LEVEL TOXICITY: WOMEN, VIDEO GAMES, & MISOGYNY- Thesis Process Book Fall 2021 by BeautifulB12

LEVEL LEVEL TOXICITY TOXICITY Women, Women, Video Video Games, Games, & & Misogyny Misogyny

By: Isabella Szeman

LEVEL TOXICITY: Women, Video Games, & Misogyny

TABLE TABLE OF OF CONTENTS CONTENTS Introduction

Level 1: Background

• Mindmap

• Questions

Level 2: Research

TOXIC SCANDALS + CONTROVERSIES • #1reasonswhy

• #gamergate

• Riot Games Sexism Lawsuit

• Blizzard/Entertainment Vs The State of California

OTHER ISSUES IN THE VIDEO GAME INDUSTRY • “Crunch”

• Lack of Diversity

• Lack of Mainstream Media Awareness

Level 3: Project Developement

• ideas

• sketches

• digital process

Level 4: Final

References

INTRODUCTION 8

Hello Reader, are you ready to learn about how the culture of the video game industry is toxic, and misgyonstic towards females?

If you are then, I should inform you that there will be a variety of sensitive topics mentioned

throughout this book including

sexual assault, r**e, suicide, and much more. So if you don’t think that you can handle it or at any point you feel uncomfortable you are obligated to

look away and stop reading. Otherwise,

Read at your own risk.

START

LEVEL 1:

BACKGROUND 12

This summer, I stumbled across news/videos on social media along with mainstream media news reports from CBS2 News (New Jersey/New York Area), and The New York Times all reporting about how a video game company named Activision/Blizzard Entertainment was being sued by The State of California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing claiming that the company fostered a “frat boy’ workplace culture.” where it alleges that a variety of issues including female employees being “subjected to constant sexual harassment” were all part of a two-year long investigation into the company.

That lawsuit became the inspiration for this thesis project.

That lawsuit is just one of many lawsuits over the years that has reflected on how the video game industry as a whole is reckoning with a HUGE problem that involves women in all corners, from gamers to game developers. This male-dominanted “bro-culture” has stigmatized the industry as being a “breeding ground” for toxic, and misogynistic behavior that has been swept under the mainstream media’s eyes. But this issue steams deeper than just lawsuits detailing sexual harassment and misogyny, It’s filled with all sorts of issues ranging from r**e, to federal laws that make video game companies get away with crimes.

to be clear,

I AM IN NO WAY TRYING TO SAY you should stop playing video games whatsoever because of these reasons. What I am trying to get across in this thesis is “It would be great if gamers and people in general are educated about how the video games we play to relax is built on a misogynistic environment where “bro-culture” negatively affects females physically, emotionally, and mentally.

GENDER DISCRIMATION

Mindmap

DOXING

FEMALE GAME DEVELOPERS

TOXIC VIDEO GAME INDUSTRY

RAPE

FEMALE EMPLOYEES THAT WORK AT VIDEO GAME COMPANIES

PROBLEMS FEMALES EXPERIENCE

SUCIDE MISGYONY

LAWSUITS + CONTROVERSIES

SEXUAL

FEMALE GAMERS

HARRASMENT/ ASSAULT THREATS OF VIOLENCE

#1REASONWHY

LAWSUITS + CONTROVERSIES

GAMERGATE

BRIANNA WU RIOT GAMES SEXISM LAWSUIT (2018)

ZOE QUINN

THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA’S DEPARTMENT OF FAIR HOUSING AND EMPLOYMENT VS ACTIVISION/BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT (2021)

SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS (I.E: TWITTER, & YOUTUBE) REPORT ON THESE CONTROVERSIES BUT THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA LACKS IN COVERING THESE NEWS. WHY?

This is the lawsuit that the mainstream media started bringing attention to the dark side of the video game industry

There’s something called “forced arbitration”. They’re defined as mandatory agreements that require employees to go through a form of private dispute resolution outside the court system.

SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS (I.E: TWITTER, & YOUTUBE) REPORT ON THESE CONTROVERSIES BUT THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA LACKS IN COVERING THESE NEWS. WHY?

Video game companies have their employees sign NDA’S that prevent them from speaking out

simply, it’s not a big story to be reporting on

Enacted Stereotypes Lack of Diversity

OTHER ISSUES IN THE VIDEO GAME INDUSTRY

“Crunch”- a term used in the video game industry to describe employees working at video game companies overtime and not usally getting paided.

