"The Team is Still Predominantly Male and White..."

[JonPringus]

"...Something Greg Coomer at Valve acknowledges it needs to fix"

I was taken aback at this line in the first chapter. It's such a non-sequitur and it goes nowhere, I was wondering if something comes from this later in the essay.

What Coomer says can be interpreted as inappropriate, and just bringing this up without elaboration feels destructive. Did Geoff feel that the first thing people would think when seeing that image was "there's only white men," and thought addressing it would be good? Admittedly, one of the first things I noticed was no women, but their ethnicities didn't cross my mind until I read that.

I suppose if this is brought up later in the essay, my worry won't matter. I'm only a chapter in. But I've been mulling over that line, and frankly getting depressed at the implications.

I think I just want to know more about this subject. If there's a section in the essay where a Valve employee talks about why they want to hire minorities, please tell me. If not, maybe someone could explain it themselves.

[PsyWarVeteran]

They are trying to get sympathy points, nothing more.

Sadly companies never learn that their core customers don't care for social justice and the politics that goes on behind their closed doors and only want to play well made games.

[Pyxis]

If it doesn't matter, why do you seem offended?

[Mark]

Mr Coomer, do you acknowledge the need to coom at full force?
Please hire some ♥♥♥ artists so Valve can make a AAA hentai, and this will address your coomskin problem too

[Nick]

The first thing I noticed from the photos was rooms and rooms of white men. I'm glad it was acknowledged in the text.

Although it's great that Alyx stars a woman of colour, considering most video games - especially AAA video games - still mostly feature white, cis, straight, male protagonists. But ideally there would have been people of similar backgrounds to Alyx working behind the scenes.

Acknowledging they have a problem is the first step to fixing it - but it would be great if it was more than just an idle thought, and Valve actively looked to increase diversity in their team.

[Rampy470]

It's almost like having more voices from more backgrounds allows you more perspectives that allow more and more interesting stories to be told and traditional game developer culture often ends up shutting those voices out and the high ups at a game company recognize that and want it to change.

But nah that's crazy talk.

[JonPringus]

Originally posted by Rampy470:

It's almost like having more voices from more backgrounds allows you more perspectives that allow more and more interesting stories to be told and traditional game developer culture often ends up shutting those voices out and the high ups at a game company recognize that and want it to change.

But nah that's crazy talk.

No, that makes sense. Part of me does trust Valve to go about that in an ethical way and not do something stupid like refuse to hire someone, or worse; hire someone based on the color of their skin.

I still find what was said and how it was said inappropriate, but if valve wants more diverse voices at their studio, I'm all for that.

I still need to finish the essay, but I'm aware that valve has no real training program and that's why they only hire industry veterans. That's going to be a problem if all the veterans you can pull from are men. Unless valve is doing something like donating to groups that brings more underrepresented groups into the industry, I can't help but feels Coomer's words are empty.

Honestly, I believe valve's presence in the market is enough to bring underrepresented groups into the industry. They clearly don't want to stifle any voices in their community with their decisions. That commitment to consumer freedom will naturally cause the industry to become diverse.

[Nasher]

didn't you know?

EVERYTHING has to have politically correct box ticking and virtue signalling shoehorned in to it now. Otherwise it gets attacked by the twitter NPCs.

Gotta hire those "BAME" employees! Even if they aren't the most skilled or experienced!

[0Dd1]

Originally posted by Nasher:

Gotta hire those "BAME" employees! Even if they aren't the most skilled or experienced!

there are plenty of them, highly skilled. they just don't get hired bc of their skin color.

[PsyWarVeteran]

Just give me a good game to enjoy, I don't care the color of the person behind it.

[kill_dano]

White people aren't a problem, and race is not an indication of having a more diverse background. Just cause you hired a black woman doesn't mean she got plucked from Africa lol Did anyone interview all those white men and find out that there collective life experience didn't amount to whatever arbitrary standard for diverse backgrounds which we are aspiring for? Oh no? Oh it's just about skin color then? Oh so it's racist? I see.

