People: "We don't like to be dehumanized." Blizzard: Lol we have been calling you "whales", "Dolphins" and "minnows" for years, before that we simply called you peons. Now if you don't mind we have to get back to our ivory tower and come up with some more evil schemes.
I'm gonna be honest, that little scene at the end of you meeting a fan was so heartwarming it made up for all the shit you described in your video. That was awesome.
I think that if they just draw people with various skin colors in that bland, inoffensive corporate art style they like to use for all their marketing material and such, it'll all probably work out!
Activision Blizzard trying to "avoid" tokenism by using an algorithm is literally the definition of tokenism omg you can't make this up. I'm glad Steph points it out.
The "diversity tool" has got to be the most *corporate* "answer to diversity I've ever seen. I the only way I can think it could be more corporate is if it wore a tie & was an excel spreadsheet jfc
Unfortunately.... It's really not hard to produce that in the form of an Excel macro... I have to applaud your observation there though, this is as corporate an implementation of 'Diversity' as you could possibly get.... I can almost feel the 'Office Space' vibes coming off it...
I don't think something being corporate is enough to say something is bad. I already commented this but: Simply put, I believe it's a way for developers to easily keep track of what traits are over/under represented in their games, so that they can more easily avoid printing too similar characters. Which I think is a good thing. Honestly I'm a bit disappointed that so many people are jumping on this, it feels like people are just doing that because this is a thing that explicitly tries to quantify diversity explicitly instead of just having it be based on ''vibes''.
Gosh.. That is soo out of touch. If I, a young black man can easily create original white characters without using stereotypes... What's their fucking excuse?
I was literally just thinking this. Torbjorn is literally a Swedish character, how many video games represent the Swedes in any capacity? I'm sure Swedish culture is lovely and very cool. Hell, even his name is pretty uncommon in any video game, you don't often see names quite so European like that in video games. But lets just lump him, as well as their other interesting characters who have cultural identities from England, Germany, Ireland, Canada, Australia, and more as "not diverse enough" because white. They're literally giving fuel to the shitty right wing argument that modern media is trying to phase out white people and characters as "uninteresting" in lieu of making more diverse, non white characters.
I like how "Ability" is a euphemism for "Disability". It took me several minutes to figure that one out and why Zarya had less "Ability" than Torbjorn when she could canonically bench press at least two Torbjorns, if not four or more.
It's not a euphemism. What's being measured isn't the AMOUNT of a character's 'ethnicity' or 'ability', Sterling is being deliberately obtuse and misleading about what the tool is trying to depict. What's being measured is how much that character differs from the average characteristics portrayed in video games (presumably in player characters). If you put in the characteristics for tons and tons of existing human video game protagonists (NOT REAL PEOPLE) you find the average of what's represented are probably able-bodied, straight white men of medium athletic build in the age range of 18-35. So that goes in the center and gets you the lowest diversity score for each attribute not because its what's normal for REAL HUMANS, but because historically, that's what's represented. The rarer the properties of a given character, the higher their diversity score. A character who's half peruvian and half inuit would score high on ethnic diversity because very few video game protagonists have been that. The same would be true on the ability for a character with cerebral palsy.
@@caddywampa6602 Not at all obtuse. You can't use numerical spectrums for certain traits. Even fictional characters have more depth than a computer algorithm. Even if the company meant well, it's bad PR and a limited, corporate perspective on diversity. Let's take your example of ethnicity: how do you quantify how different that ethnicity is from the stock white character most represented in media? Does the half-Peruvian, half-Inuit score a 2, a 3, a 100? Also, Peruvian is a nationality. Peru is a nation in which people reside; Peruvian isn't a race or ethnicity because Peruvians can be of any ethnicity. I'm a white guy who could theoretically move to Peru and gain citizenship there.
@@dirrdevil Point taken about Peru, I should have looked up a specific community, I'm sure the country has a diverse population. But software, especially AI, is absolutely able to numerically quantify things that appear to humans to be unquantifiable, by analyzing and correlating huge amounts of data- just look at a lot of the AI art generators that can produce works that unarguably imitate the style of a particular artist. Under the hood, it just breaks down to 1s and 0s. Similarly, AI face generators can produce photoreal images using as input numerical descriptors for a variety of values including ethnicity- it can produce a 40% north african, 30% eastern european, 30% south asian face, that lies at 70% masculine on a masc-fem scale, and is at the 65% mark for body fat, all because it's looked at millions of tagged images and compared the features. Obviously, it will be influenced any biases held by the humans doing the image tagging, but that work is usually crowdsourced to large numbers of people in a lot of locations to minimize that bias( though it can't be elimated entirely.) So it is absolutely possible to use software to look at images or text descriptors of a character, compare it to a huge dataset of existing characters, and ask "how much does this vary from the statistical average of that dataset in these parameters."
That was wonderful, I have to admit it. If I encountered them in the wild like that I would be truly delighted. Our Commander Sterling has really broadened my understanding of trans people.
Thanks Blizzard! I've always thought of Zarya as being roughly 50% "gender identity" and 75% "body type", and I've always thought that Torbjorn was very "age" while being only slightly "culture". If I know one thing for certain though, it's that none of these characters are "sexual orientation" at all.
The center of the chart is to be considered the "default" for them. The worse possible spot to be on the chart is the very center because that's a failed grade basically. I understand they're using the chart as a way to spread out from the center baseline and be inclusive, but they did an extremely poor job explaining themselves. Also, the chart isn't even necessary and they haven't really made any non-stereotypical characters.
As a programmer, I was like "A tool to help with diversity in video games. Isn't that just a random character generator?" But no... what they came up with is much worse.
Not gonna lie, the part at the end with the guy walking his dog and them having a nice talk made my day. Thanks, Sterling. Your hard work will always be appreciated.
@@Orchestructive omg... i guess he really think that... oh wow. edit: now shit, i wonder what's gonna happened when he learn about dialects? just like how there's mandarin chinese or just chinese langauge to the rest of us , there is also cantonese, hokkien and teochew and other variants ?
@@lewa3910 tbh I almost couldn't tell if it was a sharp accent or a speech impediment. I assumed it was a sharp accent but part of me also wonders if it's an accent mixed with some sort of speech impediment. I mean, if we have them in America I think we can have them anywhere. But fuck I wouldn't be the person to know. A sharp European English accent whether from some Scottish place or some absurdly spelt and pronounced area of the uk you give me a good harsh accent and I find it hard to make out a word. Maybe you lads just sound like Americans with speech impediments when the accent gets heavy enough.
"Sir, people are complaining that we are 'forcing diversity' into our games just to 'tick boxes' and 'virtue signal.' " "Heyyy, that's a pretty good idea. Let's get the lads from R&D on this forced box ticking signalator ASAP!" Sometimes the world satirizes itself.
@@Churdington Both of you have good points. On the one hand, using a tool to check for problems pre-release isn't a bad idea. On the other hand, having a more diverse team would theoretically also allow for more diversity in games to happen naturally.
@@Churdington 1. they didn't just make the tool and use it behind close doors. They publicized it like we should all clap for them. Assuming this is indeed actually a tool with a database of all of their characters and their grades on all this attributes, not just a marketing ploy where some graphic designer just whipped up something ridiculous real quick. 2. This tool assumes a "default" or "normal" state to all of these attributes and then grades people away from that norm. Race? white is "normal" or "zero", black is apparently a 3? What's a 5 on race look like? Zarya gets a 4 for body... what's a 0? what's a 5? what's a 1? If they just wanted an index of it... Creating a graph that just tallied up representation for different minority groups would not have made any waves: "We have this many characters that are black, this many characters that are latino, this many characters that are gay." etc. would not have bothered anyone. It's still weird that they feel the need to keep track of that to try to prove something rather than, as JSS suggests, just hiring diverse people and letting the diverse perspectives shape the games. But it wouldn't have bothered anyone. I hope you can now understand what the problems here are.
@@Churdington It comes across a a cynical version of ~look at us we are all for people~ to me. I'm autistic and shit at social stuff, but these actions come across as a cynical means to manipulate people and distract them from the fact that they are stamping down on workers trying to unionise via Raven Software
Small derailment: If I met JSS out in the wild, got to talk to them, and then find out I was accidentally in one of their videos, I would lose my shit.
Same here, I’d be delighted to meet them in the wild. It was our Commander that really broadened my understanding of trans people. They’ve been a really good influence on my mental development.
I think the most amazing part for me is that this wasn't some internal thing leaked by a gobsmacked employee, this was something the company proudly put on display to say LOOK HOW WELL WE'RE DOING AT ETHNICITY
@@Hauntaku Because they know that the “industry” (that is to say, capitalism) is racist. It’s actually odd that “everyone” allows this to happen. Very bizarre.
Frankly, I for one am overjoyed that this "inclusivity tool" has been released... For now I finally have a quantifiable tool by which to measure how gender and sexual orientation I am. Soon I will be the most gendered and sexually oriented person on the planet and all shall bow and quake before my might!!
More precisely, you will be told how diverse you are. E.g. a woman is more diverse than a man, and a non-binary person is more diverse than both of them, a black person is more diverse than a white person, etc. Making the diverseness numbers go up should make the complaints number go down, is the reasoning.
I'd think that's the intent. They realize they've been too close to that part at the center of that tool, the norm. Maybe they needed to put numbers to it to convince an exec that there's actually a problem. Execution is pretty bad, though, especially if they're using it as a checklist when designing new characters, instead of as a way to reflect how badly they've been doing.
@@dvol I think it's less realisation and more reaction. None of these characters were designed with diverse representation in mind, but when you're mired in accusation of, well, everything, it's a convenient lie to pretend like you've been thinking about these things when in reality the diversity was just a necessity of the game's setting.
@@dvol They could just review the early designs for characters in a specific game they make and then make changes if there's too many able-bodied white cishet characters. A diverse cast of characters is a great cast of characters! Just avoid the stereotypes.
Ah, the corporate amusement of wearing a string of diverse people around one's thick bulk of undiverse people and leadership board of extremely undiverse people, to show how diverse one is!
I just love the fact Blizzard felt like they needed to create a "diversity wheel" when the majority of Overwatch's roster is made up of stereotypes of nationalities. People in glass houses shouldn't throw rocks.🤣
I still can't get over the fact that they managed, apparently unintentionally, to have Talon, the bad guys, be made up of; A Latino American, A Mexican, an African and an Irish woman. EG all demographics that have been subjected to heavy prejudice in America since it's inception. And one French woman but she's brainwashed and sexy.
@@Unseenarchivist it would be completely unintentional, but it's the type of thing that you have someone from outside review it or give a fresh-eyes review. Many years ago someone made a totally-not-mcdonalds political flash game and I only noticed I'd created The Most Racist Mcdonalds when I had almost completely filled the registers with asians and black people on the fryers. The Blizzard dev team definitely needed a few target demographics when they were making these characters to give some "dude...." checks, but they didn't and we get a Brazilian that loves hockey just a little bit more than lucioball, a french woman that does ballet, and an australian that loves cricket (surprised symmetra and tracer didn't tbh, maybe it's not as well known in the bliz offices)
Eh, while they're stereotypical, Blizzard does a pretty decent job of handling it. Save for the early characters like Torb and Rein, they get actors of the character's nationality to do the voices. And cosmetics often have a surprising level of depth, with proper dances and dress from the character's country being represented. Hell, in the Outback level, they changed a sign from reading "take-out" to "take away" because it's set in Australia and Australians say "take away". They deserve credit for at least trying to do right by people.
