You're Expensive for Just Dealing With Pronouns and Wokeness: The Real Cost of Workplace Inclusion

Good morning, folks. I now cannot see a single one of you. So, I hope there's only one of you here so that my nerves calm a little bit. Good morning. We've all made it to sunny, sunny Brighton, and I'm sure we're feeling very suntanned right now. Welcome to my talk. Um, you're expensive for dealing with pronouns and wokeness, the real costs of workplace inclusion. A friend of mine said this sounded like a clickbait right-wing YouTube um thumbnail. So, I loved that. Hi there. My name is Leon Hijazzi Killer. My pronouns are he and I'm currently head of inclusion belonging at Sumo Group. So, a little bit about me. I have over 15 years experience in strategic leadership, critical thinking, employee advocacy, change management and planning planning with a specialized focus on inclusivity. I have an academic background um in deconstructionist theory, media and digital culture studies, literary theory

and experience with charities, nonprofit organizations, uh games, retail and social activism before I came to games. I'm also a writer and a narrative and content consultant for video games, comics, books, interactive fiction, and short story anthologies. And I'm the founder of the uh consulting company, Balance Patch, a member of the games committee of the writer guild of Great Britain, an admin of the UK games industry, Slack, which has over 7,000 UK professionals across multiple disciplines in the industry. And I wonder why I'm tired. Um the um quote of my title, your expense for dealing with pronouns and wokeness, was one from a potential client of mine. Um back in the day, we did not work together. So, some content warnings before we kick off. Um while these aren't the main kind of focus of the talk, I do have to give some warnings for gaming gate or as I think it should be referred to, digital fascism. Um sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and anti-semitism. All the fun stuff. Um, I say we're not going to touch on

this too much, but there is some examples as we go forward that is going to showcase some of these things. Uh, development harassment, we've got a bit of um, misinformation and propaganda and a little bit of political unrest, protest, black lives matter reference, and police brutality. So, if you're not feeling those topics today, I will not be offended if you skitter off. Um, I hope you stay because we're not going to focus too much on this today. So in a rapidly changing world, businesses on the surface seem to be stepping back a little bit from diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts or DEI efforts um and moving away for investments in this area. But much of our newly emerging talent in the job market is specifically seeking working environments um with a proven track record of prioritizing the emotional and psychological safety of their people. So today we're not going to do an in-depth guide on how to do inclusive practices and we're instead going to do a whistle top store whistle stop tour the landscape we're currently in with loud consu consumer feedback. What our consumer markets really look

like and how they're changing in this world and what a lack of inclusive practice can do um to in terms of cost your business and what a role like mine might look like in your studio. and my mouse is not working. So today I'm going to go on a journey where I'll ask you to consider taking inclusion seriously as a strategic component of business and planning analysis. The different ways in which overlooking or downplaying the importance of inclusive practices in the workplace cost you your business as a whole and the value of investing in people today which pays dividends in products reputation and talent in the future. So my challenge or my mission statement for today is introducing inclusive practices by centering the value of difference in your daily professional skill set and into your studio product values will be one of the most valuable things you can do for your career, your team and the future of games as a whole, which I realize is a bit of a bold statement, but hopefully we'll go on the journey. So, in case you're not aware, lucky you, we've been seeing um some um disruption

uh in the industry of late. If you're not aware, talk to some of your colleagues who marginalized. I'm sure they would be not happy to tell you, but I'm sure they will share some information about this. Um if you look up things to do with Sweet Baby, Inc. um DEI detected. Actually, don't look up DI detected, then stay focused. But we're talking a little bit about what the evolution of gamer gay um from 2014 looks like in the current, you know, 20 10 years later, what we have done, what we haven't done, and how this has become the blueprint for a lot of farright action, particularly online in relationship to um harassment of folks who just want things to change a bit. But it's important that we bear in mind that while games are seeing research of gaming a games is not the only digital in um area of entertainment that is seeing this rise of anti-wokeness. We see it um in these on the what hand is this? The left. These are tweets, nasty tweets that were um collected by Ben Hart who is the community manager of social media manager for Star Wars the

