Activision Blizzard is the Worst Video Game Company
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- čas přidán 2. 06. 2024
- sub4cat
DIVERSITY ARTICLE: diamondlobby.com/geeky-stuff/...
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edited by: four take freddy
#ludwig #mogulmail #activision
"Facial recognition? Nah, I prefer racial recognition"
-Activision, 2022
Finally computers can be racist
Sounds like something Michael Reeves would say
@@Boostiverse They've been racist for a while. Most facial recognition system comes with a racial bias ,because more users tends to be from one race than others, which skews the algorithm. It was a pretty big problem for a while, with such system working noticeably worse for some races (IE: Non whites).
@@JJ_436 that isn’t on purpose though, that’s a bug
@@Nathan-dn4zl it's a near direct quote from one of his vids, the elmo one I think
I'd heard about the diversity tool thing but I assumed it came from a leak. Can't believe Activision Blizzard actively announced it lmao
It's a cover-up for another scandal. They knew people would get mad and distracted
It’s a woke meter… We’ve all been seeing recently what happens when you make an entertainment product and your first and foremost thought is pleasing everyone… they do horribly. They’re tailoring to a screeching fringe minority that will cancel them if they don’t. All this does is make a select few happy and everyone else miserable. No matter what you say outward, when you sit down to play a game or watch a show and you’re alone you want quality, not a bunch of wild shit shoved down your throat.
on one hand, using something like that on an entire cast of characters would be somewhat okay-ish as it would show, over a multitude of characters, what is missing in representation. Because even the most diverse designers might overlook their cast.
Assuming the catagories are actually good in the first place. You cant really label a catagory "race" and give points for a character not being white. Nor can you really label a catagory "sexual orientation" and create a point system on that.
A better tool would be something that considers the diversity of the country. For example, about 30% people(not sure if the statistic is accurate anymore and I dont care enough to check) in the US are african american, so it makes sense that about 30% of the US characters in a US based video game are african american, it would also figure that roughly 30% of your US based games should have an african american protagonist(with the exception of spin-offs based on pre-established characters, it would be really fucking weird if a white guy turns into a black woman in a spin-off just for representation). With thousands of games being released, having a tool to keep track of something like that wouldnt be a bad thing, because there is such a thing as overrepresentation too. If 80% of your games have chinese protagonists while the games are set in Africa, you're gonna look like a dumbass.
@@NovemberFoxtrotRC I think this has more to do with distracting people from the sexual misconduct allegation than pandering to woke culture. It's more than just a fringe minority that has a very dim view of activision blizzard right now. Seems to me they're trying to correct the public's perception of them, and it's not working.
@@NovemberFoxtrotRC idk I'd say Overwatch killed for 5 or so years based on their woke strats
Being diverse is alot like being a good person, the more you pat yourself on the back for doing it the less likely you actually are diverse
That analogy doesn't make any sense because diversity is a part of being a good person.
Edit: I guess not a part of being a good person necessarily, but diversity being seen as "good" in a general sense. So the analogy is redundant.
@@saucemaster6452 bullocks take.
@@saucemaster6452 its the idea of something that doesnt need to be pointed out by the person practicing it, its about putting it to practice but not feeling the need to let it be told to others, otherwise it appears narcissistic
@@nutsandbolts1264 i get that but it's a bad analogy. It's like me saying "eating is much like drinking. You need to do it do stay alive" or some shit.
It's like being a nice guy™
Its wild how they made this work too, being Egyptian is a 7 on their scale, what does that even mean? Its just someone assigning values that they correlate with race/sexuality/gender. Horrid practice.
I think thats just the position in the list for storage purposes. not necessarily a value / weight on the scale. it could be a, b, x etc. but for a list of things like this, it's standard practice to use numbers to denote position.
@@tomyourfriendlyhagcollector why have the chart that shows how strong a value is then?
@@tomyourfriendlyhagcollector yeah I agree with @dragon flu
@@fluDragon oh I hope for their sake that I'm right and they at least hide the actual values somewhere else. this is just too bad to be true. funniest shit tho 😂
I could be wrong, but it could correlate to statistics they gathered about the market playing their games.
Like, I've heard that the reason why Overwatch has a whole event for the Lunar New Year with many Chinese-inspired skins is because they're pandering to a large market in China. (Also related: that time they banned and fined a pro player for supporting Hong Kong on broadcast).
The whole algorithm is likely designed to pander to a global audience.
"Sorry, your character concept might be black and gay, but they're are too wealthy, un-disabled and attractive according to the chart so we're gonna have to pass on them. Also you're fired because the boss wants another couple million bonus and your paycheck is too big." - Some guy who drinks breastmilk.
EDIT: Some guy who drinks stolen* breastmilk.
isn't all mammalian milk breast milk feelsdankman
People: Stop harassing women in the workplace and pushing employees to suicide.
Blizzard: Best we can do is make our games mathematically diverse.
This is Bobby Kotick's world we are just living in it.
theres no such thing as mathematically diverse... its either diverse or it isn't
@@noobmasters6913 making the ratios equal would by definition make it “mathematically” diverse. When in reality any mix of races would be non-homogenous, but just doing that wouldn’t be mathematically equal... pretty simple to follow
@@sdhjsjana72js but that’s fucking stupid because real life isn’t like that
@@zacharyberry5019 so it's either diverse or not diverse. Mathematically diverse is still diverse
@@sdhjsjana72js but that with all diversety requirements. If someone says we need to hire 10 more gay people to be more diverse that's still useing math. How did they know they weren't diverse enough ifayhw wasn't used I'm the first place
Activision is actually insane. You would think after all the trouble they have been through they would set things up to monitor their output like professional pr or something idk how a big company said yea this is a great idea
This is with their insane pr department.
