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A union survey of Paradox Interactive employees in August reportedly accused the creator of Crusader Kings of creating a “culture of silence” around mistreatment and gender discrimination in the company.
Swedish publication Breakit (as reported by GamesIndustry.biz) reports that just under half of respondents to a survey conducted by unions felt they had suffered “abuse” at the company. The definition of abuse in this context has not yet been made public.
According to Breakit, 44% of the 133 people who took part in the survey responded that they had been abused at Paradox. The report says that while women made up only about a quarter of those surveyed, 69% of female employees who participated said they had been abused during their tenure. Meanwhile, around a third of male employees also reported experiencing abuse.
According to Breakit, the union concluded the report by saying, “Offensive treatment is a systematic and all too common problem at Paradox. The article goes on to say that company employees believe there is a “culture of silence” at the publisher, and very few employees who have been abused feel that the problem has been. treated and resolved appropriately at a later stage.
Following the news, Paradox issued a statement to Eurogamer in which it admitted that it was “aware of an investigation carried out within the company” and that the results of the said investigation were “obviously not satisfactory. “. The full statement can be read as follows:
“We are aware of an investigation carried out within the company on this subject, and the results, which are obviously not satisfactory. The management team wants to ensure that this data is tracked, but acting immediately and directly is legally difficult due to the informality of the investigation (and thanks to the sharing of results just before this change of CEO, which was quite loaded for us). We are currently working to reconcile the informal investigation with our own internal research, and look forward to action.
“Paradox is now in the process of bringing in a neutral external firm to conduct a thorough audit of our processes and a comprehensive employee survey. This will help us to advance our efforts towards all the subjects that we have worked to improve in recent years. years – harassment and abuse will be number one among these, but we’ll also be looking at topics like impartial hiring and compensation, ongoing bias awareness, inclusion, and more.
News of the report comes just days after Paradox CEO Ebba Ljungerud left the company. His resignation, Paradox said at the time, was due to differing views on the company’s strategy going forward. Despite the short time between the two events, the publisher’s communications department, Ljungerud herself, and the company’s new CEO, Frederik Wester, have all reportedly denied that there is a link between the two events. .
The abuse reported to Paradox employees is the latest in a series of similar cases affecting the industry. Earlier this year, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard with allegations of gender discrimination and a “frat boy” culture at the company. The same agency also investigated the results of a sex discrimination lawsuit at Riot Games while Ubisoft Singapore came under scrutiny as reports revealed it was being reviewed by the The country’s national watchdog for harassment allegations.
Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow it on Twitter.
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