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[EssKayZee]

The New York Video Game Critics Circle announced that Jade Raymond will be receiving the Andrew Yoon Legend Award in recognition of her contributions to the gaming industry at large, with the awards ceremony to take place later this month.

Notably, Raymond is the first woman to receive the award, with past winners including Richard Garriott, Todd Howard, Rockstar Games, and Ralph Baer.

Source: Dualshockers

 

[Dr.brain64]

She deserves it. Many people out there just wishing they could do what she has done.

 

[Kamina]

I haven’t heard anything from her since AC1, what has she been up to exactly that she is honored like this?

 

[dirthead]

She deserves it. Many people out there just wishing they could do what she has done.

Everything else being equal, if she were a dude, she wouldn't be getting these awards. It's true and you know it. The first Assassin's Creed is a shitty game and she didn't have much to do with the sequels.

When you compare what analogous dudes had to do to get awards like this it's a fucking farce.

 

[Geki-D]

She deserves it. Many people out there just wishing they could do what she has done.

Why's that, then?

 

[ancelotti]

Remember when all those UBI games felt like soulless grinds devoid of challenge?...

Oh well, if her visibility inspires more girls into game development then that's a good thing. But yeah, I'm not sure driving a bunch of valuable IP into the ground really deserves an award. It's pretty funny seeing her there with someone like Baer who more or less invented the concept of a video game. It seems like if this is the direction you're going then Amy Hennig would be vastly more deserving and a genuinely groundbreaking figure in the industry.

 

[dirthead]

Remember when all those UBI games felt like soulless grinds devoid of challenge?...

Oh well, if her visibility inspires more girls into game development then that's a good thing. But yeah, I'm not sure driving a bunch of valuable IP into the ground really deserves an award. It's pretty funny seeing her there with someone like Baer who more or less invented the concept of a video game. It seems like if this is the direction you're going then Amy Hennig would be vastly more deserving and a genuinely groundbreaking figure in the industry.

Why is it necessarily a good thing? I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but when I look at what women designers have produced so far, I can't say I'm that impressed. Sierra adventure games that have aged poorly (Roberta Williams), set piece driven games that have aged poorly (Amy Hennig), and current indie turds? Women actually have a really bad track record in the game design department. Which female game designer has made a Mario, Metroid, Street Fighter, Doom, or anything truly seminal and awesome? I can't think of a single seminal game that a woman was involved with in any role that wasn't either art or music/sound design. Even the original World of Warcraft team had no female encounter or map designers.

This is coming from my biased perspective as a male, but I think it's entirely possible that women might largely suck at designing video games that appeal to men.

 

[SlashBringingHasher]

Everything else being equal, if she were a dude, she wouldn't be getting these awards. It's true and you know it. The first Assassin's Creed is a shitty game and she didn't have much to do with the sequels.

When you compare what analogous dudes had to do to get awards like this it's a fucking farce.

considering how unfriendly are most video game development environments to women are. it makes sense.

not an SJW. but other males gotten bigger awards than some no name new york game awards for less. Jade raymond doesn't make games, she sets up and creates studios and gets talent. thats what she does. she set up multiple successful studios. so the good stuff she makes is a lot harder than you think. just because she doesn't directly make games doesn't mean shes not doing anything.

 

[wzy]

A good way to ensure that no producer ever wins one of these awards would be to ask them to clearly articulate their job descriptions prior to being considered.

 

[dirthead]

considering how unfriendly are most video game development environments to women are. it makes sense.

not an SJW. but other males gotten bigger awards than some no name new york game awards for less. Jade raymond doesn't make games, she sets up and creates studios and gets talent. thats what she does. she set up multiple successful studios.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jade_Raymond

Look at the games.

The Sims Online - an already established property that printed money, and yet somehow it was still a failure that was canned.

Assassin's Creed - AAA game with an enormous budget that somehow managed to be an unplayable disaster. Might have launched a successful franchise, but let's get real. The game fucking sucks.

