Image: Activision Blizzard

Today, Activision Blizzard fulfilled its daily oopsie quota by blogging about how the publisher’s affiliates apparently used a special tool to help develop more “diverse” characters. He apparently thinks he can accomplish this without, I don’t know, talking or hiring marginalized developers. Why rely on pesky, fallible humans when we have powerful data to tell us we’ve reached enough diversity points to start a new video game culture war? The numbers don’t lie. I mean, look at this. It’s obvious, isn’t it? The well-designed graphic says it all, clearly and calmly.

Damn, I’m glad that technology allows us to solve racism, sexism, ableism and all the other problems facing video games. Who knew it was so easy? When former Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan said he “would hate for diversity to ever feel flattering, like we just had this spreadsheet with a bunch of checkboxes,” Activision Blizzard really took that to heart. Alright, not really.

I’m being sarcastic, but in many ways it’s hard to contain how maddening it is. It’s not just that anyone thought such a complex problem could be solved with a glorified Dungeons & Dragons character sheet that makes no sense. And it’s not just that Blizzard is in the midst of a slew of ostensible “diversity” disasters right now, including allegations of sexual harassmentinability to recruit or retain marginalized talentand persistent union tensions.

But a number of people probably not only built this thing, but also wrote the blog, got interviewed for it, and then signed it off to share it with everyone. The reaction on the internet to the post and the tool it describes has been utter disbelief, and rightly so. Consider the fact that no one there saw this coming, amidst all the other complete PR disasters. What does this say about Activision’s real ability to address the endemic issues that have come under public scrutiny over the past year and that the publisher has repeatedly pledged to to resolve ? Right now, it looks like no one in charge is really capable of that, if that’s what they’re offering.

And make no mistake, this is a public relations disaster. I’m not just saying this because I disagree with the basic premise that you can, as the blog post states, use a handy, practical tool to magically “dissect their own assumptions” and quickly, avoiding “token characters” and achieving “true representation” by identifying “more diverse character narratives” that go beyond “mere appearance”. Humans struggle with these things not because we We’re mere mortals who can’t understand the primitive logic of 1s and 0s, but because getting to a better world is a painful process. You can’t speed it up. The moment you try to take a shortcut is the when you are no longer engaging with the real problem.

While addressing these issues may involve tools, Activision Blizzard has proven time and time again that it’s at the stage where it needs more education, guidance, and mentorship from real people with skills. non-technical to help establish a basic understanding of what diversity means before you can even think. on creating a tool like this. When a company like this it takes years to introduce a black woman in a video gameI cannot believe in good faith that he has the ability to “measure” what diversity is or means, let alone implement it well.

But even if we take the thing in itself, it makes no sense. Can you look at any of the visualizations shared in the blog post and tell me what they might mean?

Screenshot: Activision Blizzard

I guess there’s some logic to this, maybe logic that’s only explained and known to people who regularly use the tool, but even suggesting that you can list something like “capacity” is completely silly. What is ability 0? What does it mean when the image in the blog post says someone has “sexual orientation: 0.357”?

How can you put that in front of someone and not feel weird about what you did or what you say?

While hardly significant, the use case examples cited in the blog post will not be compelling to the average person. There’s Call of Duty Vanguard, a game that Activision not only tried to distance himself from, but the one that friends actively hate because it has diversity. Then his other example is Overwatch 2, a game that almost everyone asks, “Why does this exist?“Are these just reasons to set something aside? No, certainly not. But they add to the top of an already crappy pile. Nobody’s gonna say “Ooo, they used that to the Call of Duty that disappointed everyoneAgain, the levels of marketing failure here are unfathomable.

So yeah, it’s not the most compelling way to package what’s already a tough sell for people who want change but don’t think it can be achieved through representation alone. Nor for those other people who think just putting a woman in a video game is inherently too political.

But maybe it was inevitable. Technology is in many ways the most extreme manifestation of whiteness and capitalism, structures that actively invest in defining, codifying and ranking markers of identity in order to maintain power and profit. The marginalized are seen only when useful, and then only in the most degrading terms, for shitty ends. Identity is key to achieving these goals. After all, if you can develop a system for, say, defining things like gender or race, you can use that information to “inform” broader choices, like making sure your character designs are diverse from more complex way.

