• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

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

Crank the culture meter up to 8 and your new Overwatch character has student loan debt that he's trying to pay off by being a mercenary. But he's also got a 10 in ability, meaning he's quadriplegic and uses a Stephen Hawking wheelchair by blowing into a straw.

I want to see this tool used in RPG character creators.
 

Y0ssarian

Banned
F5dphSH.jpg
 
I popped over to REEE to see their take on it, and they all hate it. Pretty hilarious to see. "Why not just hire diverse people." "Ranking people's culture and ethnicity with numbers reminds me phrenology."

The cognitive dissonance is hilarious because creating a quota algorithm is basically the literal manifestation of intersectionality theory. It's like they have literally never even thought through what it means to continually stack oppression ranks into a hierarchy. Now they see it stacked explicitly as a hierarchy and don't like it. They have literally no idea what they even ask for, and hate it as soon as they get it. Of course, no self-reflection occurs.
 
I popped over to REEE to see their take on it, and they all hate it. Pretty hilarious to see. "Why not just hire diverse people." "Ranking people's culture and ethnicity with numbers reminds me phrenology."

The cognitive dissonance is hilarious because creating a quota algorithm is basically the literal manifestation of intersectionality theory. It's like they have literally never even thought through what it means to continually stack oppression ranks into a hierarchy. Now they see it stacked explicitly as a hierarchy and don't like it. They have literally no idea what they even ask for, and hate it as soon as they get it. Of course, no self-reflection occurs.


Well I mean people are going to criticize stuff that is purely lip service like this.
People like me who are left are interested in the material realities of minorities, this is just some shit lib stuff that doesn’t address the concerns.
 

Boss Mog

Member
I fkn cant. Thats the nail in the coffin for not touching anything from them even with a stick.

Way to go Blizzard.
Just keep in mind that if you have a Gamepass sub, you are funding them.

Does this make your game better by default?
In reality? No. In the eyes of today's "games journalists"? Yes.
 
Last edited:

Dream-Knife

Banned
Well I mean people are going to criticize stuff that is purely lip service like this.
People like me who are left are interested in the material realities of minorities, this is just some shit lib stuff that doesn’t address the concerns.
Idpol is inherently a right wing ideology that only serves to make workers forget their class consciousness.
 

Reallink

Member
I popped over to REEE to see their take on it, and they all hate it. Pretty hilarious to see. "Why not just hire diverse people." "Ranking people's culture and ethnicity with numbers reminds me phrenology."

The cognitive dissonance is hilarious because creating a quota algorithm is basically the literal manifestation of intersectionality theory. It's like they have literally never even thought through what it means to continually stack oppression ranks into a hierarchy. Now they see it stacked explicitly as a hierarchy and don't like it. They have literally no idea what they even ask for, and hate it as soon as they get it. Of course, no self-reflection occurs.

Imagine how divorced from reality you have to be to believe videogame studios are swimming in resume's from 60 y/o egyptian women, handicap native americans, and black tran muslims--and they're binning them all to hire their 1,200th straight 30 y/o white man cause it's a Ku Klux Kabal. Anyone functioning an IQ point above retardation knows these woke corporations give every minority who walks in the door enough leeway on their resume and competency exam to bungee jump off the roof. They literally employ entire departments whose sole function is to guarantee that.
 
Last edited:
I don't want to go into details because it might be too political (politics aren't allowed on GAF), but if you really want to know you can check out this book by Douglas Murray; he does a fairly good job of explaining these groups:

41M4Xx1YYML._SX342_SY445_QL70_ML2_.jpg


I'm sure there are videos on youtube of him explaining this a bit too.


I’m familiar with the book and don’t agree with it.
To me it just seems like regurgitation of older conservative ideas with new names on certain things.
 

Azurro

Banned
It absolutely is tinfoil hat. Putting minorities and LGBTQ people into video games is not causing "social strife" and is not going to "destroy the West". Most people don't care about this stuff. They just want the games to be good. That's it.

Well, it's resulting in LGBT activists grooming children, there's definitely a lot of harm coming out of the "progressive" movement. It wouldn't surprise me if they will include pedophiles next.
 

Chittagong

Gold Member
Given that the model is based on actual representation of different attributes in fictional content, one would assume that a pedophile (or a “minor attracted person” in inclusive language) would smash it on the sexuality score since there are virtually no pedophile protagonists currently in games.

Combine that with trans for a high gender identity score, obese for a high body type score, autistic for a high ability score, and blue hair for a high culture score and you have the top score.
 
