BAFTA Adds 'Diversity' Requirement which must be filled in order to Qualify for an Award

[Vishera]

24 minutes ago, Nowak said:

"Forced diversity" doesn't exist and there's no agenda going on. A game dev being shit at PR doesn't change that.

They chose that diversity,but i actually don't have a problem with them implementing women in the front lines,even if it's historically inaccurate.

The history lovers might get offended though,not for sexist reasons,but because it violates the historic accuracy.

 

17 minutes ago, JZStudios said:

it's not like the Mongolian invasion had tons of queers or other diversities around.

They will have to implement African born Mongolians into that game 

Japan be like: "Nani?!,The Africans are invading!"

Mongolia: "We are Mongolians"

Japan: "Nani?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!"

[Vishera]

14 minutes ago, StDragon said:

Essentially, this whole award based on quotas is virtue signalling to the highest degree. I don't like it one bit. It's arrogant, condescending, and most importantly divisive. Nothing ever good comes of it.

But it's morally wrong and there is no virtue in it...

[SolarNova]

1 hour ago, Kisai said:

Nah, based on the entire population, minorities do not make up as big population. Rather games and films need to over-represent minorities based on their setting otherwise the setting would preclude having any minorities at all except in belligerent positions.

 

There are far more people who are trans or NB in cities that are "out of the closet" than those that are in small rural towns, because in a small rural town, everyone knows your name, and your inability to conform will create nothing but difficulty for you. The actual representation of GLB people is probably a lot higher, like 30%, and for Trans and NB it's closer to 15%. It just depends on who's interpretation and gatekeeping you're using. There is a lot of gatekeeping in GLBT+ communities, and that's unfortunate. 

 

The amount of trans people who actually get to medically affirm their gender is far lower, because in a place like the Unitied States, access to medical options is a giant gatekeeping problem (eg medical insurance) where as in a country like Thailand (which has very low gatekeeping barriers) the average trans person will get medical intervention when they are young enough to not develop secondary characteristics of the gender they're not. In Canada there was, for the longest time, only one person who did these kinds medical affirmations and they were not as good as some of the American or Thai surgeons, so as a direct consequence of that, Canadian trans people would have to pay entirely out of pocket a lot of expenses to go down this route, insured or not.

 

A fine theory , but just a theory I'm afraid.

 

Still ..food for thought.

[Kisai]

28 minutes ago, Nowak said:

"We did it, fellas! Our performative action ended racism!"

 

ftr, nobody thinks rockstar's meaningless gesture actually helped, because it's, as I said, meaningless.

 

And I'm sure Battlefield 1 was a realistic depiction of World War 1. Hey tho, keep trying to find agendas that don't exist outside of what a lib who got, like, 3 retweets on Twitter thinks is "helping".

Trying to suggest that WW1 had no women in it, means that the person making that statement doesn't know jack about history. Sure, you might not have women in WW1 prancing around in form-fitting boobsock clothing, but they certainly existed. http://ww1centenary.oucs.ox.ac.uk/unconventionalsoldiers/the-she-soldiers-of-world-war-one/

 

But that's beside the point. If you're producing a game that is entirely fiction, then "accuracy" is meaningless. You're not re-telling a campaign (even tv/films don't do this, they are fictionalized,) otherwise there would be zero agency for your player. You'd only be able to play someone who actually existed, and only be able to do exactly what we know they did. Everything else is filling in the blank in the historical narrative. So it's not exactly meaningful to decry "accuracy" as a justification for not having women, people of color, or whatever low-bar a developer or player is complaining about. 

 

A lot of the backlash about diversity in games comes from people who are already sexist, racist, awful people, and really, if a game developer is producing a game entirely for them, they're not going to give a care about diversity initiatives anyway, so just let them have it. If they want to expand their player base and make more money then they need to produce new games for the expanded audience, not retool old ones for diversity that wasn't even considered.

