King's Diversity Space Tool: A Leap Forward for Inclusion in Gaming

[Linkedblade]

See, this says a lot about you as a person. It says that you think anyone that's not straight is a freak, that they're unnatural, that they're wrong. Because, after all, if they weren't, they would be "normal", wouldn't they?

Despite the fact that they're only acting on things completely out of their control. There's nothing wrong with being gay, or bi, or transgender, or anything else. They are people, just like you and I, and are deserving of all the same rights and respect as anyone else (this coming from a straight white cis male).

Please, try to educate yourself on the matter. Maybe actually have some conversations with LGBT+ people. You might learn something important.

Those things make even less sense, when the World of Warcraft is inhabited by dozens of sexually dimorphic species, and you need a population to prevent extinction. So, in such a war faring society there would be extreme social pressures to do your job as the sexes are "supposed to." You would think the story would be driven by war and heroism, and less by something as mundane as gender and sexual preference.

In overwatch, sure in some utopian future it makes that they would focus on the mundanities. But that game, too, is based on war and heroism. It's obvious that sexual preference and gender weren't relevant to the story they were telling, because that information was folded into the story after years of never being mentioned.

But that still doesn't have anything to do with how unrealistic of a story that this tool would provide. Stories and their characters should be relevant to one another. Using a tool that uses metrics of real people on characters in a fantasy world makes zero sense.

[shadowmatrix]

If that really is how the tool is intended to work...yeah that's not so bad. I'll just have to agree that they did a pretty terrible job presenting it because the example photos were like handing over the loaded gun for PR backlash.

Everything these days is a loaded weapon these days because too many people are always looking for a reason to complain.

- - - Updated - - -

The only people winning the culture wars are politicians.

True but many religious leaders are just politicians who found a different path towards controlling people.

[The Stormbringer]

Those things make even less sense, when the World of Warcraft is inhabited by dozens of sexually dimorphic species, and you need a population to prevent extinction. So, in such a war faring society there would be extreme social pressures to do your job as the sexes are "supposed to." You would think the story would be driven by war and heroism, and less by something as mundane as gender and sexual preference.

In overwatch, sure in some utopian future it makes that they would focus on the mundanities. But that game, too, is based on war and heroism. It's obvious that sexual preference and gender weren't relevant to the story they were telling, because that information was folded into the story after years of never being mentioned.

But that still doesn't have anything to do with how unrealistic of a story that this tool would provide. Stories and their characters should be relevant to one another. Using a tool that uses metrics of real people on characters in a fantasy world makes zero sense.

You seem to have the wrong idea about me. I think the tool is a terrible idea and should be thrown in the bin. For the longest time, most relationships in WoW were pretty understated and uncommon. Even in Overwatch, the focus is less on sexuality and more on the characters and their actual deeds. That person was stating their real life opinions, which I find to be lacking.

[Teucer]

The tool is missing a significant parameter - prevalence.

If 66 year old black, autistic, gay women represent 0.1% of the community as a whole - then the game should represent them similarly.

It becomes tokenism when you have 100% of the characters from 2% of the population.

The tool is a terrible idea. However I don’t think it’s bad to have more prevalence of underrepresented groups.

[Adamas102]

[I]n such a war faring society there would be extreme social pressures to do your job as the sexes are "supposed to." You would think the story would be driven by war and heroism, and less by something as mundane as gender and sexual preference.

There are already so many nonsensical and fantastical elements to the setting that using the idea of population maintenance as a reason to support heterosexual relationships is just plain silly. Warcraft doesn't need to limit itself like that, and Blizzard doesn't even bother giving lore accurate population numbers because it just doesn't matter.

As you pointed out, this is a setting/story of heroes, and heroes don't need to be constrained by societal pressures (if anything, heroes are typically set apart from such mundane things). We're also talking about a relatively small cast of notable characters which means they can be as varied as the writers desire and don't need to adhere to any sort of overall demographic breakdowns. If Stormwind's human population is 10 times that of Orgrimmar (given the numbers from official sources that are now no longer canon), that doesn't mean we need 10 times as many story relevant human characters as orc characters, right? The same goes for any other demographic.

But that still doesn't have anything to do with how unrealistic of a story that this tool would provide. Stories and their characters should be relevant to one another. Using a tool that uses metrics of real people on characters in a fantasy world makes zero sense.

