This has got to change Women game developers fight sexism in industry. The Gamergate mob drove Zoe Quinn from Boston to Seattle, where some of the biggest companies in the industry are headquartered. ZOE QUINN picks up her mobile phone from the black laminate table top to see how many people have tried to break into her personal website today. Sports journalists and bloggers covering NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, MMA, college football and basketball, NASCAR, fantasy sports and more. News, photos, mock drafts, game. The Gamergate mob drove Zoe Quinn from Boston to Seattle, where some of the biggest companies in the industry are headquartered. Comprehensive National Football League news, scores, standings, fantasy games, rumors, and more. The screen lights up as the independent computer game developer opens her email, and, with a tattooed index finger, scrolls past dozens of messages in search of the days security digest. Were at a coffee house in Seattle, Quinns new home after leaving Boston following a year so weird and disturbing that it made international news and resurrected stereotypes of video gamers as anti social basement dwellers. Though Quinn has endured a years worth of threats from anonymous gamers who have vowed to rape and kill her, she chooses to sit with her back to a picture window and never once turns to look out. When she walks home later, she strides purposefully down the sidewalk, her purple lam dress and then bleached blonde locks visible for two blocks. A young lawyer and Seattle native is gaining a foothold in the explosive world of e. Sports. Join Zoe Quinn and Alex Lifschitz for a live chat at noon, Monday. Enter your questions now. Quinn lives her life under lock and key, at least electronically. Access to her computer server requires a key that she wears around her neck its contents are backed up onto a computer chip implanted in her left hand. She is vigilant and pragmatic, and focused on work and helping others similarly targeted. Sometimes she is terrified and sad, grieving her old life. She is all of 2. 7 years old. Here it is, she says matter of factly as she checks the daily digest. There have been 4. She seems more annoyed by the lame passwords the hackers have used Admin, really than their efforts to invade what little is left of her private life. Quinn used to get an email alert each time someone tried to take over her website, but there were so many she opted for a single summary, sent at the end of the day. This, apparently, is part of what it takes to survive an Internet hate storm, one that began when a developer she dated for about four months in Boston shared intimate details of her life in a vindictive blog post after they split. Anonymous Internet trolls seized on the post, twisting details and manufacturing conspiracy in an incoherent campaign to destroy Quinn personally and professionally. Quinn and her new boyfriend recorded the typed conversation as trolls divvied up the dirty work in an Internet chat room, pushing the false narrative that she slept with a journalist to get a favorable review of her novel game, Depression Quest. The vicious mob, which coalesced under the name Gamergate, eventually drove Quinn from her home with its threats. It circulated nude photos of her, put her personal information online so others could harass her, and roped in her friends and family, and their employers, for a dose of harassment. The result Quinn still is making games, only now shes a household name in the video game community, and seemingly everyone working in the industry is talking about how to make a field long dominated by white men more diverse. Since the mid 1. But as gamer demographics shift, more women are working to change that. Two game developers share their stories. Lindsey Wasson Lauren Frohne The Seattle TimesTHE CONVERSATION HAS particular resonance and relevance in the Seattle area, where some of the biggest companies in the industry are headquartered, and where women have enjoyed leading roles in developing some of the most popular video game titles, including the Halo, Half Life, Left 4 Dead and Portal franchises. Kate Edwards, executive director of the International Game Developers Association, a professional group with a chapter in Seattle, said Gamergate could become a watershed moment for women who work in, write about and play interactive computer games. Gaming culture has been pretty misogynistic for a long time now, says Edwards, 5. Microsofts Halo. Theres ample evidence of that over and over again. What were finally seeing is that it became so egregious that now companies are starting to wake up and say, We need to stop this. This has got to change. There are signs thats happening as companies strive to bring more women and minorities into the games industry, and, more broadly, into the tech world. In January, Intel pledged 3. June, the company established a 1. It also threw its support behind an initiative by the developers association to double by 2. A Seattle venture capitalist announced he would invest startup money only in tech companies that had at least one woman co founder. Digi. Pen Institute of Technology, a gaming and tech university in Redmond, introduced gender studies into its curriculum, and recently established its first gender neutral bathroom. Last semester, its Diversity Club organized a weeks worth of activities around transgender issues, sexual assault prevention and Gamergate. Gaming culture has been pretty misogynistic for a long time now. Theres ample evidence of that over and over again. Kate Edwards Riot Games, makers of League of Legends, a multiplayer game notorious for its toxic community of players, is