Find Evidence Through Statistics

As I work on this thesis project here are some questions that I have thought of that’ll help guide me....

Questions

1) Why Is The Industry So Harsh On Females? - Towards Females That Work At Video Game Companies, Gamers on Streaming Sites (i.e: Twitch Discord, etc), & Female Game Developers? - Why are they subjected to this sexism, verbal & physical abuse, sexual assault, stalking, etc?

2) What Kind Of Gender Stereotypes Do Video Games Perpetuate- if any?

3) How Far Back Has This Problem Existed For?

4) What Are Other Issues Prevalent Happening In The Video Game Industry?

5) How Can This Topic Be Communicated Through Design?

6) Why Hasn’t The Mainstream Media Covered This Topic- Until Now?

LEVEL 2:

RESEARCH 20

throughout my research, I’ve come to learn that there are a variety of factors, as well as events that have occured have made the video game industry transform into a misogynstic, toxic environment towards females. But for me to truly understand, I decided that the best way to start is by answering the question,

How Far Back Has This Problem Existed For? And what I’ve uncovered, let me know, that these issues stretches back to the 2010s. (Even though video games have been around since the 1970’s and have evolved since) The early 2010s is when social media started to slowly bring attention to this problem.

I’ll start of by mentioning few events that I managed to dig up that have stirred controversies and/or scandals within the video game industry. Later on, I’ll mentioned other factors that I also researched about that’ll follow up to another question that I thought of

What Are Other Issues Prevalent Happening In The Video Game Industry?

2012: 2012: 24

#1reasonwhy #1reasonwhy 25

#1reasonwhy was a twitter thread that exposed

#1reasonwhy didn’t recieve as much mainstream

sexism, and misgyony that female game developers, and

media attention but it did unveil a conversation that

employees who have worked in the video game industry

had been quietly kept under the shadows of the

experienced. It all began on Nov 26th, 2012 when Luke

video game industry. The twitter thread had been

Crane, a Kickstarter employee who specializes in role-

shared with numerous gaming blogs, and websites,

playing games, tweet out a simple question asking,

etc who all broked down the events that occured on

“Why are there so few lady game creators?”

the social media platform, Twitter.

Soon after, women started sharing stories ranging from game developers female characters being criticized for not having a “male-oriented” design, to male employees being prejudiced towards woman. Others shared more distrubing short stories, such as being groped, some shared they were too afarid to speak out otherwise they would be fired, etc.

2014-2015: 2014-2015: 28

#gamergate #gamergate 29

#gamergate was a year-long online campaign centering around sexism and antiprogressivism that sparked a culture war over the ethics of video game journalism and gamer identity. It was fueled by the hatred of male gamers- who felt “threatened” by the increasing rise of feminism influence in the video game industry, which exploded into a firestorm that led to a degrading, and downright sexist smear campaign (that took place on anonymous messaging forums like 4chan, 8chan, Reddit, etc) against females in the video game industry. Even though there was no official leader from this sexist campaign, it did have a social, cultural, and political impact from the events that occurred.

These events began on August 27th, 2014 when Zoë Quinn- an american game developer, programmer, and writer, became the subject of intense harassment, after her ex-boyfriend, Eron Gjoni posted a lengthy blog called The Zoe Post, where he details the relationship he had with Zoë Quinn backing it up with screenshots of images, personal chat logs, and text messages between the two. Amongst other allegations, Gjoni in the blog also accused Quinn of having a sexual relationship with a Kotaku News Reporter, by the name of Nathan Grayson in exchanged for positive reviews on her 2013 independent game, Depression Quest. Trolls used Gjoni’s blog as a weapon to personally attack Zoë Quinn. Exchanging threats towards Quinn, including doxing her personal information, wishing death upon her, and sending r**e threats! All while accusing Quinn of exchanging sex for professional gain. Zoë Quinn from that point on became the face of #gamergate by being the number one enemy male gamers hated. But it was only just the beginning.

Including American game developers, Zoë Quinn, & Brianna Wu, along with Canadian-American Feminist Media Critic, Anita Sarkessian who all became the faces all gamergate.

