What are people's opinions on DEI in the gaming industry?

[Myrth the Plague]

PSA: THIS IS NOT AN INVITATION TO SPOUT POLITICAL NONSENSE OR HATE ANYONE! IF YOU POST IT YOU ARE NOT BEING PRODUCTIVE TO GOOD CONVERSATION AND DISCUSSION! BE RESPECTFUL AND OPEN TO HONEST PERSPECTIVES!

With that said I personally only learned of DEI recently as a organization recently. I will say DEI has very good goals and I appreciate what they are trying to do in the gaming industry. Unfortunately the implementation needs work. Here are some good examples of DEI in the gaming industry (personal opinion):
-The Last of US II
-Dragon Age: Inquisition
-Baldur's Gate 3
-Cyberpunk 2077
-Spider-Man 2

Here are some bad examples of DEI in the gaming industry (personal opinion):
-Concord
-Dragon Age: Veilguard
-Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League
-Battlefield V
-Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2

I should note that all the games I believe have bad examples of DEI were not all commercial failures and those that were I don't exclusively blame DEI for their failure. I would also like to note that i don't believe the games i think are good examples of DEI in gaming were successful exclusively for DEI. DEI is always good to have in game but here are some good things to keep in mind when it is included; is it accurate historically, does it effect lore or continuity, does it take focus away from the story, and does it improve the character(s) and make them more interesting.
When making a historical based game or a semi realistic game DEI should fit in with the appropriate time. If a character/person/group have a certain belief, gender, ethnicity, or orientation in one title it makes little sense that in the next title for that to change unless given a reason that feels like it appropriately fits the lore.
DEI should never be the focus of a game, the game should be the focus of the game and nothing else when anything takes the focus away from the game whether it is graphics, characters, or mechanics (i.e. controls, handling, etc.) the game is typically doomed to fail due to the focus being on on the game but an aspect of the game.
Making a character the fits DEI for the sole purpose of checking a box is wrong and almost always backfires, the mindset of "we need to have (X) character to make (X) group happy" is a horrible mindset to have and often leads to lazy writing and overall a unlikable character or game, make a character who is awesome for who they are DEI is not a personality it is apart of that person a trait if you will.
These are my honest opinions but i'd like to hear what other people think of DEI in gaming. DEI is good but i personally think it needs some work before we see games that have consistently good DEI implementation.

[Chika Ogiue]

İlk olarak Paratech2008 tarafından gönderildi:

Reboot Saint's Row

Wasn't bad because of DEI. It was bad due to terrible writing and insane decisions -- like you can't hurt store keepers. Yep, a game where you rob store keepers and all you can do is standby and watch as your NPC mates rob them. Want to "accidentally" run into a store keeper, they'll pretend you never did thanks to their invincibility.

The only mildly amusing (in a juvenile way) part of the game -- the rant at the beginning -- was patched out. Apparently, it was too edgy for "nu saints".

Let's not forget the bugs, cars that just randomly became rocket ships and flew away. Or thought they were super heroes and turned invisible.

Then there's the stupid regional censorship where they disabled tattoos in Japan. Probably because someone read once that they were offensive or tied to the Yakuza and then didn't bother to look up that tatoos in fiction have never been a problem, not even in previous Saint's Row games...

But none of that killed Volition. What killed them was Embracer's loss of an expected multibillion dollar injection of funds that they didn't get.

[Amaterasu]

İlk olarak FafnirChaos tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak Amaterasu tarafından gönderildi:

Dragon Age was screwed over by a multitude of things, y'all just chose DEI instead of any of the dozens of other things that actually screwed it over. Saints Row was basically dragging since the fourth game. Can't speak for Suicide Squad.

Give me a break, dragon age was litterally a training manual for dealing with non-binaries. It's a massive joke and a ruination of a franchise.

It was a multiplayer only game to start. I was around when Dragon Age 4 was announced. Long before you DEID folk ever heard of it. EA wanted it to be an online only, multiplayer live service game. Then it got changed a lot.

GUESS WHAT EA ANNOUNCED FOR MASS EFFECT 4! THE SAME PLAN!

[Amaterasu]

İlk olarak Chika Ogiue tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak Paratech2008 tarafından gönderildi:

Reboot Saint's Row

Wasn't bad because of DEI. It was bad due to terrible writing and insane decisions -- like you can't hurt store keepers. Yep, a game where you rob store keepers and all you can do is standby and watch as your NPC mates rob them. Want to "accidentally" run into a store keeper, they'll pretend you never did thanks to their invincibility.

The only mildly amusing (in a juvenile way) part of the game -- the rant at the beginning -- was patched out. Apparently, it was too edgy for "nu saints".

Let's not forget the bugs, cars that just randomly became rocket ships and flew away. Or thought they were super heroes and turned invisible.

Then there's the stupid regional censorship where they disabled tattoos in Japan. Probably because someone read once that they were offensive or tied to the Yakuza and then didn't bother to look up that tatoos in fiction have never been a problem, not even in previous Saint's Row games...

But none of that killed Volition. What killed them was Embracer's loss of an expected multibillion dollar injection of funds that they didn't get.

What makes this funnier is that the Like a Dragon Games(Yakuza games) are made by... *checks notes* The Japanese. And are like *the* most Japanese games to come over to the west.

[Ben Lubar]

Here's Chet Faliszek explaining why characters in games look and sound different from each other.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWksY2prRkc

[FafnirChaos]

İlk olarak Amaterasu tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak FafnirChaos tarafından gönderildi:

Give me a break, dragon age was litterally a training manual for dealing with non-binaries. It's a massive joke and a ruination of a franchise.

