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Activision/Blizzard and MIT announce "Diversity Space Tool", a software that helps developers determine how diverse their characters are

brian0057

Banned
Woah. Didn’t expect to see so much hatred towards diversity.

This is a brilliant project, it will make some characters more relatable for others. Does it really hurt you that other races and genders won’t feel so alienated when they want to play video games?

Be kind. Do better.

You, praising the new diversity tool.

bae408d08bc5416cb5a4d55b50576665.jpeg
 
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Kssio_Aug

Member
Woah. Didn’t expect to see so much hatred towards diversity.

This is a brilliant project, it will make some characters more relatable for others. Does it really hurt you that other races and genders won’t feel so alienated when they want to play video games?

Be kind. Do better.
It seems nowadays no one can criticize terrible ideas tagged as "pro diversity" without being called, directly or indirectly, discriminatory.

The thing is that this tool is basically a judge that tell devs and artists what they should to with their products. I see no problem with devs doing games with black and female characters and leads, not at all; but this kind of tool will only label how supposedly discriminatory other games are because they have more white, men, or "beautiful" characters in it (and I'm saying "beautiful" because it literally is one of the aspects it analyzes, whatever this might mean).

Also, this whole thing nowadays has become a market. These giant companies are not doing this stuff for the sake of diversity, they're doing it because it makes them money and paint them as "pro diversity" companies.
 
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BlueHawk

Neo Member
It seems nowadays no one can criticize terrible ideas tagged as "pro diversity" without being called, directly or indirectly, discriminatory.

The thing is that this tool is basically a judge that tell devs and artists what they should to with their products. I see no problem with devs doing games with black and female characters and leads, not at all; but this kind of tool will only label how supposedly discriminatory other games are because they have more white, men, or "beautiful" characters in it (and I'm saying "beautiful" because it literally is one of the aspects it analyzes, whatever this might mean).

Also, this whole thing nowadays has become a market. These giant companies are not doing this stuff for the sake of diversity, they're doing it because it makes them money and paint them as "pro diversity" companies.
That’s a lot of Waffle. Could have just said you feel they are doing it for marketing reasons, which I’m sure they are, but that speaks for the need of something like this to exist too. Only people threatened by diversity should worry about this, and the “average” gamer wouldn’t really care.
 

stickkidsam

Member
That’s a lot of Waffle. Could have just said you feel they are doing it for marketing reasons, which I’m sure they are, but that speaks for the need of something like this to exist too. Only people threatened by diversity should worry about this, and the “average” gamer wouldn’t really care.
They’re making a ranking system for race, culture, age, etc. It is literally a token machine. What’s more it is trying to dictate the validity of people’s art.

You don’t see a problem with this?
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
The reality is that businesses generally don't do much of anything unless there's a financial benefit to it. The reality is that increased diversity and inclusion pays. I don't have the numbers to support this, but you see it playing out in pretty much every sector now. So clearly there's a financial upside, or this trend would not continue.
Not just businesses, but government too. I've seen online Canadian government sites say diversity leads to better productivity and quality of work. I also do my annual repetitive (literally the same online assignment every year for 3 years until they change it up to the new 20 minute code of conduct assignment) which says diverse work pools lead to more productive corporate culture.

The problem is, I have never seen one study that backs this up. Not even from government. If they can prove with data that making a department's workforce spread out among different people automatically leads to gains in quantity and quality of work, that would be great proof to doubters who believe in hire the best you can for the budget regardless of what the look like.
 
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Kssio_Aug

Member
That’s a lot of Waffle. Could have just said you feel they are doing it for marketing reasons, which I’m sure they are, but that speaks for the need of something like this to exist too. Only people threatened by diversity should worry about this, and the “average” gamer wouldn’t really care.
As expected, it's like talking to someone who doesn't want to even listen.

Not Listening Dumb And Dumber GIF


But whatever... take your own totally not preconceived conclusions. I'm past debating this kind of topic with people over the internet. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 

BlueHawk

Neo Member
They’re making a ranking system for race, culture, age, etc. It is literally a token machine. What’s more it is trying to dictate the validity of people’s art.

