In honor of International Womens’ Day, the ladies (and at least one dude) who work at RuneScape studio Jagex have graciously teamed up for an AMA on Reddit. A few of the questions are as bad as you probably expect, inquiring about the negative impact of “gender diversity quotas,” asking whether they’d work with colleagues from specific countries, and of course, offering obnoxious insults about how the client is trash.
On the other end of the spectrum, there are pointed questions about why Jagex isn’t more diverse (it’s apparently working on that) and why Jagex rewarded a player artist for effectively tarting up a prominent lore character. Some of the more interesting topics with answers focus on the dress code (there isn’t one – but hey, would you be asking male devs this?), advice for female students seeking to enter the games industry, their favorite RuneScape skills, and when and why they joined up with Jagex.
One thread with multiple answers homes in on whether female devs avoid appearing on livestreams because of abuse. “I purposely don’t go on stream because I don’t want to have to deal with the types of responses I often see women recieve,” one dev wrote. “A lot of women shy away from streaming because of the comments,” admitted another. However, others point out that everyone on Jagex’s streams gets abuse, which… isn’t really better.
My favorite observation comes from JagexJam in regard to mining: “People love to click rocks!” This is true, and every MMO player is guilty.
