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Jason Scheier on DEI Consultants: "Too Much Diversity isnt the problem"

Gp1

Member
Real problem is what Mark Cerny laid out in a recent interview. Devs allowed to make gigantic games that take 5-7 years to make. Devs were given a carte la blanche and instead of innovating and taking risks, they just made the same game 2x longer. 50-100 hour copy pasta games.

But now because they took 2x longer, publishers had to increase prices and start laying off people who are not needed for 4 of the 7 year dev cycles.

They are too big to take risks now.

Too much time, money and stakeholders involved. And the free money isn't flowing like before.

I don't even believe that the developers has Carte blanche, there's probably a lot of hive mentality and a lot of pressure from above to include this topics in their game.

So it's easier and "safer" to bet on the latest pasteurized sociological trend (from the southern part of West Coast, of course), focus group bullshit than try something new and original.

Maybe its time for some Skunk Works development in gaming, away from the current big development centers (Larian, Warhorse, even CDPR, etc.)

I said this before on some other topic. I'm having a great time with indies, small developers/small games.

Ps. And don't think that this is exclusive to gaming. Every so called "tech"/ innovative industry became stagnant when they reach a maturity point. The last time we saw a innovative smart phone and some real innovation from Google/Android/Apple was probably almost a decade ago.
 
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Redneckerz

Those long posts don't cover that red neck boy
Exclusivity isn't Diversity. Its Exclusivity.

But they will figure that out one day.

Creeping The Mask GIF
 

DryvBy

Member
It's one of the problems.

But Jason, let's test your theory. Let's see if Stellar Blade lays off after all is said and done.
 

March Climber

Gold Member
What's the relevence her being a lesbian when I'm asking where someone is?
It would be the same amount of relevance of some guy saying ‘please save my wife Amanda’ when Spiderman asks if anyone is left in a burning building.

That’s why I’m asking you how they can do this the right way.
 

mitch1971

Gold Member
It would be the same amount of relevance of some guy saying ‘please save my wife Amanda’ when Spiderman asks if anyone is left in a burning building.

That’s why I’m asking you how they can do this the right way.

Spiderman : Hey, have you seen (insert name)?

NPC Girl : Yes, shes in the kitchens.

If you needs some relevence, then...

Spiderman : Do you know (insert name)...?

Girl : Yes, of course she's my girlfriend

Spiderman : Do you know where she is?

NPC Girl : Yes, shes in the kitchens.
 
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Dr. Claus

Vincit qui se vincit
He's literally one of the few last surviving legitimate journalists left, exclusively covering games. I've rarely, if ever, had an issue with him. Not sure what your beef is.

This lie needs to stop. He is as much a “journalist” as the folks from TMZ are. He lies and obfuscates the truth to create drama and headlines. When he does have anything of value, he sits on it and harasses others when they release the info first (as with the Blizzard situation).

He is a weasel.
 

Gambit2483

Member
Exclusivity isn't Diversity. Its Exclusivity.

But they will figure that out one day.

Creeping The Mask GIF

Out of the 19+ titles shown only 3 prominently featured male leads; MGS3, Indiana Jones and Gears of War, and they were all from existing IP.

It's official, male representation in NEW IP is non-existent. So much diversity (as long as it doesn't include men, or particularly white guys)...
 

Robb

Gold Member
Most of what he mentions are a result of the games not selling well enough/not generating enough revenue.

Might want to reconsider catering to narrow demographics and actively excluding the major ones that you apparently can’t be racist against.
 
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BbMajor7th

Member
Diversity isn't the problem - never was. We have great entertainment going back decades that had great representation. The problem is DEI as a corporate initiative. It's almost always a cosmetic overlay that draws attention from the fact that while the cast and development teams behind these games are more diverse across (largely superficial) markers like gender, ethnicity and sexual orientation, they are far more homogenous in theme, stylisation, content, design, target audience, scale and platform. Moreover, the 'diversity mix' is almost identical from product to product (including games, TV shows and films) with the same few tropes appearing with predictable uniformity.

And this is part of a wider pandemic of cynicism, where every product is designed to capture the widest possible audience with a product produced entirely from data feedback streams. It's a methodology devised by the corporate middle-class stooges who've overrun the entire industry - people whose respect for the end product is so limited that they think it can be reduced to a perfect template that will print money forever. They're not interested in innovation or pushing the medium forwards, they're not interested in risk, they're interested in turning gaming into an ever more lucrative money-printing racket.
 