acolyte. We see the accusations leveled at various movies. We see it in children's books or books in general. And then our benevolent overlord of social media, Mr. Elon Musk, saying the de I must die. I love when he weighs into things. But it's also important to to be aware that the swing to the writing of politics has impacted what we see in our industries. We've seen a wide cultural war that's been stoked over many many many many years. We're not going to talk too much about felics. We can do a little bit but this is just to kind of bear in mind that it's not just us who are being impacted by this and there is a wider world that we are part of. So, by and large, I don't like to talk about what wokeness is or what it isn't because I find it's a fairly useless argument to try and get into what is woke, what isn't woke. It tends to not be very fruitful. But what I think is probably valuable to pause on for a little while is what this what this world is, what it's come from, and where we're at today in relation to it.

So, a bit of history. Where does work come from? I think it's important that we pay homage to where this word originated from and its communities that has been a term that's been bastardized. So the image we've got on the right here is of Ed Corford. This very famous photo at this point um from Ferguson, Missouri in turn 2014 following the protests of the killing of Mike Brown. So this originated from um African-American vernacular English. Its meaning is to be aware and alert to deceptive tactics and people and power structures. And as the Ferguson um protests and more sort of Black Lives Matter protests began to enter into popular media and news became a much more widely circulated phrase, the phrase stay woke circulated on the streets during these um actions to signal awareness of unjust police tactics. And 10 years later, woke has become an overpopularized and decoupled um term from its original community to encompass rightly or wrongly to be to be implied to be leftist ideology related to social justice politics, critical race theory and or LGBTQ plus rights. So what is it now? Well, there is actually

no set definition even amongst those who use the term disparagingly. But by and large the accusation leveled against wokeness is it in spec particularly as it relates to games is it forcing in um genders sexualities and or races into context where they would not exist via diversity quotas that it's involved in censoring sexy or provocative content. It's clamping down on free speech and that it is giving money uh money for DEI consultants um and or inclusion initiatives to take money away from development teams resulting in lower quality products for gamers. Now, I don't know if any of you manage budgets, but that's not what happens. But what we're talking about in terms of um you know folks who are anti-woke is they often feel like um if there is a change in a game that they don't like or there's an implication that something has been censored or removed it's generally without any sense of uh interest in peggy ratings localization

needs um ESVR ratings um ESRB ratings sorry target audience or anything like that. What we find with a lot of consumers though is that many will find changes between, for example, you know, trailers and the result product is they might note the change, but they're not really bothered. Whereas there are some folks who find that the change between the trailer and the actual product is unacceptable and we deserve harassment. I don't know. But what we know as developers is that things develop. They change through iteration and it is very unlikely that what you see in a trailer or early development is what you're going to get as a product. And most consumers actually know this. So is calling something woke new? Well, not really. And what it kind of signals overall is a dislike of difference, a fear of missing out or having something taken away, anxiety around being replaced, a discomfort around change, and generally speaking, if you saw some of the tweets that we that were so showcased earlier, there were things that were so quoted there like they destroy what men build. Um, DEI is a

nightmare for good devs just trying to make good games. and Elon Musk are saying uh end it was supposed to end discrimination not replace it with a new one. So we have the sort of these recurring themes which again they're really not new. It's the contemporary new justice warrior that social justice warrior sorry snowflakes political correctness or even hippies in some context. It's not new. It's just it's just political backlash. When we talk about things that to do with change or like the fear of things changing, this fantastic article, this satirical piece by uh Michael Ducker is is really a nice piece to read where he notes, quote, "A reasonable person might theorize that you're not actually mad at these woke features. You're mad that you've aged out the target demographic, and now both the people buying games and the people making games are a wider audience than when you were 13." The same reasonable person would add, "This makes you feel less like the center of the universe, which causes you physical pain and distress as you experience the tragedies and victories of life. Video games seem a little bit less magical. So, you replace confronting that feeling

with finding someone to blame for it." Because it's true, the markets are changing. And but if we follow this logic to its conclusion, I think what we're really really saying and what the gamers want is for us to go back to basics. We need to go back to two white sticks fighting each other and change nothing. But we know that things have changed since 1972. And the reason I don't like engaging with like is this woke? Is that not wly? Is that not woke? Is that all of these games somewhere have been accused of being woke. This is the top 20 selling games of 2023. And there is a reason that we've moved on since Pong. We've seen a lot of genre changes. We've seen a lot of just different alterations of stuff in the market in general. And we call it a game library for a reason. The thing that I find very frustrating about the anti-woke discussion is it's like walking into a library and going, "Oh my god, why do not all these books cater to me personally?" It's like