Its a bloody start isnt it? Besides it's hard to get upset at them for doing the wrong thing when even people like Jim don't even fucking know what they're saying anymore. The same person who is telling us how silly it is to think that gender is like an on-off switch is the same person who's telling us it's silly to think of gender as a dial as well? An analog dial allows for any number of variability, much like everyone who is non-binary says, but now they are literally using that same analogy as an insult to themselves simply because Activision Blizzard said it? Do you have any idea how ridiculous that makes your point sound when you disagree with it based on who says it?
@@fireaza A friend of mine was invited to fly over to the beta of Overwatch, he brought up Tracer's "accent" coming across as being a stereotype & they honestly thought all British people spoke like that! That Dick Van Dyke "Maiory Parpens" accent.
It can't be stressed enough that King is just as shitty, if not slightly more shitty, than the other two-thirds of Activision Blizzard, yet they're also the part which frequently gets away with things unreported. People definitely need to include King in the company's full name more often, and not let them pretend they're not part of Activision Blizzard's bullshit.
This... Honestly, that ending is good proof that all this stress, all this angry ranting, all this hate for the hate-filled pieces of shit... It just might be worth it, to have a wholesome meeting randomly on the street.
Imagine really connecting with a character as a kid and seeing them as kind of an aspirational hero, only to discover as an adult that they were literally created via graph to appeal to your personality type and you are just a demographic.
that's marketing 101 ... *everyone* is a demographic to be targeted we are all just numbers that's something kids need to be taught first day in school. you like things because those things were designed to appeal to you. Fashion is the number 1 offender here.
@@NotTheStinkyCheese woah woah woah, that take's a bit strong 😮⚠️ *Yes* this is something everyone deserves to know (i'm not disagreeing here) just please don't forget marketing is a tool 🥄: another resource that may _also_ be used to spread awareness & positivity.
@@Smellbagmcgee that's a strange take... empathy & understanding are solid ✅ sources of inspiration to design characters instances of 'graph-based 📊 design' are the wack stuff, not the other way around.
Agreed, I could lie to myself and say this is what they planned all along, but that would require way to much lying and worthless effort on my part. They just don't strike me as smart or self aware enough to do that sort of thinking after past events.
Idk about united hatred. It vindicates and fuels people who think all non white/straight people in media, fake or real, are forced and corporate mandated into their lives despite that not being the case but broad strokes.
Oh my god! It took me so long to figure out the "gender identity" part. At first I was thinking: "did they retcon a girl with muscles to be trans? what the fuck?" And after googling this and not finding anything I realized that value of "gender identity" above 0 means "not male."
Every chart like this has got to have a baseline, I guess. But how moronic must you be to a) use such a chart, and b) proudly tell people about it ... my god.
@@Diree If you took a sample of skittles, and you divided them into "normal" (red) ones and every other colour, people would think you had something wrong with you.
@@PlatinumAltaria I don't think your argument holds up to be honest. I understand where you're going with it though. In your example you assume that red is the "default" state, but that would only be true if red skittles make up like 80% of all skittles (generously speaking), but they don't. I'd estimate that the amount of red skittles more or less equals the amount of any other coloured skittles. Different example: Take Coca Cola. The "standard" Coca Cola is, well Coke ... but then there's vanilla coke and cherry coke. If you order a coke though you wouldn't expect to get cherry coke, because it's a "niche" product that came after the "normal" coke. No, there shouldn't be a "normal", but let's face reality: the vast majority of people on this planet fit into the "straight" category. If you live in a big city you will likely have a lot more diversity, simply because you have more people living there, you have more options to cater to diverse groups and because, naturally, if you're gay or whatever else you'll likely want to live in such a melting pot, instead of rural Alaska or somewhere in the Polish hinterlands, simply because "more options". I live in a "city" with 25,000 other people. And I basically can't even find 10 people who I know are gay or even bisexual, let alone any trans or non-binary people. Of course they exist, but they're just so rare that opening a gay bar here would be akin to economic suicide, unless non-"queers" frequent that place as well. Being gay isn't "abnormal", but it's also not "standard", simply because probably 95% or more people on this planet are, well, not gay. And before you shout in rage: I don't care. As I said in another comment: Developers, movie producers or whoever are free to do what THEY want, as long as they don't just tick boxes to fulfill some sort of bullshit quota, like they do with this "program", yet they also can't force the majority to like and/or buy it. It's as simple as that. You cater to your audience, if your audience doesn't like it, you're out of luck. That doesn't change with hiring more diverse employees or creating a "rich and diverse universe". Heck, Mortal Kombat's characters are unique and diverse, but people have this notion that any game nowadays must consist of x, y and z and if it doesn't it's somehow bigoted, racist or whatever?
As someone who works in marketing and ad design, this is the literal definition of "lost cause". If any studio has to wheel out a chart of aesthetic and marketing bullet points like this, they are no longer in touch with reality enough to do their jobs in any meaningful capacity. This is the equivalent of "I can't be bigoted I have a black/gay/etc friend"
Lol, that made me laugh pretty hard. The only reason I didn’t startle my kittens was because they’re learning that when I do that I’m fine and it’s just one of those weird human quirks.
Activision really said "Cis, white, straight, thin, able-bodied, men are literally the center our universe." Cute mask off moment! Also loved the ending.
I mean they are way more of us than you realize I guess. LGBT isn't the majority and never will be. Why cater to the minority? I don't understand why that's so complicating. You guys dig your own self hatred holes and then wonder why all you see is bad.
If you want a dog because it “knows it’s place” you shouldn’t be allowed to have one. Every time the rich do something to seem relatable they reveal what creepy, controlling, monsters they are.
"Clearly the best way to represent diversity is to combine everyone into a bland amalgam of number ratings. Surely this is a good idea and not corporate nonsense."
Part of me actually wants to applaud Activision for this; their "diversity tool" has managed to bring together the progressive left and the anti-woke crowd in condemning the tool as a stupid thing developed by tools.
It wont happen; in fact its delusional to think that "Both sides" see the same thing , because the right doesnt give flying rats ass about corporations exploiting people, only when "woke tm" is "hypocritical" (as if progresives have ever ignored that)
The only problem I could see with that is that many of the anti-woke crowd would likely have it in their heads that progressives actually WANT this or they will at least blame them for companies feeling the need to come up with this shit.
Initially, Steph was all hardcore during the outro/intro bits, but when they encountered a fan out in the wild they became all humble and understated, which has to be one of the most precious things I have seen in a while.
The best part of this tool is the Overwatch team's reaction to it, with them being legit pissed that Blizzard implies that they use the tool when they actually hate it and find it creepy.
@@PlatinumAltaria FWIW, the OW team is mostly made up of outside talent that was hired more recently, same with Hearthstone. Pretty diverse, too, especially on the art side.
From everything I've been able to learn, Jeff Kaplan was one of the few decent people at Activision, and kept fending off the horrible shit so it wouldn't affect the OW team. The reason he and so many of the veteran OW devs walked was because there was so much horrible shit it kept spilling over anyway...
If we could make a fatal virus that only affects Tories, Republicans, and Chrlstlans specifically, it would be a dream come true and the start of a worldwide utopia.
@@AyCe you gotta love the hierarchy "my boss is paid more than which means he knows best, so i will let him decide" all the way to the top until you get to the people that are paid more, but don't know anything, and assume if it got all the way to the top it is a good idea it is probably something the PR department asked to solve, but the creative people didn't care about, so they made a half assed project hoping it would be dropped
This sounds like the kind of thing you would see from a Futramma episode. A special robot indented to tailor a ad to each end every specific group for maximum profit, only for it go horribly wrong and start killing people.
@@gregvs.theworld451 Technically, as the oldest member of their group, he has a high "age diversity rating", and because he grew up in 80's and 90's New York, and this is 3,000's New New York, that would give him a high "culture diversity rating" too. Since he lacks a delta brain wave, that could also give him a non-zero "ability diversity rating" as well. The new Planet Express marketing team might be able to use him as a token after all.
"Why isn't Zarya scoring high on [sexual orientation]?" This is why I come here, for a hard-hitting journalist unafraid to ask the big questions. I was surprised the fan didn't recognise the more British scenery of late.
that last bit was so sweet, especially after feeling so self-conscious in the park :) I hope that felt good (and I'm glad you made it out of the usa tbh)
I have such a hard time understanding who this tool is for. A single person team trying to make characters? If they are the type of person to worry about diversity to such an extent to implement this tool, they probably are not the type of person who needs this tool.
This is pretty much one of the most unintentionally bigoted things I've seen a game development company do in a while. The fact that they thought this was a good idea just blows my mind.
One good thing that's come out of all of this is that we now have an absolutely perfect, universally inarguable exemplar of what "virtue signalling" actually means.
grunt: Boss, can't we just hire a diverse group of consultants? Activision Bosses: no I'd never work, HR would have a nightmare, and the poor accounting department. Grunt: The accounting department? Boss: well we would have to pay the gay people in the gay money and women need a 70% pay deduction and all the other little hoops you have to jump through for "other people" Grunt: my two weeks notice can't print fast enough
I'm giggling because even for their example they didn't bother to pull out a single character who ranked above rock bottom on 'sexual orientation'. But yeah, this is just sad and repulsive.
They've literally got two "openly" (as in barely-read comics acknowledging it) gay characters too ffs. Torb could be replaced by Soldier 76 with minimal change to the other categories too.
@@powersofdestruction5694 Funniest part of that is that the release of this tool also just confirmed that everyone aside from 76 and Tracer is cishet (even Bastion, somehow?!?). They showed the averages for all of these stats and those averages show that there are only two people who don't score a 0 (meaning straight) on the Orientation stat. I can't think of a way to piss off your game's sizable queer fanbase any more than that lmao. You'd think if they were going to do this they'd at least pull out Mercy being bi or something
I heard some people say that this tool was invented as a distraction, something to take people away from the discussion of union busting. But this seems so on brand for Activision that I could see them doing this regardless. If they did release it as a distraction, it was because they thought it would make positive PR, not because they knew it would be mocked. They don't have that level of self-awareness
That is the only thing it does achieve, it isn't hard to think the board line questioning went: If we made a tool and call it 'diversity' then the masses will shut up, right?
I heard it was actually made by some tiny part of Activision who just used Overwatch characters for attention, it's not like some big thing they made in the company just a small shitty part of it made it. But the lack of oversight is still bad, this kind of shit shouldn't come out of any company.
@@jacobosaldarriaga4820 I reckon ability means any ability. Aka any character who in some way has a characteristic that prevents them from living a perfectly normal and happy life. The character they scored high also probably gets a point or two for being short. It's overly simplistic, but I guess it somewhat makes sense. Like, if they had a character on the spectrum who is super prone to sensory overload and completely shuts down when it happens, that could arguably be considered a disability, even though their body is perfectly fine.
The funny thing is: Apparently a member of the actual dev team of Overwatch has since gone on record stating that 1: This "tool" is a PR stunt that they haven't ever used 2: The cast diversity that is there is, in fact, the result of the dev team being somewhat diverse
"This tool is designed to tackle unconscious bias in our character designs" "On a scale of 1 to 10, what is your culture?" Give it to the corporates to simplify identity into The Sims 1 personality system.
I described this to some family as "if an intersectionality scholar explained their field to a tech bro computer science major, and the computer science major said he could solve that"... Then my sister's computer science major boyfriend said "thats a great way to solve that problem." Proving me right
The computer tech guy solves problems, "intersectionality scholar" is an oxymoron. How much money did you spend on your useless degree? Fries extra crispy please
Imagine beeing so disconnected from reality that when you want more diversity in your product, the best thing you can come up with is a tool instead of having creative people. I bet Ubisoft has had something like this for years, they are as we know, the masters of checklist design.
