Inclusion is cool, and it’s important to have diversity and representation. That being said, it’s also really easy to mess up. Sojourn is a great example of a terribly written character, for inclusion sake. They were so wrapped up with the fact that she was a black women from Toronto that they forgot to give her a compelling story or personality.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with her representing any of those things, but they shouldn’t be her selling point.
I think women are getting a rough deal with all of the “strong female characters” that are the same cookie cutter, stoic, chicks that are never actually allowed to be characters.
I partly agree. I see neat things about Sojourn, and while she doesn’t have a story now, I think the ground has been laid so that she can have a pretty comepelling story soon.
If Blizzard wants to get around to making stories again.
matters? not really, but i can see how others would enjoy it.
but thats for games. on business side its entirely different.
Like how the gaming industry is trying to “add representation” to the business and only hire that specific type…thats an issue.
idc what color, sexualitiy, or if you identify as a t-rex ridign a putinmobile…never hire based on persons traits.
Jobs belong to those with the skills. Nothing else should matter.
What if they were Physically a T-Rex riding on a PutinMobile. You have to admit, you would be curious. I’d be more likely to do the hire.
I think if you are a big entity that can afford to do a bit of good then you can actually afford diversity jobs at entry level.
Especially with programming woman don’t get the same environment as men to learn especially at the start of their careers.
So a big tech giant can afford diversity hires depending on the job.
To the topic’s title: no, the only thing that matters in a video game is good gameplay and maybe good story too…
Weirdly enough, our work does this, but their reasoning is more interesting. They found people who couldn’t just get breaks because of who they were, had a higher level of base competence.
I think it matters but it’s more of an overall issue of society, not just limited to one game/film or whatever. If someone decides to make something that isn’t diverse that’s ok. It’s about creating art. But when there’s an overall trend of a group being excluded then it’s an issue.
It reminds me of the good ol’ ‘Diversity Space Method’ matrix that King was working on. Blizzard said they don’t use it, but it also emphasizes my point and fits the current trend of heroes. I know the Overwatch team wishes they could bury that information, but it lines up a little too well.
i , very politely . dont give a sh ! about none of that lol
its a fn game , why cant it just be that … why do we have to drag our insecurities and pointless ideas and ideals into fantasy ? this is crazy
im a short guy from Romania , am i being rep in the game ? am i ? no will i ever be ? most likely no . will i ever care about this ? no chance …
i think this becomes a problem if your life is too easy so yall brains are looking to create problems to keep you busy lol i truly believe that
…if representation happens organically because the author wants to tell a story involving people of a certain race/gender/etc then I’m all for it but as you mentioned:
This point:
…I do think people overvalue it a lot but I can appreciate how people like to feel valued. I do feel some people over-zealously try to ‘enforce’ companies/artists/etc to include representation which unfortunately leads to the point you mentioned above, which is when it doesn’t occur organically… 
I think representation in general matters.
Not to everyone, but to enough people that are not used to seeing someone like themselves.
I personally don’t care about seeing myself represented but as a white woman I already am. If anything, I’ve always been more put off by characters that resemble me. I tend to prefer playing male characters, too, if I can make them. (Unless I can can be a cat girl! then that’s what I want to play as 
)
I won’t cast judgement about whether or not representation is being “overvalued” because perhaps it’s really important to some. And the question of “is it sincere?” or “do the creators really care?” kind of doesn’t matter when real people say it is good for them.
But I totally think most inclusion nowadays is just big corporations trying to score points. 100%. Capitalism gonna capitalism but I try to look on the positive side of that - inclusion and diversity is popular enough in the general public that it makes money. Hopefully those values never stop being popular even if one day they aren’t as much of a money maker.
yes, but still dont get job if theres better applicant.
She has her own book written by Temi Oh (she’s not a blizz employee(. Good luck actually expressing her character in-game with such dubious writing quality from in-house Blizzard staff.
So true. When imagination is not respected, the work gets desecrated.
I don’t care unless it looks like a blatant attempt to force the woke message upon me.
You know, like in those memes about Netflix adaptation. Then it’s annoying.
And skin color is different than gender identity or sexual orientation. Characters with various skin colors may look natural or like in Netflix adaptation. When I have to hear about their gender identity or sexual orientation it’s always the woke message being forced upon me. There is absolutely no other reason to even mention that stuff. At least in Overwatch a shooter game.
No. Honestly I have never cared what the race, sex, or gender of the character im playing is. It also makes absolutely no difference in changing my real life opinion of any type of person just because I see them in a video game. I’ve gone my whole life with very little latino main characters in video games and never cared, neither do i care that sombra is latina.
I have got to put a parody of that in my game. People said it was disturbingly close to phrenology, which I believe was used by the bad German faction from WW2. Really, that should tell people something.
I think representation is a pretty nice thing to have in games, but never at the cost of actual game quality. I’d rather have a great written character of a generic origin than the most diverse and inclusive character that I’ll forget about in 2 weeks because of terrible writing. Too many movies and games nowadays have been falling into this trap of trying to appeal to people by being “progressive”, which in corporations just means forcefully putting as many different types of people into a single story to appeal to everyone while not caring nearly as much to actually make them good characters.
I like it. It’s nice seeing characters that share parts of my identity that don’t treat it as a “war criminal” trope.
I’m going to try and guess your race/ethnicity/whatever you call it from that alone.
Russian? Somalian? Cuban?