standing there and going, "I can't believe this dictionary has a really, really bad plot." Or saying that War and Peace could do with a bit more comedy in it. Not every book is going to be for you. And ideally, what you should do is be able to encounter things that you didn't know before. And even in a genre that you love, you're not going to find books that suit you. Lord of the Rings is not the same as Six of Crow, Six of Crows. That's just the way it works. That's okay. You didn't like that book, you go and find another one. So this phrase, go work, go broke, we hear a lot. It is the implication that if you add inclusive practices and content to your product, you will lose money. This largely comes about from examples of Starbucks, but like Target. But if you dig into some of these stats 12 to 18 months later, it's not necessarily the case that these brands have crashed and burnt. And actually, this doesn't pair out in reality. We know actually that a lot of our products continue to do very well despite despite or because of inclusive practices. So on the one hand, go broke. But at the same

time, money from secret DEI organizations. I am broke and I'm so rich. Shieldingers richness. There is money in this area, but it's just not from secret organizations. It's an investment. What we find over and over again is that companies that invest in inclusive practices make money. And I hate to do this and like do this, you make money as opposed to should do it because it's good to do. But Forbes find this. Harvard Business Review finds this and Deote finds this consistently. And part of this is because audiences are becoming increasingly diverse and they expect content that reflects the world around them. There's more access to technology now. Asia is one of the largest player demographics we have. The barrier of entry to digital entertainment is getting lower and lower. And Gen Z and millennials collectively make up a significant share of the US population and across the world. Now there are more diverse set people coming through the pipeline and they have intersecting identities which mean there's just a much more diverse um

set of consumers out there. And this plays out in multiple different studies. You can look for a bunch of them. The numbers consistently say the same thing that our player bases gender split is pretty pretty much half and half. That Gen Alpha and Gen Z play more than we do because we're getting old. Um Gen Z are more likely to be um LGBTQ plus. And while the majority of player of ethnicities of players in the US are white, when you break down the numbers within those communities, actually white players make up 62% of that community, whereas Hispanic players make up 79% and African-American and black responders made up 77%. So within those communities, you see a much larger demographic, much larger number of folks playing games than you do white players. But also as far as like platforms of what people playing Gen Alpha and and Gen Z, you know, we all play mobile games, but they are more likely to play PC and console and less likely to play

virtual reality. So, it's worthwhile thinking about as we go forward who's playing what, where, why they're playing it, and what they're doing with it. And similar if we were looking at different markets um LGBT what um Glad Gaming found was that LGBTQ plus players spend about the same amount of money per month as their non-LGBT counterparts and in some cases they spend more and nearly one in five um active gamers are LGBT which is a 70% increase in the last three years. So we're coming for you the number is going up. It's the cinjun. But additionally, when we look at, you know, if we reflect back on the anti-woke folks um who are claiming that we were ruining games, what Glad also found was the major the majority of non-LGBTQ plus gamers are not dissuaded by representation, but LGBTQ plus gamers are more likely to play a game with representation. So, in reality, folks who aren't of the gay, they don't care if we're more inclusive. they'll still play the game, but LGBTQ+ players and al

also marginalized folks in general are more likely to follow your game, follow your company, and follow what you do if you include them. Now, I feel like there is a big old elephant in the room, which is of course the industry layoffs. So, according to Obsidian actually, um, who ran these numbers initially, uh, the number in 2024 is closer now to 10,800 job losses globally. That's just under 30,000 jobs since 2022, uh, which was 8,500 in 2022 and 10,500 in 2023. I'm going to try not to cry. It's a sad time. Um, and it's a reality. So, people ask me, how can we focus on and invest in inclusive practices when as an industry we're fighting for our survival? And my response is to flip that. How can we as an industry fight for our survival without focusing and investing in inclusive practices? The reality, as I said, because my knees