Because the people in charge are guys like Bobby Kotick, there is a reason why he will be in charge until Microsoft take over and I won't be surprise if he is kept into the board after he step down with a massive pay check and shares from being the CEO.
ikr, even after microsoft brought them, they still getting shot at
Putting a score on culture and race to prove how diverse and not racist they are.
I won't even buy games from them anymore even if they turn out to be good. This is just an annoying company.
I don't have much gaming knowledge, but what games are they popular on?
@@chloe-kh3oe Warcraft, Diablo, Overwatch, and Hearthstone are some staples
@@sdhjsjana72js No, it actually suggests they are so racist that they are literally incapable of just making a diverse cast of characters so they had to make a robot do it for them.
How is this where you draw the line? Did the breast milk being stolen daily, rapes and suicide not do it for you?
@@realNoMee doesn't mean they are racist, it's honestly smart, there's so many races, "sexualities" so having a program put a few together takes away one step of the design process
The college textbook diversity thing is so true 😂 colleges will really find the three most diverse kids on campus and say “look at us wow! So diverse!” (Really hope QT comes around to the name marbles, stream was great today)
Nah coots all the way
If it comes to it, Marbles can just be chats name for kitty mans. Lud said himself at the beginning of stream that chat could have a different name for the kitty, even though he seemed to forget that by the end.
Marbles is adorbs
COOTS OR NOTHIN
my boarding school used me for this. they also ignored the bullying i was going through. lol
A big thing about this is it’s the EXECUTIVES who made this tool, not the developers. The developers have come out and said they do not follow this tool, they just create characters. The executives created this tool because they know that they can make money if they appeal to as many people as possible, and the easiest way to appeal is to represent. Activision Blizzards execs are scummy people who just want cash grabs before the ship sinks with them on it
More damningly, some of the Overwatch devs came out saying that they never even heard of this tool before the article was published
@@Noobgalaxies People are misreading the post or just straight reading it wrong, is it a bad post? Yes, but they never actually used that tool in overwatch, KING, is not overwatch, King is the mobile game front of Blizzard, the people who developed this tool have no impact on Overwatch, what the post is, is using a tool they developed and analyzing Overwatch's characters. IT IS STILL A HORRIBLE TOOL, but Overwatch has nothing to do with it outside of the people who developed the tool using it to analyze the characters in Overwatch.
this, exactly. its like how any company works. the people at the top who don't do any of the ground work themselves think they're coming up with useful ideas, but it's all useless garbage and the people who are actually making the products and doing the work are collectively like "yeah we're just gonna ignore that because it's bullshit and helps no one".
I mean, it is also a tool made by King for the use at King, not a general Activision Blizzard tool.
Jep I Heard from some people who have said that ow2 is trash and they blamed it on the devs although they did an amazing job with the restrictions they had
People on the Overwatch Team on Twitter had to come out and say that they've never used the King's Diversity Space Tool, and in fact they've never even heard of it. One of them described it as dystopian, and Blizzard have removed all portions about Overwatch from the site.
Ludwig addresses this at the end of the video, but I hadn't finished the video yet when writing this comment. It's still scathing to see what the devs have all said individually on Twitter, and it's worth checking out.
Which is not surprising considering that it is made by King for the use at King.
Blizzard still getting shit on, and I love it
Diversity shouldn’t be something you consider while making characters, you should make characters that resonate with you on an emotional level so it feels more authentic. Then just hire a vastly diverse team to all do this and bam! Compelling characters. It’s not that hard Bobby💀
facts
Exactly this is how we get norse stories with non white people. Black panther has mostly black cast no one cares who cares about diversity. Show set in time period with all white people lets sprinkle in some minorities to make them happy.
Yeah. If you want a diverse game, hire diverse creators. You'll automatically get diverse output without any sort of these nonsense development tools.
Pretty sure game devs are very likely to both be white and male, so unless ur advocating for them to not take the best devs but instead do diversity hires ur point is kinda weird.
It is hard. I would also say its impossible. If every company hires only completely diverse teams you would still have more white males then everything else. Thats because game developers are mostly white males. And if you have a relativly good representation of the american society, we would still have 70% white protagonists.
Remember when Blizzard was a well liked company and one of the most loved gaming companies on the scene? Yeah, it's been a while... a long while.
All of the good game companies fall from grace eventually
No king rules forever my son
@@Devon.with.an.i from soft has been going strong, fingers crossed
@@holdeenyo8914 just because fromsoft is Japanese and news from there is harder to get a hold of here in the west, doesn't mean the stories don't exist.
I won't get into it because I'd prefer this comment section to be civil, but I would recommend looking into it yourself.
the first sky landers on the wii was like the first game i ever really finished (the robot dragon guy was op)
Activision Blizzard makes EA look like Jesus
Also this is peak silicone valley rich white psychosis
The thing is EA treats its staff extremely well especially for a video game company.
Gamers hate them but hey, they are perhaps the only major games company that isnt ok with sexual assault and unpaid staff being common place within the office.