Pointy Headed Boss: "Ok guys, we need a reliable way to ensure that minorities, lgbtq people, and people with disabilities are represented faithfully in our games. Any ideas?" Bob: "Ethnicity slider!" Jane: "Gay points!" Devon: "Commit to hiring a more diverse staff, consulting with real people from communities we want to represent, and listening to input from minorities, lgbtq people, and disabled people in our fanbase." Pointy Headed Boss: *Glares and throws Devon out the window*
"We have a metric, therefore it has validity" is a common corporate falsehood. Companies will celebrate their metrics going up while a clear catastrophic failure is happening.
I literally burst out laughing when I first saw the "Diversity Tool" chart. I had to check the date to make sure it wasn't April Fools Day again, because they shared it with such gusto, absolutely beaming with pride. What a lovely fan at the end though, talk about serendipity - It helped lighten the mood back up.
When you are so disconnected from reality that you enshrine your bigotry into a tool and think it is an 'improvement.' Something I find important enough to underlining about the image provided - black people have minimal ability, gay woman have to be butch, Dwalves are all old... and that is just the three examples we have! If we look at the rest of the caste, I bet that chart is filled with the same tired and old Stereotypes for them too.
I can only imagine how confusing it would be to be out for a walk and see a stylish steampunk enby shouting "Abortion. Yeah!" to a camera in the middle of nowhere lmao. I'd ask for a high-five
It might be a confusing moment for the passerby, but I want to know why Sterling appeared embarrassed that someone overheard them. Are they ashamed of their position as pro-abortion? Do they think their position is wrong? Lots of questions regardless of which side of the issue someone falls on.
Camden used to be really fun for random moments (my favourite, a total stranger stopping me to ask "are you carrying a dead body there") but it's boringly touristy nowadays 🙁
@@MrDernagon It could just be feeling a bit out of place, something that while I was surprised to see James be a little embarrassed, is pretty human. I'm a guy who wears skirts in public, but even I might feel a little sheepish going out to a public place in my most garrish outfit and loudly declaring my opinion on a complex political topic for all to judge me on, even if it's something I'm 100% for. Alternately, it could just be the want to not have to worry about confrontation. Like, I could shout out in public how I'm pro choice, and possibly risk getting into a fight with some religious fundamentalist with a stick up their arse, and I would, but I'd also rather not have that fight if I could help it.
This is one of the most, “SERIOUSLY!?” things I’ve ever seen...... this is, “Diversity and Inclusion by any means necessary” to its maximum capacity!! 🤦♂️
I honestly don't really care how cringey the chart is if it actually results in more POC and LGBTQ representation in media. We need to start looking at 'cishet white men' being the 'normal' as straight-up bigotry. I don't want to see another straight white man being the main character to any game or movie again, to be honest. And I agree that we need more minorities to be put into positions of power if we are ever going to get real progress. If these cishet white men are truly serious about wanting to diversify and progress society, they need to put their money where their mouth is and step the fuck down and give their position to someone who truly deserves it. And I know it may be controversial even to some Leftists, but I truly believe that ALL cishet whlte men need to start paying reparations to the rest of us. The most proceeds go to African Americans and then to Native Americans, and then to the LGBTQ community, and then to the rest of the minority community. Tax the FUCK out of them. Make it a law that they *cannot* hold positions of authority in *any* country. If this sounds cruel, or 'too much', then think about how cishet whlte men have treated the rest of us for the last 2000 years (since the advent of Christianity) and maybe you'll see where I am coming from. The fact that I'm not calling for all cishet whlte men to be IiteraI *sIaves* for the next two miIIenia is honestly just proof that I as an oppressed minority (trans, disabled) am more mercifuI than they ever have been. And as much as I would like to limit the taxation and payment of reparations only to the 'conservative', 'rightwing', and 'Christian' demographics exclusively, there is no denying that even Left-Leaning cishet whlte men have enjoyed unwarranted privilege. So it is still their duty to do the right thing and give back to the communities they have benefitted from - but that being said, via social media and word-of-mouth, I'm sure that *Leftist* whlte men could potentially recieve some sort of 'lightened' taxation, provided there is *proof* that they have *always* been active supporters of minority communities and organizations.
"This septagon, essentially written out like a fucking Pokémon EV chart for minorities..." *Pffffff* okay that's horrible but that got a laugh out of me. 😂
I loved hearing a little positivity from that fan at the end. Which leads me to a quick question: who is still unsubscribing? You would think the rats would have fled the ship by now... Keep up the good work Steph!
I'm still subscribed. But i have to admit the uncanny valley is getting deep on this channel. It starts to trigger unwanted fight or flight reactions in my brain. And i don't want to be controlled by those.
No idea, but TBH the Jim Sterling channel was great when I first got to know it many years and it has got only better every day. That last part may be subjective, but regarding my enjoyment that's what it looks like.
I will be honest, when I first saw this I thought "oh, that's not a terrible idea, like, having a list of attributes to consider during character creation so you can see if your cast is too white, to straight. Ok, I get it, maybe a little tactless and heavy handed, but not an awful attempt". Then I realized it quantified it in raw numerical form, and I was reminded not to give ActiBliz the benefit of the doubt
It's not even quantified in a useful way! But no, the chart makes it look like you just need one character who is All The Ethnic, instead of like "what proportion of characters are ethnically diverse" at least or something that at least might be useful for a high-level overview.
They'd have got hit by Goodhart's Law if it hadn't been publicised so soon. Well, not "got hit"; more like carrying a ladder where you hit everyone *else* with it by accident rather than yourself.
It's amazing how they heard "there are 2 races, white and political", thought it was good and went all in on it. They really followed what Gamer gate nerds thing ppl mean with diversity and said yeah we´re doing that. Shows where they get their ideas.
What's great is that is both true but also I can so see them coming up with the exact same idea in the void of their own ignorance. "They say we have to be more diverse." "What the heck does that mean?" "It means they don't want everyone to be a straight white guy." "Okay, from now on we'll set a quota for how not-straight-white-guy our roster is. We'll have metrics and everything." "Oh, I think there's also a thing called gender identity." "Good! Add it to the list. Anyone else have any diversity things we should quantify? I heard 'culture', that was good. Very measurable. What's that, Johnson? Disability? Good idea, bad name. Call it 'ability' instead! Huh? Yes of course more ability means more disabled what do you think we're measuring here?"
They can when they want to! Like when the law treats a person better, a corporation is definitely a person. But when the law might hold a person accountable for grotesque atrocities, well, then a corporation is just a company, or a concept, or some other non-prosecutable entity. It's like some kind of standard, but _double,_ so you get twice the amount of standards in there! =D
The guy at the end was pure class, he must’ve recognised and then came back to chat. That must be equally nice as it is scary and awkward 😂😂 Although I do think he was lying about never missing a show 👀😅
It's corporate, robotic-feeling "diversity initiatives" like Activision's that have made good-faith efforts at inclusion in media look cringe, even in the eyes of the nominally left-leaning. This crap is setting back the goals of those seeking fair wages and anti-discriminatory hiring practices by decades, and it wouldn't surprise me if, in the minds of those at King who invented and approved this algorithm, that was the point.
I'd actually be more inclined to think that the folks at King who designed this thing are more along the lines of someone who thinks they're an ally, but is actually horribly misguided and does more harm than good. I'd agree that the upper management at ActiBlizz probably see this tool as something to point at and cynically say "see, we're totes on your side, people we discriminate against!", while continuing on their merry oppressive way, but the mid- to low-level code jockeys? Nah, I'd bet they actually believe in their shriveled little hearts that they're being good allies.
@Serenity Klein well, it makes sense there will be mostly white guys in the game made by white guys, right? I don’t see any problem with that personally.
I am so happy that the fan who was so sad that they didn't have their phone on them ended up having their whole(some) conversation immortalised in a Jimquisition video. ☺️
"What is the most gender?" Well, considering James Stephanie Sterling is about as likely to sell their likeness to Activision as Sony is to fix its ongoing abuse issues, the greater game-buying public may never know.
What bothers me the most about this, as an English teacher, is that 'Just write a non-CIS white character' just NEVER crossed their mind. It never dawned on them to talk, interact, or hire non-CIS white people to make these characters. INSTEAD, they decided that they knew better and could figure it out with technology. It's like Folding Ideas mentioned in 'The LIne Goes Up'. These techbros have assumed that, since technology and game design is so complicated, all other issues are thus lesser and can be easily solved with more tech. Instead, they only proved just how utterly DISCONNECTED they are.
Let me ask you something ( 🔥flame🔥 shield UP): Tell me why a company, who should be budgeting their income to pay their workers, shareholders and executives correctly, hire a person to do only ONE thing~ create a gender(that doesn't matter) for a game character? And *think* before you answer ,please.
@@BushinRyuCat I can link you some interesting studies done in I believe the american marine corps, that showed that the more diverse a group was, the better they were at solving complex problems. A very similar study was done in I believe banking that showed that a work environment with people from varying backgrounds increased profits over time.
@@BushinRyuCat Might be misrepresenting the issue mate. No one's saying to hire people specifically just to create a diverse character, but to hire qualified people within the field who also come from a minority group. Those people are far more qualified to create genuinely diverse characters than a bunch of homogenous tech weirdos looking at algorithms all day. And even if the former is what's being requested, that can be solved with better budgeting. Just let the CEO only buy 1 yacht instead of 2, there's plenty of cash right there to put in the representation budget. (I exaggerate for the sake of comedy, but executive salaries really should be trimmed, like come the fuck on.)
@@BushinRyuCat You're right. Hiring one person just to handle the gender of a character would be a waste of money. But they wouldn't be hired just to handle a character's gender. They would hired as a writer, just like everyone else. They would write a diverse range of characters from cis white to the opposite end of the spectrum, because that's what a writer does. Or in blizzard's case, what they SHOULD do. In an ideal world? Blizzard would talk or interact with the people they want to portray. Do research like any good writer should. But, as an outsider looking in, they've shown that they have no desire to. So if they don't want to, then they should hire writers that can. So they can do the research the other writers seem unable to, or uninterested in, doing. And doing so would be well worth it. As it keeps them out of negative publicity like this. Think of it as a part of the advertisement budget. A small drop in the ocean they spend on PR companies attempting to stop events like this from happening.
Regarding the Email mentioned at the beginning: It's occurred to me that people who view pets that way aren't interested in a companion, but rather a mindless slave who constantly worships them. And quite often, what they want from pets is also what they want from people.
@@revelle8605 Which is funny, given the corporations they rule are mindless, slavering animals that only consume and have none of the emotion or compassion of an actual dog. And they want corporations to be viewed as people.
Anyone who expects dogs to "know their place" is either an idiot or an abusive owner. Dogs aren't pre-programmed service robots, they're living beings with a variety of personalities. My dog adores all of us but she also gets into mischief because she knows we'll forgive her for it. Would you say she "knows her place"?
Definitely. Always wary of people who say they prefer their pets to people. Of course because people don't tend to put up with other people being vile, while sadly pets do.
Which is a load of shit on their part. It'll be nothing but diversity hires and mediocrity from them from now on. The dragonflight dev videos alone have turned me off from another expansion.