 

These arguments remind me the same "gitgud" arguments that MMORPG's have. You have people who were playing the game on day one, who decry any change that makes the game easier, but the developer is making these changes because these "gitgud" trolls are actively chasing people away from the game to easier, more casual games, until those game suffer the same disaster. What would really solve the problem is by putting the tunables in the game from the start, and don't let the trolls play with easy-mode turned on. If you want to yell "gitgud" to show off how good you are, then you only get to play with the others who have the hardest settings turned on, and don't get to complain about it. 

 

Easy games that you can pay your way through are what game developers are betting on, and thus a lot of difficulty in games have been lost to microtransactions. What is one sure fire way to rile up people? Cosmetic changes that you have to pay money for. So if you only get to play a white male for free, but if you want to play a female character, or someone who isn't white, or all the customizations for women cost money, then that deservedly earns the blowback from it. "It's just cosmetic" microtransactions directly punch down on diversity options, and lootboxes of the same just make it that much worse.  So a game developer has to be really careful about what it decides goes into the cash shop.

 

So if the entire difficulty of a casual game is actually about earning things at random to make your character not look like everyone else, that's pretty much the antithesis of diversity.

[SolarNova]

2 minutes ago, Kisai said:

A lot of the backlash about diversity in games comes from people who are already sexist, racist, awful people

 

Calling people 'bad things' in order to nullify their opinion is the laziest weakest move a person can make in a debate. it just doesnt work and really doesnt make the person using it look good.

[Arika]

This will back fire sooooo hard

[Vishera]

24 minutes ago, Nowak said:

And I'm sure Battlefield 1 was a realistic depiction of World War 1. Hey tho, keep trying to find agendas that don't exist outside of what a lib who got, like, 3 retweets on Twitter thinks is "helping".

As someone who understand both sides of the argument i will explain to you what is offensive for the history lovers,

It's important that major and significant facts (or at least the setting) remain as accurate as possible,also it must feel authentic,

Seeing a 15 years old girl in the front lines of World War II is odd and can ruin the feeling of authenticity.

As for non major facts no one really care if those are altered a bit.

One example is the movie Saving Private Ryan,it was fictional,Ryan was not a real man yet it kept the setting and feel authentic even if the story strayed from reality.

They even made sure to include common occurrences of the war like the American soldiers killing enemy soliders that surrendered to them.

 

5 minutes ago, Kisai said:

A lot of the backlash about diversity in games comes from people who are already sexist, racist, awful people

This is a gross misunderstanding,here is my comment on it:

54 minutes ago, Vishera said:

They chose that diversity,but i actually don't have a problem with them implementing women in the front lines,even if it's historically inaccurate.

The history lovers might get offended though,not for sexist reasons,but because it violates the historic accuracy.

 

[Kisai]

6 minutes ago, SolarNova said:

 

Calling people 'bad things' in order to nullify their opinion is the laziest weakest move a person can make in a debate. it just doesnt work and really doesnt make the person using it look good.

Gee, awful people going after the developers and voice actors.

[gloop]

Just now, Kisai said:

Gee, awful people going after the developers and voice actors.

Ok, this is specifically about TLOU2, not applicable for other games. 
 

Laura Bailey does not deserve the hate, she did a great performance even if I did not personally like her character. 
 

Druckmann on the other hand, should have expected this. He has explicitly stated that this game would divide the fan base. He chose to make the game a certain way which annoyed a fair portion of fans, which led to hate messages. 
 

I just want to make clear again, I do not agree with Death Threats. I agree with creators being held accountable for the media they created. 

[The1Dickens]

14 minutes ago, SolarNova said:

 

Calling people 'bad things' in order to nullify their opinion is the laziest weakest move a person can make in a debate. it just doesnt work and really doesnt make the person using it look good.

 

8 minutes ago, Vishera said:

This is a gross misunderstanding,here is my comment on it:

I don't think it was intended to be the modern-trend insult of people who disagree, but referring to the actual individuals who are actually racist or sexist.

[Kisai]

1 minute ago, gloop said:

I just want to make clear again, I do not agree with Death Threats. I agree with creators being held accountable for the media they created. 