After publishing an episode of one of her commentary series, Tropes vs Women In Video Games on the website Feminist Frequency, Anita Sarkessian recieved such disturbing tweets that it led to her being “forced out of her house because of specfic, detailed, threats against her and her family.” (Paul, 72)

In October of 2014, Sarkessian was scheduled to appear at Utah State University for a lecture, but ultimately was canceled due to threats aimed towards her including an email that was recieved by several peopleincluding Utah State University’s Center for Women and Gender Director, promising a mass shooting to occur, and bring death to anyone who attended, as well as Sarkessian’s safety being at risk because guns would be permitted at the lecture if it wasn’t canceled. (sidenote: the guns being allowed at the lecture is due to Utah’s relaxed open gun carrying laws that “prohibits Utah’s universities from enacting policy that “in any way inhibits or restricts the possession or use of firearms.” (Alberty). The email was later confirmed to be affiliated with #gamergate.

^ provided by The Standard ExaminerUtah State University’s own newspaper

2018: 2018: 34

RIOT GAMES GAMES RIOT SEXISM SEXISM LAWSUIT LAWSUIT 35

On Nov 5th, 2018, two woman filed a class action lawsuit against the video game company, Riot Games (based in West Los Angeles, California) for gender discrimination, violation of the California Equal Pay Act, and fostering a misogynistic “bro-culture” towards women at Riot. The two women that filed were former and current employees* for Riot Games. *I don’t know if that current employee still works at Riot Games or not, but at the time of the lawsuit she was

This lawsuit became sort of a follow-up for what started as an expose on “Inside The Culture Of Sexism At Riot Games” by Senior Kotaku News Reporter, Cecilia D’Anatasio- who spoke with 28 former and current employees at Riot Games that allege a variety of issues was occurring at the company including but not limited to, women not getting promotions, the hiring practices questioning women’s capabilities, to even really weird shit like

“a list getting passed around by senior leaders detailing who they’d sleep with” along with “male and female sources seeing unsolicited and unwelcome pictures of male genitalia from bosses or colleagues.” (D’Anatasio)

According to the lawsuit, Jessica Negron (who is one of the plantiffs) alleges that 6 months after she started working at Riot Games in April of 2015, she didn't get a salary raise within her new position, for when she filled in for her manager who left the company. And it continued to go that way. A year later, she still hadn't gotten a salary raise and when asked about it, the plantiff alleges that her supervisor, Geoff Chandler, "had no intention of actually promoting Ms. Negron. Instead, Ms. Negron was never even interviewed for the position, while three men were hired at various intervals for the position." (p.10, McCracken & Negron v. Riot Games.) Plus she was told by upper management that, "she didn't do enough to 'take' the role and they wanted to give the men who eventually took in an opportunity to take on more responsibility." (p.10, McCracken & Negron v. Riot Games). Jessica realizing that Riot Games was never going to promote her or even pay her the same "salary for the work she was performing", she resigned around April 7th, 2017. Melanie McCracken, another plantiff, witness and endured discrimination based on her gender on two separate occasions. The first happened approximately from early 2014 to March 2015 under her supervisor, Jin Oh. The second occasion Melanie McCracken endured gender discrimination occurred in June of 2018. the case was settled in 2019, after pressure came from walkouts employees staged and dozen of other women filing lawusits against Riot Games. Riot Games agreed to pay $10 million in total, but specfically they paided both Jessica Negron, and Jessica McCracken around $10,000-$20,000.

2021: 2021 38

Activision/ Activision/ Bizzard Bizzard Entertainment Entertainment Vs The The State State Vs Of California California Of 39

“women are subjected to “cube crawls” in which male employees drink copious amounts of alcohol as they “crawl” their way through various cubicles in the office and often engage inappropriate behavior towards female employees.”