Last edited:

kyussman

Member
"compared to the norm".......what the fuck is the norm when it comes to human beings,lol......I guess they mean white people,but I think a billion Chinese and a billion Indians would disagree.Why is it these "more diversity" people always end up sounding really racist themselves every time they speak.
 
Last edited:

Kamina

Golden Boy
So they created a tool to classify people/characters based on superficial traits with individual traits valued higher in order to ensure a base shallowness of future games.
Interesting.

I wonder how many gender-confused white people with purple hair were necessary to develop this fantastic idea.
 
Last edited:

winjer

Gold Member
Now we know why Overwatch 2 is so barebones and lame.
They spent all their time screwing around with this tool in their game.
 

Zeroing

Banned
Well, it's resulting in LGBT activists grooming children, there's definitely a lot of harm coming out of the "progressive" movement. It wouldn't surprise me if they will include pedophiles next.
I am not even sure if I bother. if I just laugh, if feel sorry for you ...or if I just throw my hands on the air and say "now we are grooming children, what can possibly come next?".
 

cormack12

Gold Member
. . .what part of the tool does that?

I assume you're not as stupid to infer that my point meant the tool was aware itself and creating these things itself. I have to specify that because I've read your other posts. If you are then our conversation is over.


As to the other point, just read the article:

Addendum: The objective of using the tool is to uncover unconscious bias by identifying existing norms in representation and acknowledging opportunities for growth in inclusion.

In 2016, King began developing a method for guarding against unconscious bias and exclusion when it came to the creation of their games and characters. At the time, this idea existed as an intangible philosophy, but the potential was obvious.

As a result, hopefully we will create more characters that break the mold, and better represent women, non-binaries and other under-represented minorities in the industry.”

The idea of a “tool” to make characters more diverse and inclusive may seem a little hard to wrap your head around. [..]....it can then weigh new character designs against it to measure their diversity

while also helping creatives look closer at their designs, so they can dissect their own assumptions and presets.

Indirect creative influence:
So in summary, you have a tool that is there to guard against certain types of designs (at the end of the day these are basic numeric profiles). It is meant to directly influence character creation by changing exerting pressure on developers to change things that score higher on the matrix. The tool's purpose is described as primarily to make characters more diverse and inclusive, and lastly it's meant to make creatives iterate on their designs until it reaches an acceptable level on whatever scoring metrics they decide to use. It's basically saying 'Whoa there boi, that's not how you create a diverse character, look at this radar chart and the score, and we'll show you how to get a better score and therefore make the character more diverse.

Direct creative influence:
This doesn't even consider automated workflows (e.g. procedurally generated NPCs) where they can remove certain profiles from the generation workflow if the score is below a certain threshold. It's just similar safeguards that prevent procedural NPC names like Dick Splash or Slutty McVayJay. And to be honest there are good use cases for this, when you would want to limit your NPC generation in one region for authenticity or 'sense of reality' (e.g. procedurally generating a Navajo town that has 40% orange faced Floridian population)


Is your position that this tool will not/is not meant to influence character creation/revision based on its outputs?


Saw the news and immediately came to Gaf. Thread did not disappoint lol

To be fair, is any major site/community reacting to this with anything other than laughter and derision?

Good for Blizzard though for trying to make a more diverse cast of characters going forward. I don't know if it was necessary though because their stuff was already pretty diverse. Especially Overwatch.

The tool is telling me Lucio is a terrible character though to illustrate diversity. Even a cliche like a white, muscled dwarf with an eyepatch and a white, pink haired Enbie is more diverse.

cover3.jpg


Also, generally, how are the diversity profiles set? Are they set against real world demographs? Set against video game demographs? How are abilities factored into role synergised games compared to realm populations.

It's a disaster, and a hobbyist idea from attention seeking needs that has no place on professional creative design. You could build a form in excel in half an hour that does the same. And it would equally be laughed at.
 

p_xavier

Authorized Fister
I am not even sure if I bother. if I just laugh, if feel sorry for you ...or if I just throw my hands on the air and say "now we are grooming children, what can possibly come next?".
You're mistaking LGBTBBQ activists with you. The former is indeed dangerous and grooming children.
 
Last edited:

UnNamed

Banned
I don't know what is more stupid:

-build a software to address diversity;

-the need of a software to address diversity because a human isn't able to do that;

You can easily solve with a character who is: Hispanic/Mongolian, Intersexual, disabled, mentally ill, handicapped, nowax, unemployed. Or just copy Nephente. 100% diverse, 100% win, 0% effort.
 
Last edited:

Fitzchiv

Member
I can't think of anything more appropriate than them describing the most recent development activity as a "Beta test".

Sure is.
 
Top Bottom