to the implications of a frat boy culture.
People like pretty people. One could say this is the core of the “Sex sells!” adage. I’d be remiss to claim that the earlier days of the games industry was filled with the party boy jocks that would ultimately qualify for the frat boy distinction. Nonetheless, I can think back to games like Everquest featuring a scantily clad elf on the box art, knowing that the game was pretty much made by a bunch of nerds that personally found such things attractive, and not so much because they’re never actually seen a real women in their lives or other common anti rhetoric. As time passed, popularity grew, and with that the demands of the industry, the cross-culture contamination certainly became more likely. I’m going to skip jumping down the political rabbit hole for now, but otherwise say that these tropes existed further back in media with films like Red Sonja or even further back with Barbarella kinda emphasizing the push for eye candy.
On the other hand, what rarely tends to get talked about is the male side of sexualization. It’s commonly brushed off as power fantasy where the males are super-jacked badasses, but it’s also important to consider how characters who aren’t those things wind up betrayed. Have the proverbial “dad bod” or are just outright fat? There’s a high probability you’re the villain or portrayed as inept and annoying on some level. You might even be the sleazeball the hero gets to beat up to save the girl because you just wouldn’t take no for an answer. The representation argument can swing both ways, and it’s not like we aren’t without shortage of “harsh critique” in JRPGs because some males also come off as effeminate (or worse) to those of the toxic masculinity persuasion.
That said, there does exist a certain degree of equality in what I could just call the “Waifu and Husbando” market, with influences more in mobile or Eastern-based games. The fanservice gets applied to both sides, though maybe not statistically equal since males playing these games usually outnumbers the female. And I certainly have seen complaints that there aren’t enough males getting pushed. You may even see the common arguments against specific figure/features types where it’s obvious some folks just can’t let certain things go and allow others to indulge in a bit of escapism.
I know that old Blizzcon video has resurfaced about the woman asking for less “bikini armor” to paraphrase, and the panel/crowd response wasn’t all that great. My takeaway, however, is that while the question itself wasn’t flawed, the implication some carry that it shouldn’t even exist at all is, with a common defense trying to play the realism card. Variety can and should exist in our character designs, with how a character dresses being an extension of their personality. If that doesn’t match, then you have a problem either in the art or the writing. The latter of which I’d frequently argue our games need more and better of without falling into the trap of DLC/microtransaction hell. How quick our culture is to accept brutal violence, but also condemn the slightest flashing of skin is further indicative of our priorities being jumbled.
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Let’s call a spade a spade.
The response of several members of the panel and a significant fraction of that Blizzcon audience was awful.
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I get what you’re saying, Saidosha. In my post, I was just trying to say that it seems valid to point out that the female characters frequently look sexualized, and even though sexualized female characters do not automatically mean they are the result of frat boy culture, in this case there is a good chance they are. Make the dudes look cool, make the chicks look… hawt. Same class, same armor. A good example to illustrate the contrary argument is the Barbarian class in D3. They are essentially highland warriors that wear loincloths, whether male or female. Fair enough. There’s a basic equality between them. I have issues when the armor bears little to no resemblance from male to female.
I don’t know if I want to get into a long discussion defining what is or should be “real” in video games. That’s a tricky thing with a lot of ground to cover. We all have to suspend our disbelief in order to enjoy our entertainment outlets, be they movies, books, video games, etc. But it is interesting to see where we individually draw lines for what we will and won’t accept. I don’t personally get hung up on the real-life utility of armor unless it’s so overblown and egregious as to be impossible to serve any purpose, or to (seemingly) flaunt a character’s sexuality first and foremost. Take a look at the Sunwuko pants in your inventory on a male character. Now take a look at in the female’s inventory. That’s precisely what I’m talking about. It doesn’t always have to be a bikini to be exploitative.
The point you make about effeminate characters in JRPGs is totally valid. Society has historically equated normalcy with heterosexuality and masculinity. Times they are a-changin’, fortunately. Slowly, but changing for sure. I know a bisexual woman who is dating a man. He wasn’t quite sure how he felt knowing she was bisexual. He said to her, “how do I know you won’t break up with me for another woman?” She replied, “well how do I know you won’t break up with me for another woman?”
