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[TheWorthyEdge]

Are you serious? They're ranking and rating conferences based diversity?

 

[Milly Osworth]

didn't I see you in the Horizon thread talking about how much you want to fuck the main character

Please be true.

 

[brettski2024]

Some people see race issues in everything... Probably a very negative way to view the wield imo

 

[WrenchNinja]

you guys getting mad at the article realise that you are the reason these articles are necessary, right?

 

[Asriel]

So the people who are bothered by shoe-horned diversity, have you offered another way of increasing diversity in games?

 

[ShockingAlberto]

I think grading Nintendo on diversity is kind of tough because they have no choice but to have Asian people on the stage, because Nintendo is an Asian company, and it's creators are Asian. It would look diverse by default. I do like the fact that they feature female presenters and it never feels forced when they're there. If you ever saw a Nintendo World Store bag, you'd get the feeling the diversity displayed on the bag feels forced. I don't know how to describe it. Sometimes it just feels so fake.

As opposed to Sony, known American company.

 

[OneUh8]

Well, here is the problem. Shoe-horning in diversity, as you put it, implies that a lack of diversity is the default. If you make a black game protagonist, you made a black game protagonist, while if you made a white game protagonist, you just made a game protagonist.

Maybe developers will start shoe horning in diversity, and maybe that will be super awkward and cringe-worthy for a while. But the attitude that diversity should be added, instead of simply assumed, needs to change, and I'm willing to take a few years of awkward and cringe-worthy in my entertainment software to get there.

That's fair and I see your point. I am a white male, however, when I have the chance to create my own character in an RPG or whatever, I tend to create a character that is not a white male. Lots of times I am a female. I have no idea why I do that though, but it is probably because I am burnt out playing a white male protagonist. I am 100% behind choice and freedom, that is where I come from. So that is why I posted what I did.

 

[Palette Swap]

So there's something wrong with being white apparently? Are people advocating for tokenism?

People aren't advocating for tokenism, they just try to measure how diverse the industry is, or how much diversity it projects.

This in itself is interesting, but not half as interesting as the reactions to this measure, which show people will have kneejerk rejection of the very idea.
It's interesting to see a majority feel threatened by the simple idea of exposing it is a majority. Imagine how other people feel.

 

[Anton Sugar]

Wow, looks like a lot of people are still very much offended from just talking about diversity at E3. The reactions in this thread worries me a lot in that I thought the general discourse would be more open and receptive towards simply talking about diversity in games and conferences.

This.

As I said before, the rating feels a bit too arbitrary to be of any use, but it is absolutely a discussion that's still worth having. All these "why is this important" posts...smfh.

I wonder how many people in this thread acknowledge that there is a diversity problem in the industry (either in games/products or the management/dev teams).

 

[inner-G]

So the people who are bothered by shoe-horned diversity, have you offered another way of increasing diversity in games?

They're not just talking about games, but the stage presentations

 

[Lime]

So the people who are bothered by shoe-horned diversity, have you offered another way of increasing diversity in games?

"Just sit back and everything will fix itself."

 

[daninthemix]

Guardian is such an obnoxiously self-righteous newspaper.

 

[Jakoo]

While I have no problem with the overall purpose of this article, applying the "Bechel Test" to a marketing press conference seems very silly.

 

[Asriel]

They're not just talking about games, but the stage presentations

And that differs how?

 

[Kinyou]

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?

Yeah, not sure what the metric for the rating here really is. Article could probably have done without that.

 

[Man Called Aerodynamics]

I appreciate the general sentiment here, but it seems wrongheaded somehow to award more "points" to a game that only lets you play as a female protagonist versus one that lets you customize the protag. Those both seem like worthy outcomes to me.

 

[ShockingAlberto]

The ratings are super arbitrary and I imagine they are there to make a point, which I don't think worked super well.

That said, I feel like the last group of people that should be upset about arbitrary numbers that are mostly just imaginary are video game industry enthusiasts.

 

[MysteryQuesadilla]

Who would have thought that a publication would look at such a topic related to multi-billion dollar industry?

 

[Broken Joystick]

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?

Women are continually pushed away, there's a lot of sexism that happens in the industry, from publishers to actual players. I'm not saying every woman experiences this, but women making games or talking about games have to continually "prove" that they're gamers to a lot of their audience, otherwise they receive misogynistic and sexist comments.

