Blizzard activey supports Woman and minorities to get into the gaming industry

[Beardless Man]

It's fine to actively find people for your job. But I feel that diversity in companies does nothing to suit anything but a quota to keep people off their backs. Gone are the days where businesses searched for people who were talented and suited for the job. Regardless of their background. We're now demanding diversity where it does nothing. It only appears we're enforcing diversity in fields which most of the applicants are white men.

You're not seeing any of this racial / gender diversity politics put anywhere for areas that lacks white men. Primarily fields like nursing, child care, childhood education. But we cannot talk about that, because that'd go against the narrative.

[Guyv3r]

I don't see how any decent person would be against this. We need equal opportunity for all. About time game devs get on board.

Ofc you don't. You never seem to get the whole picture behind the mask of "equal oppotunity".

Morhaime wrote that while the company will not set "quotas" for hiring female job candidates, Blizzard is encouraging employees to refer more qualified women to open positions, and it's looking into ways to better recruit from women's groups, conferences, and universities with an initial focus on "more women leaders and a diverse new graduate hiring class.

That's what they all say before they implement gender quotas.

The email states that Blizzard already has an LGBTQ council that offers monthly meetings and advises on Blizzard projects

As if being LGBTQ makes them better at their job. and why does it need to be a LGBTQ council? So i can ask if my project is too gay/straight?.... maybe they should create a "Bearded men" council.

The email also outlines other concrete steps that Blizzard plans to take to "enhance inclusiveness for those who identify as women,"

Just... wow...



Since when does your sexuality have anything to do with how qualified you are for the job? The world is going insane

[Antiganon]

Not really seeing the issue.

Multi-national company seeking to appeal to the widest possible base of users is actively seeking underrepresented groups for its development team, presumably to get their ideas, and by extension, better appeal to those same minority groups in the general population.

They are doing this with outreach and encouragement, rather than quotas and exclusive hiring incentives.

Why is there a reasonable person on the planet who has a problem with this.

[BuckSparkles]

So because the color of your skin or gender you should get special preferences?

Sounds kind of sexist / racist and filling a quota to me.

Also everybody knows Blizz is kind of a SJW company. See Overwatch.

[Uoyredrum]

Not really seeing the issue.

Multi-national company seeking to appeal to the widest possible base of users is actively seeking underrepresented groups for its development team, presumably to get their ideas, and by extension, better appeal to those same minority groups in the general population.

They are doing this with outreach and encouragement, rather than quotas and exclusive hiring incentives.

Why is there a reasonable person on the planet who has a problem with this.

Gender and race have nothing to do with talent and have no place in deciding who gets hired.

"Only 21 per cent of Blizzard employees are women, wrote company president Mike Morhaime in the email — which a Blizzard rep confirmed to me is real — and "they leave our organisation at a higher rate than men." These numbers, Morhaime writes, are consistent with the game industry at large, but Blizzard wants to improve on them."

That's basically saying there's no quota, but we're still going to single out minorities and women (in a positive way mind you) and hire them as a preference over other people because our CEO wants to be diverse. That's idiotic. Now, I agree with helping more women and minorities get educations in fields like computer science and whatnot. That's a good way to boost those numbers (even if I think those numbers don't really matter). At the point diversity comes anywhere near hiring, it's a recipe for disaster. Merit should be the only thing that matters when hiring people, period. If you're starting with the problem "only x% of people working here are women or minorities", you're trying to solve a problem that didn't need to be solved, and you're going to alienate people in doing so. As I said, I don't think their approach is all bad, but trying to increase that number seems like a waste of time. If you want to launch a scholarship program for women and minorities to get CS degrees, go for it. That's great. Anything beyond that is absurd.

[Deleted]

This specific job attracts more Sex A people than Sex B.
Thus more Sex A's are employed for this job, not because of their sex but because there are more of them applying to it making it statistically more likely for them to be the majority.
This ^ is not sexist.

Company X has more Sex A's for a job.
Company X decides to hire Sex B's over Sex A's because they are Sex B's.
This ^ is sexist.

[Uoyredrum]

Well, even that pretty much "goes beyond that" just by default. If you're giving them more degrees, you're ultimately getting them hired more down the road.

Not to mention that plenty of whites/men need just as much help with college funding.

That's not an issue though. If they are just as qualified and they're hired on equal terms, that's great. It's only an issue when less qualified people get jobs over more qualified people solely based on their race or gender.

And I agree plenty of others need help with college, most people do.

[ItachiZaku]

Affirmative action is a nice idea in theory, but I want to hire the best people for the job, not have to hamper myself by being force to hire shit people. Now, if you have hit your quotas and want to diversify further, good for you... but if you have 10 people rated 95+ and the next minorities rate as 82 and 78 and you hire them instead... well, you can fuck off.

[Daethz]

"Blizzard is launching a "global diversity and inclusion initiative" aimed at raising the percentage of women and underrepresented minority groups in its workforce and improving the work environment for those groups"
Blatant anti-white racist policy.
Keep it up left.
Jobs should be awarded via merit and effort, content of your character. NOT BY THE COLOR OF YOUR SKIN
MLK would be ashamed of the democrats and liberals of america.

[jibberbox85]

Good portion of Blizzards top-end employees (From the CEO, to Chris Metzen) are predominantly male. Imo, it would be generous of them to set an example by starting from the top of the company and moving from there.