tell me so, is we're getting old. And the Gen Z um make up that sounded really dismissive. Gen Z. Gen Z make up 27% of the workforce by 2025. And they have different working priorities and expect more from the workplace. They're not as interested in huge salaries. They want things that are livable. They're not interested in, you know, climbing the corporate ladder. They want to be happy. They take pride in their work and they're entrepreneurial, but they're wanting to invest where they feel like they will not be exploited. They want to give you the best they've got, but not if you're going to take the piss. They want flexibility and work life balance, which we're not very well known for. They want robust robust mental health support. Girl, same. Um, they are the most ethnically and racially diverse generation, as we've indicated, and that's only going to continue as we move forward. And according to monster.com, 30 82% of Gen Z candidates value work commitment to um DEI within their companies and they look for values aligned impact. So if you say we care about the environment and then at the

same time you fly 50 people of your 100 person company off to GDC every year that doesn't align. They'll see that and they won't want to stay with you. They'll take their talent elsewhere and they also want to see um investment in skills development. So the culture shift um we're going to talk a little about like how much this costs now we're not very inclusive overall. So the culture shift um found that job turner in the job turnover costs the UK economy 18 billion pounds annually. Instances of bullying and harassment stay with people for two plus years. the average spend um after a bullying harassment situation can cost £1,629 pounds per person on counseling, therapy, and legal fees. And that £381,350 is the average payout to employees facing problematic behavior. But the highest payout for a disability discrimination suit was in 2020 for £4.7 million for a former um employee at Nat West with the second highest in the UK being um Kellogg Brown and root um for a

unfair dismissal case around disability which was 2.5 million in 2021. So this costs money. Deote found that poor mental health um created an annual turnover of 53 to 56 billion in 20 to 2021 as a 25% increase since uh 2019. Of course, there was a little thing that took place around that time which means that people were probably struggling a little bit, but those numbers have not drastically changed since we've now come out of lockdown. Um within those numbers you know the for the private sector that uh it's 43 to 46 billion in the private sector and 10 million in 10 billion sorry in the public sector. Absenteeism costs 6.1 billion. Presenteeism where you show up when you shouldn't because you're not well costs anywhere between 24 and 28 billion. And mental health makes up 46% of total total UK presentism. Now, this is important because the UK games uh the UK UK games census in 2022 showed that we

as an industry have much higher levels of anxiety, depression, and neurodiversity than your average industry in the UK and actually beyond. And this matters because this costs our industry tremendously. Now, you can, if you know, you know who these companies are. I'm not here to shame these individual companies per se because it can happen to any of you if you don't handle things correctly. But we're talking an hundred million lawsuit. We're talking $30,000 payouts for individuals. We're talking big, big numbers. And also reputational damage. We know who these companies are. Again, I'm not here to shame them, but we know who they are. We know the folks who have put the work in. We know the folks who are not. And we know who's really trying to make the change around these cases. But it costs us a lot of money to not consider inclusion. So what do I do? Well, what are some pronouns? Obviously, no. So, roles like mine differ depending on your studio, your project, your location, and the specific needs and the level of

seniority. I'm quite a senior um person in my field at the moment. So, for me, what this looks like is holistic multi-disiplin multi-disciplinary strategic approach to policy, process, people, benefits, marketing, recruitment, operations, charity, events, games, content, company strategy, and road maps. all for around the uh the sweet sweet price of around how much you'd pay a game director as far as salary is concerned. Again, it's no wonder I'm a little tired, but what this involves in practical terms is critical thinking skills, strategic empathy, fairness, accessibility awareness, and risk assessment. So, what does that mean? Well, we're going to go through a little bit now. So, critical thinking, that doesn't just mean I'm going to critique this thing and really mean. What critical thinking really is is about observations, the ability to monitor and notice something or someone to identify opportunities and problems for solutions. It's analysis around gathering and understanding of data and information that make up the elements or structure of something. It's inference,