"To avoid tokenism" dude this is the most tokenizing thing I've seen since a church put my image in all their advertising because I was the only Latine kid they had
"FORGET ALL THE R@C1ST STUFF OUR PASTOR SAID WE HAVE ONE OF THEM LATINS!" "FORGET THE SHOCKING AMOUNTS OF R@C1SM, R@P3, S3X1SM ETC. WE HAVE A TOOL!" same energy :P
@@ddjsoyenby To be fair, my family left that church when I was still very young, so I don't remember anything about their sermons. But their marketing was definitely not the most racially ethical.
This fells like what you make if you're trying your hardest to be hated so much with little effort Also I love you added that little bit with the fan and his dog, that was wholesome
When I saw it first on twitter I assumed it was an internal tool that leaked, and now they're badly explaining themselves. But no. They published it. They were proud of it.
I love how your hat in the middle looks like it's opening up that's so cool. People online made me sad commenting on the diversity tool saying disabled people would not make good protagonists and acting as if minorities want the diversity tool when it's so gross
This reminds me of The Fractured but Whole and the skin tone slider, which also effect the games difficulty. “It doesn’t effect anything but how hard life is” Cartman:
There's a decent theory that they strategically announced this controversial 'tool' in order to cast attention away from their union-busting strategies currently going on over at Raven software.
I'm happy you kept that last bit in, that alone should show how your message is getting through to the "average person" on the street. keep up the good work.
My favorite thing about the tool is the fact that nobody criticizing it (including James Stephanie) even seems to properly understand the tool; this isn't a defense of the tool, mind you - it's every bit as dogshit as everybody thinks it is - it's just funny because it highlights what an awful PR move it was to release a puff piece about it. My second favorite thing about the tool is that, after they talked it up so much made such a big deal on its impact in the workplace, after the backlash they released a second statement to the effect that "the tool is just a prototype and we don't actually even use it anyway."
It's like Pokemon ivs. The center is the worst possible stats and the outer edges are the best stats. Though, if you need a chart to be inclusive then you've already failed
It baffles me that ActiBlizz spent more time on a Cranium-Measuring chart than they did on Overwatch 2, the game they said that was going to save the company I'm absolutely floored at the sheer inability to look outside the bubble here.
... Okay, so we have diversity *stats.* Clearly, this means we can do diversity *builds.* We can min-max munchkin this shit! What's the best diversity dump stat for a cultural barbarian?
No no, we are not dumping anything. I'm working to max out my culture and passively grinding my age. If anyone finds a way to fit in some ethnicity ranks, I can max out everything soon
If only real women had routes that inevitably lead to boinking if you took all the right steps... I'm just autistic enough to wish this to be true myself. Alas: You can grind for a lot of things in life. But love is not one of those things.
@@Isvoor quickest method to get more 'ethnic': increase melanin production and increase the size of the lips and backside. Bonus points for dressing them up like the flag of a former British colony.
Diversity wouldn't be "forced" if the staff and leadership were not so homogenous in demographics and thinking. Seriously, in my fanfic writing time, I just LOOKED PEOPLE UP on Google to see what non-black folks looked like and wore. They helped me imagine civilian outfits for the female hero characters.
Fanfiction comes from a place of love and care for what you're writing or making art of, which, in turn, tends to lead to better representation and better research done than could ever be said about a Triple AAA game company.
Shit, I'm a white dude in America who was doing research online the other day to find out to what extent the Okinawans in Japan are an ethnic minority and to what degree they face racial discrimination from the whiter skinned, non Okinawan Japanese. I actually found out the name for the group of islanders who live on Okinawa are called "Ryukyuans". I thought that was pretty cool. In other words I did more research to create a tasteful, fleshed out character than the entirety of the character design team at Activision Blizzard. Thank you for listeneing to my Ted talk.
"We've made this great tool to prevent people from taking a pie to the face" I say proudly as I whip the sheet off, revealing my Machine That Exclusively Throws Pie In People's Faces
People: "We don't like to be dehumanized."
Blizzard: "This thing sounds like a 3 on neurodivergence"
Literally everyone: "We don't want to be dehumanised."
Activision-Blizzard: "We don't care."
People: "We don't like to be dehumanized."
Blizzard: Lol we have been calling you "whales", "Dolphins" and "minnows" for years, before that we simply called you peons. Now if you don't mind we have to get back to our ivory tower and come up with some more evil schemes.
"we hear you ya want a 2 bl@ck or a 1 j3w"
"please stop blizzard your making things worse"
@@HeavyMetalBeliever me - you may try but you are inable to dehumanize me :)
💀😭😭 those fuckers
That was a nice scene at the end. Definitely more heart warming than whatever the diversity tool was attempting to accomplish.
It just felt wholesome and genuine, and that's a kind of energy we desperately need more of in the face of all this garbage.
Thank god for JSS!
I actually forgot that Jim moved to the UK as well for what it's worth. Wonder what the reason was.
Agreed.
If more people could realize how powerfull kindness is.
Hearing "gender as a dial" just immediately made me think:
"Doktor... turn off my gender limiters"
Doktor, turn off my body type inhibitors
"Captain, the body can't take much more GENDER!"
"Fight down that fear, Ensign! We're going even further beyond..."
Where we’re going we don’t need gender
this thread made my sleep deprived brain laugh way more than necessary XD
I'm gonna be honest, that little scene at the end of you meeting a fan was so heartwarming it made up for all the shit you described in your video. That was awesome.
Seconding this. For the level of bullshit this video had to wade through it's nice for that bit of sweet levity with that interaction.
That made my morning, for real!
It was a rare moment to help rebuild my trust in humanity.
UK love you James Stefani Sterling...
Made me smile, for sure!
Someone’s first thought when “we need better diversity” was “let’s rank the races” and no one thought to stop them.
Most people who work act Activision are cishet white men, so obviously they didn't bat an eye at this
Market research has been doing that for *decades!*
I think that if they just draw people with various skin colors in that bland, inoffensive corporate art style they like to use for all their marketing material and such, it'll all probably work out!
its the race tier list
@@mayayamato7351 Which, sadly, has existed in North America and the UK for DECADES!
Activision Blizzard trying to "avoid" tokenism by using an algorithm is literally the definition of tokenism omg you can't make this up. I'm glad Steph points it out.
Did you send your congrats to Steph?
@@gargleff2691 Whaddaya think this comment is?
@@youtubeuniversity3638 I mean for the 100k sub mark
The "diversity tool" has got to be the most *corporate* "answer to diversity I've ever seen.
I the only way I can think it could be more corporate is if it wore a tie & was an excel spreadsheet jfc
That’s what I was going to say.
Damn. That's good
Unfortunately.... It's really not hard to produce that in the form of an Excel macro... I have to applaud your observation there though, this is as corporate an implementation of 'Diversity' as you could possibly get.... I can almost feel the 'Office Space' vibes coming off it...
I don't think something being corporate is enough to say something is bad. I already commented this but: Simply put, I believe it's a way for developers to easily keep track of what traits are over/under represented in their games, so that they can more easily avoid printing too similar characters. Which I think is a good thing. Honestly I'm a bit disappointed that so many people are jumping on this, it feels like people are just doing that because this is a thing that explicitly tries to quantify diversity explicitly instead of just having it be based on ''vibes''.
@@finitekosmos Right? It *feeels* like middle management & cubicles
I just had an epiphany about the "ethnicity" part of the chart:
They literally made two races: White & Political.
That's pretty much what it is yeah. XD
They took the meme/saying about "There are only 2 X, Y and Political" and made it into a literal graph.
Gosh.. That is soo out of touch.
If I, a young black man can easily create original white characters without using stereotypes... What's their fucking excuse?
I was literally just thinking this. Torbjorn is literally a Swedish character, how many video games represent the Swedes in any capacity? I'm sure Swedish culture is lovely and very cool. Hell, even his name is pretty uncommon in any video game, you don't often see names quite so European like that in video games. But lets just lump him, as well as their other interesting characters who have cultural identities from England, Germany, Ireland, Canada, Australia, and more as "not diverse enough" because white. They're literally giving fuel to the shitty right wing argument that modern media is trying to phase out white people and characters as "uninteresting" in lieu of making more diverse, non white characters.
More literally: complaints-say-we-overrepresent and complaints-say-we-underrepresent. This applies to most of the axes.
@@gregvs.theworld451 it isn't a shitty argument. It is reality. You just described it. They are trying to phase out white people.
I like how "Ability" is a euphemism for "Disability". It took me several minutes to figure that one out and why Zarya had less "Ability" than Torbjorn when she could canonically bench press at least two Torbjorns, if not four or more.
I DIDN'T EVEN REALIZE THAT UNTIL YOU POINTED IT OUT OH MY GOD
It's not a euphemism. What's being measured isn't the AMOUNT of a character's 'ethnicity' or 'ability', Sterling is being deliberately obtuse and misleading about what the tool is trying to depict. What's being measured is how much that character differs from the average characteristics portrayed in video games (presumably in player characters). If you put in the characteristics for tons and tons of existing human video game protagonists (NOT REAL PEOPLE) you find the average of what's represented are probably able-bodied, straight white men of medium athletic build in the age range of 18-35. So that goes in the center and gets you the lowest diversity score for each attribute not because its what's normal for REAL HUMANS, but because historically, that's what's represented. The rarer the properties of a given character, the higher their diversity score. A character who's half peruvian and half inuit would score high on ethnic diversity because very few video game protagonists have been that. The same would be true on the ability for a character with cerebral palsy.
@@caddywampa6602 Not at all obtuse. You can't use numerical spectrums for certain traits. Even fictional characters have more depth than a computer algorithm. Even if the company meant well, it's bad PR and a limited, corporate perspective on diversity.
Let's take your example of ethnicity: how do you quantify how different that ethnicity is from the stock white character most represented in media? Does the half-Peruvian, half-Inuit score a 2, a 3, a 100?
Also, Peruvian is a nationality. Peru is a nation in which people reside; Peruvian isn't a race or ethnicity because Peruvians can be of any ethnicity. I'm a white guy who could theoretically move to Peru and gain citizenship there.
@@dirrdevil Point taken about Peru, I should have looked up a specific community, I'm sure the country has a diverse population. But software, especially AI, is absolutely able to numerically quantify things that appear to humans to be unquantifiable, by analyzing and correlating huge amounts of data- just look at a lot of the AI art generators that can produce works that unarguably imitate the style of a particular artist. Under the hood, it just breaks down to 1s and 0s. Similarly, AI face generators can produce photoreal images using as input numerical descriptors for a variety of values including ethnicity- it can produce a 40% north african, 30% eastern european, 30% south asian face, that lies at 70% masculine on a masc-fem scale, and is at the 65% mark for body fat, all because it's looked at millions of tagged images and compared the features. Obviously, it will be influenced any biases held by the humans doing the image tagging, but that work is usually crowdsourced to large numbers of people in a lot of locations to minimize that bias( though it can't be elimated entirely.) So it is absolutely possible to use software to look at images or text descriptors of a character, compare it to a huge dataset of existing characters, and ask "how much does this vary from the statistical average of that dataset in these parameters."
Has she... NOT benchpressed Torbjorn and possibly Torbjorn-sized training dummies before? I feel like that should be in the Overwatch lore somewhere.
That interaction with the fan at the very end was like one of the best things I've seen the last month that was so wholesome
That was really nice. And that guy was genuinely polite for a fan. Love it.
That was wonderful, I have to admit it. If I encountered them in the wild like that I would be truly delighted. Our Commander Sterling has really broadened my understanding of trans people.
@@TheWeirdaholic well i think that is what a normal fan is suppose to be. not whatever that screeching entitlement you see is.
@@Arthera0 So, you?
@@Rebcap05 please elaborate.
