Push for diversity now gaining traction in the video game industry

originally posted by: TrueBrit
Do you believe that because the media tells you there is a dirth of love, that it must be true? Do you think that because your neighbours ancestors were no better or worse than yours, that you should hold off loving your fellow human, just in case?

No to both questions.

Do you believe that it would be foolish to show compassion to your fellow human beings, just because it may bite you on the rump at some point?

Too much of anything is problematic. It's all about finding a balance.

I say until we learn to love one another, without considering irrelevances like demography before hand, that our species will be on the skids, on the way to the cosmic toilet pan. I say that just because not all your fellow human beings are capable of it, does not mean that you should not make a start yourself, and begin to love people freely, evenly, without prejudice.

Nice words, but what was the topic again?

I am determined to love my fellow human beings, wherever it is possible to do so, whenever, and how ever it is necessary. We can only be responsible for our own actions, that is true. So love your fellow human beings in thought, word and deed! Recognise yourself in those you are slightly different from! See yourself as part of the species, love it enough to care for it and nurture it in every waking breath! Start with yourself, and work outward! Show them how it's done!

Love yourself too much and you will become narcissistic. Love others too much and you will become a pushover. The key lies in finding a balance.

a reply to: Dark Ghost

The topic is diversity in gaming.

Diversity issues always boil down to whether a person does, or does not love his or her fellow human beings. Generally speaking, when one does love his fellow human beings, one embraces diversity, because it exposes an individual to more of their fellow human beings, more human concepts, more data.

a reply to: mikegrouchy

Who are you even talking to?

originally posted by: Kali74
a reply to: mikegrouchy

Who are you even talking to?

Ever since ARPANET in the 80's I have participated in discussions on the internet.

The rule is pretty simple and consistent. For every person that writes a post, about ten people are reading but not commenting out loud. The silent majority, as it were. Sometimes famous people are reading, sometimes wealthy people, and sometimes important people. Even lawyers.



I am speaking to them.
The lurkers.

The ten times as many people who will read this thread, but not comment on it.


Mike Grouchy

a reply to: Kali74

Most games will still have a white male protagonist but there's going to be some that don't, why is this a problem?

I never suggested it was a problem.

My daughter enjoys the Lara Croft games and I am glad she is able to have a female protagonist to play in that series. There are other games of that genre that feature male protagonists. If I care to play those types of games I can just play the alternative series.

I think people will generally buy what is fun regardless.

originally posted by: mikegrouchy
Who buys computer games written by girls?

Who buys games because they were programmed by a specific person in the first place? I can think of very few celebrity programmers.

What can girls add to computer game programming?

Lots, the same things guys can. Actually, prior to 1980 the field of Computer Science was dominated by women, it was seen as a girly field. For reasons people aren't entirely sure of, that shifted around 1980 and now it's heavily dominated by men.

When has being a girl ever made a difference to the compiler?

Women are on average better programmers than men, so it makes some difference.

Where are these oppressive people who don't let girls write functions?

Many companies are old boys clubs and women have little opportunity to advance or get hired in the first place.

a reply to: mikegrouchy

MMMK. BTW Zoe Quinn didn't sleep with dude for reviews.

originally posted by: mikegrouchy
Who buys computer games written by girls?

originally posted by: Aazadan
Who buys games because they were programmed by a specific person in the first place? I can think of very few celebrity programmers.

Questioning the question is not the same thing as answering the question. And here the gentle reader can see why ten times as many people choose not to actively participate in online discussions. Instinctively everyone knows you false helpers, you preachers of diversity will do exactly that "put into question our questions" instead of having a discussion.

originally posted by: mikegrouchy
What can girls add to computer game programming?

originally posted by: Aazadan
Lots, the same things guys can. Actually, prior to 1980 the field of Computer Science was dominated by women, it was seen as a girly field. For reasons people aren't entirely sure of, that shifted around 1980 and now it's heavily dominated by men.

Is this history lesson part of the design for your museum, or is this trying to frame the entire programming world as a child birthed by women whom should grow up and listen to mommy.

originally posted by: mikegrouchy
When has being a girl ever made a difference to the compiler?

originally posted by: Aazadan
Women are on average better programmers than men, so it makes some difference.

I wonder how many studies this sentence is based on. How many labor hours, how much oversight, how much data, collected, stored, and analyzed; to have enough information to actually make this statement. Did my government tax dollars contribute to some bureaucrats existence so we could have a society wide analysis like this? In other words this is yet another non-answer, and yet another reason most lurkers never contribute. You waste my taxes, and then accuse me of being poorly informed.

originally posted by: mikegrouchy
Where are these oppressive people who don't let girls write functions?

originally posted by: Aazadan
Many companies are old boys clubs and women have little opportunity to advance or get hired in the first place.