Assassin's Creed 2 - It's actually a decent game even though the combat still blew in it. So she's 1/3 so far.

Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines - Letdown after 2, mixed reviews, more or less flop. 1/4.

Splinter Cell: Blacklist - Got so so reviews and didn't meet sales expectations. Kind of middle of the road. Not too impressive.

Watch Dogs - Another big budget AAA train wreck like AC1. It did sell, but the game sucks.

The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot - another online game flop that was shut down.

She's got a shit track record. Almost everything she's been associated with has sucked. This isn't a person you give game developer awards to.

 

[SlashBringingHasher]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jade_Raymond

Look at the games.

The Sims Online - an already established property that printed money, and yet somehow it was still a failure that was canned.

Assassin's Creed - AAA game with an enormous budget that somehow managed to be an unplayable disaster. Might have launched a successful franchise, but let's get real. The game fucking sucks.

Assassin's Creed 2 - It's actually a decent game even though the combat still blew in it. So she's 1/3 so far.

Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines - Letdown after 2, mixed reviews, more or less flop. 1/4.

Splinter Cell: Blacklist - Got so so reviews and didn't meet sales expectations. Kind of middle of the road. Not too impressive.

Watch Dogs - Another big budget AAA train wreck like AC1. It did sell, but the game sucks.

The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot - another online game flop that was shut down.

She's got a shit track record. Almost everything she's been associated with has sucked. This isn't a person you give game developer awards to.

you didn't read anything i said.

 

[dirthead]

you didn't read anything i said.

I did, but I don't think you read what she's actually getting an award for.

"will honored at the ceremony for her prominent body of work."

Oh yes, what a prominent body of wonderful video games that she wrote in machine code by herself while others just looked on in awe. Give me a break. She's a PR creation. Ubi Soft realized they had someone photogenic and marketed her to sell more copies of games, because that's how dumb a lot of people are.

 

[GamesAreFun]

Oh yes, what a prominent body of wonderful video games that she wrote in machine code by herself while others just looked on in awe. Give me a break. She's a PR creation. Ubi Soft realized they had someone photogenic and marketed her to sell more copies of games, because that's how dumb a lot of people are.

The producer of a game who manages the project, juggles priorities and teams, and ensures quality of the final product is arguably more important than a single programmer or artist making the game, at least in the AAA sector.

You seem unnecessarily dismissive of Jade Raymond.

 

[dirthead]

The producer of a game who manages the project, juggles priorities and teams, and ensures quality of the final product is arguably more important than a single programmer or artist making the game, at least in the AAA sector.

You seem unnecessarily dismissive of Jade Raymond.

The funny thing is that producers are actually one of the least important roles in AAA games. They're such a circus that they're basically chaos, and people don't even understand what happened when one turns out well. This is why most of them bomb. It's true that no single person is much of a big deal when it comes to developing a huge game, but it's also true that the artists, sound designers, programmers, etc. are by far the most important resources.

Miyamoto "produced" Yoshi's Story for the N64. Yeah.

 

[TeamGhobad]

why? she literally hasn't done anything.

 

[bati]

Splinter Cell: Blacklist - Got so so reviews and didn't meet sales expectations. Kind of middle of the road. Not too impressive.

.

Pump your brakes kid, Blacklist is one of the best stealth games of all time and made some legitimate advancements for the genre. Most notably crouched sprint, enemy reaction window that allows recovery and generally providing the player with tools that allow him to turn the the otherwise binary nature of stealth games into a more seamless experience.

I don't know how much Ms. Raymond had to do with it (probably nothing and the real unsung hero is some tier 2 or 3 gameplay designer - because leads usually aren't smart enough to come up with such changes), but the fact remains that the game is ace. Unfortunately the game journos are morons with zero appreciation for what makes a stealth game good and playable, hence the meddling reviews.

 

[Clear]

Everything else being equal, if she were a dude, she wouldn't be getting these awards. It's true and you know it. The first Assassin's Creed is a shitty game and she didn't have much to do with the sequels.

