Girls in Gaming

The recent release of Assassin’s Creed, a highly-anticipated game from Ubisoft this holiday season, was recently marred by the release of a modified pornographic image depicting Jade Raymond, the game’s producer.  The image surfaced on the popular web site Something Awful’s forums, though they claim that neither was it created or hosted by any of their members.

The fact that somebody had gone out of their way in an attempt to defame Ms. Raymond  is worrisome, but it speaks volumes to how women are being treated in leadership roles in the video games industry.  It appears that women pursuing leadership jobs in the industry have two choices: either accept a lesser position or be the target of a smear campaign that targets them personally.

It is sad indeed that this sort of attack is even tolerated at all.

In Ubisoft’s defence, they launched a cease-and-desist order against Something Awful in order to remove the content from the site.  But as we all know, the Internet never forgets — the damage is already done.