#speldebatt

Have some fucking accountability

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…

Right now, a reckoning is shaking the games industry and culture. Predators are being called out, and I can only think of Flemeth when she pours out her pain to Morrigan and the Inquisitor.

She was betrayed as I was betrayed as the world was betrayed!

Sometimes it takes a character in a game to express all the anger and pain that has accumulated over years and years and years of being seen as…

The Standard You Walk Past

The standard you walk past is the standard you accept. – Lieutenant General David Morrison

The title of this post was something said by Lt General David Morrison in a speech to the Australian army, after allegations of sexual misconduct among the Australian troops.

It is oddly fitting for what I’m about to talk about in this post. Bear with me, because I’ll probably be a bit all over the place…

When I told colleagues that I was going to do some writing about problematic enemies in games, one of the enemies that came up was the Desire Demon in Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age II.

While I don’t disagree – the Desire Demon is a pretty blatant example of 1. the expectation that all players are men (or that they desire women), and 2. sexualised. Come on. She’s stroking her boobs when she’s…

The other day I was being made aware that a player at UK Games Expo was drawn into a kidnapping and gang rape scenario that they had not been aware of and not consented to. The reason I found out about it was because someone had tweeted a response from a fairly well known game creator who thought that this was okay because Things from the Flood is a horror game. An article on BBC brought this up…

Tryck inte upp dina åsikter i mitt ansikte. Det var en kommentar som förekom i en tråd som nu är borttagen i gruppen bräd- & rollspel på fejan.Jag misstänker att det beror på att en hel hög svarade med att påpeka att om personen som lagt upp “en fin bild på tre rollpersoner” inte ville ha kritik kanske borde ha låtit bli att “trycka upp sexualiserade kvinnor i ansiktet på oss”. Det är värt att…

Jag borde ha skrivit om det här för länge sedan, men jag har varit upptagen med livet på ett spelföretag. Det är dags att göra uppror och dags för ett upprop även inom spelbranschen. Vi spelar inte med Som en del av rörelsen #metoo bryter vi tystnaden. I chattrummen, på kontoret, i kommentarsfältet, på sociala medier och på e-sportarenan blir vi ifrågasatta, förminskade och trakasserade. Online…

This is a translation and an addition to a Facebook post I wrote a while back. I liked it, so I’m posting it here. It might not come as a surprise that I’ve been involved in the table-top role-playing culture since the mid 80’s. I was given my first RPG somewhere in 1986 or 87, and since then I’ve been totally glued to games. I’ve run conventions. I’ve GM:ed at conventions and I’ve written…