using psychology in that game to reward players, and let players who make sexist, racist and misogynistic comments know when others in the community are disgusted by their behavior. The role of women in the industry is a hot topic on the conference circuit, and even Twitter, a favored stomping ground for trolls and bullies, is stepping up its efforts to stem the abuse. Among other things, it has endorsed Crash Override, a network established by Quinn and her boyfriend and partner, Alex Lifschitz, earlier this year to help people who are targeted for online abuse and harassment. The industry is finally going to start maturing beyond its teenage years, says Edwards. The very thing theyre railing against, about diversity and all of that, is going to happen for real. Were going to see an industry that is more diverse. Were going to see games that are more diverse. In short, games that reflect the people playing them, and, increasingly, creating them. MORE THAN 1. 50 MILLION Americans 4. Entertainment Software Association. Some play for hours, some for a few minutes while theyre waiting for coffee at Starbucks. The latest survey by the game developers association found that women account for 2. The average gamer is 3. Of those who play frequently, half say it helps them connect with friends, and 4. So much for the maladjusted Cheeto huffing loner in his parents basement, a gamer stereotype that has persisted even as games have become as mainstream an activity as moviegoing or watching TV. How mainstream Americans spent 2. It could be that in a generation so many people will be playing electronic games that calling someone a gamer will sound as ridiculous as calling someone a TVer. Thats not to say there arent people who take games seriously, and spend thousands of hours playing them until their skill level becomes a point of pride and prestige. Call them the hard core gamers. Alyssa Jones is one of them. The 2. 7 year old played Duck Hunt with her grandfather as a child, and World of Warcraft with her brother and cousins in middle school and high school. She loved the game so much that during summer break in college she played as much as 1. Like every woman interviewed for this story, Jones doesnt usually disclose her gender to players she doesnt know, to avoid getting hit on, insulted or harassed by someone telling her to Make me a sandwich. But mostly, she has an excellent time doing something she has loved since she was a kid. As a grown up, she produces video games for a large studio and oversees game play for Geek. Girl. Con, a convention for girls interested in technology. Its not just shoot em ups, she says of the indie games that have proliferated in recent years. Its so much more than entertainment. It can touch people on a personal and emotional level. She points to Tampon Run, a tampon shooting game developed by two teenage girls in New York to break the taboo surrounding menstruation. I have a lot of hope for the generation that comes after the millennials, Jones says. I think theyre going to do really great things. Sports related curses Wikipedia. A sports related curse is a superstitious belief in the effective action of some power or evil, that is used to explain the failures or misfortunes of specific sports teams, players, or even cities. Teams, players, and cities often cite a curse for many negative things, such as their inability to win a sports championship, or unexpected injuries. Arizona CardinalseditThe Arizona Cardinals. National Football League NFL franchise is allegedly suffering a curse1 by the citizens of Pottsville, Pennsylvania for undeservedly claiming the 1. NFL championship from the Pottsville Maroons who were stripped of their title by the NFL in one of the greatest controversies in sports history. The curse will supposedly only be lifted when the championship is returned to Pottsville and to the correct shade of red team this can only be met by overturning the original ruling, as Pottsville no longer has an NFL team and is too small to ever receive another one with a metropolitan area roughly half the population of Green Bay, the leagues smallest, making it impossible for the long defunct Maroons to win another title. The Cardinals team holds the record for the longest championship drought, with their most recent championship coming in 1. Arizona also lost Super Bowl XLIII to another Pennsylvania team the Pittsburgh Steelers whose founder Art Rooney supported Pottsvilles claim to the title. The franchise also leads the NFL in the total number of losses 7. Chicago BearseditGeorge Halas, owner of the Chicago Bears, hired a cheerleading squad in 1. Honey Bears. When he died in 1. Virginia Halas Mc. Caskey. Virginia Mc. Caskey did not like the cheerleaders at all because she saw them as sex objects, and tried to have them disbanded, but the Honey Bears had a contract through the 1. The Bears lost only one regular season game that year and won Super Bowl XX, but the Honey Bears contract was not renewed. In spite of repeated attempts to bring back the Honey Bears, the idea has been killed by the organization, and the Bears have not won the Super Bowl since then. 3 The last time the Bears appeared in the Super Bowl was Super Bowl XLI. They were defeated by the Indianapolis Colts by a score of 2. Since then, the Bears have only made one playoff appearance, in 2. NFC Championship to the rival Green Bay Packers at home. Detroit LionseditIn 1. Detroit Lions traded Bobby Layne to the Pittsburgh Steelers. Layne responded to the trade by supposedly saying that the Lions would not win for 5. This story has been disputed as being a hoax, particularly because the quote was never published at the time. 5Still, for the next 5. Lions accumulated the worst winning percentage of any team in the NFL. They are still one of only two franchises that have been in the NFL since 1. Super Bowl the other team is the Cleveland Browns, but because of the Browns three year franchise suspension after the 1. Baltimore, the Lions streak is longer. The Lions postseason record in this time was 11. Dallas following the 1. In the last year of the supposed curse, in 2. Detroit finished 01. When the Pittsburgh Steelers won their fifth Super Bowl championship in 2. Ford Field, the Lions current home. Madden NFLeditPrior to 1. Madden NFL video game franchise primarily featured John Madden on its cover. In 1. 