Ah, gone are the days when IGDA parties were simple affairs where you had cocktails, met interesting people, and OK, interesting females-in-tech, and here are the days, or at least this week, where we have news of a party that bent what I thought were the unwritten rules of GDC / IGDA events: don’t piss off anyone.
UPDATE: YetiZen CEO Wrongly Accused Of Offensive Party – Read By Clicking Here.
The last IGDA Party I attended, I interviewed this painter guy from SF:
And other than his work, the party was just what I described.
But this year, its apparent YetiZen and its CEO Sana N Choudary didn’t get that memo. And it must be noted that Ms. Choudary is just that, a woman.
Sana N Choudary hosted a party that featured women in white in short skirts on risers at Ruby Skye. It was, by the looks of the photos, one of those Las Vegas-meets-tech parties that’s really out of place for the GDC, but hey, Sana N Choudary has expressed a tweet of concern on Twitter.
I figure as long as she’s making the white guys who attend the GDC events happy, to hell with what women think, right?
I mean consider her Twitter tweets:
@btriordan @twobitart for sure. It was great. Hope you can make it in next time.
— Sana N Choudary (@SanaOnGames) March 27, 2013
So hey, she doesn’t care.
FYI: GDC Is A White Guy’s World
Just a note to all, the GDC and the IGDA are a white guys World. When I attended my first GDC and my first GDC event, I was the only black guy in the room – this was five years ago. Moreover, the women there acted like they were interested in what you had to say if you were a white tech guy, which pretty much left me out in the cold, even though I was with a friend of mine who knew a bunch of people.
I was pretty pissed about the experience, and the only thing that made it better was that I won an XBox in a drawing! The look on the faces of the people in the suite when that happened was priceless!
But that was five years ago, and I thought things had advanced well along so that GDC and IGDA events were more inclusive. Well, I guess not.
There’s reason “IGDA” is a Twitter Trend now.
But Sana N Choudary didn’t get that memo either.
Stay tuned.