As to if it's an issue when the entertainment/medium is comprised of one minority, I'm not sure. That's an interesting discussion to be had.

Maybe next time you will simply answer his actual question instead extrapolating.

Well, ask a stupid question... etc.

 

[droggg]

"The only identifiable woman in Bethesda’s press conference was Emily Kaldwin, and while she made a strong showing it’s unfortunate she has to share the limelight with her ageing father"

lol what?! How unfortunate for this woman to have to be on stage with her boring old white male father....Giving grades on this kind of thing is pretty ridiculous at it is but the article itself is embarrassingly bad.

 

[Summer Haze]

"The only identifiable woman in Bethesda’s press conference was Emily Kaldwin, and while she made a strong showing it’s unfortunate she has to share the limelight with her ageing father."

Is this sarcasm? I hope it is

Haha, omg...

 

[Die Squirrel Die]

So the people who are bothered by shoe-horned diversity, have you offered another way of increasing diversity in games?

I'm sure if we just wait, and maybe tut loudly every so often, it'll all sort itself out anyway.

 

[QuantumBro]

The Bechdel test is a weird thing to apply to a video game conference. It's suppose to be about people presenting new stuff to the crowd, not having conversations with the other people on stage. Whenever conversations happen during conferences, they always sound so fake.

 

[inner-G]

And that differs how?

I think that they should only have developers up ther instead of paying actors to be presenters, regardless of sex/race. I don't want to watch someone just read cue cards about games.

 

[Lime]

The ratings are super arbitrary and I imagine they are there to make a point, which I don't think worked super well.

That said, I feel like the last group of people that should be upset about arbitrary numbers that are mostly just imaginary are video game industry enthusiasts.

:lol

You know that anything below a 9/10 or 4/5 will cause irrational anger in such people. Couple that with challenging the status quo and you have a ripe soil for causing aneurysms.

 

[213372bu]

While there was a woman on stage for Bethesda, which wasn't the case for Sony, and they did display most of their games that have playable female characters, she did have to share the stage with her old hag father.

Arbitrarily, we rate this 1/5.

 

[Milton]

Intersectionality.

Only covering one spectrum (rich, white, presumably straight, guys) is not the way forward. Just trying to simply do more is better than one-dimensionality. Anything is better than that, even if it does not cover all identity categories (religion, age). The games industry needs to think more broadly and do the proper actions right now. Not tomorrow, not next week, not next year, right fucking now.

I get what you're saying but there are so many aspects to people that you cannot possibly arrive at a situation that makes everyone happy. So you get a straight white guy and a black lesbian up on stage. You happy now? Wait, they're both under 35, where's the old dude? And they all come from wealthy families, where's the working class representation? And they all have IQs above 120.

What does endgame look like for you?

 

[RealityCheque]

Yeah, not sure what the metric for the rating here really is. Article could probably have done without that-

Pretty much. But we all know what happens when we abandon review scores, people get even more salty.

But the person who wrote this is a freelance games journo, so the need to be scoring shit is probably in her DNA.

 

[GitarooMan]

Newsflash: "Grading" or "rating" diversity is a common thing in many industries. It's not nearly as outlandish as many of you make it seem. It's a gateway into discussion of why the diversity/lack of diversity exists. Just to take a sports example: you will see countless articles on how many minority executives/coaches are in a certain league/sport and you will see those leagues take steps to discuss and expand on the hiring of minorities in those roles. I don't see what is so controversial about this.

 

[SDCowboy]

Women are continually pushed away, there's a lot of sexism that happens in the industry, from publishers to actual players. I'm not saying every woman experiences this, but women making games or talking about games have to continually "prove" that they're gamers to a lot of their audience, otherwise they receive misogynistic and sexist comments.

As to if it's an issue when the entertainment/medium is comprised of one minority, I'm not sure. That's an interesting discussion to be had.

Ok, fair enough.

 

[FATALITY]

I edited my post. You are right!

I will say this though, I feel like these companies are just going to shoe horn in "diversity" into their games because of fear of backlash now, when you have sites now grading you based solely on that. I don't think that is the end result we all want. Personally, I want and feel it all needs to come from a genuine desire to do so, not feeling forced to because of fear. IMO.

yes i agree with you.

 

[SprachBrooks]

The reason people are reacting like this is because this article is framed in a sardonic way which trivialises the discussion to be had about diversity down to rating based on arbitrary ratings of inclusion.