99. 9, Electronic Arts selected San Francisco 4. Garrison Hearst to appear on the PAL versions cover, and has since featured one of the leagues top players on every annual installment despite Maddens opposition. While appearing on the cover has become an honor akin to appearing on the Wheaties box, much like the Sports Illustrated Cover Jinx, certain players who appeared on the Madden video game box art have experienced a decline in performance, usually due to an injury. 6When asked about the Madden Curse, Chris Erb, then director of marketing for Madden, commented, I dont know that we believe in the curse. The players dont believe in the curse. New York JetseditThe New York Jets franchise is supposedly cursed to never win a championship due to an alleged deal that their legendary quarterback, Joe Namath, made with the devil prior to Super Bowl III. With the Jets 1. 7 point underdogs to the powerful Baltimore Colts, Namath is said to have met with the devil and told him, If you give me this win, the Jets dont have to win another championship for as long as I live. 7 The Jets won the game 1. American sports history, and havent been to the Super Bowl since Broadway Joes Deal With the Devil. Since 1. Jets have a. 4. 50 winning percentage and have been in four conference championship games, losing each one, in 1. Philadelphia EagleseditThis curse supposedly prevents the Philadelphia Eagles franchise from winning a Super Bowl game. The origin of this curse dates back to 1. Eagles defeated Vince Lombardi and the Green Bay Packers in the 1. NFL Championship Game. This would be the only playoff loss in Lombardis coaching career. Following Lombardis death in 1. Super Bowl trophy after him. This renaming, combined with the Eagles inability to win another championship after their 1. Eagles fans to believe the franchise is cursed by Vince Lombardi that beating Lombardi meant never winning the trophy named after him. Super BowleditThe Super Bowl curse or Super Bowl hangover is a phrase referring to one of three things that occur in the National Football League NFL Super Bowl participant clubs that follow up with lower than expected performance the following year NFL teams that do not repeat as Super Bowl champions and host teams of the Super Bowl that do not play the game on their own home fields. The phrase has been used to explain both why losing teams may post below average winning percentages in the following year and why Super Bowl champions seldom return to the title game the following year. The term has been used since at least 1. The Washington Post commented that the Super Bowl Curse has thrown everything its got at the Washington Redskins. The Jinx that has bedeviled defending champs for 1. The phenomenon is attributed by football commentator and former NFL manager Charley Casserly to such elements as a shorter offseason, contract issues, and more demand for your players time. 9 Casserly also notes that once the season starts, you become the biggest game on everybodys schedule. 9 Alleged curse notwithstanding, multiple teams have indeed repeated as Super Bowl champions, including the Pittsburgh Steelers twice in the 1. Dallas Cowboys in the 1. New England Patriots in the 2. Cowboys and Buffalo Bills and the 2. Philadelphia Eagles being three recent examples. Amrica de CalieditThe Colombian football team Amrica de Cali was under a curse since 1. There was a discussion that year, in a meeting held by team owners, about moving Amrica into the professional league. Benjamn Urrea, one of the owners, was opposed to the idea, so he said famously They can do whatever they want with the team, but I swear to God they will never be champions. 1. He left the room, while the other owners laughed at him, and he never returned to the team. The team had to wait for 3. In 1. 98. 0, journalist Rafael Medina and singer Antonio del Vivar performed an exorcising ritual on Amricas home field, to help the team to overcome the curse in the Copa Libertadores, the tournament that decides which team is the South American champion. After that performance, the team went to win five straight national titles, but, notwithstanding the seven more national championships that the team has obtained since then, some fans still believe the curse is alive, as Amrica de Cali is famous for not having been able to win this South American title. The team has been four times the runner up in Copa Libertadores, three of them in a row 1. The last of the sequence was especially painful to the fans, as the team lost the title in the last minute of overtime in the third match, when the tie would award them the title due to goal difference, leading a Colombian narrator to a dramatic narration of the goal. 1. Amrica de Cali is known as The Red Devils because the shield of the team sports a devil, with horns, tail and trident, which lead to some players masking their own shield with tape to overcome the curse, apparently to no avail.
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