That's fine. I just want to make it clear I wasn't painting everyone with the same brush and I was specifically pointing out that there are people who go absolutely ape**** when a game isn't made for them.

[Vishera]

14 minutes ago, Arika S said:

This will back fire sooooo hard

Truth is that Capcom and EA already integrated the "diversity" culture into some of their games.

You can especially feel it in Need for Speed Heat and the Resident Evil 3 Remake,although Need for Speed had it integrated since 2015.

 

8 minutes ago, Kisai said:

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

Gee, awful people going after the developers and voice actors.

What does it have to do with the topic at end?

I condemn the behavior shown in those tweets but i don't see how it relates.

 

EDIT:

3 minutes ago, Kisai said:

That's fine. I just want to make it clear I wasn't painting everyone with the same brush and I was specifically pointing out that there are people who go absolutely ape**** when a game isn't made for them.

Oh,I see.

[Nowak]

13 minutes ago, Vishera said:

As someone who understand both sides of the argument i will explain to you what is offensive for the history lovers,

It's important that major and significant facts (or at least the setting) remain as accurate as possible,also it must feel authentic,

Seeing a 15 years old girl in the front lines of World War II is odd and can ruin the feeling of authenticity.

As for non major facts no one really care if those are altered a bit.

One example is the movie Saving Private Ryan,it was fictional,Ryan was not a real man yet it kept the setting and feel authentic even if the story strayed from reality.

They even made sure to include common occurrences of the war like the American soldiers killing enemy soliders that surrendered to them.

I'm sure it makes the history nerds mad, to the point where they go to Reddit and lie about credentials to get easy Gamer Points, but the truth is most people don't give a shit. Battlefield V still sold millions of copies (even if it was below EA's lofty expectations) and people still had fun with it even with its myriad of technical flaws and shortcomings. The Last of Us 2 was derided as "SJW shit" or "20 hours of misery porn" depending on who you asked, but it's still flying off shelves. People called for boycotting Pokemon Sword and Shield over the National Dex, but it still sold 16 million copies.

 

Most people just don't care.

[Vishera]

1 minute ago, Nowak said:

Most people just don't care.

I don't care as well,but i understand them.

 

By the way,every AAA game sells in the millions,even bad games like Fallout 76,as of the end of 2018, the game had sold 1.4 million digital copies.

So it doesn't necessarily mean that the game is good.

[Thaldor]

17 minutes ago, Vishera said:

As someone who understand both sides of the argument i will explain to you what is offensive for the history lovers,

It's important that major and significant facts (or at least the setting) remain as accurate as possible,also it must feel authentic,

Seeing a 15 years old girl in the front lines of World War II is odd and can ruin the feeling of authenticity.

As for non major facts no one really care if those are altered a bit.

One example is the movie Saving Private Ryan,it was fictional,Ryan was not a real man yet it kept the setting and feel authentic even if the story strayed from reality.

They even made sure to include common occurrences of the war like the American soldiers killing enemy soliders that surrendered to them.

The big question is was the game even meant to be even closely historically accurate or was that something players expected/wanted it to be?

 

BF is a extremely good example here because that is the question about it. It is placed in the WW1 and it has a lot of historically semi-accurate things in it but that's it. Weapons in it are something that were developed/used in WW1 but as ForgottenWeapons put it, extremely rare, it would have been a uncommon to see even one of them, leave alone having a full arsenal of them in your use. Does it require you to play like WW1 soldier? No, you're some super soldier running around unrealistic scenarios.

 

Would it had make the game any more historical if instead of 15 year old girl you would have playef a boy? IMO, not really. Things would be a lot different if we were talking about Verdun or any game that actually tries to be historically accurate but BF isn't one of those AFAIK apart from marketing speaks which value as proof that something tries to be something is null.

[Nowak]

2 minutes ago, Thaldor said:

Things would be a lot different if we were talking about Verdun or any game that actually tries to be historically accurate but BF isn't one of those AFAIK apart from marketing speaks which value as proof that something tries to be something is null

iirc, DICE and EA marketed older BF games as "the most realistic war simulators" out there. Compared to Call of Duty, sure, but Verdun or ARMA? No.