Thanks Blizzard! I've always thought of Zarya as being roughly 50% "gender identity" and 75% "body type", and I've always thought that Torbjorn was very "age" while being only slightly "culture". If I know one thing for certain though, it's that none of these characters are "sexual orientation" at all.
From what has been said elsewhere, simply being marked "female" is an automatic 5 points (50%) for gender identity while being "male" is 0.
@@BainesMkII my guess is 0% for male, 50% for female, 100% for "other."
Blizard goes to Sweeden, a country with it's own folklore, myth, language, and traditions; "ya this is not very culture very similiar to normal."
The center of the chart is to be considered the "default" for them. The worse possible spot to be on the chart is the very center because that's a failed grade basically. I understand they're using the chart as a way to spread out from the center baseline and be inclusive, but they did an extremely poor job explaining themselves. Also, the chart isn't even necessary and they haven't really made any non-stereotypical characters.
Meanwhile, I don't have a chart for my diverse characters. I write good characters and then pick a look that fits them. I avoid stereotypes!
As a programmer, I was like "A tool to help with diversity in video games. Isn't that just a random character generator?"
But no... what they came up with is much worse.
create a wrestler is a better diversity tool for this.
Roleplaying games have solutions better than this.
Christ, basic Random Encounter tables are better than this.
The end goal is a random character generator, and most of those characters will be robots because of how the scoring system works
This is a EV chart for minorities
They literally invented the Racism dial, to turn back and forth while gauging the reaction of the audience.
They seriously just did a Dril tweet.
I am hooting AND hollering
It's like when you hear about the maximum number of spider legs there can be in a chocolate bar, and it's not even a single digit number.
Dril??!
I'm so glad someone else noticed this
@@Ramsey276one Dril
Not gonna lie, the part at the end with the guy walking his dog and them having a nice talk made my day.
Thanks, Sterling. Your hard work will always be appreciated.
Didn't understand a word they said because of the speach impediment.
@@justcommenting4981 The what? ... wait... do you think accents are... no... no that can't be... you wouldn't be that... no...
@@Orchestructive omg... i guess he really think that... oh wow.
edit: now shit, i wonder what's gonna happened when he learn about dialects? just like how there's mandarin chinese or just chinese langauge to the rest of us , there is also cantonese, hokkien and teochew and other variants ?
@@justcommenting4981 you're not that bright
@@lewa3910 tbh I almost couldn't tell if it was a sharp accent or a speech impediment. I assumed it was a sharp accent but part of me also wonders if it's an accent mixed with some sort of speech impediment. I mean, if we have them in America I think we can have them anywhere. But fuck I wouldn't be the person to know. A sharp European English accent whether from some Scottish place or some absurdly spelt and pronounced area of the uk you give me a good harsh accent and I find it hard to make out a word. Maybe you lads just sound like Americans with speech impediments when the accent gets heavy enough.
Gotta say… when I was taught the concept of “ethno-centrism” back in college, I would’ve never dreamed of such a literal use of the term.
Sounds like you wasted money
@@PattyOflan88 sounds like he has a lot of student debt
college? they teach the concept of ethnocentrism to us in canada in 7th grade 💀
@@moonsigil Woah you got a better education because of where you were born? Fuckin lit bro 😤😤
@@hoagielamp6543 i sure did! so glad i'm not a US citizen!
"Sir, people are complaining that we are 'forcing diversity' into our games just to 'tick boxes' and 'virtue signal.' "
"Heyyy, that's a pretty good idea. Let's get the lads from R&D on this forced box ticking signalator ASAP!"
Sometimes the world satirizes itself.
I heard the second line in Cave Johnstons voice.
Unfortunately they gave ammo to homophobe and transphobe bruh
@@Churdington Both of you have good points. On the one hand, using a tool to check for problems pre-release isn't a bad idea. On the other hand, having a more diverse team would theoretically also allow for more diversity in games to happen naturally.
@@Churdington
1. they didn't just make the tool and use it behind close doors. They publicized it like we should all clap for them. Assuming this is indeed actually a tool with a database of all of their characters and their grades on all this attributes, not just a marketing ploy where some graphic designer just whipped up something ridiculous real quick.
2. This tool assumes a "default" or "normal" state to all of these attributes and then grades people away from that norm. Race? white is "normal" or "zero", black is apparently a 3? What's a 5 on race look like? Zarya gets a 4 for body... what's a 0? what's a 5? what's a 1?
If they just wanted an index of it... Creating a graph that just tallied up representation for different minority groups would not have made any waves: "We have this many characters that are black, this many characters that are latino, this many characters that are gay." etc. would not have bothered anyone. It's still weird that they feel the need to keep track of that to try to prove something rather than, as JSS suggests, just hiring diverse people and letting the diverse perspectives shape the games. But it wouldn't have bothered anyone.
I hope you can now understand what the problems here are.
@@Churdington It comes across a a cynical version of ~look at us we are all for people~ to me.
I'm autistic and shit at social stuff, but these actions come across as a cynical means to manipulate people and distract them from the fact that they are stamping down on workers trying to unionise via Raven Software
Small derailment: If I met JSS out in the wild, got to talk to them, and then find out I was accidentally in one of their videos, I would lose my shit.
Truth. I'd be giddy for months.
Ikr? I wanted to giggle hearing the fan's disappointment that they didn't have a camera, little knowing who actually did
Same here, I’d be delighted to meet them in the wild. It was our Commander that really broadened my understanding of trans people. They’ve been a really good influence on my mental development.
@@mikoto7693 Same, except they helped me come to terms with being non-binary! Thank god for them
It would probably make my whole year.
I think the most amazing part for me is that this wasn't some internal thing leaked by a gobsmacked employee, this was something the company proudly put on display to say LOOK HOW WELL WE'RE DOING AT ETHNICITY
Activision: LoOk At HoW dIvErSe AnD iNcLuSiVe We ArE!
Everyone: Why are you announcing this to us and making a huge deal about it?
Ubisoft is slowly shredding their diversity charts lol
@@Hauntaku Because they know that the “industry” (that is to say, capitalism) is racist. It’s actually odd that “everyone” allows this to happen. Very bizarre.
Frankly, I for one am overjoyed that this "inclusivity tool" has been released...
For now I finally have a quantifiable tool by which to measure how gender and sexual orientation I am. Soon I will be the most gendered and sexually oriented person on the planet and all shall bow and quake before my might!!
I've been sexually disoriented for far too long. Thank you Activision-Blizzard
More precisely, you will be told how diverse you are. E.g. a woman is more diverse than a man, and a non-binary person is more diverse than both of them, a black person is more diverse than a white person, etc.
Making the diverseness numbers go up should make the complaints number go down, is the reasoning.
The fools have unwittingly created the tools of their own destruction!
@Fk Yu Isn't levelling up your autism by simply getting another vaccine pay-to-win though? vaccines need to be nerfed asap!
Sorry bestie, but that's Demi Lovato, you can't beat them.
This tool literally measures how far characters are from "the norm"
Oh Activision, you're speaking the quiet part out loud in graphic form
I'd think that's the intent. They realize they've been too close to that part at the center of that tool, the norm. Maybe they needed to put numbers to it to convince an exec that there's actually a problem.
Execution is pretty bad, though, especially if they're using it as a checklist when designing new characters, instead of as a way to reflect how badly they've been doing.
@@dvol I think it's less realisation and more reaction. None of these characters were designed with diverse representation in mind, but when you're mired in accusation of, well, everything, it's a convenient lie to pretend like you've been thinking about these things when in reality the diversity was just a necessity of the game's setting.
@@dvol They could just review the early designs for characters in a specific game they make and then make changes if there's too many able-bodied white cishet characters. A diverse cast of characters is a great cast of characters! Just avoid the stereotypes.
Ah, the corporate amusement of wearing a string of diverse people around one's thick bulk of undiverse people and leadership board of extremely undiverse people, to show how diverse one is!
@@Hauntaku a great cast is a well written cast. Diversity means nothing
I just love the fact Blizzard felt like they needed to create a "diversity wheel" when the majority of Overwatch's roster is made up of stereotypes of nationalities.
People in glass houses shouldn't throw rocks.🤣
I still can't get over the fact that they managed, apparently unintentionally, to have Talon, the bad guys, be made up of; A Latino American, A Mexican, an African and an Irish woman. EG all demographics that have been subjected to heavy prejudice in America since it's inception. And one French woman but she's brainwashed and sexy.
@@Unseenarchivist it would be completely unintentional, but it's the type of thing that you have someone from outside review it or give a fresh-eyes review. Many years ago someone made a totally-not-mcdonalds political flash game and I only noticed I'd created The Most Racist Mcdonalds when I had almost completely filled the registers with asians and black people on the fryers. The Blizzard dev team definitely needed a few target demographics when they were making these characters to give some "dude...." checks, but they didn't and we get a Brazilian that loves hockey just a little bit more than lucioball, a french woman that does ballet, and an australian that loves cricket (surprised symmetra and tracer didn't tbh, maybe it's not as well known in the bliz offices)
Eh, while they're stereotypical, Blizzard does a pretty decent job of handling it. Save for the early characters like Torb and Rein, they get actors of the character's nationality to do the voices. And cosmetics often have a surprising level of depth, with proper dances and dress from the character's country being represented. Hell, in the Outback level, they changed a sign from reading "take-out" to "take away" because it's set in Australia and Australians say "take away". They deserve credit for at least trying to do right by people.
Its a bloody start isnt it? Besides it's hard to get upset at them for doing the wrong thing when even people like Jim don't even fucking know what they're saying anymore.
The same person who is telling us how silly it is to think that gender is like an on-off switch is the same person who's telling us it's silly to think of gender as a dial as well?
An analog dial allows for any number of variability, much like everyone who is non-binary says, but now they are literally using that same analogy as an insult to themselves simply because Activision Blizzard said it? Do you have any idea how ridiculous that makes your point sound when you disagree with it based on who says it?
@@fireaza A friend of mine was invited to fly over to the beta of Overwatch, he brought up Tracer's "accent" coming across as being a stereotype & they honestly thought all British people spoke like that!
That Dick Van Dyke "Maiory Parpens" accent.
I am very much not surprised that King, one of the cringiest companies in the world, was the one who developed the tool.
fuck King, all my homies hate King
King
Ing
Ring
Ringe
Cringe
It can't be stressed enough that King is just as shitty, if not slightly more shitty, than the other two-thirds of Activision Blizzard, yet they're also the part which frequently gets away with things unreported. People definitely need to include King in the company's full name more often, and not let them pretend they're not part of Activision Blizzard's bullshit.
What makes King cringe? genuine question
@@dx9xd they hired someone to make candy crush, then stole the game, and a bunch of bad elements of mobile games were popularized by then
This... Honestly, that ending is good proof that all this stress, all this angry ranting, all this hate for the hate-filled pieces of shit... It just might be worth it, to have a wholesome meeting randomly on the street.
That was a really wholesome moment.
Imagine really connecting with a character as a kid and seeing them as kind of an aspirational hero, only to discover as an adult that they were literally created via graph to appeal to your personality type and you are just a demographic.
i _wish_ i could write takes this hot 😨
that's marketing 101 ...
*everyone* is a demographic to be targeted
we are all just numbers
that's something kids need to be taught first day in school.
you like things because those things were designed to appeal to you.
Fashion is the number 1 offender here.
@@NotTheStinkyCheese woah woah woah, that take's a bit strong 😮⚠️
*Yes* this is something everyone deserves to know (i'm not disagreeing here)
just please don't forget marketing is a tool 🥄: another resource that may _also_ be used to spread awareness & positivity.
