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This Week in Games - Starting Over from Zenless Zone Zero


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Lord Geo



Joined: 18 Sep 2005
Posts: 2544
Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey
PostPosted: Fri May 20, 2022 9:52 am Reply with quote
Quote:
KOEI Tecmo would “definitely like to consider releasing English versions” of Ruby Party otome games to follow up Touken Ranbu Warriors, which is dropping on Switch and Steam next week.


Nothing says "We aren't REALLY interested, but we'll at least act like we're interested" quite like saying that your company will only start considering to release a genre of visual novels based heavily around romancing characters in the story if an action-focused spin-off of a free-to-play browser CCG in which all the men are based on swords (& is NOT their own creation, at that) does well enough, simply because "it's got hot guys in it, and that's all people play otome games for, right?".

Easier to do that than, say, looking at the actual boom in otome games that do see English release, & I'd imagine that fans of the genre might even argue that too many come out today to even keep up.
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BadNewsBlues



Joined: 21 Sep 2014
Posts: 5914
PostPosted: Fri May 20, 2022 10:32 am Reply with quote
Quote:
Most of those companies aren't giving access to their “crown jewel” titles, either—where's Final Fantasy VII Remake?


If you had the chance to get ahold of a it few months back it’s in your Library in your PS Plus selection granted it’s the PS4 version but still Razz
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vampiyan



Joined: 25 Oct 2021
Posts: 64
PostPosted: Fri May 20, 2022 11:14 am Reply with quote
That diversity tool thing is pretty much the standard for western development these days: a heavy focus on checklists and tokenism to appease the crowd. And at the end of the day, Mercy and D'Va will still continue to be the most popular Overwatch characters no matter what they try to do because the majority audiences likes what it likes.
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b-dragon



Joined: 21 Apr 2021
Posts: 447
PostPosted: Fri May 20, 2022 11:49 am Reply with quote
Was not aware of the new NOVECT work, but The House in Fata Morgana was excellent, so its definitely worth keeping an eye on, at very least.
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SpaceWeasel



Joined: 20 May 2022
Posts: 1
PostPosted: Fri May 20, 2022 12:55 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
But perhaps the most insulting thing about the Diversity Space Tool is that it's a complex solution to a problem that is very easily solved. Here's what you do: hire employees of different backgrounds, make sure you don't create a hostile work environment for them so they stick around (this one's important!), and then ask then for input and feedback about character designs. It works better than any kind of algorithm, and it makes employees feel like their input is valued and respected. Everybody wins!


As someone who has experienced racial and gender-identity based discrimination, as well as workplace abuse, the most insulting thing about this comment is the oversimplification of a complex issue. Yes. I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment of this statement. The absolute best way to produce an effective and meaningful character, plot, culture, setting or anything else, is to grow as a human. The absolute best way to grow as a human is to encounter and experience as many perspectives as humanly possible, both directly and vicariously. Then later, experience them again. This can be achieved with great success with a diverse workplace, as a diverse community lends to diverse perspectives. At the same time, you have to be careful how you approach diversity.

Ethnicity, gender identity, sexual preference and race have no place in the hiring metric. The moment that you increase or decrease the value of or in any of these categories, you begin discriminating. By increasing or decreasing these values, you begin removing agency from the individual based on these categories. You begin setting the worth of the individual based on these categories. Even when you need a specific perspective from a specific demographic, you don't hire based on these categories. Picking a person of a specific race or ethnicity with a specific gender identity to effectively represent an entire population of people (whether in a workplace setting or to act as the 'living guidebook' by which to model a character, location, culture or demographic) is the result of a gross generalization of stereotypes reflected by the hiring party's own preconceptions of how representation of said demographic should appear.

No one gets to choose what they are born into, but they can attempt to choose where they go from there. Many individuals work hard to make it to your inbox. So do not categorically over/invalidate, over/devalue and/or discredit an individual's passion, experiences, accomplishments, credibility, and goals based on a metric that is entirely outside of their control. You don't need to hire a person with a specific gender identity, you need to hire a person with experience with that community. I know it sounds like I'm saying the same thing twice, but there's an important nuance to the thinking and preconceptions of those two statements. That nuance is the key to perfecting diversity.
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Greed1914



Joined: 28 Oct 2007
Posts: 4421
PostPosted: Fri May 20, 2022 1:40 pm Reply with quote
It's genuinely amazing to me that Activision thought that promoting that tool was a good idea. The people who accuse various games of ticking boxes are given an example of a tool created to do just that. The people who ask for diversity to be more than just a token effort are shown an example of it being treated as if it wasn't much different from a character creator at the start of a game. Nobody is going to come away impressed.