@@Me-ui1zy However, they did ruin a bunch of developer studios.
@@Me-ui1zy source: trust me bro
@@Me-ui1zy Do you have any sources that back this up? Not trying to say you're wrong, it's just that from the outside, EA seems like the kinda publisher that would treat their employees just as bad as ActiBliz.
Honestly they'd be so much better of if they went with the Riot strat of "Harassment? What harassment? Anyway look at our new cool game!" Trying to publicly "address' shit is never gonna work. Especially if you're crazy white rich silicone valley dude.
I grew up with Blizzard. My mum played WoW from launch and me and my twin played on her account, my earliest memories are from playing that game, since the age of 3. As an adult now still playing WoW it’s broken my heart that the game I’ve loved all my life (as shit as it is now) is owned by the most evil frat dude millionaires. It’s embarrassing to tell people that I play WoW now when once I was proud of it. Just sucks
I wouldn’t be embarrassed about it. Nobody’s gonna judge you for it
what’s your acc name
@@Devon.with.an.i It’s mostly embarrassing for the fact that WoW is a subscription and I’m actively giving money to such a shit company, but after 18 years playing it’s hard to let go
Well not for long since MS is taking over
Hi.
I play both World of Warcraft and Overwatch from the very early stages, (not quite from launch but maybe a few months in.)
I know how you feel and I totally agree. These are fun games, with fond memories of playing with friends and family we love. With guild mates and team mates. Of all genders and race.
It is truly sad that all this is being tainted by this bad press of the creators being dicks. It is even more tragic employees committed suicide over this BS.
Don't let any of that take away the joy, kinships and precious memories of the game though.
World of Warcraft is a feeling. From a sister in arms. Dark Lady watch over you.
3:53, let's think about the fact that he paid himself 154 million, or 2464 years of getting 62,500 before he changed his salary. Man already earned over 2 millennium of what he thought would save him some criticism
Holy fuck, describing it as 2464 years of 62k really puts it into perspective how much fucking money that is. It's really hard to comprehend how big a number like 154,000,000 *really* is.
@@Chloelol yeah you sort of see that many zeroes and think “I guess that’s a lot of money” before thinking about how making a million in a year is insanely high and this would be 154 years of that- multiple lifetimes of how much the average person works
I’ve never looked at it that way. Eye-opening
my take on this: blizzard leaked this tool on purpose to distract from their union busting efforts.
hold on they been doing what?
Actually possible
Probably, a lot of companies pull stuff like this when they're trying to cover up their union busting
I really want them to release the values on each diversity point so I can see how I rank in it lmao. Do I get half gay points since I'm bisexual? Do they go up or down depending on which gender I date? How high does being latina put me in the race scale? Rank me blizzard Madge
0 = 👴🏻✝️ 10 = 👩🏿🦰♿️🏳️🌈☸️
@@Joshs4stro I want to give props to you that black ginger specifically is the most diverse. I enjoy the attention to detail
@@Joshs4stro what does the steering wheel mean lol. You’re a car?
@@jacobdaniels3246 it’s the dharmachakra symbol from primarily buddhism
No. Being bisexual means no points. No, liking something is whatever. Latina is a 6 if you have dark skin, 3 if you don't
Blizzard deadass saw Michael's Trigger Me Elmo and said to themselves "this is the future"
Before I watc this vid just wanted to say that as a kid I always wanted to be a game developer and guess for which company. If you guessed Activision Blizzard then you are right. Absolutely dodged a nuke trying to pursue that. I am now studying Cybersecurity Lol
Working on indie titles is still pretty viable, but working on AAA games is basically a glorified sweatshop yea
holy shit are you literally me?
ok this is kinda scary we are the same person. I wanted to work for Blizzard but I change and working towards my cybersecurity field and you have richthofen pfp which is my favorite zombies character
Any tips for someone wanting to get into cybersec?
@@ManWithFace yeah working for AAA studios is like selling your soul, but you don't even realize it
The idea that a single character can be "diverse" or ot is pretty funny to me. A sample size of ONE, yeah, that's how you gauge diversity lol
When I first heard about this I actually said out loud, "they can't actually think we're that dumb"
Good important topic!
I just want to point out that the kids on the college textbook are holding books with the picture of them on the book. How did they get those books if they were the ones that the picture was of??
Spooky
If the CEO took a 100 mil pay cut every employee could make up to 500k a year. Also it is really evident that most of the CEO’s of these big game companies never actually play the games they release, otherwise we would’ve had a lot more good games over the years.
If only it worked like that. Bobby as disgusting as he is, is brilliant at making money. As such his salary is very small but he gets bonuses for meeting objectives and what is defined as an objective is unknown though I expect it's something ludicrous. Because he's been the highest payed CEO for years.
He's a bloody cockroach whom I expect will end up fine after everything is over.
@@Kronosxviii1 yeah the problem is that these big companies don’t work as a team to make the best product possible for their audience. There are probably a lot of talented people at Activision who get little to know creative freedom, because the CEO en other executives want to appease the share holders. These last couple of years gaming has really taken a turn for the worst. I honestly rather have a shit looking game with great story and amazing gameplay, then an amazing looking game with shit gameplay and poor story.
An automated tool would be great actually for doing large-scale quantitative analysis for finding systemic/unconscious bias, but only for post-creation analysis. It should only be for data generation purposes for internal company audits/research, and shouldn't be used while in the process of creating a character.