Graphic: Elena Scotti

On July 20th, 2021, the video game company, Activision/Blizzard Entertainment was slammed with a lawsuit by the State of California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing claiming that the company fostered a “frat boy’ workplace culture.” Like the Riot Games lawsuit, this lawsuit also alleges that a variety of issues were happening at their company, including female employees being “subjected to constant sexual harassment”, Higher-ups and executives allowed and often times “encouraged” sexual misconduct to takeplace, and gender discrimination within the hiring and employment practices. This was all part of a two-year-long investigation into the company, However, unlike the Riot Games lawsuit, what is alleged is more horrifying then anyone could think including...

and in a tragic example,

The aftermath of this lawsuit has shook

“a female employee committed suicide while on a company trip due to a sexual relationship that she was having with her male supervisor.”

the video game community with more

“Another employee confirmed that the deceased female employee may have been suffering from other sexual harassment at work prior to her death. Specifically at a holiday party before her death, male co-workers were alleged to be passing around a picture of the deceased’s vagina.”

distrubing news coming to light, and the lack of action that Activision/Blizzard Entertainment has taken along with continually denying all allegations from the lawsuit has only fueled more anger and frustration.

Because this lawsuit is still on-going as we speak, I’ll briefly summarize in a timeline on the next few pages, of all the main events that have happened at Activision/Blizzard Entertainment after the lawsuit was filed.

Timeline of Main Events After The Activision/Blizzard Lawsuit Was Filed

July 23rd, 2021- A video clip From BlizzCon* 2010 surfaced on Twitter, that was posted by the username, @chrisbratt where it shows a woman asking an all-male panel if they could stop sexualizing their female World of Warcraft Characters. Only for the male panel to mock and sarcastically shrug off that question in response.

July 21st, 2021- Activision/Blizzard Entertainment puts out a statement in response to the lawsuit.

Emails from both the President of Blizzard Entertainment, J. Allen Brack, and the Activision/ Blizzard Entertainment Executive, Fran Townsend were leaked on Twitter by Jason Schreier- A

Reporter For Bloomberg News.

July 26th, 2021- more than 2,000 Activision/ Blizzard Entertainment employees sign a letter condemning the allegations of the lawsuit, and calling for Activision/Blizzard Entertainment

July 27th, 2021- CEO of Activision Bobby Kotick

Executive, Fran Townsend to step down within her

broke his silence by putting out a statement on the

position (following the email that was leaked).

official Activision/Blizzard Entertainment Website.

July 28th, 2021- Reputable Video Game News Website, Kotaku exposes the details on the disturbing inside scoop of “The Cosby Suite” that was mentioned in the lawsuit. In It, it’s is described as the “booze-filled meeting place” (Gach) were many male game developers, including Alex Afrasiabi, would sexually harass females. Kotaku also manage to dig up old images and a group chat conversation between various game developers on Alex Afrasiabi’s Facebook account before he deleted

L-R: Greg Street (Blue Shirt), Cory Stockton, Alex Afrasiabi (Black T-Shirt In The

Front), Paul Cazarez (Blue Plaid Shirt), David Kosak- (Black Shirt In The Back),

them.

Jonathan LeCraft (Green Plaid Shirt), Jesse McCree (Red Plaid Shirt) and Josh

Mosqueira.

That same day Activision/Blizzard Entertainment employees staged a walkout (both in-person and virtual) as they protest and demand change in improving working conditions for women and other

marginalized groups including people of color and LGBTQ+ people.

August 11th, 2021- Jesse McCree- Diablo 4* Lead August 3rd, 2021- Blizzard Entertainment President

Designer, Jonathan LeCraft- World of Warcraft

J. Allen Brack announced he’ll be stepping down

Senior Game Designer, and one other game

from his position following the allegations in

director for Diablo 4 were all let go by Blizzard

the lawsuit.

Entertainment.

Jonathan LeCraft

September 20th, 2021- The U.S Government (Specifically, The U.S Securities and Exchange Commission) is now getting involved! Launching an investigation into how Activision/Blizzard Entertainment handled sexual harassment and abuse lawsuit allegations. The government also issued a subpoena to CEO Bobby Kotick.

November 16th, 2021- A bombshell report from The Wall Street Journal exposes Activision CEO Bobby Kotick for filth. Not only revealing that Kotick knew for YEARS about sexual misconduct allegations (and downplayed them) but also he failed to “inform the board of some reports, including alleged rapes”. (Grind, Fritz and, Needleman).