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diffusionx

Gold Member
DEI is absolutely ruining Western gaming. It feels Every game features a female lead that is most likely gay or a person of color. That makes every (Western) game feel too homogenized and designed by committee. Nothing feels like it was just made to be fun with interesting gameplay ideas. Everything feels like it is litterally just trying to shove "women are strong" and "look at our representation" agendas down the gamers throat.
That's the irony of it. Look at the Dragon Age trailer, then the Concord trailer. They're the same trailer. Same snarky Marvel quips, same checkbox character list, same structure of the trailer, there's no creativity here. And these are two entirely different games in entirely different settings.
 
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Killer8

Member
The problem is actually that there is not enough diversity any more. Many games coming out predictably have the white character, the black character, the asian, the gay, the trans, the fat one, plus are seasoned with pronouns and weird flags everywhere. It has become very dull.

Try to go against the grain and have, say, a homogeneous cast set in a historical time (Kingdom Come, Ghost of Tsushima) or a sexier design (Stellar Blade, DOA) and you will get hounded for commiting some sort of -ism, or because someone, somewhere hasn't been included.
 
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Audiophile

Member
Not THE problem, but A problem (though not in and of itself).

Not because there's literally too much diversity (I couldn't care less), but because I keep getting told (read: gaslit) that one group or another isn't represented when they're not only represented well but over-represented.

Every movement won't admit the job is done or that has gone as far is it can organically, but will turn into a self-preservation organisation that not only doesn't accept that things got better, but will be so contentious as to make it worse again [inadvertently or not], in turn justifying their continued existence.
 
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Gaiff

SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
Out of the 19+ titles shown only 3 prominently featured male leads; MGS3, Indiana Jones and Gears of War, and they were all from existing IP.

It's official, male representation in NEW IP is non-existent. So much diversity (as long as it doesn't include men, or particularly white guys)...
There was Doomguy but looking at the list, most games have a customizable protagonist.

BLOPS 6: Not sure
Doom: Male
State of Decay 3: Up to the player
Dragon Age: Up to the player
Starfield: Up to the player
South of Midnight: Female
WOW: Up to the player
Flintlock: Female
Perfect Dark: Female
Age of Mythology: None
Fable: Male or Female (unless they decided to not let you choose which would be surprising)
Fragpunk: Up to the player
Mixtape: Male and Female
Flight Simulator: None
Life is Strange Double Exposure: Female
Indiana Jones: Male
Mecha Break: Robots
Wuchang: Female
Avowed: Up to the player
Atomfall: Up to the player
AC Shadows: Male and Female
STALKER 2: Up to the player
Gears of War: Male
Expedition 33: Male and Female
MGS3: Male

From what I've seen, 4 games starring males and 4 games starring females, with most games giving you the choice. You also have 3 white males and none from other ethnicities as far as I'm aware. Yasuke is costarring. Doomguy is also "technically" white but come on.
 
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Kacho

Member
Out of the 19+ titles shown only 3 prominently featured male leads; MGS3, Indiana Jones and Gears of War, and they were all from existing IP.

It's official, male representation in NEW IP is non-existent. So much diversity (as long as it doesn't include men, or particularly white guys)...
Pretty much. It’s so blatantly obvious, like of course people call it out. Then we have shmucks like Schreier trying to gaslight everyone into thinking it’s fine.

Game devs have been following this blueprint for years now. They only have themselves to blame for poisoning the well.
 

Danny Dudekisser

I paid good money for this Dynex!
This may be a bridge too far for Jason, but there can be multiple problems. Just like how it's not just him that ruined games journalism, it's everyone in his moronic clique.
 

Redneckerz

Those long posts don't cover that red neck boy
This lie needs to stop. He is as much a “journalist” as the folks from TMZ are. He lies and obfuscates the truth to create drama and headlines. When he does have anything of value, he sits on it and harasses others when they release the info first (as with the Blizzard situation).

He is a weasel.
Schreier is in the same bracket as Jeff Grubb yet we still get regular NeoGAF threads on them and about them.

They are the equivalent of Things my duck quacked today but somehow we have plenty of users who think said quack is mighty interesting, or even better yet, may say something else than a quack...

.... We are still talking about a duck here.
 

Aenima

Member
So why is Insomniac doing so well, considering what you guys said about Spiderman 2?
570f3a59-b27b-4431-a6aa-09ebd65f5aea_text.gif


Insomiac has a very talented team, and uses a very popular Marvel IP. Despite the DEI shit they have plastered in they games, they still deliver great gameplay. Also Spider Man setting is New York, so the DEI shit, is not really out of place. Bottom line, the game would be better without the forced DEI shit.
The game is called Spider Man, i want to play as Spider Man, not with a deaf girl.
 