These men, are neither

old, nor boys

...but it is a club.


The greatest philosophers and mathematicians in the entire history of the world have been trumped by a tiny breakthrough in ray tracing and while the 100 billion dollar industry of fps continues on unfazed in its orbit, the world of academic philosophers and mathematicians haven't noticed that tiny contribution to the history of greek geometry and what ray tracing means to theology; yet, they will.

But this. This last statement, that utterly fails to even address the question asked by leaping onto a blame grenade; sweeps the deck of the last three lurkers who otherwise would have been posting every day.



You want us to start taking pigmentation readings of our underpaid programmers when it's all the artists who are hyper sexualizing and racially stereotyping everything. And in the world of fps gaming, artists may program, but they ain't programmers.


Mike Grouchy

originally posted by: Kali74
a reply to: mikegrouchy

MMMK. BTW Zoe Quinn didn't sleep with dude for reviews.

Another miss.


Programmers were impressed. To them sleeping with someone to get ahead is resourceful. But to see the story keep changing like this show how much it was about perceptions and image, instead of having anything to do with coding.






TPTB control movies through the very groupthink the words diversity and opportunity discussed in this thread. And they thought that was enough. When they realized that, nope they didn't actually control the hearts of men in this country because everyone was playing fps and not watching the fall line up.

And the great advertising bonanza of the new fall tv shows fell into the ash pile of history. It's natural home. But money thinks it can raise the dead; and here we are, witnessing the thought police try to encroach on the world of computer game programing. Framing it as a testosterone club. Particularly interested in sexualizing, and colorizing the fps world. WHERE IT HAD NEVER EXISTED BEFORE.



BUT NOW WE DO HAVE obviously black and white characters in a relational power dynamic. Assholes. I have to be white if I want to heal. Really. WTF.







And you have chutzpah to play coy. With me? I guess now I am talking to you specifically. COn-Grad=-=ulations on giving me a pin prick in the gall so that now I can be called an example of toxic masculinity. I guess from now on it will be eleven lurkers for every one poster.


Mike Grouchy

Does anyone refuse to play a game because the protagonist is too different to them?

Two of the best games I ever played were Tomb Raider and Mirrors Edge.

Totally amazing and at no point did I feel bad about the fact they were female leads.

My all time fave games are Elite and possibly Modern Warfare one, I really doubt that people actually into games have much of an issue beyond "is it good and does it please my eyes?"

Anyways.. Anime was and is created in Japan, so why would they have characters other than 'Japanese'.

Now when you talk about 'England' or the 'USA'... well, there is a mix of colours... so there should be a mix of characters in games or Animation.

Anyways... I don't play games anymore although i did use to really be into em and I didn't even notice the colour of the character... i was just into the game.

a reply to: mikegrouchy

I know it's in your name,
But you aren't playing the game,
This is reasoned debate,
Not a battle of the flames,
So why react so bitterly,
Fly apart so utterly,
Perhaps you should meditate,
Till you can discuss it happily,

Don't worry we can wait,
Till you've expended all your hate,
Fury and vitriol,
On something more deserving,
Of the hell on toast you're serving,
Chill out while you're on a roll,

This is not Mortal Kombat,
Quit being such a wombat,
And tell us where you are coming from,
What you are getting at,
Don't loose your rag,
This is no game of tag,
There are no losers
It's always a mixed bag!




Seriously though. Please take five, unwind a little, and come back to this discussion rationally. You have no enemies here.

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: mikegrouchy

Seriously though. Please take five, unwind a little, and come back to this discussion rationally. You have no enemies here.

a reply to: mikegrouchy

That's both the spirit, and the aromatic!

Just the job!

originally posted by: SprocketUK
Does anyone refuse to play a game because the protagonist is too different to them?

yes. mostly whites. remember the outcry when there was a game not too long ago which randomized the main characters race, when some came black or other guess when it became appalling...? if you ask for 'proof' youll be shown true colors of people behind the veil of the internet... mostly you guessed it , possibly the first gaming news on yahoo which had to be taken down/turn off comments because they were despicable.

why hasnt it been a problem when its was always white male characters shoved down everyone's throats... now theres a thread on the issue when the playing field is being leveled.. minorities didnt complain for the 30 years of gaming where majority of blockbuster was all white males... every time.

classic snowflake effect.

now a 5 page thread defending what exactly, or arguing what, in exact words? id like to hear exact words... then next thread preach acceptance of gays and harmony...rubbish..

originally posted by: mikegrouchy
Is this history lesson part of the design for your museum, or is this trying to frame the entire programming world as a child birthed by women whom should grow up and listen to mommy.