“Crunch” For all those non-gamers out there, “Crunch” is a term used in video game companies where game developers work overtime usually unpaid. This practice takes place during the final stages of creating a game (It’s to make sure that the game runs smoothly before they launch to the public). Major video-game companies including Epic Games, Riot Games, Rockstar, EA, Telltale, Activision/Blizzard Entertainment, etc often have their employees “crunch”. However, “crunch” is one of the biggest other issues within the industry, that doesn’t seem to go away, it’s not just because of the extensive amount of hours developers put in and not getting paid for it,

“During crunch or periods of long hours, 26% of respondents worked more than 60 hours per week, 29% worked 50-59 hours and 20% worked 4549 hours.” (Coppins, Inceefe, Kumar, Kwan, Weststar)

but it wrecks people, physically and mentally. In an article from the Washington Post, Michael Thomsen, the author, explains that the reason, “Crunch has endured for so long in the games industry simply because it’s legal. At both the federal and state level, computer professionals who earn above a set annual salary - are considered exempt from overtime laws that would otherwise require studios to pay them extra for extra hours in the office.”

In the state of California, under California Labor Code Section 515.5- certain computer software employees shall be exempt from the requirement that an overtime rate of compensation be paid under Labor Code Section 510 if certain criteria are met. -One of them being (4) The employee’s hourly rate of pay is not less than thirty-six dollars ($36.00) or, if the employee is paid on a salaried basis, the employee earns an annual salary of not less than seventy-five thousand dollars ($75,000) for full-time employment. ^ now you might be wondering, why I am using a law in the state of california to describe an video game industry issue? Well that’s because many video game companies’ headquarters are in California. “For most game studios and publishers, the changes to California labor laws made it easy to keep crunching as usual, and many developers have found it easier to accept the abuses in exchange for salaries that are often higher than the median U.S. salary.” (Thomsen)

Lack of Diversity It’s no surprise that the video game industry has always been male-dominated. Even though women are almost making up half of all gamers within recent years,

“Statistics show from a survey of game developers based on gender from 2014 to 2019 show more than 70% of males made up the majority of game developers, while women made up less than 30%.” In terms of diversity, however, the video game industry is far from achieving any progress.

An April 2021 survey based on ethnicity, White people overwhelmingly made up 75% of game developers, while the 25% rest of other game developers were broken down as follows- 9% Hispanics/Latino’s, 7% Asians, and only 4% of African-Americans & Indigenous people.

Lack of Mainstream Media Coverage Social platforms such as Twitter, Youtube, and TikTok cover stories of the scandals, controversies, sexual assaults, and other news that take place in the video game industry but why does the mainstream media lack in reporting this news? Well, there are a variety of reasons. One can simply say that these issues aren’t newsworthy enough to report on, and while that could be true, I believe there’s a deeper reason why the mainstream media doesn’t report often on the toxicity of the video game industry.

Normally, most employers (in ordinary jobs) would often have their employees sign NDA’s agreeing to the terms of not sharing any personal information. But in video game company situations, particularly in the state of California, there’s something that I want to bring up that’s called “forced abbreviation”- there defined as mandatory agreements that require employees to go through a form of private dispute resolution outside the court system. Employers in the state of California will often force employees to enter into abbreviation agreements as a condition of employment. Both The Riot Games and Activision/Blizzard Lawsuit mentioned that they were some employees who went through forced abbreviation out either out of fear of being fired or they were pressured to go into abbreviation.

Quite honestly, it wasn’t until the Activision/Blizzard Entertainment lawsuit that really brought attention to the dark side of the video game industry and it needs a MAJOR wake-up call!

LEVEL 3:

PROJECT DEVLOPMENT 52

So for my thesis project, I want to create something that’ll tie in with my thesis proposal, At first I did struggle because I had the thought of “how do I contribute as a designer” keep coming back. But eventually I laided out my thoughts and here is what I thought of.

• A UI/Code Based Game For People To Play

• Create A Video Sequence In The Format Of A Game In The Video Have Female Protagonist Fight Off The Toxic Male Employees- Villains that symbolizes some of the problems in the video game industry

• Maybe Create HR Training Simulation

• Create A “Game” Cover With The Artwork Symbolizing The Problems In The Video Game Industry ^ the one highlighted in pink is what I went with.

After deciding, my first immediate thought went looking at my Nintendo Switch that I recently just got from my younger cousin. I thought how cool would it look, if it was on the switch? Then the scenario of what if it was an actual “game”? came to light. (note: i’m using “game” in quotation marks because I’m not creating an actual game. I would need WAY MORE TIME TO DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT. It’s more so, creating a game cover and pretending like it was on the Nintendo Switch.