When you compare what analogous dudes had to do to get awards like this it's a fucking farce.

This is the truth. Check out her Wikipedia page for her works if you have any doubt about how farcical it is that she's getting such an award.

 

[wzy]

I thought Blacklist was pretty good, too, actually. Unfortunately, it made the unusual genre blunder of failing to endlessly moralize about the use of violence in a warzone and it doesn't scold players for using their full range of their abilities so I can't really give it better than a 6 out of 10.

 

[Virex]

Last time I heard anything about her was with AC1. What exactly has she done since then that is award worthy besides mediocre games? AC, WD etc?

 

[Virex]

considering how unfriendly are most video game development environments to women are. it makes sense.

not an SJW. but other males gotten bigger awards than some no name new york game awards for less. Jade raymond doesn't make games, she sets up and creates studios and gets talent. thats what she does. she set up multiple successful studios. so the good stuff she makes is a lot harder than you think. just because she doesn't directly make games doesn't mean shes not doing anything.

So basically you're saying is that she's getting an award because she's a woman? People who have to fix fiber breaks in the middle of the ocean is an unfriendly environment. Where are they're awards? I sometimes have to go into areas that aren't overly friendly for work either, where is my award?

 

[Denton]

She built Ubi Toronto, EA Motive and was instrumental in producing one of the biggest franchises in gaming - not from creative (that was Desiletes), but from production perspective - but that one is also crucial.
She is obviously capable.

 

[GamesAreFun]

She deserves an extra award just for putting up with idiots on the Internet. She's never said or done anything to invite controversy beyond existing as a woman in the game industry, yet she receives vitriol constantly.

 

[Ascend]

Don't know much of her background and her work to judge whether this is warranted or not. Then again, can't be worse than Obama getting the Nobel Peace prize, so... Whatever.

 

[Javthusiast]

The bigger news here is that I found out there is a NY Game Awards.

 

[theHFIC]

I think in this case I am going to trust the opinions of the people handling the awards rather than a thread full of people who thought Kingdom Come: Deliverance was a good game.

 

[wzy]

She deserves an extra award just for putting up with idiots on the Internet. She's never said or done anything to invite controversy beyond existing as a woman in the game industry, yet she receives vitriol constantly.

She was used as a prop by her employer as part of an extremely cynical (and, in hindsight, ludicrous) ploy to combine booth babe and rockstar dev into a single corporate mascot. Yes, this backfired, because it turns out people respond negatively to being treated like slobbering idiots. I wouldn't say it's her fault but who does it help to pretend that she's some genuine industry luminary? I can think of exactly one answer to that question and it's the group of people who until very recently had a public list of important videogame people from which women were entirely absent.

 

[Fuz]

She's super hot and I'm in love, I don't care for what you guys are saying about her.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jade_Raymond

Holy shit, she's 43?

 

[GamesAreFun]

She was used as a prop by her employer as part of an extremely cynical (and, in hindsight, ludicrous) ploy to combine booth babe and rockstar dev into a single corporate mascot. Yes, this backfired, because it turns out people respond negatively to being treated like slobbering idiots. I wouldn't say it's her fault but who does it help to pretend that she's some genuine industry luminary? I can think of exactly one answer to that question and it's the group of people who until very recently had a public list of important videogame people from which women were entirely absent.

She genuinely worked as a producer on some landmark AAA titles, her role wasn't fictious. And she's well spoken so naturally she promoted those games. Yes, she's good-looking which didn't hurt the promotion, but she never dressed as a booth babe, only in normal office attire.

The producers of Assassin's Creed Origins & Odyssey also did numerous interviews with the games media, since they know the games inside out, only they received no negative reaction as men.

 

[wzy]

She genuinely worked as a producer on some landmark AAA titles, her role wasn't fictious. And she's well spoken so naturally she promoted those games. Yes, she's good-looking which didn't hurt the promotion, but she never dressed as a booth babe, only in normal office attire.