I do think people are underestimating how useful an automated tool could be as long as people do not rely on it.
I agree with you to a certain extent. The biggest problem for me is that they will use it while creating games and not afterwards (which you did point out), and that I am uncertain how it assigns diversity. Like what mechanics do they use to figure out if a character is diverse or not? And do that take in to account disabilities? In that case does it take in to account "invisible disabilities" (a-neurotypical for example)?
Like outwards race sure, but there are some major iffy stuff for me with this tool.
The problem with tools like that is base values have to be originally set by a human and therefore naturally add bias in this has already been an issue. Like how things like Siri work terribly unless you have a white American accent, I have a Yorkshire English accent and it can barely understand a thing I say. Even the infrared soap dispensers in public bathrooms struggle from the fact they were mostly designed for people with white skin.
4:04 was that a reference to the poker stream lmao
The diversity chart makes me laugh so hard. Like truly I want to know what the program defines the numbers as. Like straight is 0 then is gay 1???? I’m ace do I even get a number???
Like man it’s so sad but makes me laugh so hard
sorry hun, youre so minor, you don't even exist in their chart 😂
Pretty sure this was trained on surveys done on humans. "Rate how diverse this character is compared to vanilla straight white male template." So a measurement of perceived diversity.
“It’s a problem” doesn’t explain why it’s a problem
And before anyone says anything, I’m just saying you should explain it to your audience that’s all. As a black man myself, I just want people to know why it’s important
I love how textbooks like that have the same picture on the books that the models are holding.
bruh i had that algebra book, notice how the book their holding has the pic they’re posing for on it 1:50
I just hope Microsoft, that bought blizzard, will be able to fix these problems that make blizzard a terrible place to work and therefore destroying their own games because of the company reputation, even if the games are fun to play.
I honestly don't know if something can be made to recover from all this bad news, but I hope so as a blizzard Games fan.
Microsoft is shit themselves, not getting any better
I'm all for hiring diversely. But if someone has better credentials than another it shouldn't matter what race they are. I don't think race should be a factor in any hiring process for any job. Whether it's Kroger or a high paying development position, race and gender shouldn't matter. It should be about your experience and resume that get you hired not the color of your skin. Which isn't to say we shouldn't be diverse when making characters and world building elements. But I see a lot of people having issue with the workplace needing to be more diverse more so than issues with the characters themselves. I think the most important thing is trying to squash this whole "Boys Club" mentality that a lot of older companies have. But yeah this "diversity tool" they made is straight braindead on all levels.
I 100% agree with this when it comes to most jobs. In this case though, hiring for diversity makes sense since creative teams like writers/artists benefit from having a people of different backgrounds that can share different experiences to make the product relatable to everyone. Ignoring that though, in general hiring for diversity instead of credentials will in most cases just result in worse performance from the workers. For most jobs a company should never dicriminate towards anyone and the one who is the most competent at the job should always get it no matter what race/sexuality they are.
the issue is they AREN'T hiring people just based on skill alone. It's not a "but", it's an "and"
I really love these discossion videos, these storytime vids are what got me into u lud and i like just slappin on a coup[le vidoes and grinding out some minecraft project keep workin bud i love it
Hi Lud big fan just a thought here you could learn the hotkey for next tab on chrome so you could do some cool transitions between slides or cool segues or something
Melissa from the OW team is fucking great, she was so happy showing off Sojourn’s story.
0:24 it's not
2:08 How are they on the covers of the books they’re holding if they’re posing for the picture? 🤔
I just got here after being subbed to the main channel. Is this the new Philip DeFranco show?
(Love the presentation, comedy style, and research/facts!)
If anyone has seen Communnity, Blizzard's tool for diversity is like how they made the school mascot
I’m with Activision... there wasn’t enough black guys fighting for the Germans in COD WW2😡
If I remember correctly Hitler actually did have a unit of African soldiers.
@@goomba8170 They did, Free Arabian Legion which consisted of ~500 African soldiers.
Tbh I don't mind the inaccurate portrayals in the armies of cod ww2. At least its not vanguard with my team vs enemy team.
@@goomba8170 Yeah, in Northern Africa/Middle East though.
Yeah when King (candy crush devs) made this, blizzard said “yeah we’ve seen this before, are we going to use it? NO BECAUSE WE HAVE EYES!”
Daayymmnn thanks for mentioning our Diversity in Gaming study Ludwig!
I like how this is completely ignoring the actual article and what the tool is supposed to be used for. It is not supposed to be used to create diverse characters. That is still what designers do. It is supposed to check for bias AFTER the characters have been created. Because guess what, designers do have eyes, but they also are fucking biased as hell because literally all humans are. And it is good to account for bias and, if there is a problematic bias, maybe change some stuff.
When people make a game with all white characters they don't do it like "hurr durr dumb black people my game will be white only", they do it because they are unconsciously biased towards creating a certain type of character. Detecting that isn't a bad thing.
Not the first time people are jumping into a hating hivemind
I agree
The devs/publishers are being forced to take a purity test they cannot win
If everyone is unconsciously bias and a tool helps to point that out, that's a win (if you care about diversity in videogames)
Yet the devs are being castigated because they don't possess the necessary "character" that is able to recognise lack of diversity
But those same people will also claim that "Everyone is unconsciously bias"
@@halflucan I really don't know where you get the last part from.