Computing was birthed by women. Men and women have contributed since but you can go all the way back to people like Grace Hopper and Ada Lovelace. They're the ones who first applied it.

I wonder how many studies this sentence is based on. How many labor hours, how much oversight, how much data, collected, stored, and analyzed; to have enough information to actually make this statement. Did my government tax dollars contribute to some bureaucrats existence so we could have a society wide analysis like this? In other words this is yet another non-answer, and yet another reason most lurkers never contribute. You waste my taxes, and then accuse me of being poorly informed.

It's pretty standard knowledge among professors, women do better than men in CS classes.

The greatest philosophers and mathematicians in the entire history of the world have been trumped by a tiny breakthrough in ray tracing and while the 100 billion dollar industry of fps continues on unfazed in its orbit, the world of academic philosophers and mathematicians haven't noticed that tiny contribution to the history of greek geometry and what ray tracing means to theology; yet, they will.

Games don't use raytracing for anything other than prerendered scenes, real time rendering uses rasterization. Raytracing involves sending out rays of virtual light and seeing what/where they hit while rasterization is based on sets of triangles represented by 4x4 matrices.

There's actually a lot of mathematical breakthroughs too, though virtual physics don't follow the same rules as natural physitcs. Light for example is sent out from the eye(camera) to hit objects which is the opposite of how it works in the real world. It also doesn't use geometry, it uses a very small amount of trig (cosine specifically) and a lot of dot products (dot products basically being a computer only form of calculation which they can do quickly). This for example is the lighting formula for a 3d object with phong properties, which is an object with an ambient, diffuse, and specular (and the light for each of those behaves in a certain pattern)

en.wikipedia.org...

You want us to start taking pigmentation readings of our underpaid programmers when it's all the artists who are hyper sexualizing and racially stereotyping everything. And in the world of fps gaming, artists may program, but they ain't programmers.

Really? www.gameenginebook.com... That book was required reading for me a year ago. There is a lot of overlap between art and the programming that lets you display that art for the senior engineers. The guy drawing photoshop textures doesn't need an understanding of how to get a console to smoothly display 256 bit textures but the average programmer doesn't need a knowledge of how to avoid textures looking repetitive as seamless textures are linked together on an object either. Eventually you do need both though.

a reply to: odzeandennz

Really? What game was that?
See I've never heard people refusing to play as characters other than themselves, like Mortal Combat etc.

Maybe this is all a new thing.

a reply to: mikegrouchy

I don't what the hell you're on about beyond Zoe Quinn but if you're interested in peeking outside your delusion...

In August this year, Quinn’s ex-boyfriend Eron Gjoni published a revenge blog listing men she had allegedly cheated on him with, including games journalists and industry insiders. It was alleged that an affair with Nathan Grayson, a journalist at the website Kotaku, had led to favourable critical treatment of her game. In was later established that Grayson had only written about Quinn once, before they started a relationship, and had never reviewed Depression Quest.

This did nothing to faze Quinn’s detractors, who took it as evidence of a conspiracy. Users from the messageboards Reddit – a sprawling series of communities – and 4chan – largely the trolls in the internet’s basement – hurled false accusations that Quinn exchanged sex for reviews. They proceeded to dox Quinn (which they later said she had done herself, by artificially creating screengrabs, and using “sockpuppets”(fake social media profiles used by an individual to tweet or post about their message). If you asked a GamerGate supporter what was happening, they would tell you it was about ethics in journalism. Instead, it became a war against Zoe Quinn.

GamerGate has since swelled into an unwieldy movement with no apparent leaders, mission statement, or aims beyond calling out “social justice warriors” – a term for those who want to see more diversity in gaming, as the GamerGaters see it, at the expense of quality.

The Telegraph

a reply to: Kali74

Was that really what started the whole gamergate thing?
Who knew butt hurt could get so big? Jeez

originally posted by: SprocketUK
Was that really what started the whole gamergate thing?
Who knew butt hurt could get so big? Jeez

Nyet.

That was just when the media latched onto (and tagged) a movement that had been ongoing for a very long time.

There is a reason that both camps were firmly established, and well supported, right from the on set of the media bringing it to light.