The producers of Assassin's Creed Origins & Odyssey also did numerous interviews with the games media, since they know the games inside out, only they received no negative reaction as men.

What did she actually do? Not her title, not her credits, her. "Producer on landmark AAA titles" is a descriptor that applies to about a hundred different people. What's special about this one besides the obvious? It really shouldn't be this hard to articulate the specific vision, innovation, process, or invention of a person who is winning an award for her contribution to the industry.

Like part of this is just that's it dumb to give a producer an award for anything. Even charitably conceding that AC has been an influential franchise in a good way, it's unfathomable that the key to the series' success was top-notch executive-ing. Presumably Richard Garriot and Ralph Baer aren't on that list because of their franchise structuring or general go-getting, right? A significantly larger part might be that Raymond herself has tended to articulate her contributions the way any other producer would--as primarily organizational and business-related, or in other words non-creative. In principle there's no reason you can't give an award for this but ordinarily that would be an award that other exceptional business people have earned, and would typically be expected to honor business people, not the fucking inventor of videogames.

Obviously it's not a real award and whatever three-intern committee was slapped together to set this thing up just picked what felt right for the moment, and for that reason this ends up being a really low-stakes argument but it's irksome to see people double-down on what is obviously a ludicrous juxtaposition of industry figures and act like there's nothing wrong with this picture. The best argument in this thread was that she should get it because it might inspire women or whatever, which is about as much good as this sort of self-congratulation is capable of achieving. I really wish people would just say that instead of pretending that producer is a real job and Jade Raymond was somehow unusually good at it.

 

[TGO]

I like Jade but I can't think of a reason why she would be given an award, this Award is something Cory Barlog, Amy Hennig, Hideo Kojima, Shinji Mikami etc would receive
Hell Mark Cerny should be up there too.

 

[Fuz]

Reading the wiki... she started directly as a producer for EA? Is that common?

Anyway, you guys can't really deny her merits. AC, for better or for worse (I say for worse, but that's me), changed the whole gaming media.

It's true that her look probably helped her, toh.

Bottom line: who the fuck cares for these awards, really? They're just advertising and we're (as hardcore gaming afecionados) supposed to know that.

 

[Northeastmonk]

I like Jade but I can't think of a reason why she would be given an award, this Award is something Cory Barlog, Amy Hennig, Hideo Kojima, Shinji Mikami etc would receive
Hell Mark Cerny should be up there too.

There's probably a lot of work done in the background that we don't see. Just because she isn't in the spotlight all the time doesn't mean she isn't doing all the work that no one else wants to do.
I'm sure there are probably programmers and animators that deserve an award as well.

 

[mckmas8808]

She deserves an extra award just for putting up with idiots on the Internet. She's never said or done anything to invite controversy beyond existing as a woman in the game industry, yet she receives vitriol constantly.

So much this. Dudes love to hate this woman JESUS CHRIST! You guys never get this upset when men win this type of stuff.

 

[SlashBringingHasher]

So much this. Dudes love to hate this woman JESUS CHRIST! You guys never get this upset when men win this type of stuff.

tribalism. its our online group vs their online group. its the same reason why most femininsts that complain about sexualizing women are ugly as shit.

 

[wzy]

So much this. Dudes love to hate this woman JESUS CHRIST! You guys never get this upset when men win this type of stuff.

A 10 second foray into the search feature will reveal that plenty of guys, in fact, were just as upset when overrated hack Todd Howard was similarly honored.

 

[TGO]

There's probably a lot of work done in the background that we don't see. Just because she isn't in the spotlight all the time doesn't mean she isn't doing all the work that no one else wants to do.
I'm sure there are probably programmers and animators that deserve an award as well.

I agree but like I said before there are a lot people who do the same job and have more to their portfolio to credit.
She's done very little with little success regardless if it's behind the scenes or not for a lifetime achievement award.

 

[Sqorin Hammerfarf]

What did she actually do?