@@Smellbagmcgee that's a strange take...
empathy & understanding are solid ✅ sources of inspiration to design characters
instances of 'graph-based 📊 design' are the wack stuff, not the other way around.
The funniest thing about this is literally everyone hates it, from across the entire political spectrum. It truly has united the people.
Agreed, I could lie to myself and say this is what they planned all along, but that would require way to much lying and worthless effort on my part. They just don't strike me as smart or self aware enough to do that sort of thinking after past events.
Activision Blizzard, bringing people together
...To hate them
Idk about united hatred. It vindicates and fuels people who think all non white/straight people in media, fake or real, are forced and corporate mandated into their lives despite that not being the case but broad strokes.
It's like Marvel's attempt to relaunch the New Warriors.
United in hate. Hahah!
Oh my god! It took me so long to figure out the "gender identity" part. At first I was thinking: "did they retcon a girl with muscles to be trans? what the fuck?" And after googling this and not finding anything I realized that value of "gender identity" above 0 means "not male."
To be fair cishet white women ARE the most oppressed people in the entire universe.
Gotta love how everything must fit in a number range. Because otherwise that graph would make even less sense.
Every chart like this has got to have a baseline, I guess. But how moronic must you be to a) use such a chart, and b) proudly tell people about it ... my god.
@@Diree If you took a sample of skittles, and you divided them into "normal" (red) ones and every other colour, people would think you had something wrong with you.
@@PlatinumAltaria I don't think your argument holds up to be honest. I understand where you're going with it though.
In your example you assume that red is the "default" state, but that would only be true if red skittles make up like 80% of all skittles (generously speaking), but they don't. I'd estimate that the amount of red skittles more or less equals the amount of any other coloured skittles. Different example: Take Coca Cola. The "standard" Coca Cola is, well Coke ... but then there's vanilla coke and cherry coke. If you order a coke though you wouldn't expect to get cherry coke, because it's a "niche" product that came after the "normal" coke.
No, there shouldn't be a "normal", but let's face reality: the vast majority of people on this planet fit into the "straight" category. If you live in a big city you will likely have a lot more diversity, simply because you have more people living there, you have more options to cater to diverse groups and because, naturally, if you're gay or whatever else you'll likely want to live in such a melting pot, instead of rural Alaska or somewhere in the Polish hinterlands, simply because "more options". I live in a "city" with 25,000 other people. And I basically can't even find 10 people who I know are gay or even bisexual, let alone any trans or non-binary people. Of course they exist, but they're just so rare that opening a gay bar here would be akin to economic suicide, unless non-"queers" frequent that place as well.
Being gay isn't "abnormal", but it's also not "standard", simply because probably 95% or more people on this planet are, well, not gay. And before you shout in rage: I don't care. As I said in another comment: Developers, movie producers or whoever are free to do what THEY want, as long as they don't just tick boxes to fulfill some sort of bullshit quota, like they do with this "program", yet they also can't force the majority to like and/or buy it. It's as simple as that. You cater to your audience, if your audience doesn't like it, you're out of luck. That doesn't change with hiring more diverse employees or creating a "rich and diverse universe". Heck, Mortal Kombat's characters are unique and diverse, but people have this notion that any game nowadays must consist of x, y and z and if it doesn't it's somehow bigoted, racist or whatever?
As someone who works in marketing and ad design, this is the literal definition of "lost cause". If any studio has to wheel out a chart of aesthetic and marketing bullet points like this, they are no longer in touch with reality enough to do their jobs in any meaningful capacity.
This is the equivalent of "I can't be bigoted I have a black/gay/etc friend"
My mom thinks she's not a terf because we have a gay person in the family that she never talks to and actively avoids.
@@Hauntaku Uh, how does having a gay person make her not a terf? Terfs are against trans people, not gay people.
"Faces his own cost of living crisis" that is one of the fucking greatest commentary calls I've ever heard, oh my god 😂
That is the greatness of Tom Campbell.
@@isaacbear7115 That was Tom?! I didn't recognise the voice, I'm so stupid 🤦♂️
Literally slow clapped in respect.
That was true poetry.
Lol, that made me laugh pretty hard. The only reason I didn’t startle my kittens was because they’re learning that when I do that I’m fine and it’s just one of those weird human quirks.
activision-blizzard is like "we're sexist, racist ableist.. rapists.. but check out our phrenology circle!"
They’re so brave
Now I'm singing "sexist, racist, ableist rapists" to the TMNT theme tune in my head.
@@MattFowlerBTR
SRAR - Wolves in sheep's clothing
losing my mind to activision saying that a black person is about "60% ethnic", like jesus fucking christ mate.
Activision really said "Cis, white, straight, thin, able-bodied, men are literally the center our universe." Cute mask off moment! Also loved the ending.
Cute in the sense that you can do anything with asian or white people and nobody gets offended, figure out what that means and you have your answer.
Its not like they invented most of everything that make the civilization work or anything. Nah, they are totally useless.
I mean they are way more of us than you realize I guess. LGBT isn't the majority and never will be. Why cater to the minority? I don't understand why that's so complicating. You guys dig your own self hatred holes and then wonder why all you see is bad.
@@yeahyeahwowman8099 it doesn't matter what people do. Some people seem to be offended by the blue sky.
The ending was just super nice. Very cool little interaction at the end.
If you want a dog because it “knows it’s place” you shouldn’t be allowed to have one. Every time the rich do something to seem relatable they reveal what creepy, controlling, monsters they are.
Yes!!! Oh my gods, the poor pupper deserves better
I hope it pees on his most expensive non pee proof thing. Then takes over the company.
Maybe they should get a cat, cats know their place too: everyone is beneath them. Could do the creeps some good to serve a cat for a while.
I too enjoy eating eggs for breakfast. Breaking their shells and crushing the yolks in my fist makes me feel like a big strong man.
@@muraalia something something "fat cats" xd
"Clearly the best way to represent diversity is to combine everyone into a bland amalgam of number ratings. Surely this is a good idea and not corporate nonsense."
Part of me actually wants to applaud Activision for this; their "diversity tool" has managed to bring together the progressive left and the anti-woke crowd in condemning the tool as a stupid thing developed by tools.
It wont happen; in fact its delusional to think that "Both sides" see the same thing , because the right doesnt give flying rats ass about corporations exploiting people, only when "woke tm" is "hypocritical" (as if progresives have ever ignored that)
"Activision-Blizzard-King(r), Bringing people together"(tm)(c)
The only problem I could see with that is that many of the anti-woke crowd would likely have it in their heads that progressives actually WANT this or they will at least blame them for companies feeling the need to come up with this shit.
Initially, Steph was all hardcore during the outro/intro bits, but when they encountered a fan out in the wild they became all humble and understated, which has to be one of the most precious things I have seen in a while.
We must unleash our rage only on those who deserve it. ♥️
"I've not missed a single show"
Ya best start believing in jimquisitions
YOUR IN ONE!
The best part of this tool is the Overwatch team's reaction to it, with them being legit pissed that Blizzard implies that they use the tool when they actually hate it and find it creepy.
That almost makes me forgive the OW team.
Good on them, I'd be mad too. XD
@@PlatinumAltaria FWIW, the OW team is mostly made up of outside talent that was hired more recently, same with Hearthstone. Pretty diverse, too, especially on the art side.
From everything I've been able to learn, Jeff Kaplan was one of the few decent people at Activision, and kept fending off the horrible shit so it wouldn't affect the OW team. The reason he and so many of the veteran OW devs walked was because there was so much horrible shit it kept spilling over anyway...
Thank God for the Commander choke slamming Tories and reminding us that Activision is uniformly disgusting
If we could make a fatal virus that only affects Tories, Republicans, and Chrlstlans specifically, it would be a dream come true and the start of a worldwide utopia.
That ending. Amazing. Random member of the public recognises you and tells you to keep up the good work.
Thank god for Jim Stephanie Sterling.
"Trying to uncover unconscious biases" By using a tool that is entirely created around one hyper-specialised standard... this is just pathetic.
Well they did found out that the unconscious biases was inside them all along. Great succes
@@scheikundeiscool4086 the real unconscious bias was the friends we made along the way
And absolutely nobody in charge thought anything of it.
@@AyCe you gotta love the hierarchy
"my boss is paid more than which means he knows best, so i will let him decide"
all the way to the top until you get to the people that are paid more, but don't know anything, and assume if it got all the way to the top it is a good idea
it is probably something the PR department asked to solve, but the creative people didn't care about, so they made a half assed project hoping it would be dropped
This sounds like the kind of thing you would see from a Futramma episode. A special robot indented to tailor a ad to each end every specific group for maximum profit, only for it go horribly wrong and start killing people.
Sir you don't need Futurama for that. You've just described the majority of the tech & entertainment industries *RIGHT NOW*.
all i can imagine the robot saying whilst murdering is "death is universal"
*bzzztclik* "A reduction in the number of types of people is required for efficient targeted advertisement structuring. Exterminate."
I could see it. The crew has to stop the robot from killing Fry because he's the least diverse in their group.
@@gregvs.theworld451 Technically, as the oldest member of their group, he has a high "age diversity rating", and because he grew up in 80's and 90's New York, and this is 3,000's New New York, that would give him a high "culture diversity rating" too. Since he lacks a delta brain wave, that could also give him a non-zero "ability diversity rating" as well.
The new Planet Express marketing team might be able to use him as a token after all.
"Why isn't Zarya scoring high on [sexual orientation]?" This is why I come here, for a hard-hitting journalist unafraid to ask the big questions.
I was surprised the fan didn't recognise the more British scenery of late.
To be fair, they said this was to "create a conversation" and everybody mocking them and calling them assholes is a kind of conversation.
The tool's purpose is also "to uncover unconscious biases". You can't deny it did its job. It wonderfully exposed unconscious biases.
@@bificommander7472 By defending this "Tool" would that mean they were lying about their goals in the first place?
that last bit was so sweet, especially after feeling so self-conscious in the park :) I hope that felt good (and I'm glad you made it out of the usa tbh)
Its good to remember everynow and then that kindness still exists in the world.
I have such a hard time understanding who this tool is for. A single person team trying to make characters? If they are the type of person to worry about diversity to such an extent to implement this tool, they probably are not the type of person who needs this tool.
This is pretty much one of the most unintentionally bigoted things I've seen a game development company do in a while. The fact that they thought this was a good idea just blows my mind.
One good thing that's come out of all of this is that we now have an absolutely perfect, universally inarguable exemplar of what "virtue signalling" actually means.
grunt: Boss, can't we just hire a diverse group of consultants?
Activision Bosses: no I'd never work, HR would have a nightmare, and the poor accounting department.
Grunt: The accounting department?
Boss: well we would have to pay the gay people in the gay money and women need a 70% pay deduction and all the other little hoops you have to jump through for "other people"
Grunt: my two weeks notice can't print fast enough
Why has nobody ever even OFFERED to pay me in gay money! I feel very upset about this.
what's the dollar to pink dollar conversion rate these days?
@@josephpotter5766 Get paid in gay money to get gay food from the gay supermarket
I should not be laughing as hard as I am at “have to pay the gay people in gay money”
I'm giggling because even for their example they didn't bother to pull out a single character who ranked above rock bottom on 'sexual orientation'.
But yeah, this is just sad and repulsive.
They've literally got two "openly" (as in barely-read comics acknowledging it) gay characters too ffs. Torb could be replaced by Soldier 76 with minimal change to the other categories too.
@@powersofdestruction5694 I legitimately care so little about AB games I didn't know.
Giggling has intensified.