You don’t see a problem with this?
Are you implying a white male is worth
nhMXPxn.jpg


Only the non-believers would question the will of the Church on this matter. Are you saying that you are wavering in your faith?
Tell me you’re a white male aged 20-30 who’s been maidenless without words.
 
Are you implying a white male is worth

Tell me you’re a white male aged 20-30 who’s been maidenless without words.
And this is your problem. Since I'm about to explain why you're wrong, maybe that could penetrate your thick skull? Really just shows how the way you think is literally racist.

FYI, not that it's any of your business - I'm a mixed race male, and my dad's from Libya and immigrated to the US to flee a dictatorship so we've been separated from half my family my entire life. First one in my family to go to college. And I've been in a relationship for 5 years, and literally not making this up .... we're shopping for a wedding ring this weekend. Wow you are wrong lol.

I don't have the original sin of whiteness. I'm racially holy. But I do bare the original sin of being a man, and for that I flagellate myself daily.

iam-0390004202.jpg
 
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BlueHawk

Neo Member
And this is your problem. Since I'm about to explain why you're wrong, maybe that could penetrate your thick skull? Really just shows how the way you think is literally racist.

FYI, not that it's any of your business - I'm a mixed race male, and my dad's from Libya and immigrated to the US to flee a dictatorship so we've been separated from half my family my entire life. First one in my family to go to college. And I've been in a relationship for 5 years, and literally not making this up .... we're shopping for a wedding ring this weekend. Wow you are wrong lol.

I don't have the original sin of whiteness. I'm holy.
Woah, first off - congratulations. Hope the wedding goes well. It’s a huge step and honestly, things will change a lot after.

I saw you did a meme thing so I did one too. My origin race is Jamaican but you wouldn’t know that if you saw me in person aha. No hate, and again, enjoy married life. 👍
 
Woah, first off - congratulations. Hope the wedding goes well. It’s a huge step and honestly, things will change a lot after.

I saw you did a meme thing so I did one too. My origin race is Jamaican but you wouldn’t know that if you saw me in person aha. No hate, and again, enjoy married life. 👍
Thank you sir. I'll throw you a bone since you're new here and just let you know that probably the majority of people on here are skeptical of things like what's showcased in this thread, and many have strong feelings about it. Moderation also leans that direction as well. Just keep that in mind and make your case if you must without implying everyone that thinks differently than you is evil somehow. That's my only advice!
 
Woah. Didn’t expect to see so much hatred towards diversity.

Always the strawmanning :messenger_unamused:

People are taking issue with the attempt at turning diversity into a zero sum game. You cannot just put a number on culture, race and skin color and unironically think you're being a forward thinker when in fact that is exactly what discriminatory pseudo-sciences such as phrenology tried to do in the past.

Diversity is incommutable!

Diversity requires context and certainly cannot simply be quantified. Since creators using that tool also want to get the highest score possible, it leads to some seriously homogenized content and non-believable characters that exist solely to tick boxes. Not to mention that this approach is unbelievably prejudiced and relies heavily on the stereotyping of other ethnicities through a severely limited north-American lens.

Using a tool like that is literally the anti-thesis to what diversity is actually about as it can only result in the production of very samey media content.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
And this is your problem. Since I'm about to explain why you're wrong, maybe that could penetrate your thick skull? Really just shows how the way you think is literally racist.

FYI, not that it's any of your business - I'm a mixed race male, and my dad's from Libya and immigrated to the US to flee a dictatorship so we've been separated from half my family my entire life. First one in my family to go to college. And I've been in a relationship for 5 years, and literally not making this up .... we're shopping for a wedding ring this weekend. Wow you are wrong lol.

I don't have the original sin of whiteness. I'm racially holy. But I do bare the original sin of being a man, and for that I flagellate myself daily.

iam-0390004202.jpg
What's happened in life is government is sick and tired of bailing people out, so they started it all off doing job and school admission quotas.

Then it rubbed off on companies who use it as likeability and open mindedness hoping it leads to sales from a a chummy PR image of being everyone's best friend. Which for video game companies is a complete lie since every office lobby photo they show is literally 95% white people for US or European game studios. Some even have zero Asians which you'd think at least a couple Asians following the STEM route to success would get hired by an office with 80 people in it.

