Women in Games conference canceled due to 'low delegate numbers'

Don't feel bad, most guys don't like having to listen to the idiocy that is Xbox live open game chat either.

i really wonder what it's like to be a joystiq writer. to know that when you post something like this, the immature idiots will come out in droves.

David, normally, what you wrote would be a kissing cousin to victim-blaming, but many of the gaming sites could do a lot better about moderating their comments to keep the racist/sexist/homophobic stuff out.

Joystiq at least doesn't actively encourage sexist trolling, unlike Kotaku and Destructoid.

It was a developer conference, right? That means, to a large extent, programmers? In that case the gender ratio is insanely bad in all areas - I'm sure it's even worse in gaming. (For example some of the few women who are programmers where I work chose to work there specifically because they have kids and it has very 'family-friendly' working practices - not something you often hear about gaming firms. Even with this I think we're at around a 10%:90% f:m ratio. Woohoo.)

Among all the less technical occupations (artists, project managers, etc) my workplace seems properly balanced; I wonder if that's true of gaming companies.

So anyhow, in terms of industry participation the problem is not only with game development but with programming as a profession. (And part of that takes place long before people apply for jobs - with a massive and continuing imbalance in computer science degrees, etc.)

Also: The title of this post may not be intended that way but is, sadly, hilarious. Well, or it's hilarious because it's so sad. Whatever. I laughed.

Get real, yourself. Get a clue while you're at it. If you can't recognize that there are certain issues for females in the world of gaming, topics that either aren't handled maturely or ignored all together in the mainstream sites and conferences, then you must be as inattentive as can be. There are issues of workplace inequality, wage disparities, rampant sexism and sexual harassment, sexist depictions of women, etc etc etc and you're going to tell me we don't need a safe place to discuss the issue free from the sarcastic, childish ridicule that sites like Kotaku perpetuates?

This isn't about being special. "Girl" gaming sites and conferences pop up for the same reason magazines like Ebony do: a certain demographic sees their needs and interests being ignored on such a frequent basis that they feel the need to find a different way to circulate the ideas and issues pertinent to them. In other words, if we weren't excluded by default so often, we wouldn't have need of a separate conference.

Ah typical, tons of upvotes for the female pretending there isn't such a thing as gender issues so she can get her free "honorary male" pass.

Well clearly it's not that important if the conference was cancelled because not enough people were interested.

I bet you're one of those women who want equality yet when a guy takes you out on a date you expect him to pick up the tab. I bet you're also the kind of woman who thinks porn is objectifying women, BJs are gross and men need to get in touch with their feminine side.

How about you get in touch with your masculine side for a change?. Kotaku, however popular, isn't exactly the benchmark you should be using for the general gaming community. Nice stereotypes though.

For the wage gap, have you heard of the marital asymmetry hypothesis?. All you need to do is look at the statistics and see that any wage disparities are not a function of gender, but rather of marital status. Women who have never been married make just as much money as men who have never been married. However, when a woman gets married, they tend to take a majority of the housework and child rearing responsibilities, reducing the time and energy they have to focus on a career and making as much as a guy. It's perfectly fine to argue that this imbalance in home responsibilities is not fair, but that's something to bring up with your husband, not the game industry.

As for sexual harassment, that sounds like something to take up with your employer. Going to a conference is hardly going to change the behavior of that jerk two cubes over in your office.

As for being dissatisfied with the portrayal of women in gaming, you have every right to be offended if that bothers you. And developers have every right to ignore you and keep making the games they want. I hardly think it takes some grand show of female solidarity to give the hint that most women probably don't consider oversexualizition of female characters a selling point, and if they want your money, they can change their games in their own time. Meanwhile, they don't owe those women a perfectly non-offensive experience with each of their games, just like they don't owe people who dislike gratuitious gore or glorified war a non-offensive game, either.

Personally, I think it is damaging to seek equality by exploring issues through broad demographic aggregation, which only serves to draw out bitterness for people that get dragged into a group by virtue of something, like gender, which they have no control over. Men who are perfectly respectful to female gamers are alienated from the discussion, and women who downplay such a conference's issues are labeled as traitors to their own gender or hopelessly ignorant, regardless of their actual experiences. As gamers, a girl can enjoy a new game announcement as much as a guy, and as developers we benefit from new industry insights and tools the same as well. Make a Gamers against Objectified Women in Games group or something if you want to explore those issues... I bet there are guys that would join that, too. But some of us female gamers are getting along just fine in the gaming community and in the industry, so don't presume to speak for all of us.

@Holly

wonderful comment. Way better than my now deleted "derp derp I'm one of da guyz validate me plz"