A major shake up recently went down in the world of technology and video games.
The former head of Microsoft’s Xbox/head of entertainment Don Mattrick left his post to become the CEO at Zynga. Now another major move has been made – Julie Larson-Green is now Microsoft’s new official head of the Xbox division. This surprising move from Microsoft shocked several gamers who were keeping any eye on the tech giant’s progress with the Xbox One.
After combing through several social media feeds and comment sections pertaining to this Julie Larson-Green’s new position, we noticed a few things. Some gamers were more than happy while some gamers were none too pleased with this new development. What’s saddening though is the misogynistic personalities that reared their ugly heads.
We rounded up the best (and worst) reactions we caught a glimpse of on the internet. The comments you’re about to read show the sometimes respectful, often times cynical and also embarrassingly ugly side of gaming.
Just a daily reminder on why so many of us talk about sexism in the games industry and community pic.twitter.com/S0U3lg68sc
— Lauren Wainwright (@atheistium) July 11, 2013
Mrs Julia Larson-Green new head of Microsoft's #Xbox. Tweeting this because, the new head being a lady would actually affect its sales.
— Haider Khan (@KINAMATIX) July 11, 2013
Fuck everyone that's trash talking Julie Larson-Green just because she's a woman Nice to see how lively sexism still is in this industry =|
— S.A. Lowell (@sa_lowell) July 11, 2013
Im actually excited to see Julie Larson Green to be the next boss!! #xboxone
— Caleb Gayle (@SOLEB7891) July 4, 2013
Julie Larson-Green, one of the lead people behind Windows 7, becomes Xbox boss? That is probably a good thing…hopefully
— CK (@MrCK07) July 11, 2013
GameSpot Commentators
love to get her in front of the Kinect spycam – straightcurr
Ah, so the person in charge of Windows 8 is now in charge of the Xbone?
I predict nothing but success! *snicker* – Thanatos2k
A female for a change, good for you ladies. – FartFastMcSpeed
She probably slept her way up, – El_Zaggy
N4G.com Commentators
I have no problem with women heading companies because women are awesome. I have a problem with this because Mrs. Larsen is NOT a gamer…
… And it should always be a gamer heading the Xbox division. Just like Tretton of PlayStation, along with Cerny and Yoshida. They are all gamers.
This is disconcerting. – allformats
Great… Now their will be apps dedicated to baking and knitting…
God damn it MS!
I really want the Xbox one but your making it so hard for me to make the leap!
Sony haven’t tempted me enough to jump ship but I swear your making me walk the plank…. – JohnnyBadfinger
This is bad news for a couple of reasons:
1) Larson-Green has no professional experience in the game industry, and now she’s in charge of Xbox
2) Not only is she in charge of Xbox, but she’s in charge of all studios and game-development, too
3) Worse yet, she has a lot of other responsibilities, including all of Microsoft’s efforts with Surface, music, video, multimedia, etc. Meaning that her attention will be split between all those things.
4) Unlike before, where the Xbox gaming division had the direct ear of Ballmer (Xbox bosses were always directly under Ballmer), now the Xbox gaming division is going to be buried amid other non-gaming divisions.
Only time will tell, but I’d like to see an instance of when a non-gamer took over a gaming division and it resulted in a better gaming console… – dedicatedtogamers
“I have no problem with women heading companies”
this is where we disagree. The day we have a woman president, I’m out. – Blaze929
