Xbox Apologizes for Sexy Dancers at GDC Party

As I said earlier, GDC was this weekend, and that means there was a lot of chit-chat between developers and publishers about the state of the industry, goals within companies, and where they’d like to see themselves in the upcoming weeks, months, and years. Microsoft, in that spirit, hosted a Women in Gaming Luncheon, a forum for the fairer sex to share their stories and experiences working in the gaming industry that’s still deeply and sadly mired in hate, misogyny, and discrimination.

It was a noble goal with good intention… that was undermined, ever so slightly, when a few hours later, Microsoft ALSO hosted a party where women dressed as slutty schoolgirls danced for the entertainment of the guests. Pictures, unsurprisingly, are hard to come by, but the image above is a cropped version of an edited one that Kotaku salvaged from the Twitter account of someone who attended, Tin Man Games editor Kamina Vincent, who was also the person to leak the story in the first place.

Now, this was genuinely surprising to see, even that this kind of sexist pandering is the kind of thing that Gearbox and EA are better known for, and as it turns out, the gaming public in general weren’t the only ones caught off guard: Xbox itself seems unaware that this took place, or at least, is trying to look surprised.

From Xbox head Phil Spencer:

How we show up as an organization is incredibly important to me. We want to build and reflect the culture of TEAM XBOX – internally and externally – a culture that each one of us can represent with pride. An inclusive culture has a direct impact on the products and services we deliver and the perception consumers have of the Xbox brand and our company, as a whole.

It has come to my attention that at Xbox-hosted events at GDC this past week, we represented Xbox and Microsoft in a way that was absolutely not consistent or aligned to our values. That was unequivocally wrong and will not be tolerated. This matter is being handled internally, but let me be very clear – how we represent ourselves as individuals, who we hire and partner with and how we engage with others is a direct reflection of our brand and what we stand for. When we do the opposite, and create an environment that alienates or offends any group, we justly deserve the criticism.

It’s unfortunate that such events could take place in a week where we worked so hard to engage the many different gaming communities in the exact opposite way. I am personally committed to ensuring that diversity and inclusion is central to our everyday business and our core values as a team – inside and outside the company. We need to hold ourselves to higher standards and we will do better in the future.

Of course, how this actually happened without his knowledge is a mystery--that seems like the kind of thing he should have had a hand in--but then I’m always willing to assume the best of people. But here’s hoping they actually do make the changes he talks about, because holding ourselves to a higher standard than the people who judge us is the first step to self-improvement.

Also, those are some really ugly skirts. Just saying.