[JonPringus]

Originally posted by kill_dano:

White people aren't a problem, and race is not an indication of having a more diverse background. Just cause you hired a black woman doesn't mean she got plucked from Africa lol Did anyone interview all those white men and find out that there collective life experience didn't amount to whatever arbitrary standard for diverse backgrounds which we are aspiring for? Oh no? Oh it's just about skin color then? Oh so it's racist? I see.

It would be so demeaning if someone hired me just because I am black. I'd even argue it would be worse than to not be hired because I am black. At least the company would be wearing their racism on their sleeve.

I do trust Valve to not stoop to such levels. Other companies I'm not too sure about though. I'd honestly lose faith in humanity if Valve did something so unethical like hire people based on a quota. But if they do want a more diverse-thinking and diverse-backgrounded team and want to hire individuals based on that, regardless of the color of their skin, I'd be happy about that. Women obviously have very different life experiences than men, so it's much easier to look at that factor than the complete life story of a person. But looking at that life story is important, Jazzman's life leading into his job at Valve gives an amazing look into what he can do and what he can add to the team. That life experience should be a much higher factor than something as petty as skin color.

[Litwick]

Originally posted by Nasher:

didn't you know?

EVERYTHING has to have politically correct box ticking and virtue signalling shoehorned in to it now. Otherwise it gets attacked by the twitter NPCs.

Gotta hire those "BAME" employees! Even if they aren't the most skilled or experienced!

You sound hurt my guy.

[Cohen 🫃]

I'm glad Valve has acknowledged theres a white privilege problem that needs to be addressed promptly. It obviously lacks diversity and creates a toxic work environment

[Elrond Hubbard]

Originally posted by Pyxis:

If it doesn't matter, why do you seem offended?

What Coomer said is concerning because it suggests that Valve should hire people based on arbitrary criteria like race or sex instead of competence.

A more appropriate response might have been "Valve's only hiring criteria is talent. These are simply the people with the best credentials. We would love to see more diversity work its way up the industry ladder so we can benefit from their contributions."

And really, Valve does not have a problem with diversity. Their employees represent a normal spread of American racial demographics. The lack of women is present in most tech fields and is largely due to fewer applicants. Their games feature characters of all races, genders, and creeds portrayed appropriately as human beings.

In other words, this is a politicized non-issue shoehorned into the book and OP didn't like it.

[PaRappa Da Rappa]

Originally posted by Elrond Hubbard:

Originally posted by Pyxis:

If it doesn't matter, why do you seem offended?

What Coomer said is concerning because it suggests that Valve should hire people based on arbitrary criteria like race or sex instead of competence.
.......
The lack of women is present in most tech fields and is largely due to fewer applicants. Their games feature characters of all races, genders, and creeds portrayed appropriately as human beings.

In other words, this is a politicized non-issue shoehorned into the book and OP didn't like it.

There's no way to address this as a white male without sounding entitled or against anyone, even if all intentions are pure. It's the same reason someone can not be racist, endorse BLM, yet still feel the brunt of mob justice because they seemingly 'miss the point' when trying to join the cause.

About the only way to address the 'problem' (if you can call it one) from a systematic point is to freeze hiring for a certain period of time and hope you collect enough applicants to fairly distribute and determine their skill level on an equal playing field. You've already said the applicants mostly fit that demographic of male and white, so what should a company do if only white males apply during this time?

As someone who's had to hire in the past, *trying to shoehorn demographics into a company* is a lawsuit waiting to happen. What happens if they don't work out because their skill level is clearly below the industry standard, but they're the only hired to fit diversity quotas? The minute they get fired because they are under performing now turns into a gender or race issue. You better be collecting and documenting work performance accordingly or you're going to lose any lawsuit thrown your way. Valve's lack of organizational structure pretty much means this information isn't collected at all.

This isn't something that can be fixed over night, let alone in a year or two. In fact this problem stems back 10-15 years because they only hire industry veterans, so it could likely take 10-15 years to organically diversify their employee roster without influence.

Originally posted by Elrond Hubbard:

In other words, this is a politicized non-issue shoehorned into the book and OP didn't like it.