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YeulEmeralda

Linux User
If you wanna see the most blatant pandering ever, this month is hard to beat. Pride month. Go check out Linkedin and see how many companies adjust their logo rainbow. Then when July comes around they change it back.

My old company did that and we did absolutely zero support for Pride month or LGTQ groups. It's was literally just a logo swap for a month. Probably took the marketing assistant 5 minutes to create it and upload it.
Companies found out that there was a rising black middle class so we have MLK day.
In the 1980s companies found out childless gays have tons of money so we have pride month.

Sell to racist hillbillies at NASCAR and the next day to homosexuals in the Bay area.
 

FeralEcho

Member
sitting eric cartman GIF by South Park


This whole woke virus is like a real life parody of that minority South Park episode.

Like it's everywhere in media,games,movies yet somehow they are still the opressed minorities that need more representation....even though they now out-represent everyone else lol

But what's even worse is most representation is an offense toward the race or gender it represents.

One of the best examples of Transgender representation comes from a Korean drama called Itaewon Class that shows the struggles of a transgender person and it works beautifully because they gave that character more personality than "I am transgender" which is why most people hate this woke bullshit..
Cuz it's forced and not earned.

That character in Itaewon Class is one of my fav characters in the show...and she's transgender.So it can be done if there were good writters at the helm but the west has no good writters left so all they do is shoehorn in this forced woke garbage and then call you a bigot when you don't like their paper thin characters with no personality.
 
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mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
570f3a59-b27b-4431-a6aa-09ebd65f5aea_text.gif


Insomiac has a very talented team, and uses a very popular Marvel IP. Despite the DEI shit they have plastered in they games, they still deliver great gameplay. Also Spider Man setting is New York, so the DEI shit, is not really out of place. Bottom line, the game would be better without the forced DEI shit.
The game is called Spider Man, i want to play as Spider Man, not with a deaf girl.

The bold IS the problem with yall just tossing around DEI and how it makes games bad.

- Talented teams matter
- Great gameplay matters
- So if NYC is diverse so the "DEI shit" isn't out of place..................then how is it DEI shit?
- You didn't play the game as a deaf girl. Stop the overreaction.


Companies found out that there was a rising black middle class so we have MLK day.
In the 1980s companies found out childless gays have tons of money so we have pride month.

Sell to racist hillbillies at NASCAR and the next day to homosexuals in the Bay area.

You think it was the "rising" black middle class that gave us MLK day? And not that he was one of America's biggest heros?! Holy smokes guys slow down. Are you not American or something?

Did you know in America we have a federal holiday after a guy that never even been on America's grounds in his life? Yet MLK day is pandering? Come on son!
 
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Dr. Claus

Vincit qui se vincit
The bold IS the problem with yall just tossing around DEI and how it makes games bad.

- Talented teams matter
- Great gameplay matters
- So if NYC is diverse so the "DEI shit" isn't out of place..................then how is it DEI shit?
- You didn't play the game as a deaf girl. Stop the overreaction.
NYC isn’t diverse in Spider-Man. Where are the Italians? The Jewish folk? The Slavic folk? Etc. It is DEI trash because it only considers women, lgbt, and black people as “diverse”. It is a piss poor representation of an actually diverse city by only focusing on one small segment of that diversity.
 

MacReady13

Member
He's kind of right and there's about half of gaf that won't like it. It's an easy singular target, our brains like shortcuts to blame all our problems on, but there's a lot more issues with the games industry causing crunch and buggy releases. It's one of those things that might be 1% of the problem but gets 99% of the attention.
Yes but crunch doesn't affect us so why should we care? DEI affects our games so that's why we care.

I mean, it's like game pass warriors who shit on about not giving a shit if developers get paid for selling a game as opposed to a game being rented out. It doesn't affect the game pass subscriber so long as they get their games to rent. DEI affects us playing games. Simply put- I will not buy a game if diversity is the main reason a game is made or changed during a dev cycle to appease a select few who don't even give a fuck about gaming! And there are 10's of thousands like me who will o the same! Once that happens, games won't sell and then we will see how small an issue DEI is in gaming.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
NYC isn’t diverse in Spider-Man. Where are the Italians? The Jewish folk? The Slavic folk? Etc. It is DEI trash because it only considers women, lgbt, and black people as “diverse”. It is a piss poor representation of an actually diverse city by only focusing on one small segment of that diversity.