 

That's probably where the whole "accuracy" argument stems from re: Battlefield, even though the games were never particularly realistic or accurate. People latching onto marketing.

[Vishera]

Just now, Thaldor said:

Weapons in it are something that were developed/used in WW1 but as ForgottenWeapons put it, extremely rare, it would have been a uncommon to see even one of them, leave alone having a full arsenal of them in your use. Does it require you to play like WW1 soldier? No, you're some super soldier running around unrealistic scenarios.

Those count as non major facts,as long as those weapons were in the war it's fine,and about the super solider thing that's the point of a fast action FPS game.

[handymanshandle]

lame I can't embed gifs

anyways that's stupid. Devs should tell BAFTA to fuck off.

[Arika]

We're going to have J.K. Rowling 2 Electric Boogaloo. Developers will come out and say "oh this character was actually trans and was in a secret relationship with this other character that was a closet lesbian" after the game was released.

 

looking through my steam list:

Guess that means games like Beat Saber can no longer get nominated at the BAFTAs, no diversity.

The Neptunia games...cast is 100% female, not diverse enough.

Any racing sim? BA, they're all cars, not diverse enough

barely any JRPGs will ever get nominated because the east does not go rabid for more diversity and representation, they just don't care. most of them have an imbalance of gender. it's never 50/50.

 

Diversity is fine, but FORCING it on creators is some tumblr level bullshit.

 

 let's look at the British population numbers based on the BAFTA's own requirements

 

• 51% / 49% Female to Male Ratio - FAIL
• 14% belong to an under-represented group (basically non-white) - FAIL
• 7% identify as LGBT+ - FAIL
• 20% are disabled - PASS
• 9-14% are from other regions - FAIL
• 5.2% are of a lower socioeconomic backgrounds - FAIL

Sorry Britain, you're not diverse enough to host the BAFTAs OR to be telling developers what diversity they should include.

 

[Beerzerker]

Screw 'em - Who needs "Awards" anyway, esp at this price?
As long as the game is successful that's what counts, not their brand of "Baited Conformity".

 

Wanna make a game?
Make the damn game, be done with it and let the public at large say if it's any good or not and you know how they will say it.

 

 

 

 

[Taf the Ghost]

8 hours ago, thorhammerz said:

One really begins to wonder if physical execution is any worse than online-social & career exocommunication  nowadays.

Considering they regularly attack people in bad mental places, they aren't always actually different, as an end result.

[Vishera]

Just now, Taf the Ghost said:

Considering they regularly attack people in bad mental places, they aren't always actually different, as an end result.

The cancel culture is cancerous and needs to be stopped.

[Arika]

25 minutes ago, comander said:

Unless you use "people you'd see in public" as your metric. That would actually push the disabled rate down as you'd have fewer people who are disabled out in public (think people in nursing homes and the "psychological safety" counselling centers of Eton and Cambridge)

yeah, i didn't go into a full breakdown of it, but a huge amount of that 20% is over 65. so the kind of people that a massive majority of wouldn't be playing games that would normally be nominated for a BAFTA, or be playing games at all

[Beerzerker]

One thing about it some seem to miss is what's just a suggestion today becomes the standard tomorrow.
Then, what's a standard tomorrow become THE requirement the day after.

 

It's a slippery slope and I've seen it play out like this all too often.

If you don't push back for your right to make a game, tell a story, write a song or so on the way you want, this is what you'll get in the end.
I mean yeah, there are limits to anything but this from what I'm seeing is intended to go beyond what it is now (Suggestion) to outright control later.

 

Unfortunately there are enough fools out there to go along with this to make it as such - That being the worst part of it.

[Vishera]

1 minute ago, Beerzerker said:

Unfortunately there are enough fools out there to go along with this to make it as such - That being the worst part of it.

Seems like the people in this community are smarter than the average Joe