Worth mentioning that the developers does NOT use this tool at all, it's executives at Acrivision Blizzard that uses it to see how diverse the Overwatch cast is, and making it public and using it as marketing is a big mistake and paints the devs in a bad light. Their article made it seem like the artists and writers of Overwatch soulessly uses this tool as a checklist to make sure every character meets a specific "diversity score" before being released, but that is not the case at all. They have spent a lot of time lovingly creating the world of Overwatch and making belieavable and diverse characters that doesn't feel like a cheap marketing scheme, only for the higher ups to ruin it all by making it feel fake. Overwatch takes place in a future where humanity is much more united and seem to genuinely be past discrimination of all forms between humans (not omnics), and since day one the diverse cast has always been a thing that just exists as part of the world and not as a selling point for the game.
That college prep algebra cover have kids with books that has them in the cover 😂 inception!
awesome video, great talk!
also you had a great stream today :))
That 82% thing itself sounds rather bullshit to me considering a large majority of the best selling games have race up to player choice (minecraft, pubg, pokemon) or just doesn't have protagonists at all (tetris)
facts, and the fact that what is the percent of the populace that is white too
@@ghostbirdlary probably like 5 to 10% worldwide.
This is also not taking into account the fact that more diverse games have become increasingly more common over the past 10 years which is a fraction of the time the gaming industry has been around.
Which when you even analyze that isn't all that bad considering that, yeah, at some point gaming was mostly just a hobby for wealthier people and "nerds and geeks" and no where near the movie instrustry level behemoth that it is today.
Don't know how people can look at either of those industries today and say we are lacking in diversity (yes I know that push is why we have it in the first place) actually but that's another argument.
@@Door_Into_Summer where are game studios located, and what is the demographic of consumers? because timbuku in the democratic republic of the congo isnt playing overwatch 2. obviously world wide its like 20%. if a game is set in africa it makes sense to have mostly black people, and if its set in europe it should be mostly white people, it just makes sense.
@@ghostbirdlary Chinese companies own large stakes in most 3rd party developers. There is also a lot of support staff/ contractors in Asian countries.
"Hey there, I'm Mr. Blizzard. I have a problem. I just can't stop discriminating. I just love white het men so much. I just can't help it. So I built a robot to make characters for me so I can just keep being a terrible person. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk. "
1:50 That photo is an infinite photo, seeing how they're each holding a copy of the book they're posing for.
On that image of the college algebra book with the standard diversity pack, the students are holding the same college algebra book that they are on the cover of.
As a brazilian the representation I grew up in gaming was a green ginger who would use electric shocks on people in Street Fighter and I never really cared about it.
Maybe the levels of comfort, money and security needed to care about how many videogames characters look like me is something I'll never attain.
It sounds oddly in character for a company that feels a-ok being sexist in this fucking day and age.
2:02 how are the same kids on the college book cover that are on the college book cover that they are holding in the photo?
I hope the college textbook analogy is a call back to his ducked up joke from the roast of Hugo Gonzales
Love mogul mail content keep it up
Making a game diverse does not make a good game, when you make a game and put diversity above story and game mechanics you activly make your game worse. Honestly just make your story however you want and dont worry about diversity.
Diversity in games/stories works if it makes sense in the context of the story.
@@MuttonErase yeah exactly but you shouldnt think of diversity then story it should always be the other way around.
@@hivemind8817 that's kinda what I meant... You look at the diversity in relation to the story. Not the other way around.
no one said that. literally no one said all diverse games are good. it's something important to think about when designing a game, especially one with self insert main characters. lack of representation is a huge problem.
"When you're editing this, make sure to start it right at the end of my laugh as I slowly look at the camera."
I love that college prep algebra book with the people holding themselves on the book
How dare you accuse them of not being diverse? They were discriminating very diversely, they didn’t just discriminate against 1 group of people, they were very inclusive.
0:23 its only a problem when people make it one. having a white male protagonist doesnt mean the game cant be diverse and it shouldnt matter anyway if its telling a good story or is fun and fundamentally good game. like i dont think people care that doomguy is a white man but he certainly is contributing to the "not diverse enough" numbers. i just think its such a silly non issue
True.. additionally I think that it's a matter of demand and targeting. Most gamers are white males, so the content is targeted at them.
True. I don't get how anybody feels strongly about what race the people in your game are, whether it be real people or someone you're playing as.
It's not about any specific, single game. It's about the trend. If every protagonist one after another keeps being the same sort of a person, it shows the biases existing in the industry. Every one of these games can be great on their own, but together they create a dataset!
@@onelius They aren't really the same sort of people. They all do their own things, have their own stories, etc. That is what should matter above all else. Of course having every single god damn character white, including background ones and extras just for the scenery is kind of annoying. Just incorperating different races without being so performative about it (unlike Blizzard) is perfect. But at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter.
the infamous “math book text cover”!
3:30 well, paying a 50k salary for 190 ppl will be less than 10 mils. It’s like 7.14% of his 2020 income 🤌🏻
already subbed, and commenting for the algorithm! great vid talking abt this mad fucked situation
Hi how is everyone?
hello
Hi
@@drewkesslr how are you?