Hmmmm..........thinking on it I don't recall seeing any Jews in SM2. Not sure about Italians. You may be right about them all missing. And that would be stupid if you're correct. The point is, that game still reviewed and sold great. So it's not like diversity or "DEI" in games is what makes a game bad or sell terribly.
 

semiconscious

Gold Member
i think for a lot of people there's a particular flavor of DEI stuff that is like... the last straw. all those other things are true, but then the aggressively woke stuff affects the game/gameplay directly. it's the icing on a shit sandwich. i'd never expect this soggy twat schreler to acknowledge any nuance here... like, both could be true.
well, the problem is that, if you have any nuance at all, it kinda seriously does damage to the '2 sides just screaming at each other' motif, eh?...
 

Woopah

Member
Out of the 19+ titles shown only 3 prominently featured male leads; MGS3, Indiana Jones and Gears of War, and they were all from existing IP.

It's official, male representation in NEW IP is non-existent. So much diversity (as long as it doesn't include men, or particularly white guys)...
I think that's just a reaction to the fact that a lot of video game characters created in the last 30 years have been white and/or men. The industry doesn't have the barriers it once did to titles featuring other types of characters in games and marketing, so we're seeing more of other types of people.

It would be an issue if there were a lack of games featuring white men, but that's not the case. White men appear in games all the time.

Basically if a publisher already has a lot of white protagonists in their existing franchises, it's not surprising that that their new IP feature other types of people.
 
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Dr. Claus

Vincit qui se vincit
Hmmmm..........thinking on it I don't recall seeing any Jews in SM2. Not sure about Italians. You may be right about them all missing. And that would be stupid if you're correct. The point is, that game still reviewed and sold great. So it's not like diversity or "DEI" in games is what makes a game bad or sell terribly.

Reviews mean nothing when they are all part of the same in-group that push the same message/ideology. This was proven over a decade ago.

It also sold because of the IP, not the quality of the product.
 

Ammogeddon

Member
Is there context for this tweet or is he just on his soapbox?

Sounds harsh but the state of the gaming industry is of little concern to me. I just play games when I have some downtime. And when I have that downtime I’m not paying top dollar for some DEI shite, simple as that.

The entertainment industry as a whole needs to get their head out of their arse. They won’t exist without paying customers. And in times such as they are, I can find other things to occupy my time. Now entertain me.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Reviews mean nothing when they are all part of the same in-group that push the same message/ideology. This was proven over a decade ago.

It also sold because of the IP, not the quality of the product.

But now we have to trust you, instead of every other piece of verifiable evidence. Why would "WE" do that?
 

Guilty_AI

Gold Member
What is the best way that a 10 year veteran developer (who happens to be trans) could naturally acquire a lead role position at a studio, so that there’s no perceived corporate agenda at play?

This is a genuine question.
Could start by showing off their actual experience in the industry and why they're qualified to lead one of the most famous IPs among RPGs. Instead we get a blog post that spends half of the time talking about lgbt representation and transitioning.
 

Gambit2483

Member
NYC isn’t diverse in Spider-Man. Where are the Italians? The Jewish folk? The Slavic folk? Etc. It is DEI trash because it only considers women, lgbt, and black people as “diverse”. It is a piss poor representation of an actually diverse city by only focusing on one small segment of that diversity.
SM1 is actually more diverse because it has police officers and even Jewish Neighborhoods, both seemingly removed from SM2.
 

Shake Your Rump

Gold Member
What is the best way that a 10 year veteran developer (who happens to be trans) could naturally acquire a lead role position at a studio, so that there’s no perceived corporate agenda at play?

This is a genuine question.
I believe it is impossible to have such thing not be clouded with doubt at this time. It was the same during the height of "affirmative action". A black person becoming a lead position would have turned the same heads at the time, regardless of credentials.
 
I call bullshit. I mean I don't care whether a protagonist is male/female, or the color of their skin, I just want a good compelling story, with good gameplay. The problem is when you focus on and cater to the DEI shit and making sure to not offend anyone you are hiring writers and creators with that focus. People who just want to push their unattractive agendas or ideas. Then you are bringing in consultants like Sweet Baby who water it down even more. I do think this hurts sales.

Look at the new Saints Row. Who wrote that shit? Or Forspoken, which had some of the cringiest writing of all time, even though gameplay was alright. Games are meant to be fun, to be an escape, to tell a story. Those that focus on that tend to do much better than games which are just pandering.
 
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