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Comment by saint_fiasco | Hacker News Reader

"Does that comment scare you? You sound very defensive. I'm sorry to inform you that we do have a discourse problem that is well documented, and you have identified yourself as part of the problem."

That was your comment. I changed a couple of words so it would look like it was directed at you.

Calling people defensive is very condescending and shitty, because it leaves people in a position where they have to choose between responding (and "proving you right", since they are now more "defensive") or leaving the conversation (and letting you "win" the argument by default).

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I find the entire quoted line to be unnecessary. The initial question "Does this article scare you?" doesn't serve a purpose, it's just filler. I wouldn't expect the other person to really respond to such a question, nor do I think the conversation should be or is trying to be centered on the question and its possible answer. The post would have been better off not being framed by that question and instead just dive right into the actual arguments.

Yes, agreed, I was condescending, and I will do better next time. To be honest, I've learned a lot about how to post civilly over the years on HN, and I still make mistakes. My post above is not an example of my best work. ;)

But - answer me honestly - do you think what I said is less accurate or more condescending than what @tnones said about Brie? Do you think my comment was out of proportion or very different in tone to what he said? He dismissed Brie's words as "typical feminist schtick" when she was relating her own feelings and talking about video games, and when she clearly has mountains more experience in the industry than @tnones. Do you think that was fair and not shitty, what @tnones said?

Do you think my comment was out of proportion or very different in tone to what he said?

I think there is a noticeable tone difference, assuming one is sensitive to these sorts of things.

He dismissed Brie's words as "typical feminist schtick"

While this is true, as a whole if you compare his first couple of sentences to yours, his remains much more closely related to the overall subject matter. He dismisses the author's words, but goes right into talking about video games.

On the other hand, your opening is too focused on tnones. The subject is always tnones and neglects the topic of video games. You can see this with the constant instances of "you" throughout the first line of the comment.

Now maybe this is because you're trying to establish the thesis that tnones is part of the problem as you state in your first line. However, I think approaching your rebuttal this way has led us to where we are now where you come off as condescending. Ultimately it distracts too much from the subject matter and distracts from the points you make later.

Simply leading off with "we do have a culture problem that is well documented" without anything else in the first line would have been a better way to start. The impact of a statement like "you have identified yourself as part of the problem" would have been better in your conclusion after all was said and done.

You're right, I hear you, and I appreciate the thoughtful analysis. I could have skipped the first line entirely and my comment would have been better for it. Notes for next time. I'm taking the punishment and leaving it there.

My mistake was letting @tnones' comment bother me and replying while irritated.

So let's get back to the subject matter. Is there a gender gap in games, and what should or should not be done about it? Is @tnones right that there's no evidence of a gap?

I think your comment was a little more condescending because the other comment invited a response (just from a non-feminist perspective) while your argument pre-emptively dismissed every possible response.

I also think it was less accurate because I believe the feminism angle is a red herring.

Like, suppose I complained that videogames are rarely marketed to poor people like me who can't afford modern hardware (when was ever "terrible graphics" and "runs on old consoles" a selling point for a mainstream game?) and then postulated some discrimination by elites against poor people, or maybe that they live in a bubble and are out of touch with the tastes of the poorer masses.

One could reasonably answer that I'm missing the point, the industry is perfectly aware of my situation and just doesn't care because I am not profitable to them. Also maybe I should support small indie game studios instead of complaining that AAA games are not being made with me in mind.

Just replace poor with women and we have a similar situation. Notice how the actions of the author (working as a game designer) actually do serve to improve the situation and it's only her discourse that is, in my opinion, holding us back as gamers. So that's why some people don't have a lot of patience for the "typical feminist schtick" (though I think this feminist is sincere and not a schtick)

> I also think it was less accurate because I believe the feminism angle is a red herring.

How does that reflect on me? I didn't bring up feminism, @tnones did.

