Time to call out equality preachers.

I'm hardly a dinaosaur, unless im trying to clap and my arms are in a hoodie so I look like a drunk T-Rex, but I've been in the industry for 6 years now. During this time we have seen a huge push for equality in gaming, with focus being made on Women In Gaming Awards, company policies, social media outreach, "all in diversity", and many other campaigns and social outreach posts designed to get more females in positions historically dominated by males. Its a lovely idea and a fairly simple objective.

If we look at the world of sport, we see this has started to happen. More attendance at womens sporting events, look at Euro 2022 where a lot of the UK got behind the "Lionesses", or the recent uproar in the USA over equal pay, has delivered an increase in royalties and salaries to women, with the USA even caving in and providing equal pay.

Ill go out on a limb here - but sports is a bad example. If the women's game profits say.... Manchester United 1 million Euros, but the men's game profits the same club 100 million Euros, then I would fully support that whoever brings in the most money should get the most wages/bonuses. I would agree if it was the other way around. Even Ronda Rousey agrees, the most celebrated and renowned woman in sports for a long time, she was paid more than the men as she "delivered the most views". Fair play. That to me is equality. I work the same amount of hours in the same company as someone else, but they may be paid more or less than me. The profitablity of our roles is the deciding factor.

Moving on to gaming and you see talks, webinars, charity pushes, award shows, live streams, social media, the whole lot. Sadly this is mostly a couple of times a year when the need for social presense on this topic is "more required" due it coinciding with a large event, but what are marketing teams for if not faking company awareness right? That why I banned ours from doing that unless we do it all the time (Sorry Niamh).

The problem I have with these incentives, and cue the drama, is that they are lazy concepts without anyone actually doing anything good. Someone can show me some stats and ill show you others disproving them. But my main reason for this is going to sound a bit "egotistical", so please assume thats not the case, but lets do some amazing stats from our company. These are courtesy of my HR team, ironically all female, and are a direct snapshot of our business.

This is the first, and I believe only, example of a Medium/Large company in igaming, who has a predominantly female workforce. Not only that, but in a Head of Department role or higher, the split remains in favour of female employees.

Regarding reimbursement or wages, I cannot go into specific amounts but the level of pay is identical across male/females in the same or similar positions.

So - lets summarise. We created a company with over 50% female senior staff, and over 60% total female staff. We eliminated any pay gaps, we give more than the required amount of maternity, we also give paternity leave (Dont worry guys, i still got you). We have no ceilings, glass or otherwise. We have a sustainable model, with growth in all departments. We deliver year on year business growth and EBITDA increase. We also generally have happy people (I think/hope).

So obviously we were thrilled to showcase this to all of the campaigners, social drivers, media companies and Women In Gaming companies/marketers who came knocking after we launched this data on social media last year.

No emails. No enquiries. No government bonuses, award invites, socials, medals, gold stars, tampon sponsorship. Vasectomy Support.

Nothing.

You would think that for all the campaigning, the huge global issue that there was, that someone in our little industry was doing exactly what was wanted, nay, demanded, this would be big news. If not the biggest news. I half expected to be turning down fake awards at this point... or at least writing about them on LinkedIn to upset a few apple carts. But just.... silence.

So my question I pose here, as this post isn't just to annoy people or call out some hypocrisy, is what the hell is the point of all the talk, all the media, all the awards and events, if when you actually succeed... no one gives a shit?

For the record we will continue to hire in the way we do, indiscriminately and fairly, with or without any sort of praise. No one wants credit for doing the right thing. You don't hold the door open for an old lady expecting a hug; just a polite smile will do nicely. Or a quickie behind the bins if it's in Blackpool I'm told (I can make that joke, I lived there).

In a world so obsessed with change and inclusion, I just can't fathom when it finally happens, nothing occurs. It's like people want to just be seen talking about the problem, not talking about a resolution or any type of change. The problem is more clickable, bait-able, writable, consumer-able. The deliverance of change is no longer about them, its about the others who did it.

So really even people who demand that change, build a career on it, are no better than anyone else. Which if the definition of inequality. Oh the irony.

P.S - Don't hate the jokes.