The game industry is rotten from within and without. Nakedly, openly abusive of its staff as a matter of course, the stuff it actively hides and covers for consists of more personal, and more horrifying abuse.
Today’s episode isn’t funny. It’s angry. It’s frank. It’s not a video I enjoyed making, or enjoy publishing. But it’s the grim epitome of what we talk about here.
Sources:
https://kotaku.com/multiple-women-accuse-games-writer-chris-avellone-of-se-1844135498
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-26/metoo-in-gaming-two-ubisoft-executives-placed-on-leave
https://www.polygon.com/2020/6/25/21302341/video-game-tabletop-game-comics-allegations-harassment-abuse-racism-metoo
#Ubisoft #Abuse #Exploitation #Games #Game #Videogames #Jimquisition #JimSterling
I miss the days when the biggest problem the games industry had was parent groups who thought that they were turning us all into murderers. Seems positively quaint now.
The fact that this video is so utterly different, bleak, and serious compared to the rest of Jims work shows how much this topic touches him, and I think that kind of empathy can only be aplauded imho. Its a good video that deserves to be out there, and I am glad it was created and uploaded.
Christ, this industry needs to be rebuilt from the ground up, a complete restart, jettison all the old heads behind all this, this behavior almost seems like a parody of heartless CEO’s, but its real.
“Should have come to me personally” from abusers is the worst, most predatory bullshit. Because when things are done in private, it’s your word against theirs. No witnesses behind closed doors, so when someone heaps fresh abuses on top of the ones they’ve already handed out, who’s going to believe this person who “clearly has a vendetta” is telling the truth? Abusers always pull this. It’s the same controlling, gaslighting, two faced garbage that has been employed time and time again by power hungry sociopaths on a micro and macro scale.
Large corporations have shown, time and time again, that they cannot be trusted with the level of power that their size allows them. Once a business has grown large enough, predators, scumbags and abusers can use their sociopathic charm to slide under the radar as just another number in an organization that’s too big to think of their people are people. Once they’re intrenched, there’s little that can be done to root them out other than (figuratively) burning the entire building down. It’s a systemic problem that gets condensed to extreme levels in “passion” focused industries that produce things that people have emotional connections to. People are willing to suffer so much in the name of getting to work on things they love, making it a perfect target for predators, abusers and other power-hungry types.
I wish that the like button could be swapped to a “support” one instead. There’s nothing I like about this situation, but I support the message being shared.
Jim, I take to heart the statement “everyone told me I was making stuff up and I’m not depressed”. When your in that place, the self doubt gets under your skin it crawls around you, hearing “your not depressed” can erode that little bit of confidence you have to even be, the lasting impression is “do they think I’m a liar” the term breakdown doesn’t describe how unstable the foundations that hold a broken person up can be, try to fix a broken glass and you will never hide the cracks, why do I have to hide mine?
Just want to say jim, i hated you all those years ago when i first saw your content, you have changed so much since then and are one of the only truth talkers left and i love and watch all your content.
THIS is why I stopped my pursuit to get into the Video Game Industry so long ago, and it seems that the rot that I smelled back in 2010 has and will continue to get worse
Never have to feel the need for apologizing for covering things like this. This saves lives. Well done.
Your appearances matters little when your tone speaks volumes on your true feelings. Some of us appreciate you Jim please keep it up.
Thank god for you,
Thank god for good people trying.
Jim has been criticizing the game industry for years, but now he’s calling for war.
An honest video is a good video, I trust virtually no one else where the video game industry is concerned because I value the truth above fanboy bullshit.
Sometimes you just need to say it straight. This is what makes Jim an actual reporter and not just a pundit.
Hearing Chris Avellone do such a thing is incredibly heartbreaking, given that he’s written many of my favourite games of all time.
Workers rights, especially in North America have been squandered over the last 50 years. Unions mean larger paychecks, better job security and happier workers. Unfortunately so many have been convinced to vote and act against their own interests because of lies and fear.
2:38 That’s really two-faced considering Twitch is owned by Amazon. Are we really supposed to believe that Twitch’s and Amazon’s executives are innocent in this regard? Are well really supposed to believe that _Bezos,_ the richest man in the world, outclassing even Bill Gates by about 20bill (by the way, Kotick isn’t even in the top 10, he’s barely even a billionaire, his net worth is $8 billion) is innocent in this regard? Are we really supposed to believe that *_a man who had ties to Epstein_* is innocent in this regard?
7:48 These people _have_ heard of Skype and screen recording software right?