Activision has been working on software to determine how diverse their characters are, in an attempt to be more inclusive. There was a blog post made earlier about it, but after getting a somewhat negative reaction the blog post was edited. It had mentioned before that the tool was used to make characters for Call Of Duty Vanguard and currently being used for Overwatch 2. Ana was used as an example, whose character attributes were given number rankings to score her diversity, such as her ethnic score being a 7 for being Arab and her sexuality score being 0 for being heterosexual. The blog post also stated that Activision plans to use this tool for the rest of their games.
I think this is a tool that should be used with caution, as it can be more helpful in some games than others. Vanguard was hurt by trying to adhere to something like this, as the diversity in that game is artificial and didn’t adhere to the historical element of the setting, cheapening the experience. This is something that can be more useful in Warcraft though, for both the game and other media such as books. It goes beyond just physical attributes, as it includes things such as character alignment and such. This would be particularly useful for people such as Christie Golden, whose characters have mostly been blue eyed blonde haired lawful-good types, and could get characters away from having their personalities sterilized.
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Agreed. One problem I can see from this is that by giving characters a “score” simply based on what makes them diverse, you could see a raise in token characters. Characters that only exist to be X, Y or Z. Nothing more, nothing less. Which isn’t representation, at least to me. Now you can have characters who’s main attribute is X and the story explores that in interesting ways that benefits the character and story. I would say that She-ra 2018 Catra falls into this. Her main conflict with Adora is that she felt betrayed due to her unresolved romantic feelings towards Adora. Hell, Horde Prime quickly picks up on this and uses it to manipulate Catra. Eventually using Catra as literal bait because of as well. Her problems with Shadow Weaver are important and add onto this, but they do feel secondary. At least after season 3. As part of her motivation to defeat Adora is to prove to Shadow Weaver that she was the worthy choice, not Adora. However if X is their only attribute with nothing else going for it, then that is a token character in my eyes.
EDIT: I should say that I feel this way when it comes to main / supporting characters. Minor characters are fine as they are minor by design.
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Ah, yes, Arabs are a 7/10 race is definitely not a deranged notion. I could buy this being some genuine good natured attempt, but come on, how hard is it to just talk to people
Het being 0/10 is hilarious though, I’ll give them that
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Given the state of the company, the internet, and overall humanity, hard.
Very very hard.
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What ever helps these people to do their jobs better honestly, the game and story are already as bad as they could possibly be.
So either we stay in the muck or finally get out of it.
I am sure someone like Baal right now is organizing some sort of party to celebrate this because its right up his alley… so good for him! hopefully this brings him some joy.
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“It’s a psyop there’s no way my side would do this!” Lol
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What the heck even is this? I could picture Dr. Mengele handing out this sort of number coded system to organize people.
“Anyone with a score Higher than 0 gets on the the train. When they depart, 1-4s go to the left, 5-9 go to the right. 10s have an extra bone in their spine! Bring them at once!”
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This makes me feel a bit uncomfortable. I wonder if they have a scoring system for all of their consumers.
I imagine story forum posters will probably get a 0.
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I’d not want to take this… interesting test on this character at least. Good lord.
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I’d like to understand more.
Jack Reacher says that there are four type of people who join the military service. I don’t remember them but it was something like “in the family tradition” and “serve the country” and “like to kill”. In the World of Warcraft, these attributes would have to be the dominant traits in character design because these are the folk who would be in the mix when going to face our Big Bad of every expansion. The other diverse traits would be minor and ignored because the group is bonding to fight together. Amplifying the story to feature those minor diverse traits would be a tangent on the story.
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I can totally see this being a thing. You’d have to be crazy to think corporations actually care about diversity outside of marketing.
Just look at countries where being diverse gets you thrown off a roof or locked up in a concentration camp. Those same companies gladly censor themselves to sell their products. The only God they worship is the quarterly profit margin.
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Oh no, rip all bi/ace Ana headcanons.
