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Activision Blizzard says Woke policies for hiring are unworkable

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So what everybody with a working brain already knew. Hiring and interviewing based on diversity, color, sex, being LGBQWERTY
I always wondered, let's say that you are gay (or any other letter).. are they allowed to ask? How far do you need to go (without the "check" turns into sexual harrassment?).

I'm asking because I almost tried to play the gay card in an interview for one of these companies that has a section on their site dedicated to "diversity and inclusion"... to let them know that I can allow for them to check some diversity boxes (even if they claim they are not, we can all recognize paint by numbers when we see it).
 

Renozokii

Member
Why, tell us what is wrong with white men conspiring to make a video game? I seriously want to know, and how should the culprits be punished? Prison? Fines? BLM thugs burning the place down?
Decades upon decades of favoritism, gate keeping, sexism, racism, and nepotism? There is nothing inherently wrong with an all white male company but don’t act like they only get that way by hiring the best for the job. This isn’t conspiracy shit I’m peddling. How about read the story this post itself stems from and look up some pictures of activision execs who very likely allowed and even took part in letting it happen. Or how about the money angle? Female managers and female execs will take complaints of toxic cultures for females more seriously. Female creatives will always be able to better make products that attract female consumers. Same with different races and cultures. PlayStation to my knowledge is the only platform holder that can boast about a roughly 50% female attach rate to their console and have one of the largest reaches in the industry as a result.

Such a black and white world view. This great forum to read some more in depth thoughts on games and game announcements, and I personally use it to fanboy because it’s fun but man it’s obvious why it’s dead compared to most other sites despite coming before most of them.
 
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You're saying that people are losing their shit over diversity, in a thread filled with replies saying "I don't care what age, gender, race, or religion the people are that make the games, I just want them to be good at what they do and get hired because of that". I hope you can see that. I can see that diversity in gaming clearly means a lot to you, and I respect that.

But I promise you, people in this very thread, on this forum, and most everywhere else wouldn't care if the teams at Bioware, Bungie, or 343i were comprised entirely of LGBTQ+ racial minorities, or "white males angry at the world", women, or a mix of everything. They don't care. They have never cared in all the decades the gaming industry has been around, which is already filled with diverse output for just about every audience.

They just don't want sexuality, race or gender to publicly be the reason they were hired over actual skill at making games, because it gives the strong impression that it's no longer about the games - it's about "look we did a good thing, right society? We get points now, right? Wait, what were we making again? I dunno but look how many boxes we checked! Quality output guaranteed now right guys? Please don't be mad at me Twitter!"

Everyone understands that diversity itself is generally good and can provide us with all kinds of unique perspectives (if the people making the games are actually good at it), but in order to truly achieve it, you cannot attempt to force it. Forcing it is in direct contradiction to the very spirit of diversity... someone might be saying "we should no longer have games made exclusively by white guys"... which itself is a direct attack on diversity. The world would then LOSE that perspective that only those teams could bring, right? So the world should lose that perspective because the team is only white males? That's racism and sexism rolled into one. The "hero" becoming the villain. The word "diverse" includes all outcomes. No calculations, no meddling. No arbitrary exclusions to sway a particular outcome. ALL possibilities must be included and allowed to happen naturally for true diversity.

Let's say you're a studio manager, and you're like "I just wanna hire a bunch of racially diverse women that aren't white". You can do that. I'd fully support your decision to do that. More power to you, it's your studio. You'll probably even make some kickass games that way. Just don't claim it's in the name of diversity, because you're clearly aiming for a particular outcome that doesn't include certain types of people. Just do it, don't proclaim how great of a person you are for doing it, just do it. Run your studio how you want, and get on with it - then you'll have no problems. It's the language and the public showboating that gets people irritated. Everyone should be allowed to just hire the person most qualified for the position that they jive with, and move on.

As far as the greater industry is concerned, to my knowledge, there has never been a coordinated industry-wide effort to turn down an individual qualified for the position they're applying for because they aren't a white male. And if a company or manager IS doing that? Well fuck that company, and put better management in there for THAT COMPANY. That doesn't mean we have to blanket-mandate that the entire industry MUST hire BASED on race or gender, and specifically, NO MORE TEAMS OF WHITE MALES! That is directly declaring "we are now hiring based on your gender and race" in the NAME OF DIVERSITY... it's a logical fallacy. It's doing the very same thing you're saying is bad, just in the direction you'd rather have. Forcing one outcome over the other is removing something from the equation, which is by definition the opposite of diversity.

There's an argument to be made that purposely hiring with a diverse-only mindset will result in more diverse content, that's true. But what happens when the content ends up being no good? Maybe reviews on the game are abysmal and the studio goes under and the devs lose their jobs. Diversity for diversity's sake did no favors for anyone involved there. You have to be careful and put more weight on the skills of your candidates. We do live in the cold, harsh world of reality, after all.

Let's just get back to making and playing good games. Let studios hire who they want. Call out the shitty racists and bigots (and no, that doesn't automatically include ALL WHITE MALES).

Leave everyone else alone.
Well Done Reaction GIF


Everyone should just read this before coming into this thread saying that we're all racist for being against the idea of a diverse group of people being hired in a company.
 

Cyberpunkd

Member
There's an argument to be made that purposely hiring with a diverse-only mindset will result in more diverse content, that's true. But what happens when the content ends up being no good? Maybe reviews on the game are abysmal and the studio goes under and the devs lose their jobs. Diversity for diversity's sake did no favors for anyone involved there..
This is an interesting argument can be pushed forward - if you claim diversity increases the quality of the product and the game turns out bad - is diversity to blame? Why? Why not? And if it is - what is more important for a company - creating a product or making things right in a society (which should be government’s job).
 