I've literally never been able to figure that out. Granted, I don't stalk her like half the internet, but I've seen a few interviews with her and... I still don't know. Near as I can tell, the only reason anybody knows her name is because she has tits and we need to support more tits in the game industry. Considering this award is given by a game critic clique, it's not absurd to think that this is the case here.

Look, I think everybody working on a game is important, but the ways they are important differ in huge ways. A construction foreman may be a requirement for a building getting erected on time and on budget, but you don't give awards to construction foremen - except at the annual construct foreman awards. Awards to individuals recognize individual achievement, and I've never met anybody who can tell me what this woman does as an individual to require distinction. Maybe she does a lot, but I don't know it and you don't either, and if we don't know it then the New York Game Critic Circle certainly doesn't know it.

 

[Sqorin Hammerfarf]

Reading the wiki... she started directly as a producer for EA? Is that common?

It’s been some time since I was in the industry, but that is uncommon. Usually, you would get hired as an associate producer (which is basically an intern who gets people coffee) or you would be promoted to producer from a different position (like code monkey or HR den mother). And as with everything game industry, it isn’t what you know, but who you know. Nepotism and hiring friends isn’t uncommon. You’re more likely to get hired into a producer position from working the front desk than by working up the talent ladder. And again, it’s been decades since I was in the industry, so things may have changed.

Being put in charge of a hundred people on a multimillion dollar project with no relevant experience seems odd. Though one possibility is that she did start as an associate producer and either EA or her resume or a game journalist isn’t making that distinction.

 

[SlashBringingHasher]

She's done very little with little success regardless if it's behind the scenes or not for a lifetime achievement award.

your not making any sense tho. how do you know?

 

[Alexios]

Why is it necessarily a good thing? I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but when I look at what women designers have produced so far, I can't say I'm that impressed. Sierra adventure games that have aged poorly (Roberta Williams), set piece driven games that have aged poorly (Amy Hennig), and current indie turds? Women actually have a really bad track record in the game design department. Which female game designer has made a Mario, Metroid, Street Fighter, Doom, or anything truly seminal and awesome? I can't think of a single seminal game that a woman was involved with in any role that wasn't either art or music/sound design. Even the original World of Warcraft team had no female encounter or map designers.

This is coming from my biased perspective as a male, but I think it's entirely possible that women might largely suck at designing video games that appeal to men.

How about Portal?

And maybe not even trying to separate turds by gender to make some dumb sexist point? Ignore the turdy games and go play the good ones rather than try to check if a woman made the turd to make a mental note of it to reference in such a thread. As if you have noted every turd made by a man which are most certainly vastly more numerous given the gender dominance in the field since ages past, and still. Not that games have to solely appeal to men and depending on the man you ask then all of Nintendo or whatever other company is shit with no redeeming qualities and near masterpieces like Mario Odyssey suck ass so maybe that's not worth asking to begin with either. Oh we do like women, when they promote sexy art in games and we can consider her one of the guys rather than trying to take our polygonal titties, but when one gets awarded by whatever institution, big or small, we have to go on record about women "maybe" sucking in that field and getting preferential treatment screwing men over, lol?

 

[dirthead]

How about Portal?

And maybe not even trying to separate turds by gender to make some dumb sexist point? Just ignore the turdy games and go play the good ones rather than try to check if a woman made the turd to make a note of it. As if you have noted every turd made by a man which are most certainly vastly more numerous given the gender dominance in the field since ages past. Not that games have to solely appeal to men and depending on the man you ask then all of Nintendo or whatever other company is shit with no redeeming qualities and masterpieces like Mario Odyssey suck so maybe not worth asking to begin with. Oh we like women when they promote sexy art in games and we can consider her one of the guys but when one gets awarded we have to go on record about women "maybe" sucking in that field and getting preferential treatment, lol.

It's also possible that guys largely suck at designing video games that appeal to women. How many girls really play fighting games or FPS games?

