The CEO and president of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe says Gamergate sucks.
In an in-depth and reliably entertaining interview with Metro’s David Jenkins, Ryan labelled the online movement “absolutely horrible”.
Asked for his thoughts on the matter Ryan said: “Well, more females are playing games now than ever before. I think the GamerGate thing is absolutely horrible. I agree, I read what you wrote about it, again your language was intemperate – as befits your views on an issue…”
Referencing Jenkins’ passionate views on the hate group – which last year gave rise to a sustained campaign of abuse targeting female game developers and vocal critic Anita Sarkeesian, leading to one of the gaming industry’s most depressing periods – Ryan said he shared the same opinion.
Shocking about the intemperate language though. I can’t bear that kind of thing myself.
The CEO of Blizzard took a whack at gamergate and harrassment in general during his Blizzcon address, back in November. The big gaming companies understand that 50% of gamers are women, and they’re not stupid.
WTF?
Kamaka, I think your sarcasm detector may need servicing.
Well, good for him. I would, however, like to see less of the “men” vs. “females” thingie:
Call me sensitive, but it sort of reeks of not seeing women as fully human.
[meta]
M’thew, would you prefer “girls and women”? 😉
PatrickG @3
Gotcha.
The interview really isn’t all that encouraging. When he’s asked what can be done “to encourage more females gamers and/or developers”, the best he can come up with is:
“In answer to your question about how to encourage more female gamers and/or developers: My first step will be to make sure that there’s not even a hint of ‘reverse discrimination’. That’s the worst kind of discrimination there is!”
“My second step will be to make sure that the corporate anti-harassment policy is enforced. The company lawyers say we need to do that anyway if we don’t want to face a bunch of expensive lawsuits.”
I guess the good news is that even someone with that kind of attitude can figure out that Gamergate is just horrible.
@ChaosEngineer:
Incremental progress is still progress… I personally think this is a grand case of misogynists shooting themselves in the foot. They’ve got people whose sole concern is money (presumably) publicly disclaiming any association with these assholes.
Progress!
@ Kamaka: My sarcasm detector breaks all the time.