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[Aranjah]

I consider myself on the side of the debate that definitely wants to see more diversity in the industry.

At the same time, at least as far as diversity onstage goes, I feel like this is overlooking the fact that it generally takes longer in one's career to get to the senior positions that land you on an E3 stage than the two or so years that this debate has been a big thing. It takes longer than that for the effects of this movement to be reflected at the most senior positions at companies. They should check on the onstage diversity again in about 5 years.

(Clarification: I'm not saying it wasn't a big deal or on people's minds before then, I'm saying it wasn't being constantly pushed to the front of people's thoughts like it is now.)

 

[Infinite]

Thread is already becoming diversity olympics.

Conferences and games on display were generally very poor not just in demographical diversity but also thematically and in design. Didn't the Sony conference start with two games with dead/absent wives? That was definitely something.

I'm sorry but pointing out a bunch of white women and celebrating how "diverse" it is because of it always gets a side eye from me

 

[SDCowboy]

No. Someone spent all this time compiling the data because no one cares about it.
Think before you post.

You really took my post that literally? Good grief. My point is, like or not, different entertainment mediums often have different racial or gender demographics. I fail to see how it is a big deal. Does anyone complain that certain entertainment events are largely, say, black? Or Asian? Or women?

 

[Mory Dunz]

Diversity report?....

Minority Report™

 

[DarkKyo]

Diversity in games and representing games will only get better over time. It's barely worth talking about because minority representation in games is probably the best it has ever been, and will continue to get better. Just a part of the industry, and society, slowly growing up and becoming more accepting.

I think what I'm trying to say is that probably nobody is intentionally avoiding minority representation. It's just like any entertainment media... gets more inclusive as the times change. Hollywood still has this problem too, but is slooowly getting better.

 

[Azoor]

Race and gender doesn't matter a long as there is no systemic issue that prevented anyone from succeeding or having a chance.

I mean jeez.

 

[Spring Drive]

I'm not entirely sure how EA gets 2/5. Speakers were a bit white i guess, but games were on point, diversity-wise. That should be far more important than the speakers.
Same goes for everyone, really. This seems really focused on speakers rather than games.

From the article:

Player character diversity: This year EA lacked many games with identifiable protagonists, but with FIFA 17’s new story mode starring a black Manchester United hopeful called Alex Hunter and the teaser for Mass Effect: Andromeda ending with the default female version of protagonist [your chosen first name here] Ryder, there was nary an identifiable white guy to be seen.

Speaker diversity: Of the dozen or so speakers on the stage, it was the actor playing fictional footballer Hunter who had the best stage presence. The conference may have only featured one female speaker, but EA is lucky to be able to call on former Ubisoft producer and Assassin’s Creed creator Jade Raymond.

Bechdel test: With only one woman speaking on stage, EA couldn’t hope to pass the Bechdel test. Here’s hoping next year features Jade Raymond chatting to Amy Hennig over footage from her upcoming untitled Star Wars game.

Other positives: Though their speakers were largely white and male, EA did express a commitment to diversity with its Play to Give programme, through which it will donate $1m to organisations such as HeForShe, Code.org, and SpecialEffect.

 

[Vincent Alexander]

People actually care about this? Not once while I was watching the conferences did I think... Man this would be so much better with a black guy instead. Ironic part is that I am black so maybe it's me with the problem lol

Honestly, I posted in one of the E3 threads that I was bummed at all the generic white guys in the games. I'm white myself, but I really wanted to see at least one black guy as a lead. No idea why, since this is the first year I've had that feeling. But it just bugged me.

 

[Tal Shiar Agent]

What would be the metric for 5/5? No straight white males in any games or presenters? Sony's biggest game featured a female lead and yet it scores 3/5?

The game the conference spent the most time on was Days Gone, which stars Sam Witwer.


Also, it's not racist or sexist or a negative to not being able to play as a white male, since white males are catered to in media and life as a whole so much more than everyone else and are assumed the default. That idea needs to be challenged.

 

[orthodoxy1095]

I think EA's press conference was a boring shitshow, but I don't know if that's a fair evaluation...

wtf are they talking about? EA a 2/5?

Black guy on Battlefield 1 cover, black guy vs. german on event artwork, black celebrities all over the E3 Play event, Harlem Hellfighter pre-order dlc and black soldier skins for some german troops (colonial troops maybe). For me its too much already.

Mass Effect Andromeda get's a female main character for the trailer which will most likely be the the character for ads this time. Last year they had female players for FIFA as the big thing.