First Sketch

Digital Rendering of The Sketch Without Color (Done on Adobe Illustrator)

Digital Rendering of the Sketch With Color (Done on Adobe Photoshop)

Without the drawings completed, I researched templates of the Nintendo Switch- a gaming console created by Nintendo in 2017, and is one of the most popular gaming consoles to exist currently, along with taking the cover of my process book (getting rid of the text) and use it to create the final layout of my project!

LEVEL 4:

FINAL 60

Nintendo Switch Game Case

Nintendo Switch Homescreen With “Game Inserted”

REFERENCES 64

ARTICLES + BLOGS •

Alberty, Erin. “Anita Sarkeesian Explains Why She Canceled USU Lecture.” The Salt Lake Tribune, 16 Oct. 2014, https://archive.sltrib.com/articlephp?id=58528113&amp;itype=CMSID. Accessed 14 Oct. 2021

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Browning, Kellen. “Activision Blizzard Is Sued By California Over Workplace Culture.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 22 July 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/21/business/activision-blizzard-california-lawsuit.html.

•

D’Anastasio, Cecilia. “Inside The Culture of Sexism At Riot Games.” Kotaku, 7 Aug. 2018, https://kotaku.com/ inside-the-culture-of-sexism-at-riot-games-1828165483. Accessed 14 Oct. 2021

•

Gach, Ethan. “Report: Activision’s Bobby Kotick Didn’t Just Know, He Also Was Shitty To Women [Update]” Kotaku, 16 November 2021, https://kotaku.com/report-activisions-bobby-kotick-didnt-just-know-he-al-1848066600. Accessed 5 Dec. 2021

•

Gach, Ethan. “Inside Blizzard Developers’ Infamous Bill ‘Cosby Suite’.” Kotaku, 28 July 2021, https://kotaku.com/inside-blizzard-developers-infamous-bill-cosby-suite-1847378762.

•

Gjoni, Eron. The Zoe Post, 16 Aug. 2014, https://thezoepost.wordpress.com/. Accessed 20 Oct. 2021.

•

Grind, Kirsten, Fritz, Ben, & Needleman E. Sarah “Activision CEO Bobby Kotick Knew for Years about Sexual-Misconduct Allegations at Videogame Giant.” The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones & Company, 16 Nov. 2021, www.wsj.com/articles/ activision-videogames-bobby-kotick-sexual-misconduct-allegations-11637075680. Accessed 5 Dec. 2021

•

Raja, Tasneem. “Why It Sucks to Be a Woman in the Video Game Industry.” Mother Jones, 28 Nov. 2012, https://www. motherjones.com/politics/2012/11/women-video-game-industry-twitter-1reasonwhy/. Accessed 14 Oct. 2021

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Thomsen, Michael. “Why Is the Games Industry so Burdened with Crunch? It Starts with Labor Laws.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 24 Mar. 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2021/03/24/crunch-laws. Accessed 13 Nov. 2021

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Zwiezen, Zach. “Everything That Has Happened since the Activision Blizzard Lawsuit Was Filed.” Kotaku, 18 Nov. 2021, kotaku.com/everything-that-has-happened-since-the-activision-blizz-1847401161. Accessed 13 Oct. 2021* ^ this is a timeline summary of the events that have occured since the lawsuit was filed against Activision/Blizzard Entertainment on July 20th, 2021. The author did not write all the other articles that are associated with this source.

•

Zwiezen, Zach. “U.S Government Now Investigating Activision Blizzard, Bobby Kotick Subpoenaed.” Kotaku, 20 Sept. 2021, https://kotaku.com/u-s-government-now-investigating-activision-blizzard-1847710889. Accessed 5 Dec. 2021

BOOKS •

Paul, Christopher A. The Toxic Meritocracy of Video Games: Why Gaming Culture Is the Worst. University of Minnesota Press, 2018.

COURT + LAW DOCUMENTS •

California Superior Court, Los Angeles County. Department of Fair Employment and Housing v. Activision Blizzard. California Superior Court, Los Angeles County Court Records, 2021, pp. 1-29. https://aboutblaw.com/YJw. Accessed 14 Oct. 2021

•

California Superior Court, Los Angeles County. Rosen Saba. LLP. McCracken & Negron v. Riot Games. California Superior Court, Los Angeles County Court Records, 2018, pp. 1-37. https://www.scribd.com/document/392530487/Complaint. Accessed 14 Oct. 2021

•

Overtime Exemption for Computer Software Employees, Cal. Labor Code § Section 515.5, 2012. https://leginfo. legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=LAB&sectionNum=515.5.