The tool doesn't use one set of static metrics. It's right there in the Beyond Gaming paragraphs (seriously, did no one even bother to read the article?); the baseline metrics can be "calibrated to be relevant to the genre and universe each character exists in."

Also, in terms of Warcraft at least, these are stories of literal magic, dragons, time travel, and extra dimensional entities. The idea that this tool would lead to the game being "unrealistic" is ridiculous.

[schwarzkopf]

However I don’t think it’s bad to have more prevalence of underrepresented groups.

Correct, but underrepresented doesn't you have the same representation as the general community.

[RadasNoir]

No, I have absolutely no objection against normal relationship being depicted.

With the emphasis being on “normal”.

Ah, you're just a straight-up homophobe. Well, that will make it even easier to just dismiss any "arguments" you have, then.

[Stormwolf64]

Why isn't this retarded tool being buried into obscurity, but kept on the front page?

I laugh at this diversity bullshit. It does nothing but breed more conflict

[Ragedaug]

I can't help but feel, 'tokenism', the thing they are trying to avoid, is exactly what that tool is designed to create. Also curious what makes a character score a 0 out of 10.

Like why does being a man get you 0 points, but being a women gets you 5 points?
Why does having reason get you 0 points?
Why does being slim get you 0 points?
Why does being hetero get you 0 points?
Why does being middle class get you 0 points?

What does it mean to have 0 points? Is it bad to have 0 points, but great to have 10 points? Are they saying if you are a fit, middle class cisnormative European man who is able to use logic and reason that you have no worth? I truly don't understand the purpose of this tool and why anyone would use it.

[shadowmatrix]

I can't help but feel, 'tokenism', the thing they are trying to avoid, is exactly what that tool is designed to create. Also curious what makes a character score a 0 out of 10.

Being a boring character that in no way stands out from others around you, it's that character you only remember because someone worth remembering was talking to them. An extra who forgot they weren't supposed to be an extra.

[Ragedaug]

Being a boring character that in no way stands out from others around you, it's that character you only remember because someone worth remembering was talking to them. An extra who forgot they weren't supposed to be an extra.

Ah, so basically the tool is informing the game designers that being a fit, middle class, cisnormative, European man who is able to use logic and reason makes the character boring.

I can see that message having a negative impact on all the fit, middle class cisnormative European men who are able to use logic and reason who play a game that uses that tool. It will be interesting to see how this type of stuff pans out. Designing entertainment by consensus polling never seems to make anything great or lasting. Telling artists to fill quotas instead of create what they feel seems to make substandard art.

[Ringthane]

You seem to have the wrong idea about me. I think the tool is a terrible idea and should be thrown in the bin. For the longest time, most relationships in WoW were pretty understated and uncommon. Even in Overwatch, the focus is less on sexuality and more on the characters and their actual deeds. That person was stating their real life opinions, which I find to be lacking.

How do you know you don't have the wrong idea about the person you first quoted? You're inferring just as much from him as you're saying this person is here. How do you know you didn't commit the same error you accuse Linkedblade of?

Don't get me wrong - I don't care who does what with whom, as long as it's legal and safe for both participants. (And before you assume otherwise, I was alive in the 80's, and I've seen more than one person's life shattered because they were attracted to what their families or whoever thought was the "wrong" person.) I'm just pointing out what could be some hypocrisy here.

[Adamas102]

I can't help but feel, 'tokenism', the thing they are trying to avoid, is exactly what that tool is designed to create. Also curious what makes a character score a 0 out of 10.

It's explained very clearly in the article. It just seems no one bothered to read it. There are a lot of "feels" going about in this thread, not very much reading, though.

0 isn't bad, it means common given the particular baselines determined by the development team using the tool. 10 isn't good, it just means rare. It has nothing to do with worth or value. The tool doesn't create ANYTHING. The aim isn't to use the tool to create only character with "high scores".

As for tokenism, the tool theoretically can identify such characters given that token characters are usually pretty generic, inserted only give a generalized representation of one particular group and typically heavy on stereotypes. Since the tool determines the prevalence of a number of traits (again, compared against the baseline inputs and also taking into account the cast of characters as a group), it can (again, theoretically) tell you "hey, looks like the one gay character you included has a lot of traits in common with stereotypical representations of gay people" or something to that nature. Then it's up to the developers to decide whether the character is fine as is or whether they might want to develop the character better in order to present them as more than just a token representation.