Decades upon decades of favoritism, gate keeping, sexism, racism, and nepotism? There is nothing inherently wrong with an all white male company but don’t act like they only get that way by hiring the best for the job. This isn’t conspiracy shit I’m peddling. How about read the story this post itself stems from and look up some pictures of activision execs who very likely allowed and even took part in letting it happen. Or how about the money angle? Female managers and female execs will take complaints of toxic cultures for females more seriously. Female creatives will always be able to better make products that attract female consumers. Same with different races and cultures. PlayStation to my knowledge is the only platform holder that can boast about a roughly 50% female attach rate to their console and have one of the largest reaches in the industry as a result.

Such a black and white world view. This great forum to read some more in depth thoughts on games and game announcements, and I personally use it to fanboy because it’s fun but man it’s obvious why it’s dead compared to most other sites despite coming before most of them.
You are the one telling us white people should not be allowed in groups... That there are 'no excuses' for it. Then asked what is the problem with white people you give the most stereotyped answer I have ever seen, some kind of fake ill informed analysis to 'validate' your pre-concieved conclusion.

Your statements have nothing to do with the story, they are simply perpetuating the current safe ideological trends.

You tell me how 'the whites' boogeyman, are special again? None of the ism you throw around can be specially linked to a group or sub-group of humans unless you speak of ideologically driven collectivists (not an ethnicity or a skin color).

You are peddling conspiracies and broad generalizations based on one more incident, would they have fared better with more black guys? How about latinos? What is the correct ratio for a safe workplace? Why are white men allowed to have businesses at all if they are the only kind of human that have bad traits?
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
The notion of purposely hiring for diversity = better products only works if the extra cultural/gender/sexuality experiences pooled together improve a product.

If there's one thing that is 100% true based on working for 4 big companies my life in an office is the more diversity the shittier the culture because some people group together based on that dont mix in with everyone else. They sit together and in their own clique and sometimes even speak a foreign language, so most people dont even know what they are talking about. But at one place which was basically all White people everyone was open and didn't have culture/language cliques.

The vast majority of jobs out there have nothing to do with bringing one's gender/sex/skin into the mix.

Maybe if youre a marketing manager trying to come up with ads that includes everyone to generate more inclusion and sales, it's beneficial. Or if youre a sales person or worker (let's say a Korean dude), it'll help your employment chances and the company if you work in Korea Town because you know the culture and language and customers will be more comfortable interacting with you.

For gaming (which is huge on the social media PR game), turning a studio into a giant diverse mix of people is PR'ed as game breaking (no pun intended) and that having different genders, religion, sexuality improves a game. So FPS, sports or RPGs made decades ago since it was mostly white or asian dudes making games will pale in comparison to modern day teams of more women and sexual make up because for gaming, adding more women or gay people improves a game.

But most jobs are purely a function that exist on it's own.

Here's some examples:

1. Car plant worker
2. Accountant
3. Taxi driver

I can speak for #2 (finance) and say that having good numbers and logic skills are key to the job. Not whether you are white, black, or gay. As for #1 and #3, I dont work in those fields. I think just having good skills to do the job is key. Then again, maybe having a plant full of diverse people and a fleet of mixed drivers makes for better cars and faster taxiing? Doesn't sound right, but who knows? The going rate of diversity PR seems make everything diverse and production and quality go through the roof.

One thing to watch out for too is diversity PR is heavily skewed to certain jobs and industries. Notice how it's mostly good office jobs or medicine or something? Notice how you never see anyone care about diversity standards for jobs or fields considered dirty or at the lower end of the ladder? I've never seen any diversity promotion across janitorial services, blue collar stuff like contractors or plumbing, driving a bus etc...... Taxi drivers definitely seem skewed to Indian drivers in Toronto. I have never seen ever anyone fighting the fight for more women, blacks, asians or white people to do it. Why? Because it's a job considered less than desirable, so whomever has it now, let them have it.

At least sports has it right. There might be a lot of diversity PR, but end of the day the teams are bullshitting because the players they draft or or trade are purely for improving the team. Doesn't matter if it's a white or black guy. If the team needs a wide receiver and the best ones available are black guys, teams will gun for them instead of saying "Oh.... we need more white guys on the team so lets purposely trade for a white WR". Same for hockey, most players are white (probably 90-95%). Some teams dont even have a minority on the team. I've never seen teams trade or draft a minority just for the sake of boosting the racial split. They just go after the best player or prospect they need to fill a position and if it's a white guy again, they'll sign a white guy. Doesnt even matter if the guy cant speak English, it's all based on talent.
 
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nush

Member
I always wondered, let's say that you are gay (or any other letter).. are they allowed to ask? How far do you need to go (without the "check" turns into sexual harrassment?).

I'm asking because I almost tried to play the gay card in an interview for one of these companies that has a section on their site dedicated to "diversity and inclusion"... to let them know that I can allow for them to check some diversity boxes (even if they claim they are not, we can all recognize paint by numbers when we see it).

I'd have no problem implying that I was gay if it gave me an edge in getting employed. I even claimed during an interview to still be married even though I was divorced because I knew it would (and did) play better that I was a successful man with "5 kids to feed*" in order to get empathy from the old guys doing the hiring when it came to salary negotiations. They would have never paid as much for a single guy.

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99Luffy

Banned
If you want to have an all white company with an all white male development team then that's fine. Just make sure you make it public, so you only have all white paying consumers.
 
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