Evgeniy Obedkov

The new Raccoon Logic studio was criticized for the fact that its staff consists mainly of white men

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Yesterday, the creators of Journey to the Savage Planet founded a new studio Raccoon Logic. However, a photo of employees unexpectedly received a lot of attention on social networks. The studio was criticized for depicting only white men. This led to a discussion about the problem of personnel diversity in the gaming industry.

Journey to the Savage Planet

Briefly about Raccoon Logic

The new company consists mainly of former employees of Typhoon Studios, known for the game Journey to the Savage Planet. The founders of Raccoon Logic were:

  • Reid Schneider — head of the studio and former co-founder of WB Games Montreal, who worked on the Batman: Arkham series;
  • Alex Hutchinson is a creative director who previously worked at Electronic Arts and Ubisoft Montreal and helped develop Assassin’s Creed III, Far Cry 4 and The Sims 2;
  • Yannick Simard — Technical director, who previously worked at Ubisoft and participated in the development of the first two parts of Watch Dogs;
  • Eric Bilodeau — art director, whose portfolio includes work on Far Cry 2, Batman: Arkham Origins and Mighty Quest for Epic Loot;
  • Marc-Antoine Lussier is a technical design director who previously worked on the Assassin’s Creed franchise, as well as on Myst 4 and Syberia.

All of them previously also worked at Typhoon Studios. In 2019, Google bought the studio and made it part of Stadia Games and Entertainment. The idea of creating Raccoon Logic came to the developers when, at the beginning of the year, Google decided to close its internal development studios.

As a result, the team managed to buy the rights to their game Journey to the Savage Planet. Raccoon Logic also received investments from Tencent, but the amount of the transaction was not disclosed.

The cause of the scandal

The news about the opening of Racoon Logic was commented on by journalist Jason Schreier. He posted a photo of the employees and wrote: “It’s pretty wild that in 2021 a new game studio still looks like this.” Schreier also added that he would ban all people who believe that only the quality of the games themselves is important.

The picture showed only light-skinned men. This seemed strange to Schreyer. The Bloomberg journalist noted that diversity can improve the quality of any product. As an example, he cited his podcast — according to Schreier, it got better when they invited a girl as a third presenter.

In the comments to the post, some users noted that Raccoon Logic has just opened and you should not immediately attack the new team. However, Schreier felt that this was not an excuse for the absence of women and representatives of other groups in the team: “Yes, a great chance to declare their values from the very beginning.”

Alex Hutchinson eventually joined the discussion. At the beginning, he posted an ironic message: “You realize you’ve opened a new studio when Jason Schreier is already trolling you.”

Later, Hutchinson noted in the comments under the journalist’s post and said that he was ready to discuss the issue of diversity with him at any time. However, he stressed on Twitter that Schreier has all the necessary contacts and could at any time ask questions in person instead of publishing aggressive messages.

Raccoon Logic’s Official Response

The founders of the studio gave comments to the Gamasutra portal. Hutchinson stressed that diversity of views and the presence of diverse teams is an important component of a successful business.

Reed Schneider also noted that the post of lead producer in the studio is occupied by a woman — Noémie L‘écuyer, who is subordinate to two-thirds of Raccoon Logic employees. However, she was unable to attend the photo shoot due to her trip to Mexico.

Both developers stated that the studio has not yet fully formed. Raccoon Logic is now actively looking for new employees and will be happy to hire people with different experiences and representatives of different groups.

Recall that in 2014 Hutchinson found himself in the center of a small scandal related to the lack of playable female characters in Far Cry. He stated that the problem was caused solely by work processes — the team did not have a separate actress for voice acting and ready-made animations for women. At that time, a number of users and publications felt that this was not an excuse.

Last year, Hutchinson again attracted attention by expressing a controversial opinion about streamers. According to him, they have to pay the developers of the games they broadcast. Users attacked the developer with criticism. And Google itself, where he was working at the time, disavowed such statements.

Other opinions on the problem of personnel diversity in the industry

Indie activist and expert Rami Ismail said that diversity should initially be in the “DNA of the organization.” According to him, you can’t just add this element to an already formed company.

“We can either restart the studio or carry out a complete restructuring,” Ismail said. He added that diversity must be present in the leadership, otherwise everything will eventually return to normal.

Analyst Daniel Ahmad also joined the discussion. According to him, usually in defense of companies with insufficient levels of diversity, you can hear the argument: “They just hire the most qualified specialists.” He noted that this says a lot about how such people actually relate to representatives of other genders and skin colors.

According to the data from the GDC survey, now 73% of positions in the gaming industry are held by men. 21% are women, and 3% are non—binary people.

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