The fact one discounts points -- a nonsensical scale by which to measure it anyway -- for including both a female and a male playable character reflects on the writer here.

It's clearly poorly thought-out and inflammatory in the way its delivered so as to breed discussion (the wrong kind) and gain clicks. Sometimes, people just don't do themselves a favour.

 

[Who]

This is weird and stupid.

 

[Boney]

People ignoring the problem of under representation and the good things that come out of well represented minorities or women in both media and high executive or official positions makes me so frustrated. Even when it's spelled out in front of them, their critical thought capacity is near zero.

I wonder how many are white males.

The ratings are super arbitrary and I imagine they are there to make a point, which I don't think worked super well.

That said, I feel like the last group of people that should be upset about arbitrary numbers that are mostly just imaginary are video game industry enthusiasts.

I give this post conference a B+ because it appealed to my demographic.

 

[JetForceGemini]

It seems like I was misunderstood a tad bit. I wasn't saying I wouldn't mind more diverse presenters(that goes for kinds of diversity; women, black people, handicapped, etc)

I'm just saying while watching it, putting a token black guy on stage to talk about some games when he's not qualified isn't helping anyone. Who cares about what race the presenters is when at the end of the day, we care more about the games than them. Why not speak on all the black protagonist we're getting this year? Or the female main character in mass effect and horizon?

No one looks at the presenters of these conferences and become a video game fan because of the race of said presenter (I seen one person post about how they got to make video games more welcoming to new fans).

 

[Dangansona]

This seems a little arbitrary and harsh considering I thought both Microsoft and Sony are making big improvements on this front.

Edit: Ubisoft too now that I think about it!

 

[DarkKyo]

Only covering one spectrum (rich, white, presumably straight, guys) is not the way forward. Just trying to simply do more is better than one-dimensionality.

That seems oddly specific. I can't even think of too many video game protagonists who fit all the criteria. Maybe Bruce Wayne in the Batman games? Diversity still has a ways to go in the medium but it's not nearly as bad as you are implying.

 

[PeskyToaster]

It would be pretty easy to pass the Bechdel test if you had a woman speaker because they are talking to the audience which I assume contains at least one woman, maybe more.

 

[cookienut]

Maybe, just maybe...people need to sit back, take a long pull on a refreshing drink, wipe away their dribble and realise that filling quotas for a conference literally means nothing. Maybe worry about the actual games and if they're going to be any good.

You could have all women presenting and the race quota would be unfilled, you could have just POC presenting but that would be too abelist. People will find issues in pretty much anything now. Remember when you could just 'enjoy the show'? I guess not.

 

[deoee]

I don't even know what's happening anymore with this industry.

I'll just buy games I like and not care anymore about anything.

Wow

 

[P44]

As opposed to Sony, known American company.

Quit that shit man.

Sony's dev studios are all over the world, it's easy to get developers from the UK, from the US to appear.

Nintendo's are based in mostly one country, and unless you want some random PR person telling us about the game and not a dev (I don't), it is what it is.

 

[Respect]

Wondering how many of those truly upset about this article are women/minorities.

 

[Lime]

The Bechdel test is a weird thing to apply to a video game conference. It's suppose to be about people presenting new stuff to the crowd, not having conversations with the other people on stage. Whenever conversations happen during conferences, they always sound so fake.

In cases like Ubisoft you had people sitting down on couches and talking about their games. The example of Aisha Tyler talking with Levar Burton was a good moment I think:

Same last year with Angela Basset:

There are instances of two people being together on the same stage and exploring how both are represented is worthy of addressing.

 

[Mory Dunz]

Surprised people are so upset/annoyed.

Seems pretty harmless to me

 

[Tecnniqe]

Oh for the love of God

 

[Napalm_Frank]

I told you all Sony should have shown Gravity Rush 2!

 

[Whompa02]

I feel like this is boarding racism in itself by discussing the race distribution and getting upset about one thing or another...who cares?!

 

[Bishop89]

still waiting for my greek protagonists not named Kratos.

 

[inner-G]

I told you all Sony should have shown Gravity Rush 2!

They did.... for 2 seconds in the ending montage along with the other good games

 

[cookienut]

I feel like this is boarding racism in itself by discussing the race distribution and getting upset about one thing or another...who cares?!

It is. Remember, white is the new evil now.