Hi
I feel fucking awful
I feel bad for the overwatch dev team. They're passionate about their work, and they've done good when the rest of Activision Blizzard has not. When the sexual allegations came out, Tracy Kennedy (Ex-OW Producer, now works at Riot) specifically spoke out about Jeff Kaplan protecting them and then having to leave because he felt he could not fix ABK's frat-boy culture from his position. They've been getting flak for the OW2 delay when their talent had to leave behind a project they loved, en masse, because of ABK's culture.
It's tragic that they're even associated with that god-forsaken company, let alone owned by it.
Sidenote, I think Ludwig's remark at the end about OW2 was a tad distasteful. Not only for the reasons I've stated above, but also because (and pros agree) they've changed the game in a significant and fresh way. Not only that, but OW2 was always supposed to be a PvE game based on OW1, with PvP just getting a content update as we have seen.
On the college textbook thing- I’ve been on 3 different university-wide emails because I’m a brown student and apparently there haven’t been enough to get more good pictures
Please tell me that someone else noticed that in that algebra textbook photo, the students are holding the textbook that they’re on?
Yeah, maybe everything doesn't need to be mathematically defined
Yeah, maybe everything doesn't need to be artificially "diverse".
How about let people make the characters they want and don't force people to virtue signal about how inclusive and nice they are?
Got my Master's in game design and have applied to multiple jobs I qualified for, to work for Activision and almost immediately received the "No thanks" emails.😂
Bobby Kotick: Hello. I like money.
Reporter: What inspired you to make Activision Blizzard an unethical toxic workplace?
Bobby Kotick: Money.
Games don’t NEED to be diverse, that is the directors decision
0:28 why is this a problem?
In the context of if there was a video game set in China in the year 1200 about samurais and it’s MC was a White guy for no reason, then yeah. But judging how there are little notable examples of that, it isn’t a problem for a American game, made by American people, to decide that there “American” protagonist is white
Now I'm not a professional game developer but, in my experience of drawing people's characters it's really not too difficult to make a compelling and diverse character roster.
Is it really that hard to sit down and ask yourself the basic character creator questions and then add in the unique details to that character?
Is this person a man, woman or any other gender/sexuality?
What is their race, whether reality based or fantasy based?
Are they religious or not, whether reality based or fantasy based?
What are their abilities (if they're a character in a combat based environment).
What type of personality traits do they have?
What clothes would they wear?
Do they have family members?
What color palette is this character going to have?
What kind of hair type and style would they have?
The list can go on but it really isn't too difficult to figure out how to create and draw a diverse roster by using basic questions and then researching some examples.
For example: Egyptian based character just research Egyptian culture and people. Looking at real life people, clothing styles, architecture, hairstyles, religions/spiritualities, environment etc. all gives you an idea on what the character could look like.
Make it a fun game by putting some of these traits on a wheel and spinning until you have a full character
The textbook at 2:00 shows everyone on the textbook holding the textbook that theyre on.. how does that work
Ima be real. In my eyes it does not matter weather characters is video games are either black or white. And I don't think it should. I think the development and the fine tuning of the game itself is way more important. I don't see why it's nessacarily a issue for games to be developed with more diversity when there is real life problems that actually impact real ppl. Dosent make sense to me
a game can have a diverse cast and still be a well developed and refined . those two things aren't mutually exclusive.
@@varamyr_ yeah they can. But why is it a problem ppl are thinking ab when there is a real world problem ab that shit?
Do you want game developers to solve world hunger, climate change, and poverty? each person is responsible for the field they work in, just because worse problems exists doesn't mean we need to stop thinking about the smaller ones. we don't stop researching better cures for influenza just because Cancer hasn't been cured yet.
@@varamyr_ but why out ur thoughts, time, and effort into video games not being inclusive enough comparatively to real world problems. That should be every person's top priority in this society and figure that out before working on a new problem that's not as big. It just seems like there's no reason to be mad ab a video game when there is real life problems people could be putting time and effort into instead of a video game
And no we don't need to stop thinking about smaller ones, but it would be better to put more resources and time and effort into the bigger problems first as they will cause more harm. If you don't your cause becomes more and more spread out and not as much impact on each individual problem comparatively to having all focus on the biggest problem, then moving on to a smaller one.
(Respectfully) the problem with a lack of diversity in games doesn’t stem from the development team, it stems from the market.
It’s slowly changing, but there’s been a problem for a LONG time with white men feeling like they can’t identify or relate with the stories of women or other minority/disenfranchised groups. When you’re playing as a character in a video game, that character feels even more like it’s “you” for the time you spend in that world. Women and POC don’t mind playing as the “default” white man (although I’m sure most of us would prefer good representation), whereas if a white man sees the protagonist being anything but a white man, he’s going to, bare minimum, ask himself “is this game for me?” Bare maximum he’s going to make a Twitter thread about how woke culture is destroying the video game industry.
I know it’s a “not all men” type situation, but I just mean to say that, from a marketing perspective, cishet white male protagonist is the safest path to appealing to as wide a demographic as possible.
People making the games know this. People making any media know this. This is what I majored in in college but my focus was mostly in TV/movies.
When a game does have a minority or non-cisman protagonist, it’s usually either a small indy game with no investors to disappoint, or it’s a calculated, counter-cultural marketing move intended to get a more dedicated fan base. You might lose money in copies sold, but you might make all of that back in merchandise/events/dlcs/gachas.
The place where a lack of diversity in the development team DOES have in impact is in the QUALITY of representation. How are minorities and women represented? Are the minorities stereotyped? Are the women personality-less sex dolls?