[TheRainman]

You realize companies hire people who little experience but the capacity to learn

I...I'm not sure what you're trying to say. Are you saying that companies actively hire people with little experiance but who have the capacity to learn? I'm going to assume that is what you are trying to say, as the other makes no sense in the context of this back and forth.

So in response to that. Yes, there is a time and place to hire people who have some experience, but who haven't been so branded as to be completely set in their ways (see teaching an old dog new tricks). There is also a time when you want substantial work experience. That is really neither here nor there though since either operative already precludes what we were originally discussing. My point of contention was never "Do not hire people who only have some work experience" it was "Do not hire people with zero qualifications over people who have said qualifications".

[announced]

i agree hire more women, but as long as they aren't fatties or uglies.

[Zenfoldor]

How is "We're going to prioritize his hiring based on his gender?" different or any more terrible than, "We're going to prioritize her hiring based on her gender?"

You wanna equalize gender representation, start with coal mining and you'll have my respect. Starting with "Rock Star" or "Video Game Creator" is predictable.

[ItachiZaku]

You wanna equalize gender representation, start with coal mining and you'll have my respect. Starting with "Rock Star" or "Video Game Creator" is predictable.

Military. Garbage truck operator. Firefighter. Equalize within 2 years, or we'll fire all males down to the equalization number. And no more women are allowed to get pregnant or give birth until the male number equalizes as well. Go on, get started.

[Forogil]

Gender and race have nothing to do with talent and have no place in deciding who gets hired.

"Only 21 per cent of Blizzard employees are women, wrote company president Mike Morhaime in the email — which a Blizzard rep confirmed to me is real — and "they leave our organisation at a higher rate than men." These numbers, Morhaime writes, are consistent with the game industry at large, but Blizzard wants to improve on them."

That's basically saying there's no quota, but we're still going to single out minorities and women (in a positive way mind you) and hire them as a preference over other people because our CEO wants to be diverse. That's idiotic. Now, I agree with helping more women and minorities get educations in fields like computer science and whatnot. That's a good way to boost those numbers (even if I think those numbers don't really matter). At the point diversity comes anywhere near hiring, it's a recipe for disaster. Merit should be the only thing that matters when hiring people, period.

It depends on what they do.

If they just pick up women from the street to fill a quota that is really bad.
But it could be that they have a bad work environment - with too much drinking and too long hours and that some don't want to work there (I noticed the drinking part in old job ads from Blizzard); fixing that seems like a good idea - regardless of diversity.
Or it could be that they want to create more games that target women and rightly or wrongly believe that it is good with female developers/testers/... for that (they did after all buy the makers of Candy Crush that seems to target that audience).

[Uoyredrum]

It depends on what they do.

If they just pick up women from the street to fill a quota that is really bad.
But it could be that they have a bad work environment - with too much drinking and too long hours and that some don't want to work there (I noticed the drinking part in old job ads from Blizzard); fixing that seems like a good idea - regardless of diversity.
Or it could be that they want to create more games that target women and rightly or wrongly believe that it is good with female developers/testers/... for that (they did after all buy the makers of Candy Crush that seems to target that audience).

A lot of game companies have bad work environments, primarily due to underpaying people for the extreme hours they often have to work. Most big game companies are notorious for that. I have no idea about the drinking thing, but hiring women and minorities has nothing to do with that anyway.

Hiring female developers and testers to target a new audience, that makes a bit more sense, but even then there's probably more than enough already there to do that effectively. Part of game development is targeting a specific audience and understanding how to cater to them. Considering Blizzard's success I doubt if they have a problem understanding that or that they haven't done that with every game they've ever made already. Overwatch already has a ton of characters and whatnot that appeal and cater to women, for example.

Obviously no company is going to hire women off of the street, least of all Blizzard. My point is simply that when deciding who to hire, gender or race shouldn't be a factor. In terms of marketing, developing a setting, catering to an audience, there's plenty of other ways that they would go about those without hiring specific genders and races of people for development.

[Forogil]

A lot of game companies have bad work environments, primarily due to underpaying people for the extreme hours they often have to work. Most big game companies are notorious for that. I have no idea about the drinking thing, but hiring women and minorities has nothing to do with that anyway.

Not hiring in itself, but attracting and keeping women could be made more difficult by those factors. You cannot hire someone unless they apply for the position, and hiring them is useless if they quickly quit.

And as I wrote previously - as far as I recall the job ads for Blizzard used to include a social side with drinking - I don't see that now. Could be connected - or could be unrelated.

[Deleted]

So they want more women to work there, well good for them. I guess it got lonely with just guys there

[SherriMayim]

Or! Hay!

You know what you COULD do? Hire the person that can do the job best.

Or you know what we should do? Just to be fair cause. You know, Feminism. Fire all the men from Blizz, have them work in Male Professions, then have Women take over!


Because, hah, it's not like Blizz was founded by a buncha nerdy guys who were probably ridiculed for their passion.


I find Feminism's ideology so consistent sometimes. It's not about building up something, it's about forcing your way into what someone else has created.

Surely there's a strong independent woman eagerly seeking to start her own gaming company right? She's looking to put in 14 hours at coding some crappy 8bit game and spending nights at some office in a dingy location because the rent was cheap. All to make her own gaming company and not siphon off of other's hard work and claim it's for 'equality.'

Right?

...Right?

[f3llyn]

Yes, please. If the right wing bigots would leave this forum, i would make a party.

Yeah man! We demand diversity.... just not diversity of thought. If you don't agree with our ideology we have no place for you.