so drawing conclusions based on the data gathered, information or pro information processed, personal knowledge, expertise, and experience. And it's about communication. So sharing all those things that you've received with others and the conclusions that you've drawn from them and problem solving ultimately because you want things to be better. It's no good going, "Ah, I know all these things now. I'm going to keep it to myself." Strategic empathy is about balancing the interpersonal needs of teams and their team dynamics with their creative vision and the commercial demands. So, it's about stepping into the minds of others to understand their interests, their motivations, their needs, constraints, blocks, goals, dreams, and more. So, if you've got a team that's really butdding heads, it's about being able to go in, look at what's happening, and help the best way you can to break down some of those those barriers in the most inclusive and and thoughtful ways possible. And it's about understanding that life exists outside the studio and people can have pre-existing experiences, pressures, and barriers that can impact when impact them before they arrive at work. So, if there's a high-profile case, for example, where, I

don't know, there's been a um a violence against trans people that has been in the media and you've got trans folks working for you, they might not be feeling their best. If there's been a shooting in the US that's predominantly impacted Asian or black folks, they might not come in doing their best. And it's about being attentive to that. Not saying that like they don't need to do work, but saying, "How can I help? What do you need to manage through this? How can I assist you?" It's about fairness because we know when stuff is not fair. And if you know that something isn't fair, the more that perpetuates, the more that fers, the less you want to work, the less you want to stay somewhere, and the more likely you are to take your business elsewhere and your work elsewhere. It's about accessibility. And when we talk about accessibility in this kind of context, it's not just about games accessibility, though that's very important. It's also about bearing in mind that different folks are going to need different things and spending a little bit of time saying, "Hey, what do you need? How can I help? How can I make sure that you're bringing your very very best will be critical and it's about risk assessment. So we're putting together that critical

thinking, that strategic empathy, that awareness of fairness, accessibility to assess to assess a situation or context for potential personal, commercial or reputational risks because I don't know about you, but I've often gone that's coming towards us. Oh, it's coming closer. Oh, it's coming closer. Oh, it's coming closer. And then someone will say, "Leon, this hit us. What do we do?" And I scream into a pillow. And then we problem solve again. And it's about, you know, from that creating strategies to mitigate against negative impacts or manage the shock waves and ideally make sure that the impacts are as little as possible or they're not there at all if we can. So what does inclusive practice by centering the value of difference actually mean? We're going to do some audience participation, but not too much. I promise. Don't be too scared. Don't run away. You don't have to talk to me necessarily. See, I know. I know my audience. So,

my argument is you don't have to be an expert on all social and cultural issues. That's impossible. You don't need to know this. There's a lot of fear people like, "What if I say the wrong thing? What if I get it wrong? It is okay. I'm going to I'm going to help you understand a little bit about what this really means in practice." So, look at the person sitting closest to you. This should be an easy question, but who knows? Are they the same person as you? Even if you're twins, even if you are two white men called James with the same beard, are you the same person? I I heard soft mutterings of no. No. And that's okay. We know that because we're not the same person as the person sitting next to us. Very simply, you need to get to know each other. Basic levels. You don't know about someone's family situation. You don't know about their past, their school, their life, their traumas, their happiness. It's okay. You find out, you learn together.

Who throws the ball to you and who doesn't? Now, for health and safety reasons, I will not be throwing any balls, but I'd like you in your minds to imagine that a group of five people, it can be your team, it can be your family, it can be whoever, and you have a ball between you and you're throwing the ball back and forth to each other, and you notice after a while that they stop throwing the ball to you. How does that feel? Like they're consistently throwing it to two or three other people, but they're consistently not throwing it to you. Does anyone want to yell how that makes you feel? Excluded, huh? Lonely, sad, sad. Do you feel valued? No. Okay, then imagine the same group. And now you do start to get the ball thrown to you. How do you feel? Yay. Sports ball. Yeah. So, last one, I promise. So, our leads, our managers, directors, and senior leaders have a tremendous influence over your teams and and the

studio culture. So in your mind, do not yell out names. Think of someone whose influence has impacted you in your career positively. You got one. All right. And think about somebody who has impacted you in your career negatively. That big deep smile. That second one. I'm so sorry that so many you have to take such a deep breath for that. That makes me so sad. Of those two, which had more time for you as a person? And I don't mean who picked on you more. I mean who had more time for you as a person. We're good now. So what difference does difference make? Businesses with hideabus executive teams are 25% more likely to have an average profitability. Um people who feel their company will treat them and their colleagues fairly no matter what their demographics are 9.8 eight times more likely to look forward to work and 6.3 times more likely to take pride in their work.