Over here setting "Sexual Orientation" to max ...
@@powersofdestruction5694 Funniest part of that is that the release of this tool also just confirmed that everyone aside from 76 and Tracer is cishet (even Bastion, somehow?!?). They showed the averages for all of these stats and those averages show that there are only two people who don't score a 0 (meaning straight) on the Orientation stat.
I can't think of a way to piss off your game's sizable queer fanbase any more than that lmao. You'd think if they were going to do this they'd at least pull out Mercy being bi or something
I would really like to know what "maximum disabled" looks like to them 🙃
This genuinely feels like something alien spies would use to try and gauge human values.
Id make a “Reptilians in power” joke, but even most reptiles have more concept of compassion than most CEOs
‘Analysis: Species #29431, code named ‘Humans’ are not worth it. Initiate death ray sequence.’
"Abortion Yeah" that was an uncomfortable look whilst delivering line but brought a smile to my face 🤣 loved that passers by were still watching too
Immediate image macro, but when will it feature in the Jimporium?
I heard some people say that this tool was invented as a distraction, something to take people away from the discussion of union busting. But this seems so on brand for Activision that I could see them doing this regardless. If they did release it as a distraction, it was because they thought it would make positive PR, not because they knew it would be mocked. They don't have that level of self-awareness
That is the only thing it does achieve, it isn't hard to think the board line questioning went:
If we made a tool and call it 'diversity' then the masses will shut up, right?
I heard it was actually made by some tiny part of Activision who just used Overwatch characters for attention, it's not like some big thing they made in the company just a small shitty part of it made it.
But the lack of oversight is still bad, this kind of shit shouldn't come out of any company.
Don't forget Hanlon's razor: never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
blizzard has a suspiscious habit of announcing things immediately after some new accusation or evidence is unearthed about the company
@@Tjelfe Given the sheer level of "uninformed-ness" required to not think this is a bad idea, I'm not actually sure that makes it any better.
Am... Am I allowed to be annoyed that they even missed neruo diversity? Not surprised, just annoyed
Only 5? We can do better than that
What do you want to bet that that's what the "ability" stat is for? Yes, I did throw up a little in my mouth when I realized this.
Frankly it's for the best they did
@@jamesrule1338 I think the ability stat is meant to be "physical ability", the character they chose scored high because he uses a prosthetic.
@@jacobosaldarriaga4820 I reckon ability means any ability. Aka any character who in some way has a characteristic that prevents them from living a perfectly normal and happy life.
The character they scored high also probably gets a point or two for being short.
It's overly simplistic, but I guess it somewhat makes sense. Like, if they had a character on the spectrum who is super prone to sensory overload and completely shuts down when it happens, that could arguably be considered a disability, even though their body is perfectly fine.
This tool is honestly funnier than any joke Blizzard ever put in one of their games
The funny thing is: Apparently a member of the actual dev team of Overwatch has since gone on record stating that
1: This "tool" is a PR stunt that they haven't ever used
2: The cast diversity that is there is, in fact, the result of the dev team being somewhat diverse
They did say the tool was used for Call of Duty Vanguard
@@barrettbirks1058 Wait so a wargame now needs a diversity tool?
"This tool is designed to tackle unconscious bias in our character designs"
"On a scale of 1 to 10, what is your culture?"
Give it to the corporates to simplify identity into The Sims 1 personality system.
Zarya has points for "gender identity" because these people cannot tell the difference between a butch woman and a trans man. Jesus christ.
My culture goes to 11.
@@woodywilson5518 Is that more cultured than 10?
@@woodywilson5518 Why not just make 10 more culture?
@@Nodiee1 ...these go to 11.
Love the fact that Steph got recognised at the end, it truly warms my heart to see people are awake and consuming your content!
Or laughing at it's stupidity
I described this to some family as "if an intersectionality scholar explained their field to a tech bro computer science major, and the computer science major said he could solve that"...
Then my sister's computer science major boyfriend said "thats a great way to solve that problem." Proving me right
The computer tech guy solves problems, "intersectionality scholar" is an oxymoron. How much money did you spend on your useless degree? Fries extra crispy please
James Stephanie Sterling - The rock we need against scummy games companies.
Imagine beeing so disconnected from reality that when you want more diversity in your product, the best thing you can come up with is a tool instead of having creative people.
I bet Ubisoft has had something like this for years, they are as we know, the masters of checklist design.
Pointy Headed Boss: "Ok guys, we need a reliable way to ensure that minorities, lgbtq people, and people with disabilities are represented faithfully in our games. Any ideas?"
Bob: "Ethnicity slider!"
Jane: "Gay points!"
Devon: "Commit to hiring a more diverse staff, consulting with real people from communities we want to represent, and listening to input from minorities, lgbtq people, and disabled people in our fanbase."
Pointy Headed Boss: *Glares and throws Devon out the window*
No need to even fill in the meme template; we're all doing that in our heads. :-)
I can see that being an actual Dilbert comic strip.
@@SimonClarkstone
You are... Not wrong lol
Damn, changing hair to head to avoid Scott Adams' lawyers
I died with with Gay Points
"We have a metric, therefore it has validity" is a common corporate falsehood.
Companies will celebrate their metrics going up while a clear catastrophic failure is happening.
I love that you got recognized as you were finishing the ending, and I double-love that you INCLUDED it at the end.
I literally burst out laughing when I first saw the "Diversity Tool" chart. I had to check the date to make sure it wasn't April Fools Day again, because they shared it with such gusto, absolutely beaming with pride. What a lovely fan at the end though, talk about serendipity - It helped lighten the mood back up.
"Is this an out of season April Fool's Joke?"
When you are so disconnected from reality that you enshrine your bigotry into a tool and think it is an 'improvement.'
Something I find important enough to underlining about the image provided - black people have minimal ability, gay woman have to be butch, Dwalves are all old... and that is just the three examples we have! If we look at the rest of the caste, I bet that chart is filled with the same tired and old Stereotypes for them too.
I can only imagine how confusing it would be to be out for a walk and see a stylish steampunk enby shouting "Abortion. Yeah!" to a camera in the middle of nowhere lmao. I'd ask for a high-five
It might be a confusing moment for the passerby, but I want to know why Sterling appeared embarrassed that someone overheard them. Are they ashamed of their position as pro-abortion? Do they think their position is wrong? Lots of questions regardless of which side of the issue someone falls on.
MrDernagon huh? Most people would be a little embarrassed about being overheard shouting any phrase without context
@@MrDernagon being outside..,scary
Camden used to be really fun for random moments (my favourite, a total stranger stopping me to ask "are you carrying a dead body there") but it's boringly touristy nowadays 🙁
@@MrDernagon It could just be feeling a bit out of place, something that while I was surprised to see James be a little embarrassed, is pretty human. I'm a guy who wears skirts in public, but even I might feel a little sheepish going out to a public place in my most garrish outfit and loudly declaring my opinion on a complex political topic for all to judge me on, even if it's something I'm 100% for. Alternately, it could just be the want to not have to worry about confrontation. Like, I could shout out in public how I'm pro choice, and possibly risk getting into a fight with some religious fundamentalist with a stick up their arse, and I would, but I'd also rather not have that fight if I could help it.
I'm completly against the reactionary argument of "forced inclusivity" but this bilizz guys are giving me a hard time
Even I'm cringing
certainly a be careful what you wish for moment. it turns out solving racism with racism was never a good idea to begin with
This is one of the most, “SERIOUSLY!?”
things I’ve ever seen...... this is, “Diversity and Inclusion by any means necessary” to its maximum capacity!! 🤦♂️
Yeah this was so stupid I didn’t even fully realise how bad it is.
I honestly don't really care how cringey the chart is if it actually results in more POC and LGBTQ representation in media. We need to start looking at 'cishet white men' being the 'normal' as straight-up bigotry. I don't want to see another straight white man being the main character to any game or movie again, to be honest. And I agree that we need more minorities to be put into positions of power if we are ever going to get real progress. If these cishet white men are truly serious about wanting to diversify and progress society, they need to put their money where their mouth is and step the fuck down and give their position to someone who truly deserves it.
And I know it may be controversial even to some Leftists, but I truly believe that ALL cishet whlte men need to start paying reparations to the rest of us. The most proceeds go to African Americans and then to Native Americans, and then to the LGBTQ community, and then to the rest of the minority community. Tax the FUCK out of them. Make it a law that they *cannot* hold positions of authority in *any* country. If this sounds cruel, or 'too much', then think about how cishet whlte men have treated the rest of us for the last 2000 years (since the advent of Christianity) and maybe you'll see where I am coming from. The fact that I'm not calling for all cishet whlte men to be IiteraI *sIaves* for the next two miIIenia is honestly just proof that I as an oppressed minority (trans, disabled) am more mercifuI than they ever have been.
And as much as I would like to limit the taxation and payment of reparations only to the 'conservative', 'rightwing', and 'Christian' demographics exclusively, there is no denying that even Left-Leaning cishet whlte men have enjoyed unwarranted privilege. So it is still their duty to do the right thing and give back to the communities they have benefitted from - but that being said, via social media and word-of-mouth, I'm sure that *Leftist* whlte men could potentially recieve some sort of 'lightened' taxation, provided there is *proof* that they have *always* been active supporters of minority communities and organizations.
"The sheer inability to hear the tone on this one is off the charts"
According to this chart we're not out of touch, it's the kids who are wrong.
"This chart I just made says I'm right and you're wrong so I guess that settles it."
"This septagon, essentially written out like a fucking Pokémon EV chart for minorities..." *Pffffff* okay that's horrible but that got a laugh out of me. 😂
I loved hearing a little positivity from that fan at the end. Which leads me to a quick question: who is still unsubscribing? You would think the rats would have fled the ship by now...
Keep up the good work Steph!
I'm still subscribed. But i have to admit the uncanny valley is getting deep on this channel. It starts to trigger unwanted fight or flight reactions in my brain. And i don't want to be controlled by those.
@@tenaciousrodent6251 what the fuck are you on about?
No idea, but TBH the Jim Sterling channel was great when I first got to know it many years and it has got only better every day. That last part may be subjective, but regarding my enjoyment that's what it looks like.
This channel only improves with age
@@tenaciousrodent6251 What does that even mean?
I will be honest, when I first saw this I thought "oh, that's not a terrible idea, like, having a list of attributes to consider during character creation so you can see if your cast is too white, to straight. Ok, I get it, maybe a little tactless and heavy handed, but not an awful attempt". Then I realized it quantified it in raw numerical form, and I was reminded not to give ActiBliz the benefit of the doubt
Having just the categories and a "Remember to consider these" note to the designers could very well have been Less Horrible.
its sounds like a very sexist tool
@@thompederful its offensive to anyone who Isn't rich enough to be this out of touch.
It's not even quantified in a useful way! But no, the chart makes it look like you just need one character who is All The Ethnic, instead of like "what proportion of characters are ethnically diverse" at least or something that at least might be useful for a high-level overview.
They'd have got hit by Goodhart's Law if it hadn't been publicised so soon. Well, not "got hit"; more like carrying a ladder where you hit everyone *else* with it by accident rather than yourself.
It's amazing how they heard "there are 2 races, white and political", thought it was good and went all in on it.
They really followed what Gamer gate nerds thing ppl mean with diversity and said yeah we´re doing that. Shows where they get their ideas.
What's great is that is both true but also I can so see them coming up with the exact same idea in the void of their own ignorance.
"They say we have to be more diverse."
"What the heck does that mean?"
"It means they don't want everyone to be a straight white guy."
