Reposting the article cuz yeah that comment is gonna get nuked
https://activisionblizzard.com/newsroom/2021/06/building-inclusive-game-worlds
Gonna just quote stuff that stands out to me. Also, already saved on WayBackMachine, so Blizzard can’t delete this from the internet as they usually do.
One of our goals in game design is for our players to be able to see themselves represented in our games.
as our employee base has continued to expand and diversify,
ima need to see internal census values
Overwatch … of a future Earth that’s inhabited with heroes of different colors, creeds, and sexual identities—just like our employees and our global community of players.
Saying “colors” instead of “race” 3 days before Juneteenth and allegedly because of Pride Month, which started because of a Black Trans Woman and a Latina Trans Woman, is tedious
such as Symmetra, an autistic woman from India, with the ability to shape reality as a light-bending “architech,” and Doomfist, a Nigerian man with a powerful prosthetic arm and a fixation on strengthening humanity through conflict—steadily reinforces the fact that this is a game about heroes, from different countries, banding together to fight for their common causes.
“strengthening humanity through conflict” isn’t the romantic hot take to assign to a Nigerian man they think it is
especially not with the ongoing civil armed conflict in Nigeria
That approach is first and foremost about serving our primary core value of Gameplay First —everything is in service of the game experience.
There it is again.
While we do our best to create multidimensional characters and avoid defining them by a single trait, such as their sexuality, gender identity, or skin color,
It’s funny to me that they refuse to acknowledge that it’s not just skin color, but PEOPLE’S ETHNICITIES AND CULTURES that are imbedded into the narrative.
Our players can immediately spot things that aren’t authentic, so as the leader of our story and franchise development team, I try hard not to influence the creative process.
So she’s admitted she’s forced their hand a few times. That explains… things, given the rest of this article’s tone.
We don’t always get it right. And sometimes even though we have the right intent, the execution falls short in the eyes of different members of our game communities.
This feels like a response to when I @'d Danuser and Golden last week when they jointly tweeted a ridiculous tone-deaf comment on Black history (the Tulsa Massacre) that got disproportionate interactions when compared to likes (zero) and responses (one random alliance troll)
Another thing that’s true of Blizzard is that while a single author or team of authors often drives the overall vision for a story, no one person owns or controls the final product. It’s a highly collaborative process that brings together a talented, diverse group of people across different disciplines who are all passionate about creating polished, high-quality experiences and delivering for our players.
Scapegoat escape hatch argument