Then it rubbed off on people who have zero idea what it's like to work for your success instead of getting things handed to you on a quota platter. My parents had all their parents die (ya all 4 of them killed by the time they were teenagers). So they got raised by their siblings (my uncles and aunts who survived) and their grandparents who survived (my GREAT grandparents who I met the last one alive and she died when I was 11 or 12). I literally never met one grandparent because they were all long dead for probably 20 years.

My parents and fam tree after slumming it for a while learning English did great. Some of us are millionaires and own businesses. My dad even has patents he developed with other coworkers they used in space flight and he's literally got a model/prototype he got from the company on his shelf. Did all of this and didnt learn English till sometime in his 20s. My parents didnt get their first car till they were 35 or 36.
 
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BlueHawk

Neo Member

That was an accident but kinda funny so I’ll leave it in. 😂

Thank you sir. I'll throw you a bone since you're new here and just let you know that probably the majority of people on here are skeptical of things like what's showcased in this thread, and many have strong feelings about it. Moderation also leans that direction as well. Just keep that in mind and make your case if you must without implying everyone that thinks differently than you is evil somehow. That's my only advice!
Ahh I see. Thanks for the advice 👌
 

jason10mm

Gold Member
I can sorta kinda see the value of this tool early in the production process to highlight the narrative and character elements so at least devs can understand what they are making before they get too far along.

Lead Dev: "So this game set in Iceland circa 800 CE about a band of Norwegians who shipwreck on the deserted shore and have to scrape out an existence building a colony while being attacked by creatures from Norse mythology. Our diversity score is very low because every character is a white norwegian.,"

PR/DIE weinie:"Can we add in some black disabled characters, maybe an arabic trans person, and why are these shipwrecked survuvors so thin, can any be fatter or really old/young? What about an eskimo or something, they live in the arctic, right?"

Lead Dev: "But no human lived on Iceland before this and the only human characters come from a single village in Norway, that is the entire plot of the game. The entire dev team is from a villiage in Norway and this game is based on our childhood RPG adventures. Either we change the story to a multicultural colony ship from future Earth crash landing on a remote uninhabited planet or we are just gonna have to accept that the only cast that makes sense for this time period and geographic location, according to all of the archeological science we know, is this. Only married heterosexual couples were brought on this colonization trip, and naturally no children or very old could have survived the journey."

PR/DIE weinie: "Well, I wouldn't want twitter blue checkmarks to get mad at me and I really hope to get Jen Psakis job someday so why don't you just make the cast 70% BIPOCs, ensure at least 60% of the relationships are non-heterosexual, and add about 20 gender identities."

Lead Dev: "What value are you bringing to our game again???"

So the tool can highlight a lack of certain types of diversity and it can be addressed based on the concept of the game, then the devs can decide if they want to alter course or drive on. Of course all rational people know that you can have just a single family with ENDLESS conflict, differences, and diverse opinions/beliefs, so the external things this tool seems to value are largely just cosmetic virtue signalling and not representative of diversity at all.
 
I'd imagine a rational person discussing this tool during initial testing within Act/Blizz going something like this:

Q: We already have diversity, but people are more divided than ever, why can't we focus on unity?
A: We're working on just that - We've built this tool which puts fictional characters into boxes based primarily on external attributes, it's essentially a mirror of the world around us
Q: But isn't that inherently racist and at the same time perpetuating disingenuous inclusion? Does this not limit people's artistic creativity right out of the gate?
A: Please, the only way to ensure everyone is included, is to use a tool like this, so no one can be left out ever again
Q: So how are we supposed to accommodate everyone's ever changing sensitivities, proclivities, and beliefs - where does the line end? What is the bottom of this well?
A: It ends when everyone is just good to each other and doesn't worry about all these things
Q: So why do we need this tool?, instead of putting everyone into boxes and constantly championing how different everyone is, why don't we just all focus on inclusion rather than division and celebration of differences?
A: You're fired
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
I'd imagine a rational person discussing this tool during initial testing within Act/Blizz going something like this:

Q: We already have diversity, but people are more divided than ever, why can't we focus on unity?
A: We're working on just that - We've built this tool which puts fictional characters into boxes based primarily on external attributes, it's essentially a mirror of the world around us
Q: But isn't that inherently racist and at the same time perpetuating disingenuous inclusion? Does this not limit people's artistic creativity right out of the gate?
A: Please, the only way to ensure everyone is included, is to use a tool like this, so no one can be left out ever again
Q: So how are we supposed to accommodate everyone's ever changing sensitivities, proclivities, and beliefs - where does the line end? What is the bottom of this well?
A: It ends when everyone is just good to each other and doesn't worry about all these things
Q: So why do we need this tool?, instead of putting everyone into boxes and constantly championing how different everyone is, why don't we just all focus on inclusion rather than division and celebration of differences?
A: You're fired
You can tell game makers are full of shit at diversity anyway.