> Like, suppose I complained that videogames are rarely marketed to poor people ... maybe I should support small indie game studios instead of complaining

I don't understand where you're going with this. There is a class bias in the video games market, as with more or less our entire economy. That is probably much better documented than the sexism bias. But games cost money to make and money to buy, and they're a luxury entertainment product, so I'm not sure what there is to do about it, not do I see how that changes anything regarding cultural sexism.

> it's only her discourse that is, in my opinion, holding us back as gamers.

What did she say that is holding you back? How is it holding you back or working against gamers? Did we read the same article? She's trying to appeal to more gamers, not fewer, she's trying to help people who don't current like games start to like them and see games the way gamers see games... I'm confused.

I know that part didn't reflect on you. You asked about my opinion on the accuracy, and the thing we were trying to be accurate about was OP's article, right?

You know how men make more money than women? And how white people make more money than black people? We should expect then that more white men will buy luxury goods like videogames, right? No additional sexism needs to be postulated, is what I'm saying. You are double-counting the evidence.

> She's trying to appeal to more gamers, not fewer, she's trying to help people who don't current like games start to like them and see games the way gamers see games.

We all are. We are on the same side, some people just think the author is doing it wrong. I myself think the author is doing most things right (she is an actual game designer working on fixing the problem she complains about), but her complaints sound misguided and superfluous. They don't match with some people's experiences of trying to persuade their friends to play games, which means she was generalizing from a small sample and her theory might be wrong. (not the practice, though, since she is an actual game designer)

> the thing we were trying to be accurate about was OP's article, right?

No, you said my comment was less accurate, because feminism, not that the article was less accurate. Except I didn't bring up feminism. Nor did Brie. @tnones did, his comments were inaccurate.

> You are double-counting the evidence.

How so? I was disagreeing with @tnones, who said there's "nothing" to support Brie's point of view. "Video games already have a diverse, demographically blind audience". "They're class and race-blind..."

Those statements are factually incorrect, and my comment was simply addressing that. I provided evidence to someone who just denied that there are any biases in games at all.

You have just acknowledged race, class, and sex biases, and it sounds like you also disagree with @tnones and agree with me.

> We are on the same side, some people just think the author is doing it wrong... her complaints sound misguided and superfluous... she was generalizing from a small sample and her theory might be wrong. (not the practice, though, since she is an actual game designer)

This sounds so presumptuous to me. Brie was a lead programmer (not designer) on Child of Light & Assassin's creed. She has more than a decade of experience leading teams making the very games you're defending, and your conclude her remarks are superfluous based on some internet commentary??

There is data that supports what she's saying, it's easy to find with almost no effort, if you look. Publishers agree with what she's saying, I know because I've talked to some. Like Brie, they're also trying to find healthier markets that attract a broader base and appeal to women as well as minorities, old people, poor people, etc.

You said her remarks are holding gamers back. What did you mean? How are you being held back? Why don't you share your experiences that shed some light on your point of view, or point us to some data that backs up your position that the industry is going the right direction and that Brie's is misguided?

Brie did bring up feminism. Or rather, she uncritically brought up the white male gamer stereotype, which is worse. That is the "feminist shtick" that tnones was complaining about.

I acknowledge bias in who pays for videogames, not who plays them. My friends and I play lots of videogames but we don't show up in any publisher's radar because we are poor and play mostly old games, used games and pirated games. We are fine with that and do not write blog posts complaining that the gaming industry discriminates against poor people.

We still play more than many rich people, we just play different things.

Brie is a very good designer but (by her own story) bad at giving gaming recommendations to her friends. Those are separate skills that do not transfer well. She learned the wrong lesson from her experience when she blamed the sexist culture instead of her own inability to understand her friend's tastes. To her credit she also learned a correct lesson: "It wasn't about answering them; it was about asking them".

