By Andrea Hernández.
The video game industry has problems: sexual harassment and sexual violence are constant within the world's largest game development companies. They are governed by the bro-culture ?men who overlap men?, work meetings in strip clubs and the constant fear of denouncing such acts.
In 2018, a group of former female employees of Riot Games began a lawsuit against the company in which they denounced the gender pay gap and the discrimination they suffered from having to prove that they are real gamers to get the job, doing more of their duties with the promise of a promotion that doesn't come, living with men who rate them on their physical appearance, and misogynistic jokes at their expense.
In addition, in January of this year, its CEO, Nicolo Laurent, was accused of sexual harassment towards his former assistant; about which, Riot Games stated that no evidence of what Laurent is accused of was found so no action should be taken against him.
Companies like Rockstar and Ubisoft have also been singled out for similar behavior, which seems to be a pattern of behavior that responds to the belief that the world of video games is by and for men.
Following the statements made against Ubisoft, CEO Yves Guillemot issued a video apologizing to victims of harassment and also stated that the company would focus on increasing diversity and inclusion, and announced the appointment of Anika Grant as the company's new head of human resources.
Putting a woman in an important position within the logistics of a company seems to be just the first step in the search for gender equality, and does not guarantee that the sexist environment that prevails in this industry will change, but at least it shows Ubisoft's concern to take action and transform the company, unlike other companies that only deny any accusations.
But what happens when an employee decides to confront the magnates of this industry? First of all, they are confronted with human resources processes that, far from seeking the truth, want to mitigate the scandal by pretending that it simply did not happen and that there is insufficient evidence to punish the offender.
As happened with the former Rockstar employee, Colin Bundschu, who shows that not only women face situations of vulnerability in these companies. Bundschu reported being harassed in 2014 by one of those who, at that time, was in a high position in the company and, despite, to communicate it to its human resources area, the response he got was that there was insufficient evidence, in addition to the accused denied such facts.
After his time at Rockstar, and despite the fact that working in video games was Bundschu's dream, he decided to leave the industry altogether, while his assailant continued his career, currently as vice president of Nimble Giant Entertainment.
It is common that, within this very closed industry, employees prefer to remain silent about the abuses of power to which they are subjected for fear of losing their jobs, being branded as undesirable and not being able to continue their vocation.
But losing their careers is just one of the hellish levels that whistleblowers face, as these video game titans have all the purchasing power to buy the law, so lawyers and judges can rule in their favor.
To exemplify this, let's take the collective complaint against Riot Games, which at first seemed to have a quick solution by compensating with 10 million dollars distributed to the thousand complainants, but in 2020 this figure reached 400 million dollars.
This came after the Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) intervened and also pointed out irregularities in the conduct of the plaintiffs' legal representation, Rosen Saba, which they said failed to seek fair compensation from the outset.
So, it can be understood that Riot Games always had full control over the amount of money they were willing to give in exchange for finishing this chapter.
In this regard, both Rosen Saba and Riot Games stated that there was no such plot.
All these complaints seem to go unnoticed because of the little coverage given to them, their consumer market does not seem so interested in the means used by developers as long as the final product meets their expectations.
These are just a few instances in which worker abuse has been demonstrated, but it is clear that the problem is deeply rooted in companies. Abusers believe they are immune - and in many cases are - from retaliation, backed by the power that companies give them. This creates an environment conducive to sexual harassment and abuse of workers' rights of all kinds.
It is clear that the entire industry is interested in avoiding at all costs the unionization and organization of the people who make video games happen because, if so, they would not be able to use fear to silence the voices of women and men who have been abused.
