Believe it or not, but this is a phrase that I’ve actually used in a professional context. Suffice to say I was very angry at the time, and I have since apologized to the individual I aimed it at. Not because I think that they did take responsibility and were accountable, but because it was unprofessional to use the word “fucking” and to show my anger in a professional setting.

A problem that I’ve seen in the industry and that I keep seeing is the lack of accountability. It’s possible that I’ve only worked in the worst places when it comes to leadership taking responsibility for their actions, I don’t know.

My feeling is however that this is a holdover from the days of yore when games were kind of ridiculed and seen as stuff for kids. I have probably relayed speaking to a colleague quite a few years ago, when we spoke about taking responsibility for the content in games. His response was that it wasn’t his responsibility what we put in them. They were just games.

Not to harp on him, but I honestly believe that we’re seeing some of the fallout from that lack of accountability in the various stories that are finding their way to us from Riot, from Ubisoft, Activision Blizzard and now lately Paradox. Individuals in charge that either won’t see, won’t act on or won’t acknowledge issues that we’ve had in the industry for ages.

It IS possible that despite years and years of having marginalized people speak up and say that “this is an issue” that they simply haven’t heard or understood. It’s possible that there’s a desire not to hear and to not understand. It’s also possible that this is exactly how they want it.

I wouldn’t put that past ex CEO of Tripwire Interactive, for instance. He recently came out as a pro-life advocate, thinking it’s totally fine that women aren’t allowed to have abortions after week 6 in Texas. Week 6 is nothing. It’s barely an embryo at that point. But this CEO apparently thinks that a barely there mass of cells is more important than the bodily autonomy of the woman that carry them.

He was deposed from his CEO seat, amid much mumbling and grumbling from a certain corner of the gaming culture, the same corner, I’m sure, that doesn’t want us to “put politics” in our games. As if all our games aren’t a reflection of society as it is?

I’ve been waiting for quite some time for people to finally start taking responsibility in this industry, not just for tweets of a questionable nature, but for business practices, content and how that content is presented to the player, for how people are represented. Most of all, I think I’ve waited for someone to finally say “you know what? It’s not just a game. It’s a reflection of our society and I honestly want to improve that society, so I’ll skew the reflection, just a bit, to make things just a bit better. I understand this will have an impact on my players. Not today, maybe. Maybe not even tomorrow. But in ten years when another person is hired into this industry, they may remember this game as their favourite game growing up, and they may remember what that little thing did to make them feel acknowledged, represented and seen and maybe they’ll skew things just a little bit further in their game. Maybe that way, we can make this world a better place?”