All I can figure is that the company is flailing around wildly trying to find anything that resembles good PR. The company would be better off just keeping its head down and waiting for Microsoft to finish buying it.
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AiddonValentine



Joined: 07 Aug 2006
Posts: 2203
PostPosted: Fri May 20, 2022 6:34 pm Reply with quote
In other news we also got a bunch of new Live A Live and Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak snippets this week.

Live A Live even has Hironobu Kageyama doing the vocals for the new arrangement of Go! Go! Buriki-Daioh!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSxdxgdloQE
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Nate148



Joined: 24 May 2012
Posts: 466
PostPosted: Fri May 20, 2022 7:26 pm Reply with quote
SpaceWeasel wrote:
Quote:
But perhaps the most insulting thing about the Diversity Space Tool is that it's a complex solution to a problem that is very easily solved. Here's what you do: hire employees of different backgrounds, make sure you don't create a hostile work environment for them so they stick around (this one's important!), and then ask then for input and feedback about character designs. It works better than any kind of algorithm, and it makes employees feel like their input is valued and respected. Everybody wins!


As someone who has experienced racial and gender-identity based discrimination, as well as workplace abuse, the most insulting thing about this comment is the oversimplification of a complex issue. Yes. I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment of this statement. The absolute best way to produce an effective and meaningful character, plot, culture, setting or anything else, is to grow as a human. The absolute best way to grow as a human is to encounter and experience as many perspectives as humanly possible, both directly and vicariously. Then later, experience them again. This can be achieved with great success with a diverse workplace, as a diverse community lends to diverse perspectives. At the same time, you have to be careful how you approach diversity.

Ethnicity, gender identity, sexual preference and race have no place in the hiring metric. The moment that you increase or decrease the value of or in any of these categories, you begin discriminating. By increasing or decreasing these values, you begin removing agency from the individual based on these categories. You begin setting the worth of the individual based on these categories. Even when you need a specific perspective from a specific demographic, you don't hire based on these categories. Picking a person of a specific race or ethnicity with a specific gender identity to effectively represent an entire population of people (whether in a workplace setting or to act as the 'living guidebook' by which to model a character, location, culture or demographic) is the result of a gross generalization of stereotypes reflected by the hiring party's own preconceptions of how representation of said demographic should appear.

No one gets to choose what they are born into, but they can attempt to choose where they go from there. Many individuals work hard to make it to your inbox. So do not categorically over/invalidate, over/devalue and/or discredit an individual's passion, experiences, accomplishments, credibility, and goals based on a metric that is entirely outside of their control. You don't need to hire a person with a specific gender identity, you need to hire a person with experience with that community. I know it sounds like I'm saying the same thing twice, but there's an important nuance to the thinking and preconceptions of those two statements. That nuance is the key to perfecting diversity.

Knowing LGBT folk and being LGBT is not the same. A white kid in a black neighborhood might understand what his friends feel but can never know what it is like one to one. The only way to make games with diversity is to look and have a divest work force anything else will led to bad ideals like this diversity grid.
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FeelMyBlade



Joined: 11 Aug 2012
Posts: 142
PostPosted: Fri May 20, 2022 8:43 pm Reply with quote
Nate148 wrote:
Knowing LGBT folk and being LGBT is not the same. A white kid in a black neighborhood might understand what his friends feel but can never know what it is like one to one. The only way to make games with diversity is to look and have a divest work force anything else will led to bad ideals like this diversity grid.


I'm going to disagree on the grounds that Black Panther is the most successful black superhero despite being created by two white guys. Not to mention the plethora of non-Japanese characters that come out of Japanese anime, manga, and video games that are some of the most popular characters worldwide. The immutable traits of the creators don't matter: it's all about quality and craftmanship that stands the test of time. Diverse workers can do this tokenism stuff just as much as crusty old out of touch executives. Is making Velma Indian any less tokenism just because the person creating the new Scooby Doo spin-off is Indian herself? Not at all. Pop culture has a lot of tokenism already, and the creators always generally match the characters these days. Tokenism happens when you only care about immutable characteristics and people from all groups are guilty of doing that.
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whiskeyii



Joined: 29 May 2013
Posts: 2245
PostPosted: Fri May 20, 2022 10:13 pm Reply with quote
FeelMyBlade wrote:

I'm going to disagree on the grounds that Black Panther is the most successful black superhero despite being created by two white guys.


