Microsoft apologized Friday for hiring scantily clad dancers at its official Game Developers Conference after-party in San Francisco.

Reports surfaced Friday morning about the Thursday night party, which had “erotic schoolgirls” dancing on podiums and socializing with attendees.

Microsoft party #microsoft #gdc

A video posted by @ivanmoen on Mar 17, 2016 at 11:53pm PDT

Great fun at the Microsoft Xbox party with a million geeks! ???? #gamedev #gdc #gdcplay #sanfrancisco

A photo posted by Henning Ludvigsen (@henningludvigsen) on Mar 17, 2016 at 11:29pm PDT

Some people at the party voiced their displeasure on Twitter:

Even Microsoft’s own employees weren’t happy:

In a statement, Microsoft Head of Xbox Phil Spencer apologized for the party:

“At Xbox-hosted events at GDC this past week, we represented Xbox and Microsoft in a way that was not consistent or aligned to our values,” Spencer said. “It was unequivocally wrong and will not be tolerated. I know we disappointed many people and I’m personally committed to holding ourselves to higher standards. We must ensure that diversity and inclusion are central to our everyday business and core values. We will do better in the future.”

Given the gender disparity and sexism within the tech industry — in particular inside the gaming community — this isn’t the best look for Microsoft, which also hosted a Women in Games lunch at GDC this week. Other outlets penned stories with headlines like “Microsoft’s GDC party extends tradition of sexism in the gaming industry,” and, “Sexism is still a thing at Microsoft’s GDC party.”

Microsoft dealt with a similar issue in October 2014 when CEO Satya Nadella found himself in hot water early in his tenure after making controversial comments about women in the technology industry at a Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing event.

The company spent months thereafter addressing the issue head on, later making diversity one of the pillars of its corporate culture and rolling out inclusion efforts like “unconscious bias training.” Microsoft also released a video earlier this month encouraging young women to study computer science and pursue tech-related careers.

GeekWire

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