For real, though, this seems like… a weird thing to be using to write characters. I get that diversity is nice, but do we honestly need a tool for it? Why can’t we just create characters? Or are Blizz writers/designers so bad that every character they come up with ends up being a white cishet middle class American guy?
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Got to say, he ain’t wrong. Like Hontuk said above, just talk to people. I wouldn’t call it a right wing psyop thing, though. More like some kind of neoliberal attempt at…oh wow…this would actually be an example of virtue signaling. Like they have no idea what diversity is, so they try to pawn the job off to an algorithm, and then pretend that they actually care.
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I think the tool was made in a genuine attempt to solve a perception of lackluster creativity. I’m actually surprised at the backlash this has received. I assumed leftists would be cheering for this. I do agree with the general sentiment that it’s bizarre though. It’s a very corporate solution that has a bad taste to it.
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Assigning absolute values to immutable characteristics, religion, sexuality, etc. is a solution that deserves every ounce of mud that gets flung at it. This seems like another mile marker on the highway of Tokenism over Representation to me. It seems self-defeatingly ignorant to bury the entire concept of lived experiences in favor of what is effectively a color palette swap.
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Totally agree. I’m tired of being stereo typed in social media. I’m personally very different from others within my demographic. If Blizzard wants my biography I have a great dramatic story to tell. They’re welcome to email me. I’ll do my best to get them the bullet points. Tools like this run rough shod over the truth unless they are used for personal awareness.
Most of the multimedia characters in my demographic are tropes and negatively portray us and further alienate people like me who dare to defy conventional norms in order to bare true witness and live dignified, honest, lives. The sad truth is many people fall into these stereotypical tropes because their representatives are a checkbox checked from out of touch industries.
Want to diversify your characters? Read some bibliographies and National Geographics.
As it is I personally would prefer no representation unless someone took the time to get to know me. Or the depth and breadth of my peers lived experiences, good, bad, successful or not. We all don’t deserve to be heroes either.
Anyway. When I see news like this I cringe. I believe I’m part of the normally silent majority here, however all of the extremism and reactionary behavior in our culture and social media says I have to try. Be a voice of moderation.
@blizzard be very careful how you use this tool. Do not feel obligated to do a poor job to meet a quota. For the love of good. Please base some of your characters on real people and real experiences. You can still edit. Keep it light hearted and campy. You don’t have to tip toe everywhere as long as there isn’t just one token person. Provide differing perspectives. Give a genuine dialogue between characters. You will never please everyone.
I would personally rather no representation to biased representation.
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Don’t do it on Twitter lol. Or a public forum for that matter. Unless you’re going to go lurk on a specific forum to read many other peoples stories for example. And last… don’t react to every deranged rant you see. Don’t try to push back and change every opinion you see to fit entirely into ones own world view. I’m not accusing you personally of this. Just saying it’s, it’s my pro tips to healthy online interactions. And research. In the case of learning and understanding others. Even those we vehemently disagree with.
There was an old thread regarding races, fantasy and warcraft lore.
Anyway, I was of the opinion if we are adding different ethnicities to races then they should at least try a semblance of individuality, uniqueness or culture that differentiates them from the pre-existing and typically white races. Basically if you are going to world build for the white fantasy races then have the decency to do it for the different ethnicities too.
Anyway this was interpreted as this was “justifying” black people and several users freaked out and made strawmen arguments of my position and proceeded to do take-downs of points I never made. Lots of name-calling and vitriol was the cherry on top… I ain’t even white! But jesus these people seem to want their tokenism.
This creepy stats wheel of diversity is what these people deserve, honestly. It’s what they have wanted, and now they have it. If you want diversity for diversity’s sake with ZERO world building to support it. Here is the result. Enjoy it.
They did this when they rolled out the new customizations with humans and other races.
Honestly, this is very common. Like the Lord of the Rings show, they just as you said color palette swapped the elves. Same with Game of Thrones and etc and etc… the only difference here is that Blizzard did the quiet part out loud and made a chart out of it 
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