Honestly, as a long time Overwatch person, I think it does quite a good job on that front. And it absolutely does catch flack for being libtard woke media. So I don’t think a lack of diversity in the workplace has affected their games. (Not to minimize what happened to the women working there, I think that’s all abhorrent.) I think they created that diversity tool specifically because it’s their goal to counter the default culture in video games so they can create a strong fan base of people who think “they care about us.” Which they probably don’t. It’s just marketing.
Overwatch maybe for race, but definitely not sexuality. On tracer i can see it. But you can't tell me otherwise that that didn't just glue the word "gay" onto soldier and expected to stick. And i dont think its very true to say white men can't relate to others. Simply put, i just don't AAA American vg companies know how to write these type of characters and actually make them intersting sadly.like as a lgbt person im so sick of them making a lgbt character just be gay and that thier entire character. Id rather there be no reps if they are just a "checkmark on list", type character.
@@UMAtronic The problem isn’t that white men CAN’T relate to people that don’t look like them, just that many simply will not try.
I’ve already said that I know it’s not everyone, but it’s a statistically significant enough trend that big companies with a lot of money to lose won’t take the risk.
Also I hope you realize the contradiction with saying that a lot of lgbt representation is bad because they have no identity outside of their sexuality, and simultaneously saying that Soldier 76 is bad representation because they just slapped a gay identity on top of an existing character with life, personality, and backstory unrelated to his sexuality.
If anything, you could argue that Soldier is bad representation because it’s a lil Dumbledore-esque. By which I mean, the only reason we know he’s gay is because of a lore comic outside of the game wherein we see that he had a boyfriend in the past. It’s kind of a safe way to infuse representation quietly, in a separate space, so as not to make the homophobes too scared.
But I wouldn’t be inclined to agree too strongly with that, personally. A lot of the complaints people made when the new lore dropped amounted to “well he doesn’t seem gay” or “he’s too manly and macho to be gay this doesn’t make sense.” And like, if those are the kind of people that think the representation is bad, I’m happy if it expanded their worldview and forced them to re-evaluate the stereotypes other media have been enforcing for decades.
Also, all the lore in Overwatch exists outside the main game. It’s not a story-driven game. It’s game-play and aesthetically driven and the lore is just there to make excuses for things like why there is a cowboy with a robot arm and a meditating robot. Most people don’t read the comics and that’s fine! They aren’t very good! But of course if you don’t read them, this one, highly-publicized, tiny little detail is going to feel forced.
🤣🤣🤣
This real?
@@Hurb_ You say that the only important thing is how fun the game is to play, and yet your discomfort around inclusivity still bleeds from every pore in your body.
Interesting, isn't it?
Why does that negatively impact your experience with a game? If it's not important, surely you could simply overlook it.
80% of highest selling games have a white male as protagonist is not a problem. The actual problem is, whenever a game comes out that features a 'diverse' character as protagonist, it simply is a badly written, unoriginal or flatout boring character that only exists to push diversity. There are plenty of great characters in games that are not white males that people remember and love, because those characters are written for the story and not for diversity reasons. This is just my 2 cents but race, gender or sexual orientation should not be the basis in making a character. Just make a good character, and after that you can flush out some details like race, gender and sexual orientation.
Yahtzee croshaw actually devoted an episode of his "extra punctuation" series to gauging how diverse games are now compared to 10 years ago, which I find pretty interesting
I understand why it’s good to have characters be relatable to more people in appearance than just white straight men, but I don’t think it’s a “problem that should be fixed”, that insinuates that if someone really wants to make their protagonist a straight white man then they’re part of the problem. Also focusing on hiring more diverse groups can lead to the most qualified person not getting the job to their race or gender, in favor of someone more diverse to current staff. I don’t think the resolutions suggested are the best.
Tbh ludwig here really showing his liberal side. There is not a problem with a main character being straight white male in a game. Its not a problem if 99% of games. If you think so, it just comes down to racial and sexist bias. No one actually sees an anime or anime game and thinks "this anime/game is not diverse enough! Where are the black people and latinos and Americans???!" Its silly and honestly quite racist to see that as a problem. If a game wants to go a different route thats fine but to call out it as a problem?? Its just silly.
For diversity in hiring, just pure sexist and racist to hire based on gender or race. They do this in educational system its a massive failure and an unfair system. If they don't want bais then it shouldn't be a requirement to put the sex or age or race on the application. Interviewers then should be trained to not be picked on any personal bias and have multiple people to help assess if their application is deemed worthy.
@@samu4529 "then it shouldn't be a requirement to put the sex or age or race on the application"
I still don't get how that is not already the default. It would literally solve the problem for both employees and companies. No name, age, sex, race and whatever is not relevant to the job.
@@samu4529 it's not a problem if 99% of games what?
@@samu4529 I don't think ludwig ever said having a white male protagonist was a problem lol. Diverse people play video games. Would it be cool to have different protagonists??? Yeeeah. However, if your protagonist is white that is not a problem either. Also, stop assuming he is liberal just because he shared his opinion on something that is a bit strange
@@laprincesse9312 he literally said at the start of the video said it was a problem. I dont care if the main character if straight gay white black Asian Latino etc but it gets racist when it comes to companies choosing based on race.
It’s a problem for the majority of main characters to represent the majority of the audience………?
