A quick note on TT Games (Patreon)

Hey everyone. A couple quick things.

First - I joined Nebula! Thanks for your feedback and thoughts in the previous post.

Based on your feedback, I'm going to keep it subtle - so don't expect any "join Curiosity Steam / Nebula!" ad reads in the usual videos! But I will be talking to them about sponsoring the GMTK Game Jam.

If we can do it in a cool, lightweight way, I'll do it. But otherwise, I'll just skip it and look elsewhere / not get a sponsor.

More importantly, though, this story came out at Polygon today. It's about crunch at LEGO games maker TT Games. But it goes beyond that and talks about a pretty grim, toxic work environment. For example:

"Other sources say that the two TT studios were also a hostile environment for women to work at, with female staff being subjected to bullying, comments about their appearance, and withheld promotions and contracts."

Now, I can't remember if I mentioned this on the Patreon, but I recently did a paid talk for TT Games back in December. Patrons can access the talk here. And, in light of this news, I don't really feel... super comfortable with that. 

I can't go back in time and un-do the talk, but what I can do is donate the full fee to Women in Games which is a charity that seeks to end gender discrimination in the industry. So that's what I've done!

As I get asked to do more and more cool stuff in the industry, there's unfortunately going to be issues with conflict of interest, and awkward situations like this. Ultimately I'm just gonna have to do my best, disclose everything that I'm allowed to, and fix issues when they come up.

Cheers

Mark