At @TakeThisOrg ‘s #GDC2022 Talk: Accountability & Repair in Games: Healing Harm This talk has been a reenacting of a scene in which a coworker has been inappropriately touched and showed a break down of the kinds of communication that’s helpful to resolve situations like this

#GDC2022 @TakeThisOrg

One of the most important talks at #GDC2022

@anitasarkeesian ‘s “It’s been 10 Years Since Tropes Vs. Women in Video Games: What’s Changed?”

Live Tweet 🧵: @anitasarkeesian:

“In one hand, I hold trauma and fear and anger And then the other hand I hold tremendous and enormous pride at the contribution that trips is made to the shifting tide of games culture.”

This is the worst & most toxic way to interview someone.

It is deeply unkind, the power dynamic is already unbalanced and what pisses me off the most is that the company not the applicant is the one who needs it more.

I don’t understand how men get away with this bullshit.

https://twitter.com/FayeMata/status/1506654417646280707

Companies are the ones in dire need of good talent.

It’s their projects and teams that suffer when they need to grow and need expertise to help them ship their game.

In the interview process is the first point where the studio will teach you how much they respect you.

FASHION AT #GDC2022

A cooperative 🧵:

(If you took pictures of fashion during the event post them here!

Kicking it off with @BeeMe of @brasslionent, gold Nikes @verliu21 of @EpicGames with the cobalt sparkles #GDC2022

📣This is an excellent thread AND I wanted to add my own thoughts 💖📣

The ways that nuerodivergence and invisible disabilities impact peoples lives is not to be taken lightly. It’s insidious and unjust but there is a need to apply intersectionality in this movement for equity.

https://twitter.com/liamesler/status/1506445805187928065

I care about advancement, support, access to the “the table” and safety for all people no matter their background, gender, ability or sexual orientation.

BUT

To hold conversation in any meaningful way we have to agree on fundamental facts + listen to lived experience.

I can’t help but feel bad for the game developers that unfollow or mute me.

I have a lot to teach them about curiosity, compassion, emotional fortitude and contending with unjust power structures.

A 🧵 on power: Whenever I choose to follow someone, and I follow a lot of people, it is because I am invested to some degree, larger small in their continued success.

if someone tweet some thing out of rage or despair, that is the last reason why I would ever unfollow them.

If you feel defensive at something you’ve read online I would encourage you to examine that defensiveness closely and see what isn’t yours to carry. Often times I find myself becoming g defensive towards things that aren’t about me or my actions whatsoever.

Other times I find myself becoming defensive over the regrets and shame I have had at not having done “better”.

Lol the CTO of Maxis just called me “young fool” Context was an unnecessarily harsh fallout I made in frustration to industry vets Who can always stand to do more with their power and privilege

Whenever I see in peoples bios, “15 yrs, 20 yrs in the game industry” or “grizzled ancient” and then I look at all the problems that still exist in the industry all I see is “Complicit Bystander” I see incredible femme led organizations like Pixelles or Code Coven and I’m like, what the hell were all these men doing so many years but climbing ladders and pulling them up behind them?

What if for a moment you were given the opportunity to hold your dream position in #gamedev with your dream team, what would that look like?

What would you be building?

A 🧵 🪡 of what I would do: I would hold a hybrid role of people operations and business development within a studio.

I would work with a team to design regular + frequent cadences of assessing team emotional health, needs for individual and collective growth, and chronicling lessons /defeats.

Hey #gamedev twitter,

Have you ever worked at a studio that had an actual code of ethics established internally? I want to clarify that by code of ethics, I mean a set of policies that is adhered to by the organization and individuals and supported through policy.

NOT some feel good statement of who they hope to be.

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…

https://twitter.com/javierabegazo/status/1417922659342438402

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.

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…

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.

https://twitter.com/umiscar/status/1418091103996178439

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.

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.

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.

https://twitter.com/stevenspohn/status/1417295241917444096

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.

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…

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.