Oh and hilariously, the only girl on the original Portal team was also a "producer." Gee, they sure love to not make video games.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narbacular_Drop

 

[Alexios]

If she didn't have a major role in the development of that game she'd have no reason to be hired by Valve at the time for Portal, pretty dumb you have to reduce her importance without even knowing what her role entailed in the project as if the duties are so set in stone when different famous developers switch roles around and then in interviews we find out they did or didn't have as much/more input than implied. Narbacular Drop was a student project released for free, if you want to think they had roles assigned like people sitting on their ass and telling others to make a game for the team to pass and get hired okay.

 

[Lionel Richie]

Jade Raymond is a goddamn rockstar and the fact that she manages to be consistently a good sport about idiotic people questioning her merit is honestly impressive.

 

[dirthead]

If she didn't have a major role in the development of that game she'd have no reason to be hired by Valve at the time for Portal, pretty dumb you have to reduce her importance without even knowing what her role entailed in the project.

All I have to go on is the Wikipedia article, but I do know that Valve hired the entire team. All I'm saying is that based on that article she didn't design the original game that Portal was based on.

Here's the bottom line: Corrinne Yu? Actual game developer with chops. People that look like stock photo models used in university website login pages that don't actually work on games? No thanks.

You could seriously play where's waldo with her by pasting her into laughably generic business people stock photos. This is the only reason this thread exists. Give me a break dude.

 

[#Phonepunk#]

Assassin's Creed series at this point is more vital than Fallout or especially Ultima. those guys got awards for old games, i see no problem with this.

she founded Ubisoft Toronto which has also put out the recent Far Cry games. people bitch about these games of course but you can't deny they are a huge part of the industry. good on her.

 

[Alexios]

All I have to go on is the Wikipedia article, but I do know that Valve hired the entire team. All I'm saying is that based on that article she didn't design the original game that Portal was based on.

Here's the bottom line: Corrinne Yu? Actual game developer with chops. People that look like stock photo models used in university website login pages that don't actually work on games? No thanks.

You could seriously play where's waldo with her by pasting her into laughably generic business people stock photos. This is the only reason this thread exists. Give me a break dude.

So now she doesn't look like a developer, lmao. And no the article says "most" of the team was hired. You know she was producer, do you know what the producer did in this case, if not then why try to frame it as something she didn't REALLY have input in? Kim Swift doesn't look like Jade, that makes her more credible somehow? Jeez. You can find more casual photos of Jade too, so what? You're way overreaching. As if the average Kojima photo shoot today is the same as when he was a young guy working on MG and someone took a random photo there.

 

[dirthead]

So now she doesn't look like a developer, lmao. And no the article says "most" of the team was hired. You know she was producer, do you know what the producer did in this case, if not then why try to frame it as something she didn't REALLY have input in? Kim Swift doesn't look like Jade, that makes her more credible somehow? Jeez. You can find more casual photos of Jade too, so what? You're reaching.

I'm making the point that she's a PR creation. Ubi Soft did the whole thing intentionally because they thought it'd lead to more game sales.

 

[Alexios]

I'm making the point that she's a PR creation. Ubi Soft did the whole thing intentionally because they thought it'd lead to more game sales.

I want to see the receipts beyond her looks and gender as your humble opinion sees them at that, sorry.

 

[Hendrick's]

She's nothing more than a good looking project manager. Nothing wrong with that, but it's obvious that she wouldn't get this reward if she wasn't a women. I mean, she can't even keep a job.

 

[#Phonepunk#]

lol yes she is nothing more than a "project manager". you know, that really easy job that means nothing at all?

idg do people think Todd Howard is coding every spoon that can be picked up and moved around in his games? no, the guy is a project manager. he oversees a project. it's something that you do when working on a large project. Richard Garriott wasn't personally drawing the portraits for every character in his Ultima games. hey maybe all these dudes are coasting on their easy project manager jobs too.

personally im stunned Todd Howard can keep his job without the obvious benefit of being a woman but maybe "It just works" is not just empty talk and is in fact the sign of a stunning visionary.