Question about "Team" page

reedoo

So... this might sound a bit odd. And this is not an attack - but where are your female developers on the Team/Contact/About Us page of your website?

I'm sure you have women on your team - I remember seeing at least one in the Kickstarter campaign videos. I'd just like to know you've got some representin' going on at Nerd Kingdom. I'd be pretty shocked if the answer was "they were all let go in the recent down size".

So...?

Pamcakes

Yeah. They were. Hopefully they can be hired back when the team expands again, if they don't already have other jobs. I'm glad someone else had this concern though, other than me. :D

reedoo

Uh... OK. I am massively shocked by that then. Seems a ... little ... one sided?

Zake

I can't claim to know what's going on behind the scenes, or even who had what position on the team. But I'm sure the fact that all the women had to leave is coincidence; surely they just had the bad luck to be in the positions that were unnecessary for the team's survival.

Again, I can't claim to know, but I'm betting we're seeing an unfortunate coincidence instead of malicious intent.

reedoo

Zake wrote:

But I'm sure the fact that all the women had to leave is coincidence; surely they just had the bad luck to be in the positions that were unnecessary for the team's survival.

Again, I can't claim to know, but I'm betting we're seeing an unfortunate coincidence instead of malicious intent.

Had to leave? They were fired/let go. That's what a down-size is. Dunno how NK run or if people opted to leave - but most down-sizes occur in a top-down fashion. As well as 'cutting the fat' quite often.

It's not a coincidence. Choosing who you let go is an active choice - just as is who you hire. You, this community and the Devs can invent and spin a thousand reasons why it was justified - but it was still a choice to make the Nerd Kingdom team basically a sausage party.

The IT industry and games industry doesn't have a lot of female representation - sure this makes it hard. But I'm just always more and more shocked at how little 'front' time they get when they are there. Even in Indie Game: The Movie - not one female indie developer was highlighted or show-cased. In fact I spotted one female developer - at the Tigjam event, and she was always in the far background, usually in the peripheral. Sure she may not have wanted to really be a part of the documentary - but who knows who made the choice to relegate her to this spot on the footage.

But rather than invent reasons as to why it must have been the "damnedest luck" - I'd prefer to hear a Dev reply to this. I definitely want to see more women in IT/VGs/Indie Dev - but if they are constantly given "unnecessary positions" which provide poor recognition, poor job stability (I'm sure Indie Devs are a poor stability industry in general) and let go. Well that's not exactly going to help anything.

I'm not going to get into the social and political nightmare that currently is happening on the Internet and VG scene for women in general. But I know two of my friends who do Indie Dev games are considering quitting the industry entirely over it. So there is a bit shit-fest happening.

Side note: One of my mates is a noise musician - and there are very few women in that genre making music, however one event runner has made it their mission to have 50/50 male/female representation at gigs. So far most of his gig's have had about a 40/60 and some have had 20/80 , but the fact he gets at least one female performer in every gig is an achievement in itself.

I am genuinely interested in a Dev response. BTW - I'm not 'raging' I just would like to know what went down, and if NK recognise the poor female representation in the industry - and if they care about this, and want (and will) to do anything about it within their team. NK's response could be "who cares, who cares, no, no and no" and I would simply be disappointed.

Pamcakes

Actually it was. Non of them were programmers or artists (a few were, like LO, and Jessica did the sparkly effects like what you see from mushrooms, ect), and the programmers are the only ones they have left, aside from one artist I believe. So it's not because they were women, it's just because they didn't have the skill required to keep them on the team for this time.

Zake

It makes sense that they'd keep their programmers; that's the core of what they need to accomplish right now. The game would survive even if the art was terrible.

I hope everyone that was let go (men and women alike) can rejoin the team after things pick up again.

Pamcakes

Oh I believe they have all the art assets needed at this time, and they are going to try to get the rest of the team back when they are able to expand again. If they aren't already working elsewhere.

ino

It is true that the tree women we had on our team, over time, have been let go. But assuredly, and you can confirm with them, directly, it was nothing more to do with anything aside from roles that we had to be keep to accomplish goals critical to development and what was expected of the community and our team.

Its unfortunate that this is even a topic of issue, I would have liked to have thought that we have always been a very open, forthcoming and transparent (progressive?) group that does not take into consideration any notable difference of who the member is. The dynamics of how many women we have on the team, is about the amount of women (or talent in general) that are available for us to work with. We have only ever interviewed 4 women, of them, the one that was NOT hired, was because she was leaving the country in 3-6 months to live with her husband in another state and we needed someone in house.

Lo was a concept artist, sadly we just did not have the luxury of keeping her on going forward, as she did not work on direct game art or texturing in any form outside of concepts. Meryl worked on narrative and helped with videos and was a bit of my own counterbalance (kept me really questioning and challenging myself). And Jessica was a particle/effects artist. Those roles were not "critical" (i use that word loosely) for the things we had to focus on getting things done. But all of them have found other work, as they are VERY talented and we had and still have nothing but amazing things to say about them.

Also, on the state of the industry and women's representation: We are aware of it, its a bummer, and its not an easy solve. For us, we just do not have resources to do anything but build cool stuff, and we bring on the team anyone who has the talent and capability to help us reach our goals. But you better believe, that when we can, you will see us make those efforts where we can... you would be amazed the mass of BRILLIANT female social scientists out there who have NO idea how powerful they are are potential game designers, that we will be dragging into this industry. I need this to be an industry that looks at everyone the same, because I want my daughter to fall in love with this industry when she is old enough to make games, not be saddened by it.

reedoo

Thanks so much for the response Ino. I suppose the question comes from the current social-political climate that the industry is currently experiencing and the broader limelight that these issues have come into that make me take a moment to re-think a little more than I used to about the ability for womwn to enter these amazing spaces they should feel free and welcome to enter; and also the poor representation of them in so many fields.

I'm an apprentice electrician; and in the last two years I've seen a positively enjoyable small spike of women hit into the construction industry; companies being more open to hiring them; as well as pro-female endorsement and spokesperson groups and incentive/awareness programs.

I love that there is encouragement; it is the only way to start tipping the scales and see more women contribite to industries they have mostly been locked out of or discouraged from being a part of.

Thanks again.