This Week in Video Game Criticism: From the Politics of MMOs to Inclusion as a UX Issue

Bartle gave [the source code for multi-user dungeons] away not to get famous and not to get rich. He did it because, in this virtual world, he saw a better blueprint for society. MUD was a place in which players were able to succeed according to their actions and intelligence rather than an accident of birth into a certain social class or fortune. "We wanted the things that were in MUD to be reflected in the real world," he says. "I wanted to change the world. MUD and every subsequent MMO that has adopted its designs are a political statement. I should know: I designed it that way. And if you want the world to change, then making people pay to read your message isn't going to work. So we gave it away."

These past few months have been challenging, to say the least. Personally, I hear more women in game development talk about leaving our industry every day than I usually see in several years. What has been happening and continues to happen is having a profound chilling effect on the women on our teams. It will be yet another reason women leave this line of work, and yet another reason many talented young women about to graduate will choose to use their skills and energy elsewhere in tech. Your opinion about whether those feelings are justified or correct doesn’t change the fact that the current climate and culture is alienating them. Your point of view on journalism and ethics and even on harassment doesn't change their experience with the systems of our industry and the culture around it, and the impression left by those experiences. Even if each of us didn't make every element in the game they're playing, each one of us is on the game development team for our culture as a whole. We're watching the usability session in action -- right now, today. Yes, it's painful and frustrating. Yes, you may want to argue with the player on the other side of the one-way mirror who doesn't understand your carefully crafted controls. Yes, you may feel shafted because a handful of malicious players are griefing a segment of the player base without your permission, and now you're on the hook to fix it. But as experienced developers, we all know the answer is not that "She's playing it wrong." The systems of our industry are failing her.