Black Panther may have been created by two white guys, but his most popular incarnation is due pretty much entirely to the efforts of people of color, both in front of and behind the camera. Somehow, I doubt the Black Panther movie would’ve resonated as well as it did without a Black director behind it, which really just reinforces the original point that while sympathy is all well and good, it’s no substitute for empathy and a lived experience, which can make up for a lot of unconscious blind spots.
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enurtsol



Joined: 01 May 2007
Posts: 14756
PostPosted: Sat May 21, 2022 5:22 am Reply with quote
Smash fans throwing some shade Laughing


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chudmaru



Joined: 25 Apr 2022
Posts: 55
PostPosted: Sat May 21, 2022 5:32 am Reply with quote
enurtsol wrote:
Smash fans throwing some shade Laughing




They need to drum up interest somehow if they don't want to be dead in a week like the Nicktoons Brawl game. Or the Sony All Stars Royal game before that. Weird to think we're back with the Smash Bros 'killers' again.
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Mr. Nescio



Joined: 13 Jul 2011
Posts: 165
PostPosted: Sat May 21, 2022 6:46 am Reply with quote
Now that I read about the diversity tool "scandal" for the first time, I'm surprised how much seemingly bad argumentation there are from those who criticize it (at least in the articles that were linked here, I hope there are better articles about this somewhere).

I'm a very slow and bad writer, so I shouldn't start an actual rant, but I have to react to the following:
Heidi Kemps wrote:
But perhaps the most insulting thing about the Diversity Space Tool is that it's a complex solution to a problem that is very easily solved. Here's what you do: hire employees of different backgrounds, make sure you don't create a hostile work environment for them so they stick around (this one's important!), and then ask then for input and feedback about character designs. It works better than any kind of algorithm, and it makes employees feel like their input is valued and respected. Everybody wins!


The obvious question here is, how do you know this can be solved so easily? To quote Rayid Ghani, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University:
Quote:
Ghani says that his team has carried out unpublished analyses comparing algorithms used in public health, criminal justice and education to human decision making. They found that the machine-learning systems were biased — but less so than the people.

“We are still using these algorithms called humans that are really biased,” says Ghani. “We’ve tested them and known that they’re horrible, but we still use them to make really important decisions every day.”


In light of this, the quote in the ANN article seems quite arrogant and ignorant to me.
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enurtsol



Joined: 01 May 2007
Posts: 14756
PostPosted: Sat May 21, 2022 6:52 am Reply with quote
chudmaru wrote:
enurtsol wrote:
Smash fans throwing some shade Laughing



They need to drum up interest somehow if they don't want to be dead in a week


The Smash fans?




Mr. Nescio wrote:

Now that I read about the diversity tool "scandal" for the first time, I'm surprised how much seemingly bad argumentation there are from those who criticize it (at least in the articles that were linked here, I hope there are better articles about this somewhere).


Yeah, humans Laughing

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AQuin1904



Joined: 13 Nov 2021
Posts: 264
PostPosted: Sat May 21, 2022 10:34 am Reply with quote
Even if you like the idea of a diversity algorithm, this one is laughably bad. The idea of arbitrarily assigning numerical values to aspects of a single character rather than comparing data points across a group of characters is an amateurish mistake that wouldn't be tolerated in a half-decent undergraduate class and should be grounds for the utmost disdain in a professional tool. Even then, such an algorithm would only be useful to the development of a game that makes a maximally diverse cast of characters one of its design goals (probably most applicable to multiplayer games with a lot of characters and little plot), although the results would be necessarily superficial. It's easy enough to make a character, say, Egyptian, or blind, or dyslexic, but it's impossible to quantify ahead of time whether a depiction meaningfully represents any aspect of a group of real people.
Which is to say: that thing is a dead end, and even a vastly improved version would only have value as a publisher- or industry-level analytics tool.

Also, I have no faith that other publishers don't have equally idiotic versions of this thing tucked away somewhere.
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