Empathy is a highly technical skill using expert levels of situational awareness, non verbal communication +cross cultural knowledge taking into account inequities based on intersections of marginalization of gender, sex, queerness, race, Socio-economic background to name a few.
Do NOT undersell your fluency in Empathy.

Empathy has been routinely disregarded directly out of its association with women cause mysogyny.

Empathy is a super weapon. Without it all communication is ineffective and useless.
If you cannot care to understand the WHY behind a thing, you cannot authentically exist in a dialogue with the other.

In design/software there is a concept of User Stories.

They form the bulk of task management communication.
A user story in game development might be:

“As a player I want to have a map so that I can orient myself”

Empathy is required to have any sense of cohesion in team environments.

Empathy is non-negotiable.
Every problem in every organization originates from a deficit of empathy.

All conflict can be mitigated and defused by surgical application of empathy.

This is not a “soft” skill - it is a hard technical skill that capitalism struggles to quantify.
Every single organization would do well to start investing in internal reporting systems that monitor the health and quality of empathy in leadership.

Without empathy, leadership is not. That simple.
My capacity for and fluency with Empathy is the primary reason for how I got my job in games and why I was hired.

I am not an “entry level” Producer. These skills are from a lifetime of survival against adversity and abusive power structures as well as my hundreds of teachers.
If you want to thrive in any role, you must develop your Empathy.

It is pivotal to healthy relationships, personal growth, healing and learning.

With proper application of empathy there is nothing that can stop you from attaining any goal you might have.
Empathy is the ability to acknowledge a shared reality and how the impact of that reality is different for another person.

A well designed game calls to empathy at many levels. That’s what can help cement the player experience.
Properly applied empathy in economy design can make the difference between a game studio failing or not because of its ability to understand the needs and desires of its players.
Anyways, I do need to go to bed, but I’ll end with:

Video games are the greatest vehicle for empathy. Empathy is possibility in story telling.

Be excellent to each other. 💖 🌻

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More from @javierabegazo

22 Jul
So I love how I mentioned to the Etsy seller that I was a trans woman and that I was excited to actually build my wardrobe and suddenly her Etsy shop has been taken down.

Nice. 🏳️‍⚧️

etsy.com/listing/649495…
etsy.com/shop/VillenaVi…
This fucking bums me the fuck out. I was seriously prepared to pay $500+ in tailored clothing but apparently my money's no good there.
As much as I would like to gaslight myself and creatively come up with all of the reasons why the shop might've been taken down I can't.

She was exceptionally responsive to all of my questions and then hours after I mentioned about my being trans the shop goes down.
Read 4 tweets
22 Jul
Re: #ActivisionBlizzard Lawsuit

If you are a cisgender white man in the game industry do not let yourself end your participation with a tweet of "Gosh industry needs to change."

⚔️ You. Change it today. ⚔️

An inexhaustive list of ACTIONABLE ways to tip this power imbalance:
- share your salary / stock options with marginalized people of color, gender and women who you already know

If sharing directly feels too vulnerable, share anonymously here:

NA docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…

UK
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…
- Carve out an hour out of each month for mentorship in your field for marginalized people of color, gender and women who you already know or through platforms like these:

gameheadsoakland.org/mentors/

pushfar.com/home/
Read 11 tweets
22 Jul
Remember it is absolutely ok and necessary to unplug.

This news can retraumatize and you can absolutely step away and take care of your immediate needs.

We won’t let this news die down. I won’t at least.

Please care for yourself and if you need emotional support please DM.
If I can listen, make space, witness or just talk about anything else with you I’m 100% here and available. Bandwidth might be tight as I’m in the middle of prepping for a cross country move to NYC but I can make time.

DMs are open.
This industry IS changing. There are more women owned studios than ever before.

I as a public hyper visible pre-HRT trans woman of color got her first game industry job just this April 2021 which was full time, salaried with stock options and wasn’t lowballed.
Read 4 tweets
20 Jul
January 2021.

I was heartbroken, depressed and feeling entirely hopeless.

Was borrowing $$$ to be able to pay rent well into March + this was deeply triggering in itself as I’ve survived through repeat housing insecurity from the day I was born and my mom slept on the street.
Fast forward to July 2021, I’ve got a full time job in the game industry making more money than I’ve ever had, full benefits, perma remote, am involved in multiple exciting projects around the game industry and will be moving back home to Brooklyn NYC.
This is hot on the heels of 8 years of minimum wage jobs in seattle, constant daily micro aggressions and a general feeling of lack of direction and focus in life.
Read 5 tweets
16 Jun
Looking for a job in Games?

Here is a🧵of my favorite resources:
#GameJobs / #GameDevJobs

RT's Appreciated.
#1: @JanDavidHassel's GameJobs List:
🌐 Global Searches
🔍 Regional Searches
🕸️ Studio Networks
🗺️ Studio Maps and Lists
💰 Salaries
💪🏾 Job Discipline Communities
🌈 Underrepresented Groups
📊 Industry Reports

docs.google.com/document/d/1CU…
#2: @HitmarkerJobs

Excellent up-to-date database with filtering and notifications

hitmarker.net
Read 29 tweets
16 Jan
Fuck it.

My real pronouns are She / Her
I can't adequately describe how terrifying it is to tweet that as someone who's just moved, been out of work for months, left an abusive relationship and in general has just lived a live on the margins of actual economic survival.
To all my Trans family, I'm sorry it took me this long. To every man that's ever joked about queerness with a hint of violence, I remember you.
Read 34 tweets

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