King, the Activision Blizzard studio, has shared a strange “spatial diversity tool” intended to help its studios design more diverse characters by using… math.
in a blog post published on May 12, the studio praises the tool as “a leap forward for inclusion in games” that was created in conjunction with the MIT Game Lab for use in character development. The post uses characters from the Overwatch universe as examples, plotting them on the chart based on things like gender, body type, physical ability, cognitive ability, sexuality, and more.
The tool is apparently intended to be used as a framework for future character development. “Once you establish a baseline for typical character traits…then you can weigh new character designs to gauge their diversity,” the blog reads. “During this process, the tool can also uncover unconscious biases, such as why certain traits are seen as ‘masculine’ versus ‘feminine,’ or why characters of certain ethnic backgrounds have similar personalities or behaviors.”
While this is a noble idea on paper, the execution has raised more than a few questions. And given Activision Blizzard’s current controversies, including a sexual harassment lawsuit overseen by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing, alleged anti-union efforts, and a lawsuit in New York City against Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, as well as his alleged treatment of marginalized employees, the diversity space tool hasn’t worked well with everyone.
Many have argued that the company could instead hire more diverse employees who could inject diversity directly into character creation and design instead of creating a tool that essentially assigns value to those identities. it is not clear either as the tool assigns values when it comes to descriptors such as sexuality, gender, race, cognitive ability, physical ability, body type, and many others.
Ana’s reading of Overwatch, for example, rates her Egyptian culture as a seven, her Arab race as a seven, her physical ability (“one-eyed”) as a four, and her gender identity as female as a five, just to get some data points. Apparently, the same tool is also used to rate Ana from a gameplay perspective by judging her role (support) and her difficulty (three stars). What this data means, what it compares to, how it would inform current and future character design, and, for that matter, who decided the Egyptian is a seven on a scale of which is unclear, to say the least.
Activision Blizzard states that “by starting at the character conception stage, the tool allows King and others to ask these important questions at the earliest possible time, to promote more thoughtful creative choices from the ground up.” But so far we have only seen the evaluate tool finish characters, going back to their applications.
Would King and other studios run proposed or in-progress characters through this tool to determine how diverse they are? Would they instead use the data provided by the tool as the basis for new characters? At what point is there enough of a character to rate, and at which point are the people who create that character no more impactful than the tool that rates them? The approach is as confused as it is impenetrable.
Activision Blizzard says it plans to release the tool internally starting this summer, and “the ultimate goal,” according to MIT’s Jacqueline Chomatas, is to make it available to “the industry as a whole.” Having said that, early reactions from Many other match developers they’re not exactly brimming with enthusiasm.
Microsoft will not “stand in the way” of an Activision Blizzard merger.