YOURE FROM NEW HAMPSHIRE?!?! Ayyyy shout out 🌲
Thank you for putting more light on all of this.
a white male protagonist is okay. a black gay female protagonist is ok. but this whole forcing diversity thing is awful. characters should be well character first and their color/sex should help boost their characteristics and make them a stronger overall character. rather than just oh we have too many white people? just make that girl black
Yeah at the end of the day people forcing diversity are trying to change people art people have preferences and like developing things that speak to them nothing is wrong with that
Wtf is the “problem” with diversity? I generally don’t understand it, pls explain?? Companies should not hire people because of their race or gender, the decision must always come down to their professionalism. If person A is lgbtq+, but they suck at coding, they should not get a job over person B, who’s a white heterosexual male, and who codes better, just because the company is not “diverse” enough, imho. Diversity is not a problem, lack of talent and professionalism is. At least that’s what I think. And please, if I’m wrong, do correct me and explain the problem better, because I genuinely want to understand this whole diversity situation better, as I’m not from the U.S. and we don’t really have this issue in the public eye here .
You are correct.
@@slbhugomarques2 Thank you!
Lud did you put a dinosaur in front of the cat jail to scare the cat and keep it from escaping lmaoo
After watching the stream with the new cat I actually subscribed for MARBLES
Tired of hearing about this forced diversity crap
what u dont understand is there going to get heat no matter what.. if they make them black then people are gonna say why no gay characters. And then they will make them gay and then people way say why are you making black characters gay, there's not enough women, not enough gay women, not enough large women, not enough Hispanic women, no matter what they do some group will be mad..
*they're
I still don't know how they took a picture of a group of people for a book when they are already holding the book they are taking a picture for... it's been a few years since that picture came out and I still am in need of an answer...
Not related to the video ,, I’m subbed and have been since the purple car to red car stream, but I only just noticed today just now that your video isint appearing when i scroll through my “subscribed” channels , I had to directly check your channel to see this video I’m commenting on. I don’t know if this provides any value but I hope it helps. Sorry for the long read.!
While I love that Activision's attempt at virtue signaling with diversity was denied, there's a bigger picture. Diversity should almost never be a real factor in anything. It's like people have taken the entire point MLK was trying to make and flipped it 180. "I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Video game protagonists being 80% white male (which I'm calling bullshit on btw, stat probably twisted by CNN or the like) shouldn't be an issue as long as the story is done right. Same goes for the workplace. I don't want to hire someone because they're a black lesbian woman, I want to hire them because they're qualified for the damn job.
I think this argument fails to consider the bigger picture. Say, most of the competent people for a gaming dev job are white dudes. Why is that? Should that be something worth examining? Why don't people from diverse backgrounds seek to be in this industry in the first place, or if they would like to, what prevents them from achieving that?
Wow, someone who's actually not deranged
@@liruneko89754 Correlation does not equal causation my dude. Most of the demographic is men, so of course most of the people complaining will be men, but that doesn't mean that it accurately reflects the distribution of opinion between men and women in general. Basic stats problem.
As far as agenda-pushing characters goes, yea characters in games like LoL, Apex, Overwatch are fine because their stories aren't the focus of the game. In games that are much more story-driven though, you can't go more than 5 minutes without hearing them say some woke garbage that feels forced and out of place.
I do take back what I said earlier about not seeing one done right yet though. Cyberpunk 2077 is a great example of it being done right. People can roast that game's gameplay all they want, but one thing they did right with that game was the plot.
We are at the point in the gaming industry where the diversity of the characters matters more than the actual story and gameplay.
love how the implication of the sliders is that straight white cis guy is the default in the middle of the slider, literally the "gamers only see 2 races, white and political, 2 sexualities, straight and political" meme.
Idk if im the only one but every time i see the thumbnail of Luds mogul mail i never know its from from him
It needs to pop up in my yt like 3times untile i look at the yt chanel and i relize it from him
0:27 not a problem. Forced diversity isn’t diversity, let video game creation and hiring happen naturally based off of talent and demand.
honestly i think people make it a bigger deal than it is. having a white male protagonist is like making a sandwich with white bread. its just a blank default middle of the road canvas to paint whatever story you want on. now you can get "diverse" with it and use like rye bread or pumpernickle or gluten free or something, and yeah maybe some people would prefer those more, but other people would prefer them less. going with the white bread option just makes everyone the same level of satisfied or unsatisfied.
Big agree. Would also love to see the % of white man game designers/writers and id like to see what the percentage would be for books and movies
Should we maybe rethink why we assume white male to be the default being of a human in the first place?
@@onelius man its centuries too late for that lol, most religions have white males as their protagonists and more white males as the side characters, its just the way society was built i guess, and its far far too late to change that, no amount of complaining on twitter will change it
@@idontevenknow4614 "Most religions have white males as their protagonists and side characters"? I'd love to hear some examples. Also, you're saying there should be no progress done as a society ever? What? Why don't we go back to hunting and gathering and living in caves eh?
Lud you gotta get the sound on this channel figured out, some videos you need on 10 volume other you need it at 200 volume. Makes listening to this channel in my car very inconvenient
I agree that Overwatch 2 is just a giant update and was a flop but I don't think it's fair to say that the only thing that changed was "they changed the players from 6 to 5 per team", they got new maps, a new character and every character got a massive update, some more than others + it's a Beta for the PVP. There will also be a PVE to play with friends... Overall the game isn't as chaotic as it was before