Sims 4, just before E3, got the LGBT update. Yeah didn't happen during E3, but what do they want? Really? A 2/5?

In fairness, I guess I have to ask if they showed the black characters for Battlefield. I know they're in the game, but I can't remember if they got time at the conference.

Regardless, FIFA alone added a story-mode centered on a black man and that seems pretty damn cool to me.

So diversity = black people and women?

Seems a bit narrowminded

How about handicapped people, protagonists over the age of 65, eastern europeans, asians etc. That would be diversity to me.

Yeah, I get the pushback against the grizzly manly-man characters of last gen, but this seems like a shallow evaluation all around.

 

[mcarlie]

Enough with the self-serving moralizing already.

 

[PKrockin]

It's the same thing as Sony's Livecast, which they also didn't judge. A conference and an all day live stream are very different.

Your points are valid but their format doesn't mesh well with most outlets that cover E3 as a whole. Giantbomb literally tuned out for a while during the Treehouse event. With that said, the Treehouse events have always nailed it when it comes to diversity.

Nintendo said straight up that Zelda and Pokemon would be the only things featured that day. They judged Sony's conference on the games and not the speakers of the conference, so they could have done so for Zelda and Pokemon as well.

 

[John Kowalski]

I'm sorry but pointing out a bunch of white women and celebrating how "diverse" it is because of it always gets a side eye from me

Apology accepted.

I still think that it is a good step forward and i'm always glad to see incremental growth. It's the only place where you have more women presenters than men.

 

[xKilltheMx]

I'm sorry but pointing out a bunch of white women and celebrating how "diverse" it is because of it always gets a side eye from me

^^^^^

Woman POC representation is basically nonexistant.

And the people complaining about the thread content are worse than the shitty diversity grades.

 

[Servbot24]

People actually care about this? Not once while I was watching the conferences did I think... Man this would be so much better with a black guy instead. Ironic part is that I am black so maybe it's me with the problem lol

Seriously, this is something that people compile data on?

Come on...

Who gives a shit except for the person on the internet writing the article trying to spark up some non controversy.

And a bunch of other comments I won't bother quoting.

I understand that you are fully entrenched in gaming culture, this is all normal to you, and the idea of anything making your world no longer normal is threatening to the way that you play with your gadgets. But you need to understand that there are people not in your bubble. The people on the outside might be interested by games, but when it's a parade of white men, guess what, they don't feel like game creators are trying to welcome them in.

To make gaming more welcoming, game creators actually have to take an action to make it so.

 

[Caronte]

I think they should be judged by the diversity in their games, not the presenters. In an industry where most people is male it's somewhat normal that the presenters are also male. Featuring non male/white/straight characters in the games is more important, because that means more people like that will join the industry and eventually become presenters themselves.

Having female or non-white presenters just because you need to fill some sort of quota is silly in my opinion (that is, as long as people talking are people from within the industry and not someone specifically hired for it like Aisha Tyler).

 

[Zemm]

wtf are they talking about? EA a 2/5?

Black guy on Battlefield 1 cover, black guy vs. german on event artwork, black celebrities all over the E3 Play event, Harlem Hellfighter pre-order dlc and black soldier skins for some german troops (colonial troops maybe). For me its too much already.

What do you mean "For me its too much already"?

 

[Dongs Macabre]

Diversity in games and representing games will only get better over time. It's barely worth talking about because minority representation in games is probably the best it has ever been, and will continue to get better. Just a part of the industry, and society, slowly growing up and becoming more accepting.

I think what I'm trying to say is that probably nobody is intentionally avoiding minority representation. It's just like any entertainment media... gets more inclusive as the times change. Hollywood still has this problem too, but is slooowly getting better.

Diversity isn't a passive process, nor is the lack of diversity. Straight white males are not the default state of being, and their prevalence requires active intent, as does changing this.

 

[SolidSnakex]

Nintendo said straight up that Zelda and Pokemon would be the only things featured that day. They judged Sony's conference on the games and not the speakers of the conference, so they could have done so for Zelda and Pokemon as well.

It's still not a conference. That's what they're judging.

Ask five people who follow the video games industry what to expect from an E3 press conference and they’ll all paint you a similar picture.

Of course, some conferences do better than others. This year, we’ve judged EA, Bethesda, Microsoft, Ubisoft, and Sony for the diversity of their speakers and of the games and characters on show. How do they compare?

What do you show in an hour-hour and a half conference window. That's not what Nintendo's doing. They're just running footage of various people playing Zelda all day long.

 

[Crom]

I'm a black guy too and the sad part is you still don't get the underlying problem despite being a minority.