Teams with psychological safety are more likely to learn and contribute challenge and feel included and for every5 you get £5 return for every£1 spent on well-being support. So as far as games is concerned um there are things I think some companies are doing very well to take some of that stuff seriously. Uh, Valerant is looking to add some more um, support in relationship to tackling toxic behavior, which in it as it's coming up to its PlayStation 5 launch, I think is incredible, and we should really, really give them some accolades for this. But additionally, very, very quickly, because I know we're running out of time, managers who show inclusiveness are more likely to see team levels of productivity, creativity, and innovation. And I don't know, I feel like we are a creative kind of industry here, so that might be important. So, I'm going to return us to that mission statement that I came with, which is introducing inclusive practices by centering the value of difference into your professional skill set and into your studio and product values will be

one of the most valuable things you can do for your career, your team, and the future of games. I'm going to return again to that you're expensive for just dealing with books and pronouns. Hopefully, and who knows if I've done my job right, you don't think that's the case anymore. But if I haven't convinced you, then you know that's fine. Ultimately don't know how to tell you that you should care about other people. If you're someone who likes books and recommendations, fully recommend um did that not show. No, Lily Zang's um DEI deconstructed and reconstructed is a fabulous nononsense books that anyone can read. You do not have to be a DI practitioner and inclusion person. In fact, I recommend these to anyone who is interested in leadership in general. But again, if I haven't convinced you that I deal with more than just worklessness and pronouns, I'm going to do a reintroduction. Hello, I'm Leon Jazzi Kllin. I'm head of worklessness and pronouns at Sumo Group. Here I am. Um, no fun allowed. We do not

allow fun. I'm here to ruin your favorite game specifically. What is your favorite game? I don't know, but you killed it. Anything attractive band? Don't like it. do not like to enjoy things I look at. I'm going to tell you you're an awful person. I can't see any of you, so I can't point to say you're an awful person individually, but if you want to come to me afterwards, I will tell you you're an awful person. And I have so much money. Thank you. I'll take questions again. I cannot see you. So, if you have your hand up, maybe one of the fabulous folks supporting can help me.
Hi, thank you. Um, not sure if it's going to be a challenging question or not. Not sure. Um,

where player demog Oh, you can see me. Great. Where player demographics are becoming more diverse just because of the nature of obviously the the new generations are coming in obviously compared to boomers and millennials. obviously might make it a bit harder to have a similar representative player audience. So obviously you even looking at other industries as well in Disney and how much you know uh they've received over the past few years with the films that they've made and you know how that's impacted their bottom line and things of that nature. So just in your perspective, is there any anti-woke rhetoric or anything along those lines that maybe you either agreed with or maybe thought was actually more thoughtprovoking?
I'm a notorious leftist for a start. So we'll get that out the way. However, I think I think that sometimes I'll see this accusation of like, oh, this product we're going to I'm not going to name anyone. like, "Oh, this is this is woke trash. Its content is bad. The

writing is bad. It's this, that, the other." Writing is fairly subjective, but there will be sometimes when I'll go, "Yeah, this this was a quot. I can see like, and we know like we ain't dim. We can see when stuff has been added without thought. We can tell when narratives have had something shoehorned in." No one, I think, is asking for subpar content. They're saying to consider it as part of the development process, as part of the storytelling process at the same level as anything else. Because when you do try and like chase a a bottom dollar by just including a black person in a way that wouldn't make sense or including someone who's Asian that doesn't make sense or a an offensive stereotype, it pushes us away and it's not going to bring that sort of thing forward. So, I I think that sentiment it's always going to depend on the the uh specific piece of content, but sometimes it is about the quality of the product and how well it's been considered because sometimes it might be

a bit trash actually. Does that help?
It does. Yeah.
Any more? Oh,
hi. First of all, thank you. Great talk. Um I want to ask because obviously with everything Gamergate resurging everything this year, it's hard in particular as an industry to take a look, especially when you care about DI to stay positive um in the wake of everything that's happening. Um how do you stay positive and what are your tips for, you know, not sinking into the negativity of Game of Gay? um because you know you care about DI but it's it's hard sometimes like yeah as said not getting sucked into the negativity that you know um or listening to the voices that not everyone wants this I think that's a great question because I I think we are all jokes I'm very tired I mean the French have given me a lot of help like you know the hope from the