As for my own experiences, I think they would bore you. Where I come from we have our own petty dramas like this game journalist for a local paper who means well but is so cringey that it ends up reinforcing the basement-dweller stereotypes. This worries us because where I come from games aren't seen as a high-status upper-middle-class luxury, but rather as a low-status diversion and escape from reality (kind of like opiate for the masses). It feels like an entirely different situation that someone like Brie, who complains unironically about a "a state of constant shock, of constant stimulation", would not understand.

> Or rather, she uncritically brought up the white male gamer stereotype, which is worse.

Would you mind quoting what you're talking about? And would you mind explaining how something she said that is true, and has data to back it up, and that you've already acknowledged, is "worse" than what @tnones said, which has no basis in fact? Is this more a problem of style than of content, like with my comments? You complained about my condescension, and yet agreed with my facts and disagreed with @tnones.

You realize that complaining about feminist schtick is a sexist male chauvanist thing to do, right? @tnones is being a hypocrite, doing the very thing he's complaining about.

> I acknowledge bias in who pays for videogames, not who plays them.

Still, despite the evidence I provided? All four of the links showed biases in players separate from purchasing. Even though you didn't like the quote about who buys games, the first link still had separate demographics data about who playes games. If you follow the link, you will find separate sections on "demographics" and "buying habits".

The data does show a clear bias in who plays games, not just who buys them. Why would there be huge a gender difference in purchasing patterns, and not in playing patterns? That doesn't make sense, but I'd love to see some supporting data. There's plenty more data on game demographics, btw, I Google searched for all of 5 seconds just to have some links to back up what I already knew from 15 years working in games and films, that cultural sexism exists in games. Nobody who's actually working in the games industry is disputing the existence of cultural sexism in games. It's not one group or one thing, it's all of us, the makers, the marketers, the players, the buyers, the publishers. The good news is problem is being slowly solved, it is becoming less of a problem over time, thanks to the people that are acknowledging the situation and helping to fix it. Not helpful at all is denying that it exists like @tnones.

Your own sources say that playing games is fairly equal. Two of them say it's fifty-something to forty-something. The bias is too small, and the difference in wealth between privileged-straight-white-males and the rest of us is enough to explain it. Notice also that according to source two, women who play videogames are in average older than men who play videogames, suggesting another wealth correlation.

> I Google searched for all of 5 seconds just to have some links to back up what I already knew from 15 years working in games and films

That is precisely the problem. You already knew what you wanted to find, so even though we are looking at the same data, we are interpreting it differently based on our different experiences.

>You realize that complaining about feminist schtick is a sexist male chauvanist thing to do, right?

By saying things like that you reinforce @tnones point. I disagree with him but your dismissive attitude is not proving him wrong.

> Why would there be huge a gender difference in purchasing patterns, and not in playing patterns

That's what the data you found says, so don't dismiss it just because you can't easily explain it. The explanation I can come up with is that games are expensive and wealthy people buy more of them. Straight-white-male-privilege correlates to wealth.

EDIT: I think your mistake could be that you believe people who can't afford games don't play them. As a person with 25 years of experience in being poor, I can assure you that is not the case.

> Not helpful at all is denying that it exists like @tnones.

If @tnones is right then complaining about sexism is a waste of time and effort that detracts from the effort we should be applying to the "real issue", whatever it is. Like you say, the problem seems to be going away on its own (just like the gender wealth gap, further supporting my theory that we are looking at wealth correlates).

I don't think discussion about the "real cause" of the problem or even about whether the problem exists at all is unhelpful, as long as it is kept civil and does not detract from the real work of people like the author.

EDIT: Forgot you asked me about quotes! Just search for the words white and male in the article. Almost every time she mentions those it's to put forward a stereotype.

For my part, I'd agree with you. But I also have to admit that my tolerance for 'typical feminist schtick' is much lower than my tolerance for those who question it.

I'm fully aware that this is not fair, and I'm trying to compensate, but that's how it is for me right now. It's much harder to challenge something than to (somewhat callously) reject it, and that sucks.

Why would you think that attacking tnones' comment is a reasonable defense of your comment?

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