I forget if it was this thread earlier or a different one, but for all the claims about diversity and inclusion, most US/Euro studios are literally 90%+ white people. Just find one of their giant office photos.

And there's hardly any main characters in US/Euro gaming that arent white or black. There's shit loads of Asians, Indians, Latinos in the world.... and getting to smaller segments like one guy bringing up where's all the Hawaiian people.... yet you dont see it. So somehow all these white game devs sitting in an AC office have the skills to make black characters, but never anyone else.

Talk one thing, sell a different thing.
 
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Dr. Claus

Vincit qui se vincit
I know everyone likes to think that their bad opinion represents a substantial majority of the public, but that's not reality.
Correct. The mistake you made is thinking you’re regressive ideals are the majority of public opinion. The reality is, most of the public doesn’t give two shits.

The reality is that businesses generally don't do much of anything unless there's a financial benefit to it. The reality is that increased diversity and inclusion pays. I don't have the numbers to support this, but you see it playing out in pretty much every sector now. So clearly there's a financial upside, or this trend would not continue.
Businesses try to go for what makes financial sense and, failing that, gain popular sentiment to earn financial success in the long run. Yet, we see more and more businesses earning less and less as they try and push these regressive ideas that a very loud minority demanded. Meanwhile properties and businesses that conitnued on like usual or outright went *against* those vocal people have either stayed the course or *gained* financial success. Gillette, Blizzard Entertainment, DICE - I could go on. These are only a handful of companies that tried to appeal to what they thought was a larger group, that being regressive social slacktivists, but ended up *losing* money in the long run and either running back what they tried to do or doubled down and saw further financial loss.

So, those who continue to question the validity of these trends are going to quickly find themselves on the wrong side of history, as society continues to evolve around them.
Yes, like you.

I'd say the young people are at the forefront of this movement.
Young people tend to be the most ignorant and idealistic, devoid of knowledge or education on how the world actually functions. You are a perfect example of this.

They're growing up in an ever more-connected world, and they interact and engage with more diverse groups of friends, not just ethnically, but also geographically.
Not quite. They tend to group up in an ever connected world where they form echo chambers and refuse to engage or discuss outside of them. They shield themselves from any real debates and think they can make a change with their ignorant/idealistic views by crying about it via social media instead of going out and actually attempting to make a change. Mind you, this is on both sides of the fence for young folks (right and left, respectively). Its why you see folks like ANTIFA and Proud Boys going out and making fools of themselves as they are so socially maladjusted, they are physically and mentally incapable of actually protesting or providing any actual activist actions.

They're getting a closer look at tons more cultures than we were able to growing up, and they're largely embracing the differences in others. Victims of racism often lament the indoctrination of kids from an early age. Well, I'd like to think that access to smart devices from a young again, and familiarity with the internet from early on will have the opposite effect, and instill values of acceptance and tolerance in young kids.
Look at Twitter. Look at ResetEra. Racism is still alive and well, it has just chosen a different target. Ignorance is at an all time high.

Hell, even that little kid who became a meme for being against gay marriage ended up changing his mind just a couple years later, while still a young kid. It shows that he was really just parroting what he was hearing at home or in church, and not necessarily what he really felt.
Yes, just like many young kids parrot that socialism is amazing! And how everyone should have free health care and not have to work full time jobs. Then they see reality for what it is and walk that back.

tl;dr: Society as a whole is changing, and I hope that it's the youth who get to steer the direction that we're going in, because as we all learned growing up, past generations don't fucking get it, and are stuck in their ways to a detriment. So if diversity is profitable, then a diversity tool is nothing more than a business investment for the future that bigots can't prevent.
Yes, you “don’t fucking get it“.
 