French actually I'm not joking but I think for it's hard Like I'm not going to pretend it's not hard. I'm not going to pretend that this work does not take a toll. I'm not going to pretend that I don't spend some time under my desk crying. I don't I'm not going to pretend that I don't go and hug my dog and she goes, "Get off of me." But I think in terms of staying positive, it's small level. Keep those positive comments you get in a scrapbook, digital or otherwise. Remember who you're working for because that will sustain you. lift people up. If you're in a position to in a senior role and you can see that someone is coming up, help them. Drop the ladder. Don't bring it up. Return to products that you love, content that you love that gives you that sort of this is what I want to build in the future. Um, organize. Don't despair. Um,

stay in touch with people who invigorate and fill your heart with joy. Don't let the glasses get you down.
Um, thank you again for the talk. My question is, I guess about hiring practices.
Um, the game development industry is still very white male dominated, right? So to increase the level of inclusion, would you advocate positive discrimination or a different approach? I would say if you have two candidates who are effectively the same and one is not white or LGBTQ plus, where's the hum picking that one? But I'd also probably say um look at your interview panels. For the love of God, put a woman on your interview panels. Just one. I mean, we

joke, but like, you know, I know many of us are on the job market right now. And reports that I'm hearing from folks like, "Oh, I had an interview. I haven't seen a single woman interview me in this entire process." Build that into your into your pipelines. Because you're going to get different opinions. You're going to get different viewpoints because if you have the same folks interviewing, you're going to perpetuate whether you know it or not, whether you intend it or not, similar viewpoints in that. So, it's on the one hand the decisions you make when you're coming to bring the best candidate. It's what you're doing as a hiring uh manager and within your panels, but it's also where are you advertising? Are you going and meeting folks where they live? Are you going to their communities? Are you saying like, "Hey, what are your local communic communities, your publications? Go to them. Don't expect them to come to you." And people talk. So if you have an inclusive recruitment practice, you're going to get more candidates who come to you because they trust your process. They they will share they will say, "Hey, I had a great experience here. Even if they didn't get the role, they will

share what what happened." And so your pool of candidates that then widens your options increases. Maybe, and I know this is a drastic thought, if you're looking for seniors, think about something more junior and build pipelines into your teams. I know it's hard. I know it's hard. But if we don't nurture a pipeline, these things are all connected. So then we go, "Oh my god, there's no one to hire. Oh my god, I want to hire someone diverse, but there's just no one here." Because we're not helping ourselves to help them to change what this industry looks like. Does that help?
Yeah, that's great. Thank you.
Technical.
Hello. Oh yeah. Um so uh I'm in the world of HR. I've worked for a few different companies who are struggling with um diversity at the company and I've seen different conversations go in terms of

well we're not diverse in any way. So it's it's all the same sort of person. Um and I've seen some companies go the way of well we can't focus on all of them so let's just focus on one. let's just try and get more women in and ignore all the others. And I would just be interested to hear your thoughts on where companies are really struggling and they're not very diverse in many ways of is is that an approach that can be taken? Is there a different approach or is it a completely wrong way of thinking about it? So the the question is should we focus on specific demographics or is there a way to broaden how we look for that when there's a struggle to find? Yeah, I mean my my personal feeling is that it's not an inclusive way of thinking to just think, well, let's just get more women and let's ignore all of the other different ways of of diversity. Um, but I'm I'm unsure of like what the what the other approach is and like what you can what you could be doing that's different

to that. I think it sort of dubtales with the question earlier about like, you know, where are you fishing? Because if you're fishing in one specific pool, you're going to catch the same fish over and over again. Uh the website formerly known as Twitter is a hellcape right now. But people who say to me things like, "Oh my god, I can't find a diverse artist or I can't find a diverse writer." They are there in abundance and they are talented as The talent is there. It's not that it there's not a darth of it like it is absolutely there. It's about where where we're looking, how we're nurturing, and also if you know if there are folks outside the industry that have the talent and the skill sets but they've just not worked in industry, how we bracket and how we how we bridge that gap between them. I think it's it's about changing the whole approach rather than like it's quotas, right? Oh, let's bring in women. Well, I personally wouldn't want to hire Margaret Thatcher to fill a quot for women because she doesn't give a about people like me. So, it's about the person. It's