"Okay, from now on we'll set a quota for how not-straight-white-guy our roster is. We'll have metrics and everything."
"Oh, I think there's also a thing called gender identity."
"Good! Add it to the list. Anyone else have any diversity things we should quantify? I heard 'culture', that was good. Very measurable. What's that, Johnson? Disability? Good idea, bad name. Call it 'ability' instead! Huh? Yes of course more ability means more disabled what do you think we're measuring here?"
Honestly thx for explaining what they intend with "ability"
I can't believe Activision literally solved humanity. Truly a great day for corporate humanity! Did you know can corporations can be people too?
I will be billing you for a new sarcasm meter, thank you!😛
They can when they want to! Like when the law treats a person better, a corporation is definitely a person. But when the law might hold a person accountable for grotesque atrocities, well, then a corporation is just a company, or a concept, or some other non-prosecutable entity. It's like some kind of standard, but _double,_ so you get twice the amount of standards in there! =D
...yes 😢
The guy at the end was pure class, he must’ve recognised and then came back to chat. That must be equally nice as it is scary and awkward 😂😂
Although I do think he was lying about never missing a show 👀😅
Remember when the Deluxe edition of Stanley Parable had absurd sliders for everything, almost like mocking them? Looks like someone took it to heart.
It's corporate, robotic-feeling "diversity initiatives" like Activision's that have made good-faith efforts at inclusion in media look cringe, even in the eyes of the nominally left-leaning. This crap is setting back the goals of those seeking fair wages and anti-discriminatory hiring practices by decades, and it wouldn't surprise me if, in the minds of those at King who invented and approved this algorithm, that was the point.
I'd actually be more inclined to think that the folks at King who designed this thing are more along the lines of someone who thinks they're an ally, but is actually horribly misguided and does more harm than good. I'd agree that the upper management at ActiBlizz probably see this tool as something to point at and cynically say "see, we're totes on your side, people we discriminate against!", while continuing on their merry oppressive way, but the mid- to low-level code jockeys? Nah, I'd bet they actually believe in their shriveled little hearts that they're being good allies.
What are the goals of inclusivity even to begin with?
That is not done in good faith.
@@shmekelfreckles8157 To include people.
It's kinda in the name, friend.
@Serenity Klein well, it makes sense there will be mostly white guys in the game made by white guys, right? I don’t see any problem with that personally.
The diversity tool is like a prop in a movie to clue you in that the businessman character is just a corpse being puppeted by a martian.
I am so happy that the fan who was so sad that they didn't have their phone on them ended up having their whole(some) conversation immortalised in a Jimquisition video. ☺️
"What is the most gender?"
Well, considering James Stephanie Sterling is about as likely to sell their likeness to Activision as Sony is to fix its ongoing abuse issues, the greater game-buying public may never know.
Suck it libs, I've got MORE GENDER than all of you put together!
We have reached Peak Gender.
What bothers me the most about this, as an English teacher, is that 'Just write a non-CIS white character' just NEVER crossed their mind. It never dawned on them to talk, interact, or hire non-CIS white people to make these characters. INSTEAD, they decided that they knew better and could figure it out with technology. It's like Folding Ideas mentioned in 'The LIne Goes Up'. These techbros have assumed that, since technology and game design is so complicated, all other issues are thus lesser and can be easily solved with more tech. Instead, they only proved just how utterly DISCONNECTED they are.
It's probably the same techbros that try to improve public transport and keep "inventing" buses.
Let me ask you something ( 🔥flame🔥 shield UP):
Tell me why a company, who should be budgeting their income to pay their workers, shareholders and executives correctly, hire a person to do only ONE thing~ create a gender(that doesn't matter) for a game character?
And *think* before you answer ,please.
@@BushinRyuCat I can link you some interesting studies done in I believe the american marine corps, that showed that the more diverse a group was, the better they were at solving complex problems. A very similar study was done in I believe banking that showed that a work environment with people from varying backgrounds increased profits over time.
@@BushinRyuCat Might be misrepresenting the issue mate. No one's saying to hire people specifically just to create a diverse character, but to hire qualified people within the field who also come from a minority group. Those people are far more qualified to create genuinely diverse characters than a bunch of homogenous tech weirdos looking at algorithms all day.
And even if the former is what's being requested, that can be solved with better budgeting. Just let the CEO only buy 1 yacht instead of 2, there's plenty of cash right there to put in the representation budget.
(I exaggerate for the sake of comedy, but executive salaries really should be trimmed, like come the fuck on.)
@@BushinRyuCat You're right. Hiring one person just to handle the gender of a character would be a waste of money. But they wouldn't be hired just to handle a character's gender.
They would hired as a writer, just like everyone else. They would write a diverse range of characters from cis white to the opposite end of the spectrum, because that's what a writer does. Or in blizzard's case, what they SHOULD do.
In an ideal world? Blizzard would talk or interact with the people they want to portray. Do research like any good writer should. But, as an outsider looking in, they've shown that they have no desire to. So if they don't want to, then they should hire writers that can. So they can do the research the other writers seem unable to, or uninterested in, doing.
And doing so would be well worth it. As it keeps them out of negative publicity like this. Think of it as a part of the advertisement budget. A small drop in the ocean they spend on PR companies attempting to stop events like this from happening.
Seeing Blizzard's attempts to improve their reputation is like seeing Wile E. Coyote's attempts to catch the Road Runner.
*Holds sign reading "yikes"*
If JSS ever has a wresterling move that involves spiking somebody's head into the mat like a piledriver or a DDT can it be called the "Drill Queen"?
Regarding the Email mentioned at the beginning: It's occurred to me that people who view pets that way aren't interested in a companion, but rather a mindless slave who constantly worships them. And quite often, what they want from pets is also what they want from people.
Yes... I've found you can often tell a lot about how someone will treat people they consider "below them" by how they treat animals.
@@revelle8605 Which is funny, given the corporations they rule are mindless, slavering animals that only consume and have none of the emotion or compassion of an actual dog.
And they want corporations to be viewed as people.
literally God, innit?
Anyone who expects dogs to "know their place" is either an idiot or an abusive owner. Dogs aren't pre-programmed service robots, they're living beings with a variety of personalities. My dog adores all of us but she also gets into mischief because she knows we'll forgive her for it. Would you say she "knows her place"?
Definitely. Always wary of people who say they prefer their pets to people. Of course because people don't tend to put up with other people being vile, while sadly pets do.
"Nor will it alter our company's diversity hiring goals."
*que the obligatory spit take*
Which is a load of shit on their part.
It'll be nothing but diversity hires and mediocrity from them from now on.
The dragonflight dev videos alone have turned me off from another expansion.
"To avoid tokenism" dude this is the most tokenizing thing I've seen since a church put my image in all their advertising because I was the only Latine kid they had
"FORGET ALL THE R@C1ST STUFF OUR PASTOR SAID WE HAVE ONE OF THEM LATINS!"
"FORGET THE SHOCKING AMOUNTS OF R@C1SM, R@P3, S3X1SM ETC. WE HAVE A TOOL!"
same energy :P
@@ddjsoyenby To be fair, my family left that church when I was still very young, so I don't remember anything about their sermons. But their marketing was definitely not the most racially ethical.
This fells like what you make if you're trying your hardest to be hated so much with little effort
Also I love you added that little bit with the fan and his dog, that was wholesome
When I saw it first on twitter I assumed it was an internal tool that leaked, and now they're badly explaining themselves. But no. They published it. They were proud of it.
The only "internal tools" are the cock-wombles that came up with it.
The sad part is... those bastards just gave a wonderful free pass to those who cry "sJwS iN mY vIdYa?!?!" all the time
There are a bunch in this video's comment section already
Knowing Activision, I can only imagine it referring to it's diversity tools like a sociopathic torturer refers to it's tools.
I love how your hat in the middle looks like it's opening up that's so cool. People online made me sad commenting on the diversity tool saying disabled people would not make good protagonists and acting as if minorities want the diversity tool when it's so gross
This reminds me of The Fractured but Whole and the skin tone slider, which also effect the games difficulty. “It doesn’t effect anything but how hard life is” Cartman:
"Women aren't normal, Toads have genders and are children" - Actual shit a female Blizzard rep said.
Wait what does this mean?
it sounds like an AI sentence
@@emikochan13 it really does. I would not be surprised if this came from an AI generated story.
That's the kind of sentence you tell a crazy AI problem to get it to self-destruct.
Clip or it didn't happen. Is it the first prototype of Musk bot?
There's a decent theory that they strategically announced this controversial 'tool' in order to cast attention away from their union-busting strategies currently going on over at Raven software.
When you're a shit company, any PR is good PR if it distracts from a scandal.
I'm happy you kept that last bit in, that alone should show how your message is getting through to the "average person" on the street.
keep up the good work.
My favorite thing about the tool is the fact that nobody criticizing it (including James Stephanie) even seems to properly understand the tool; this isn't a defense of the tool, mind you - it's every bit as dogshit as everybody thinks it is - it's just funny because it highlights what an awful PR move it was to release a puff piece about it. My second favorite thing about the tool is that, after they talked it up so much made such a big deal on its impact in the workplace, after the backlash they released a second statement to the effect that "the tool is just a prototype and we don't actually even use it anyway."
It's like Pokemon ivs. The center is the worst possible stats and the outer edges are the best stats. Though, if you need a chart to be inclusive then you've already failed
It baffles me that ActiBlizz spent more time on a Cranium-Measuring chart than they did on Overwatch 2, the game they said that was going to save the company
I'm absolutely floored at the sheer inability to look outside the bubble here.
... Okay, so we have diversity *stats.* Clearly, this means we can do diversity *builds.* We can min-max munchkin this shit! What's the best diversity dump stat for a cultural barbarian?
age for sure
Spec into maximum culture and obesity, and then add enough ethnicity and gayness to meet your gear requirements
No no, we are not dumping anything. I'm working to max out my culture and passively grinding my age. If anyone finds a way to fit in some ethnicity ranks, I can max out everything soon
If only real women had routes that inevitably lead to boinking if you took all the right steps...
I'm just autistic enough to wish this to be true myself. Alas: You can grind for a lot of things in life. But love is not one of those things.
@@Isvoor quickest method to get more 'ethnic': increase melanin production and increase the size of the lips and backside. Bonus points for dressing them up like the flag of a former British colony.
Diversity wouldn't be "forced" if the staff and leadership were not so homogenous in demographics and thinking.
Seriously, in my fanfic writing time, I just LOOKED PEOPLE UP on Google to see what non-black folks looked like and wore. They helped me imagine civilian outfits for the female hero characters.
Authentic inspiration. Indeed, has Activision-Blizzard EVER heard of such a thing, lately?
Fanfiction comes from a place of love and care for what you're writing or making art of, which, in turn, tends to lead to better representation and better research done than could ever be said about a Triple AAA game company.
Shit, I'm a white dude in America who was doing research online the other day to find out to what extent the Okinawans in Japan are an ethnic minority and to what degree they face racial discrimination from the whiter skinned, non Okinawan Japanese. I actually found out the name for the group of islanders who live on Okinawa are called "Ryukyuans". I thought that was pretty cool.
In other words I did more research to create a tasteful, fleshed out character than the entirety of the character design team at Activision Blizzard. Thank you for listeneing to my Ted talk.
Looking forward to that 800k subscribers special. Can't be more than a couple of months now!
"We've made this great tool to prevent people from taking a pie to the face" I say proudly as I whip the sheet off, revealing my Machine That Exclusively Throws Pie In People's Faces
I laughed far too much at this comment.... 🤣🤣🤣