The reality is that increased diversity and inclusion pays. I don't have the numbers to support this, but you see it playing out in pretty much every sector now. So clearly there's a financial upside, or this trend would not continue.
See, I actually agree with you here.

This whole erroneous idea of "go woke, get broke" is as far from reality as you can get.

Fact is is wokeness sells and has a big market with today's youth.

And unlike the left, the right is not very good at boycotting so they'll continue to buy tickets to every woke Marvel movie and buy every woke tabletop role-playing game book and video game despite how much they say they hate it.

So, while I'm very anti-woke myself, everthing you said was 100% correct.
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
AI determined racism is not how I imagined machines would take over the world, yet ... Here we are ...
On the plus side, if future Terminators start ransacking every town on Earth they might be lenient if their infra-red vision classifies you as a diverse humanoid.
 
It's both depressing and hilarious that the authority defining the measures of "Diversity" with this tool are the so-called DE&I expert consultants.

I mean, WTF is a DE&I expert really?

Did some intersectional minority just wake up in the morning one day, figure out that their cultural studies degree from some no-name college is actually worthless and then just invent some new field of expertise for themselves so that they can con ignoramus companies who are so terrified of offending the woke boogeyman into paying them to tell them bullshit?

It's actually startling that people will invent a whole fucking profession for themselves out of thin air and society will not only acknowledge their madness but patronise them by giving them employment.

The western world has gone nuts.
 
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Nickolaidas

Banned
See, I actually agree with you here.

This whole erroneous idea of "go woke, get broke" is as far from reality as you can get.

Fact is is wokeness sells and has a big market with today's youth.

And unlike the left, the right is not very good at boycotting so they'll continue to buy tickets to every woke Marvel movie and buy every woke tabletop role-playing game book and video game despite how much they say they hate it.

So, while I'm very anti-woke myself, everthing you said was 100% correct.
Then why do western woke comics and tv shows get canceled left and right?
 

Goalus

Member
I dunno. Sounds like a "magical negro" character and that's a whole other problematic problem.

For any perpetually offended lurking about. That's actually a thing.

Not really if it's the main character.
A cis white male as a supporting character could score bonus points.

Woah. Didn’t expect to see so much hatred towards diversity.

This is a brilliant project, it will make some characters more relatable for others. Does it really hurt you that other races and genders won’t feel so alienated when they want to play video games?

Be kind. Do better.
Do you happen to originate from that purple forum?
 
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nush

Gold Member
Did some intersectional minority just wake up in the morning one day, figure out that their cultural studies degree from some no-name college is actually worthless and then just invent some new field of expertise for themselves so that they can con ignoramus companies who are so terrified of offending the woke boogeyman into paying them to tell them bullshit?

Yes, it's a grift. I don't condone it, but I respect the grift rinsing corps out of the bucks and then those same people also rinsing bucks out of their allies/supporters then making out like bandits. At the end of the day everyone involved gets fucked except for the grifters bank account.
 

sendit

Member
Congrats to whomever at Activision/Blizzard got a promotion out of developing this tool. Well deserved, Just what the industry needed.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Congrats to whomever at Activision/Blizzard got a promotion out of developing this tool. Well deserved, Just what the industry needed.
Even dumber is that Activision employees and the person who first spoke about have differing opinions.

The purple board had posts where Activision employees didn't even know about the tool and have never heard of it, and the employee who PR'ed about the tool changed her statement about it being used for Vanguard and some other game.

So something stupid is going on about the tool itself and it's actual usage there.
 

Nickolaidas

Banned
It has very little to do with the fact they're woke and just more because they are crappy quality.

There's plenty of non-woke shows and games and whatever that also get canceled.
The problem is that woke shows are almost always bad, because they're almost always focusing on the wrong things (THE MESSAGE), instead of the right things (decent believable characterization and storytelling).
I wouldn't mind a trans/gay/whatever character as long as they're flawed yet likable, like most solid character are and focus on character traits, rather than what they think of/like to do with particular genitalia.

Unfortunately, minority characters when written by activists are almost always about telling white people how much they suck, or how amazing it is to be a minority. Which is, in terms of storytelling and characterization, a great way to kill your series.
 
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