{"id":19809,"date":"2017-05-02T18:05:08","date_gmt":"2017-05-03T01:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taterboy.com\/blog\/2017\/05\/how-the-game-industry-tackles-diversity-and-personal-failure\/"},"modified":"2017-05-02T18:05:08","modified_gmt":"2017-05-03T01:05:08","slug":"how-the-game-industry-tackles-diversity-and-personal-failure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taterboy.com\/blog\/2017\/05\/how-the-game-industry-tackles-diversity-and-personal-failure\/","title":{"rendered":"How the game industry tackles diversity and personal failure"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A\u00a0diverse workforce is meaningless if you don\u2019t use their perspectives to shape and enhance your\u00a0games.<\/p>\n

This is one of the biggest takeaways from a presentation about diversity and leadership at the GamesBeat Summit in Berkeley, California (watch it here<\/a>). Moderator Guy Bendov, the chief executive of Side-Kick Games, said the panel was partly a reaction to world events, especially in the aftermath of a fraught U.S. presidential election and the controversial travel ban proposals from the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

At one point, Bendov asked the panelists what they learned from moments of failure. Rami Ismail, the cofounder of the two-person independent studio Vlambeer and frequent speaker at game conferences around the world, had a cautionary tale. In 2011, he traveled to South Africa to speak at a local game development school for kids.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end there was a Q&A for the students. One of the students, being somewhat cheeky, asked me whether they should drop out of school, which is a question I get a lot,\u201d said Ismail. \u201cI\u2019ve learned to answer that question in a very safe way: \u2018That\u2019s a personal decision. You\u2019re the only one who knows the circumstances of your life. But if you have to ask me, I\u2019d generally recommend not to do it. This has to be your own choice. Some people learn better outside of school.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI told the kid that and the teacher \u2026 afterward grabbed me and said, \u2018If you ever do that again, you\u2019re never coming back to the school.\u2019 And I was shocked because I\u2019ve always seen that as the safe <\/p>\n

Please view this post in your web browser to complete the quiz.<\/i><\/div>\n

. It turns out that, if a student drops out of Johannesburg, South Africa, the consequences are very different from the consequences you would have in the Netherlands [where Ismail is from<\/em>].\u201d<\/p>\n

Disney executive producer Asra Rasheed had to overcome the traditional values of her culture as she rose through the corporate world.\u00a0As a South Asian woman (her father immigrated from India to Oklahoma), she grew up with the idea that women are supposed to \u201crespect their elders, speak softly, and don\u2019t cause too much of a scene.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Above: Asra Rasheed (far left) at the diversity panel.<\/p>\n

Image Credit: Michael O’Donnell\/GamesBeat<\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Her struggle with this came up in an anecdote about her time as CEO of educational company\u00a0Reading Rainbow, where she was also\u00a0the business partner of TV host LeVar Burton. One year, she and Burton were walking around at the Electronic Entertainment Expo trade show.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomebody came up to him, looked at me, then looked at LeVar and said, \u2018Can I schedule an appointment with your admin here?\u2019 And he pointed to me,\u201d Rasheed told the audience. \u201cLeVar looked at me, and I kept quiet. That was a mistake. I should\u2019ve said something. I didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cLeVar looked at me and looked at him and said, \u2018She\u2019s my fucking CEO!\u2019 And that was pretty awesome. \u2026 What my personal \u2014 I don\u2019t want to say failure \u2014 but it\u2019s something that I learned from: have a voice at the table wherever you\u2019re at. I didn\u2019t have that voice at times where I should\u2019ve, particularly at fundraising.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over time, Rasheed learned to have her voice heard and\u00a0assert herself.<\/p>\n

On the topic of what leaders can do to value diversity, Ismail said a lot of the good leaders recognize that they\u2019re still privileged, like the fact they speak English and live in a country that has a healthy economy. It\u2019s also important that they recruit people with intent, and focus on the long-term culture of their organization over the short-term view of profits.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople that do good work in the diversity space tend to understand that in the long term, having diverse perspectives, having different types of people will make their organization stronger,\u201d said Ismail.<\/p>\n

Asi Burak, chief executive of consulting firm Power Play, added that it\u2019s important for leaders to be optimistic, which isn\u2019t easy nowadays. Instead of keeping their heads down, leaders should believe in their ability to make changes, especially now.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>V<\/strong><\/em>entureBeat’s PC Gaming channel is presented by the Intel\u00ae\u00a0<\/sup>Game Dev<\/a>\u00a0program.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n
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A\u00a0diverse workforce is meaningless if you don\u2019t use their perspectives to shape and enhance your\u00a0games. This is one of the biggest takeaways from a presentation about diversity and leadership at the GamesBeat Summit in Berkeley, California (watch it here). Moderator Guy Bendov, the chief executive of Side-Kick Games, said the panel was partly a reaction… Read the full article…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[174,377],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-games-media","category-gaming"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t