Historically game dev has definitely had a big boys club problem. It's better post gamergate, and the trend is heading the right way, but still, it's a bad prob

Historically game dev has definitely had a big boys club problem. It's better post gamergate, and the trend is heading the right way, but still, it's a bad problem. What I saw personally, working on an ill fated unreal licensed property around 1999, wasn't sexual extortion. But it was a boys club that loved trading porn in the official irc channels for unreal engine support. CliffyB was particularly fond of posting pictures of his then girlfriend, as well as essentially rick rolling people with this picture involving a cactus and what appears to be a very uncomfortable sexual act. It may not have been straight up extortion of sexual interactions, but I am sure that if you pushed back on that, you'd have found yourself fenced out of the very small community of people who have huge influence over whether your game ships. It certainly was not a welcoming environment to anyone other than immature young men, which is a label I'd apply to myself at that time for sure. Again though, I want to emphasize I also see a positive trend in gaming in general. There's a long walk ahead, but the industry is actually walking the right direction, just slowly.