•

Overtime Exemption for Computer Software Employees, Cal. Labor Code § Section 510, 1999. (Modified 1 Jan 2000). https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection. xhtml?lawCode=LAB&sectionNum=510.#:~:text=1999%2C%20Ch.,Effective%20January%201%2C%202000.)

SOCIAL MEDIA •

Chris Bratt. “Oh god, I’d not seen this before. It’s heartbreaking. Here’s a 2010 Blizzcon panel in which a fan was brave enough to ask a panel full of men, including J. Allen Brack (left) & Alex Afrasiabi (right) whether there’s scope for some of WoW’s female characters to be less sexualized” Twitter, 23 July 2021, 1:48 pm, https://twitter.com/chrisbratt/status/1418629194683125761?ref_ src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1418629194683125761%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_ url=https%3A%2F%2Fkotaku.com%2Fembed%2Finset%2Fiframe%3Fid%3Dtwitter-1418629194683125761autosize%3D1* ^ this is a short videoclip from 2010 at BlizzCon (Blizzard Entertainment’s annual convention that takes place in Anaheim, California).

•

Jason Schreier. “Blizzard president J. Allen Brack sent out an email to staff last night addressing the allegations from this week’s explosive lawsuit, calling them “extremely troubling” and saying that he’d be “meeting with many of you to answer questions and discuss how we can move forward.” Twitter, 23 July 2021, 6:04 am, https://twitter.com/ jasonschreier/status/1418512291218264065 ^ this is one of two emails in respond to the allegations from the Activision/Blizzard Entertainment lawsuit (this one is sent by former Blizzard President, J. Allen Brack) that the twitter user, Jason Schreier- an reporter for Bloomberg News tweeted out.

•

Jason Schreier. “Blizzard president J. Allen Brack sent out an email to staff last night addressing the allegations from this week’s explosive lawsuit, calling them “extremely troubling” and saying that he’d be “meeting with many of you to answer questions and discuss how we can move forward.” Twitter, 23 July 2021, 6:04 am, https://twitter.com/ jasonschreier/status/1418512291218264065 ^ this is the other email following the first email mentioned that’s also in respond to the allegations from the Activision/Blizzard Entertainment lawsuit (this one is sent by Activision/Blizzard Entertainment Executive, Fran Townsend) that the twitter user, Jason Schreier- an reporter for Bloomberg News tweeted out.

STATISTICS •

Coppins, Inceefe, Kumar, Kwan, Weststar. “Developer Satisfaction Survey 2021 Summary Report.” International Game Developers Association. 13 Sept. 2021. https://igda-website.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/ uploads/2021/10/18113901/IGDA-DSS-2021_SummaryReport_2021.pdf. Accessed 13 Nov. 2021

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Kumar, Kwan, Weststar. “Developer Satisfaction Survey 2021 Summary Report.” International Game Developers Association. 20 Nov. 2019. https://igda-website.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/ uploads/2020/01/29093706/IGDA-DSS-2019_Summary-Report_Nov-20-2019.pdf Accessed 13 Nov. 2021

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IGDA. “Distribution of Game Developers Worldwide from 2014 to 2021, by Gender.” Statista, Statista Inc., 21 Jul 2021, https://www.statista.com/statistics/453634/game-developer-gender-distribution-worldwide/ ^ This data shows from 2014 to 2021 the statistics of game developers are based on gender. As you can see from 2014 to 2019 more than 70% of males overwhelmingly were the majority of game developers, and less than 30% of females were game developers. But this year in 2021 the number of male game developers shrunk by 10%. That’s a stark contrast to 2019 numbers.

•

IGDA. “Distribution of Game Developers Worldwide from 2014 to 2021, by Gender.” Statista, Statista Inc., 21 Jul 2021, https://www.statista.com/statistics/453634/game-developer-gender-distribution-worldwide/. Accessed ^ This survey conducted in April of 2021 shows types of game developers based on ethnicity. 75% of game developers are white. This clearly shows a disproportionate amount of how the video game industry as a whole lacks diversity.