about how you look at them. It's about thinking intersectionally. It's about thinking about how how you're finding the right candidate for the job. But also, so you're not always casting your line in the same pool over and over again. It takes more work, but it does pay off and you will get a better product at the end because more more different opinions that come in, the better stories we tell, the better games we play, the better games we get, and then the wider is you. Does that help? Yeah. Go fishing.
We're in Brighton. I think we've got probably time for one or two more if they're quick. Got one over there. Thanks. Um, this is a really interesting talk first of all. Um, and I've spent a lot of time sort of watching what you would describe as the anti-woke media as well as making a point of coming to conversations like this because I think it's really important to see both sides.

Um, I mean, what's really important is a lot of the arguments that that you make about things like, you know, not every book is for every person is exactly the same argument that a lot of the anti-white people make. Um, and also as a as a manager that's built, you know, a really diverse team that I recruited because they were the best person for the job, you know, regardless of their background, not because of their background. I think what I see from a lot of the, you know, what is seen as being say the woke side of things and again a lot of the points you put up there which is obviously how a lot of people outside of this room will see this is that there's it's almost like there's a massive branding problem associated with anything to do with with woke because everything that you say is completely sensible and makes sense and if you recruit a great team regardless of background not because of background you end up with a better company and my

company's better because I have an amazing team. So my question is what do you think needs to be done to almost like separate what people see as woke from actually what you're talking about which is build great teams with great people because as soon as you mention the word woke or quotota and all those points you put at the end that's what everybody immediately thinks. um you know and and there's people in my companies that think that and again it's very easy to to watch a lot of anti-woke media where you know and I think there is more anti-woke media these days than the woke but what do you think needs to be done to start to sort of separate what you're talking about from what people perceive that you're talking about and as an anti-woke person you can meet me in the car parkunch me later I'll take my serious. No, I I think in some ways

hilariously we agree, you know, when I walk my dog, I'm not I I'm trans, I walk my dog. I'm just walking my dog. Like when I come to work, I just want to work, you know? I don't want to be like, you know, I joke with someone say, "Hello, I'm Leon. I'm trans." Um but I don't want to do that. I just want to show up. I want to do my job. I want to be happy. I want to be comfortable. I want to be safe. I want to be secure. And I want to do the best thing I can do, which I think you're saying is exactly what
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I've got some very, very strange people working for me, you know. you know, but but they're from all sorts of different backgrounds, you know, and they they come to work to do a great job and we don't sit there and have long complicated discussions about, you know, anything to do with with what makes them who they are necessarily, but it's it's so easy that companies will just see it and people see it as, you know, you're recruiting people because of their background, not you almost like despite their background. There's another talk in this. I feel my short short answer is and I kind of

alluded to this like I don't entertain it. I don't like you is this is this woke? Are we woke? Are we anti-woke? I don't care. Your company is your company. You take pride in what you do. You put forward what you put your stall out and you use the language that works for your company, for your brand, what you're doing. But don't I I personally wouldn't engage with it. You put out your product, it speaks for yourself. The numbers speak for themselves. You know, one of the reasons this will talk is more about like who are our consumers? Why we're talking data is to say like well there's a loudness online right now, but this does not bear out in the data in sales in terms of consumers. So do what you're doing as long as you're not hurting anyone. It's the bottom line. Don't knock to you person. Don't hurt people. But like in general, as long as you're treating people nicely, that's it. Do what you're doing. Do more of it.
And I agree with that completely. The the question is how do you get everybody else outside of this room to understand that's really what you're talking about
because it's not how it's perceived.

Yeah, I'm I'm 5 foot three. I'm not going to fight them all today, but I've also been getting been getting the one minute flash at me. So, we can chat more. But thank you all so much for your time, your candy, your participation. Go forth, do good things, and enjoy the conference.