Are they saying if you are a fit, middle class cisnormative European man who is able to use logic and reason that you have no worth?

Nope.

Ah, so basically the tool is informing the game designers that being a fit, middle class, cisnormative, European man who is able to use logic and reason makes the character boring.

Nope.

[qwerty123456]

I can't help but feel, 'tokenism', the thing they are trying to avoid, is exactly what that tool is designed to create. Also curious what makes a character score a 0 out of 10.

Like why does being a man get you 0 points, but being a women gets you 5 points?
Why does having reason get you 0 points?
Why does being slim get you 0 points?
Why does being hetero get you 0 points?
Why does being middle class get you 0 points?

What does it mean to have 0 points? Is it bad to have 0 points, but great to have 10 points? Are they saying if you are a fit, middle class cisnormative European man who is able to use logic and reason that you have no worth? I truly don't understand the purpose of this tool and why anyone would use it.

A couple of white Swedish women created it based on what they personally felt was more unique/less common which is why the Swedish guy's culture is zero while the Russian gets culture points. A 0 score means they feel it is norm.

It's kinda funny because they wanted to add more diversity and help prevent stereotypes but the scores can't really tell you if something is a stereotype. Zarya has a stereotypical "butch lesbian" body and hairstyle and yet gets points for body and appearance because straight women don't typically look like that.

[Ragedaug]

A couple of white Swedish women created it based on what they personally felt was more unique/less common which is why the Swedish guy's culture is zero while the Russian gets culture points. A 0 score means they feel it is norm.

It's kinda funny because they wanted to add more diversity and help prevent stereotypes but the scores can't really tell you if something is a stereotype. Zarya has a stereotypical "butch lesbian" body and hairstyle and yet gets points for body and appearance because straight women don't typically look like that.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking as well. That's what's going to create the tokenism that the tool is supposedly designed to prevent.

[shadowmatrix]

Ah, so basically the tool is informing the game designers that being a fit, middle class, cisnormative, European man who is able to use logic and reason makes the character boring.

-.- If everyone is like that then yes they are boring. Would you pay to watch a movie where everyone is exactly the same? Once you stop trying to take it personal you quickly realize the tool is just a tool, it's not a nuke out to erase you from reality. Also where in my answer did I mention a race, boring is boring not matter what race they are.

[Ragedaug]

-.- If everyone is like that then yes they are boring. Would you pay to watch a movie where everyone is exactly the same? Once you stop trying to take it personal you quickly realize the tool is just a tool, it's not a nuke out to erase you from reality. Also where in my answer did I mention a race, boring is boring not matter what race they are.

Yes, I pay to watch a lot of movies where everyone is exactly the same. I enjoy Viking movies where everyone is white. I enjoy Asian martial arts movies where everyone is Asian, and has black hair. Black Panther was a very enjoyable movie to watch and I am happy I paid to see, even though they didn't have diverse genderqueer lesbian Europeans represented in Wakanda.

I don't know if you mentioned race. I mentioned race because the tool gave extra points for non-white races.

And I'm not afraid of being erased. Every generation our world is getting browner, and I think that will be a good thing so folks can stop focusing on race so much. If we all have the same pigment in our skin, maybe folks can find something more substantial to worry about. The reason I care about that tool is because it attempts to force artists and designers to create their art based on quotas, not based on how they feel. And that's normally causes the art to suck.

[Crushmoar]

"Is this an out-of-season April's Fool joke?"

[Adamas102]

I mentioned race because the tool gave extra points for non-white races.

The reason I care about that tool is because it attempts to force artists and designers to create their art based on quotas.

And you're still wrong. If you don't even understand what the tool does then perhaps it would be better for you to ignore it rather than continue to spout bullshit.

[The Stormbringer]

How do you know you don't have the wrong idea about the person you first quoted? You're inferring just as much from him as you're saying this person is here. How do you know you didn't commit the same error you accuse Linkedblade of?

Don't get me wrong - I don't care who does what with whom, as long as it's legal and safe for both participants. (And before you assume otherwise, I was alive in the 80's, and I've seen more than one person's life shattered because they were attracted to what their families or whoever thought was the "wrong" person.) I'm just pointing out what could be some hypocrisy here.

I'd be more than willing to retract my statement if they actually responded and clarified that to be the case, however they have not done so, and the context of their reply makes it seem fairly obvious that they do indeed only think straight people are "normal", in which case, my reply to them stands.