Game Designers Speak Out on Harassment Throughout the Industry

Listen to the eye-opening, first-person experiences with misogyny that these independent, female developers have encountered throughout their journeys of game design.

Long before #GamerGate was a battlefield raging between the topics of journalistic integrity in video game press and the cowardly threats made towards women fighting misogyny in the gaming industry, female developers have been struggling in a predominantly male-dominated field. The makers of the 'GameLoading: Rise of the Indies' documentary about the indie gaming scene filmed a short video, called 'Harassment in the Games Industry,' starring Zoe Quinn (Depression Quest), Phoenix Perry, Nina Freeman (Code Liberation) and Catt Small revealing each of their own hard journeys and the varying degrees of resentment they encountered throughout their careers.

These interviews were done between March and May 2014, which was prior to the events leading into the controversies of GamerGate, showing that these have been serious issues of the past long before the debates started -- there are no ulterior motives being pushed here, just a fight for equality and respect. In particular, Quinn recounts receiving a plethora of cruel, personal messages, rape threats and even claims on her life -- she had to change her number to stop the messages and they still didn't let up.

On a personal note, Amy Hennig is one of our favorite modern game directors/writers. She straight up left Naughty Dog (all rumors aside) in order to work on a major Star Wars game whose launch will likely tie-in with the release of Episode VII somehow -- that's a dream in itself for most people who are a fan of games and science fiction.

No one has the right to arbitrarily say a person isn't capable of making a quality game based on anything else except their creativity and technological know-how.

It's 2014, there are too many talented developers, programmers, directors and writers out there for people to be narrow-minded enough to ignore them or write them off as incapable of making a quality product regardless of their race, gender or sexual orientation -- a good video game is a good video game.

For those who would like to see the rest of GameLoading's study on the indie scene, check out its Kickstarter page.