In reality, more often than not, such data is used to monitor, imprison and monitor identities that are put under the microscope, often by people outside their own communities. In this case, whether the entities collecting the data realize it or not, its most direct effect will be to better equip them to deflect criticism from the very parties they claim to want to hold accountable. It’s funny how it works.

Why hire more people of color when you have software that already tells you what to consider, or worse, that might make you think you already know what is what? Do you really have to think about your biases if the character you created spits out a 3, 4, and 5 on the computer’s diversity scale? Those are some pretty good numbers, man! Now that we’ve sorted that out, it’s time to spend some quality time develop realistic horse balls. Polish is king.

“The traits and metrics are applicable to broader entertainment verticals, including TV, film and literature,” the blog post read. “The only change required if used in these verticals would be the base traits, which would need to be calibrated to be relevant to the genre and universe in which each character exists.”

Activision Blizzard’s blog post ends by saying that ultimately it’s just a tool, and ultimately it’s always up to the people behind the wheel to make the choices. But not before betraying a more grandiose vision of a world that lives under the influence of its tool, and therefore of its master logic.

Image: Blizzard

Overwatch had an untraditional approach to scoring. Typically, competitive shooters like Apex Legends and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds keep a running list of kills, points, and team standings on a shared dashboard. Overwatch, instead, used a less specific system that awarded individual gold, silver, and bronze medals based on objective kills, objective time, damage done, and healing done.

If you weren’t a fan of the medal system, you’ll be happy to hear that Blizzard has completely revamped the score ladder for Overwatch 2 beta testing (which, by the way, you can still access looking at the Overwatch League opening weekend) by implementing a more typical scoreboard. Let’s go over everything you need to know about the change so you never have to hunker down in a corner crying over how little you know about the Overwatch 2 dashboard. We’ve all been there.

What am I looking at here?

I hope you weren’t attached to the little personal trophies that flicker on your screen at the end of a match, because medals have been completely eliminated. They left. Goodbye, shiny medals visible only to me. While we commit murder, Overwatch’s fire system – a meter that would fill based on activity and reward your character by framing their icon in Gatorade blue flames – was also found dead on the street.

According to Blizzard patch notes released April 28, there’s no longer a need for shot and medal systems as the new dashboard features “real-time key stats for all players in the game, including kills and deaths”. The scoreboard also “intentionally mirrors other games and competitive sports”, which is even visible in its current design: it’s a tilting rectangular layout with sleek navy, pink and white categories all spilling out. details of your team’s performance and enemy team’s performance.

So I can’t die 4,500 times in peace anymore?

No you can not. The new dashboard allows everyone on both teams to see each other’s enemy kills, assists, deaths, damage and healing, although there is still some level of individualized breakdown that shows the your character’s weapon accuracy, defensive assists, and kill streaks.

Ultimately, according to these patch notes, Blizzard says the main goal of the change is to provide “a more accurate and easier to read view of data related to each player’s performance.” Notably, Blizzard also writes that it plans to “revisit the Fire system in the future”, and since we’re still very much in beta, you can probably expect changes to the finer details of the board.

Will my significant other leave me because now they can see that I’m a bad support player?

God, I hope not. In fact, I hope they will. Looks like you’re better off without them. Either way, this brings up an important conversation players are having about the scoreboard and the quality of their Overwatch 2 experience.

Again, since we’re still in beta, this is mostly hypothetical, but some players are worried that the very public dashboard will encourage aggression in chat. Of course, the current state of Overwatch’s voice chat wasn’t an idyllic gamer garden either.

Women know how frustrating and predatory chat rooms are may beand no matter who you are, online strangers will not hesitate to scold you in the ground. Competitive shooters like League of Legends are notorious to breed ill will even within your own team – a disappointing side effect of living in a world where people sometimes care more about winning than having fun.

Personally, I think it’s possible that the scoreboard could have a negative impact on Overwatch 2 chat rooms, although the existing hostility in competitive games tells me that the issue goes much deeper than whether the number of statistics is public or private. As a gameplay mechanic, however, the scoreboard is incredibly useful for players who want to more accurately gauge their performance. Most beta testers seemed to find the board a beneficial and welcome overhaul, but there’s still time for everyone to provide feedback to Blizzard.