The problem being that people are so obsessed with race and gender that people are nitpicking over the race and gender of E3 presenters?

To me it seems like the people nitpicking over things like these have the problem. If you look at everyone as equal then why should this matter? People rise through the ranks and earn their position. The only person stopping anyone from achieving anything is them self.

Throwing in a token person of any race or gender would be insulting.

 

[Icyflamez96]

-
Is there a heavy focus on just women and African-American? Other demographics should be taken into consideration and some rankings I disagree with, but this is important to track.

I love this gif so much lol.

 

[GIANKRATOS]

What about Kratos? He's Greek.

 

[NahaNago]

Honestly, I posted in one of the E3 threads that I was bummed at all the generic white guys in the games. I'm white myself, but I really wanted to see at least one black guy as a lead. No idea why, since this is the first year I've had that feeling. But it just bugged me.

I would love to see more games using different races and mythologies from around the world.

 

[Palette Swap]

To all the whiny asses who don't tolerate this exists: this is actually an interesting metric of diversity in the video games industry as it reflects who the industry will use as a face at one of its most important moments of the year. It's more a measure of the status quo than anything else.

Shouldn't Nintendo's treehouse stream also be included in this? Plenty of women presenters featured there.

Yeah, all the ones they haven't thrown under the angry nerd bus.

 

[SliceSabre]

I don't understand how they judge the diversity where in some of the trailers it isn't apparent what the gender of the character your playing is.

Not that diversity isn't important, but not knowing the gender of the character you are playing hampers this quite a bit.

 

[Broken Joystick]

He didn't say "no one cares about this". Maybe actually read? Those threads are always such tiptoe eggshells, with thinly veiled insults and attacks (to quote someone else earlier in the thread "says a lot about you" etc.)

Asking if people care about this seems redundant when it's pretty evident they do. This isn't a new thing, and the collection of data on it obviously suggests that yes, people do care.

You really took my post that literally? Good grief. My point is, like or not, different entertainment mediums often have different racial demographics. I fail to see how it is a big deal. Does anyone complain that certain entertainment events are largely, say, black? Or Asian? Or women?

How else was I supposed to take it? Especially when the thread already has a number of similar posts.

Yes, it is a big deal. Gamers aren't just white dudes, it's nice to have that represented in the games themselves and the people making them and promoting them.

 

[Asriel]

The problem being that people are so obsessed with race and gender that people are nitpicking over the race and gender of E3 presenters?

To me it seems like the people nitpicking over things like these have the problem. If you look at everyone as equal then why should this matter? People rise through the ranks and earn their position. The only person stopping anyone from achieving anything is them self.

Throwing in a token person of any race or gender is insulting.

Oh. I'm sorry. I forgot.

Every person from the same background, race, religion and gender have the exact same opportunities as each other in this country.

Silly me.

And saying that a person of color in a presentation would just be a token is insulting.

EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. this topic comes up, it's amazing how it's so quickly dismissed by so many posters. It's an embarrassment emblematic of the gaming industry as a whole.

 

[TheOfficeMut]

This is a thing people care about?

I'll take it you're white?

 

[jay]

Sometimes it''s fun to think about how the incredulous people in threads like this will do in the (possibly make believe) future. Will they be angry old people voting for Trump Jr? Will they be happy with the less racist and sexist world but oblivious to the fact that it takes people caring about stuff like this to actually make any progress? Can't wait to find out.

 

[Mindwipe]

Diversity is good. This analysis isn't.

 

[LiveFromKyoto]

On the one hand, the tech industry as a whole has major problems with diversity, on multiple levels.

On the other hand, a part of me is repulsed by the idea of scorekeeping what skin colour people on stage are allowed to be. This just doesn't feel like the way to handle this.

 

[GitarooMan]

It's amazing how these threads expose people like clockwork.

 

[TheSpoiler]

The problem being that people are so obsessed with race and gender that people are nitpicking over the race and gender of E3 presenters?

To me it seems like the people nitpicking over things like these have the problem. If you look at everyone as equal then why should this matter? People rise through the ranks and earn their position. The only person stopping anyone from achieving anything is them self.

Throwing in a token person of any race or gender would be insulting.

That would imply that things are equal for everyone right now in society.

It's not.

 

[Onemic]

So diversity = black people and women?

Seems a bit narrowminded

How about handicapped people, protagonists over the age of 65, eastern europeans, asians etc. That would be diversity to me.

lol dat concern trolling.

 

[shoreu]

The problem being that people are so obsessed with race and gender that people are nitpicking over the race and gender of E3 presenters?