So, ignoring the idea that bikini armor would in no way protect a warrior, it’s still a bikini, and that’s what I have a problem with!
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This is probably going to be an interesting take from my perspective.
My line of thought is simply this:
I can be accepting of those with gender differences from my ideals, but that doesn’t mean I have to alienate those with my ideals.
Basically, I often get the feeling that, if you don’t agree with some of the ideals of the various gender options/lifestyle, etc, then you are not fit to exist along side them.
Just because I don’t want to live a lifestyle other than being a heterosexual person, doesn’t mean I’m a bad person. Just because I prefer a way of looking to others or how others look to me doesn’t make me a bad person. Just different.
Isn’t that what many in the lbgtq community strive for? Tolerance, acceptance etc? Or do some of them want to stamp out what others feel is normal because it goes against their idea of how to live?
Why can’t both exist?
I don’t know. The world today feels like it is out to make you a bad person if you adhere to traditional values or ways of life. Your bad if you disagree with anything that’s not and need to be stamped out. What about that sounds good to anyone? I mean honestly? Being male is bad, being white is bad, I mean what’s next? Persecutions?
I know some would argue the opposite has been happening already. And in some cases, yes it has.
There are always going to be bad people. There are always going to be good people. But don’t punish good people who have a different standard, way of life, or way of thinking than you do, simply because they don’t agree with you. And this goes both ways.
Don’t force one ideal over another, simply because you think you are the only one that is right. There is a saying: The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
Accept that there are things you cannot change, but also accept there are things you should change. Change for the sake of change is bad. But change is sometimes necessary. Forgetting, deleting, rewriting history means we also run into the likely probability of repeating mistakes we should have learned from that same history that was forgotten, rewritten, or deleted entirely.
Anyway, just some rambling thoughts.
Game on.
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Nobody is saying that though. People can live as traditionally as they want to. As long as they dont try to force others to do the same.
They can. At least in theory. And as you say, that is what we should strive for.
No, nobody is trying to stamp out traditional values, being white, or being male. Not unless you don a tight tinfoil hat and listen to fox and far right radio shows where blue haired people are the enemy coming to destroy your culture.
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I hate to say this, but a lot of what she stated in her blog sounds like day-to-day corporate culture, where I’m not really sure sexism plays a part. Naturally, one would probably look at other people of their associated identity, and see things such as pay gender discrimination, but often times, you’ll hear in the news later it turns out that men might be more affected. Now, I’m certainly not excusing any of this, as sexual harassment obviously needs to be handled seriously, and there’s certainly a toxic work environment. It’s just that toxic work environments are far more common than we might like to believe.
E.g.
I can’t tell you how many companies I’ve worked for are quantity driven. This is incredibly common, and part of playing the corporate game. The question becomes, what are the rules, because they’re typically unwritten rules you need to learn on the job. If you want to get ahead, you have to learn and play by those rules.
Meritocracy is often not rewarded. I’m sure many of us have been in companies where we’ve seen the most incompetent people promoted while at the same time watching valuable, hardworking employees quit, get fired, passed for promotion, etc. Once again, it’s part of the corporate game. Who you know and who your friends are often matter far more than what you can accomplish.
If you fit into the culture, it’s easy to be blind to the toxicity. One place I worked is constantly in the Forbes best places to work for. Most of the people I knew there loved it. For me though, it was the most miserable years of my life. And a few of my friends were similar to me. You were either on the inside, where you loved it, and the company could do no wrong, or you were on the outside, where you saw nothing but toxicity, backstabbing, etc.
The best I think anyone can hope for is that certain things, such as the sexual harassment get fixed, but a lot of the other issues, and perhaps most of what she brought forth in her blog, are never going away. The company might shift them so that there’s a new in crowd so that a previous out group now doesn’t see the problems, but all this will end up doing is creating a new out group.
Excluding the obvious illegalities, it’s not Blizzard, it’s not the gaming industry, it’s corporate culture unfortunately. And sometimes, it’s best to just move on, realizing that as much as you might like a company, the company’s culture is not for you.
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Don’t worry you said it all man! lowers voice you said it all!
What’s wrong with tin foil hats?
They get kind of itchy after a bit. Hot, also hot.
Not a good version of a “metalhead”.
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Lol true but no need to single out someone who may like that.