To me it seems like the people nitpicking over things like these have the problem. If you look at everyone as equal then why should this matter? People rise through the ranks and earn their position. The only person stopping anyone from achieving anything is them self.

Throwing in a token person of any race or gender would be insulting.

Yeah lets shoot for a majority for once

 

[Lime]

Diversity is good. This analysis isn't.

Why? What's wrong with it?

 

[Die Squirrel Die]

I'm sorry but pointing out a bunch of white women and celebrating how "diverse" it is because of it always gets a side eye from me

In what way are they 'celebrating' diversity. They were measuring it and since the highest mark they gave to anybody was 3/5 that would indicate that they feel that there wasn't enough diversity.

 

[khaaan]

What about Nintendo?

They started off with Reggie (what race is he?) who introduced trailer about a white guy. Then they followed up with a demo of a Pokemon where an Asian guy played a darker skinned colored lady, while a white lady interviewed some Japanese guys. When I tuned in later on, the Asian translater man became an Asian translater lady!

 

[bobbychalkers]

Nintendo said straight up that Zelda and Pokemon would be the only things featured that day. They judged Sony's conference on the games and not the speakers of the conference, so they could have done so for Zelda and Pokemon as well.

The conferences are time limited to usually under 2 hours the day before E3 proper opens its doors Treehouse live events go on all day on the first official day of E3 when the doors open. Game outlets will cover an E3 direct since they are time limited but Treehouse events aren't. When your correspondents have to make meetings with people on the showfloor and get impressions from dozens of games in that convention hall, there isn't much incentive to watch the full Treehouse coverage in the first place, especially since I imagine the bigger gaming outlets got to play Zelda and Pokemon before E3 started to have their previews up in time.

 

[orthodoxy1095]

What about Kratos? He's Greek.

Greeks are a rarity in games, but people would probably just file us under "white."

 

[Milton]

Oh for fucks sake. The Guardian has become a parody of itself.

Next year: Ginger Vegans Severely Underrepresented At E3 - we say Enough is Enough!

 

[DarkKyo]

Diversity isn't a passive process, nor is the lack of diversity. Straight white males are not the default state of being, and their prevalence requires active intent, as does changing this.

I don't think I was implying any of what you just said. Of course it's a process that people take part in. All I was saying is that it does get better over time.

 

[PKrockin]

It's still not a conference. That's what they're judging.





What do you show in an hour-hour and a half conference window. That's not what Nintendo's doing. They're just running footage of various people playing Zelda all day long.

Seems a little silly to ignore one of the biggest players of the industry because it technically wasn't a conference and thus can't be scored 1-5 on an objective basis as the others, but ok. I didn't think we'd see Metacritic Syndrome being applied to diversity.

 

[Asriel]

Diversity is good. This analysis isn't.

That I can agree with. Trying to get an idea of the diversity of E3 is admirable, but the methodology is very flawed. IMO.

 

[Freeman]

2 girls out of 10 overall score.

 

[SDCowboy]

How else was I supposed to take it? Especially when the thread already has a number of similar posts.

Yes, it is a big deal. Gamers aren't just white dudes, it's nice to have that represented in the games themselves and the people making them and promoting them.

Of course it's important, but as long as a medium isn't actively pushing away other demographics, sometimes the demographics just fall where they may. Most entertainment sectors have a strong demographic leaning, yet it seems to only be pointed out as an issue when it pertains to white males. There are plenty of entertainment and hobby mediums that are largely comprised of black males, or white women, or Latinos, etc. Is that an issue?

 

[NahaNago]

On the one hand, the tech industry as a whole has major problems with diversity, on multiple levels.

On the other hand, a part of me is repulsed by the idea of scorekeeping what skin colour people on stage are allowed to be. This just doesn't feel like the way to handle this.

They do this for everything these days and its for skin color and sex. Movie judges and video game professionals speaking at a discussion are the last 2 events where i saw this being a major discussion on the web.

 

[ShockingAlberto]

You know this is an important topic when the first immediate and guttural response is "I don't want people talking about this."

 

[Anton Sugar]

I don't know if ratings are necessary, since there seems to be quite a bit of subjectivity involved (even in terms of what you consider diversity), but it's a good discussion to have and it's absolutely worth mentioning.

Some of y'all should just stay the fuck out of threads you have no interest in contributing to other than "who cares?" You're like that kid in school who interrupts a conversation with "THAT'S STUPID" and walks away.

 

[Nev]

"Diversity rating"? Jesus.