It was a multiplayer only game to start. I was around when Dragon Age 4 was announced. Long before you DEID folk ever heard of it. EA wanted it to be an online only, multiplayer live service game. Then it got changed a lot.

GUESS WHAT EA ANNOUNCED FOR MASS EFFECT 4! THE SAME PLAN!

So what, I'm not wrong. You can watch a video of it anywhere.

Well of course EA would, with them it's a race to the bottom on who's the worst company of all, not surprised and don't care.

[Realigo Actual]

İlk olarak Ben Lubar tarafından gönderildi:

Here's Chet Faliszek explaining why characters in games look and sound different from each other.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWksY2prRkc

The major difference for me, is simply, was it done because they wanted to make it interesting, or was it done because they wanted to do it?

If it's the former, then great, and that has been the way it was always done. The problem was, it may have been presented with biases which chafed on those whose backgrounds did not match the work's authors but did match the "DEI"-adjacent characters' (who may not consider themselves DEI anything).

If it's the latter, not so great, because quality usually suffers, which plays into and legitimizes the anger of the established base as it launches into dey took er gaemz.

[SKARDAVNELNATE]

İlk olarak Ben Lubar tarafından gönderildi:

Here's Chet Faliszek explaining why characters in games look and sound different from each other.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWksY2prRkc

Does that need explaining? I assume it's to be able to tell them apart. I was playing the Batman Arkham games recently and if every character looked and sounded like Commissioner Gordon I'd be really confused.

[Amaterasu]

İlk olarak FafnirChaos tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak Amaterasu tarafından gönderildi:

It was a multiplayer only game to start. I was around when Dragon Age 4 was announced. Long before you DEID folk ever heard of it. EA wanted it to be an online only, multiplayer live service game. Then it got changed a lot.

GUESS WHAT EA ANNOUNCED FOR MASS EFFECT 4! THE SAME PLAN!

So what, I'm not wrong. You can watch a video of it anywhere.

Well of course EA would, with them it's a race to the bottom on who's the worst company of all, not surprised and don't care.

Trying to claim you're not wrong when it's been proven time and time again that in Veilguard's case especially, DEI was like a stab wound on the foot of a murder victim. Allow me to tell you what's vital in the foot. Nothing. Just like DEI had nothing to do with Veilguard's failure. It was set up to fail from the word go. In every conceivable way that EA could've bungled the project on a financial, technical, and developmental manner, they found some way to do it.

People were already checked out the moment it was announced years ago as Dragon Age 4. EA pivoted to a singleplayer game halfway through development and let me tell you as someone who has actual dev experience. If you do that, you might as well just delete your entire project. Because even though they're may be a tiny *shot* that things go well, the odds are so badly stacked against you, you'd get better odds from the lottery.

It doesn't help that they scrapped pretty much every single decision from the first three games in terms of what did and didn't matter, basically giving a giant middle finger to long time fans, like me. It's kinda like mass effect 3 in 2012, but I don't think anyone in DEID remembers that. And yes, back then, I was there against ME3's endings and how they were basically, "Choose your flavor" instead of, "Your decisions matter" like we were promised.

[FafnirChaos]

İlk olarak Amaterasu tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak FafnirChaos tarafından gönderildi:

So what, I'm not wrong. You can watch a video of it anywhere.

Well of course EA would, with them it's a race to the bottom on who's the worst company of all, not surprised and don't care.

Trying to claim you're not wrong when it's been proven time and time again that in Veilguard's case especially, DEI was like a stab wound on the foot of a murder victim. Allow me to tell you what's vital in the foot. Nothing. Just like DEI had nothing to do with Veilguard's failure. It was set up to fail from the word go. In every conceivable way that EA could've bungled the project on a financial, technical, and developmental manner, they found some way to do it.

People were already checked out the moment it was announced years ago as Dragon Age 4. EA pivoted to a singleplayer game halfway through development and let me tell you as someone who has actual dev experience. If you do that, you might as well just delete your entire project. Because even though they're may be a tiny *shot* that things go well, the odds are so badly stacked against you, you'd get better odds from the lottery.

It doesn't help that they scrapped pretty much every single decision from the first three games in terms of what did and didn't matter, basically giving a giant middle finger to long time fans, like me. It's kinda like mass effect 3 in 2012, but I don't think anyone in DEID remembers that. And yes, back then, I was there against ME3's endings and how they were basically, "Choose your flavor" instead of, "Your decisions matter" like we were promised.

I think you failed to realize the discussion at hand - considering the fact that DEI didn't help it any at all, in fact it was greatly critized.

So whats your angle here? Are you just coping on the fact that EA ruined your studio, and trying to defend DEI on the offshoot of making yourself feel better?

What you think your the first to see your favorite franchise get butched? Talk to any FF fan, or even better talk to any NFS fan, that's in your neck of the woods.

[Amaterasu]

Look dude, you've already ran your victory lap and in your head, you're right and no evidence to the contrary. I'm not going to engage with you anymore. Find someone else.

[The nameless Gamer]

İlk olarak SKARDAVNELNATE tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak Myrth tarafından gönderildi:

I don't think that inclusion necessarily means that someone need to be excluded but within recent releases the obvious persons being alienated are the fans of these titles.

Hiring practices that exclude applicants in favor of ones less qualified in order to have employees who look a certain way has been a topic of discussion for several years.

There's currently a lawsuit against the FAA being talked about in the news. The story is that pilots were given 2 tests when applying for commercial work. One test was for competency, the other was about ancestral lineage. Pilots who did perfect on the first test were passed over for people who had not done so well but were more in line with what the FAA was looking for on the second test.

This happens all the time on executive level. Look at any executive board meeting and count the non-whites.

[SKARDAVNELNATE]

İlk olarak The nameless Gamer tarafından gönderildi:

This happens all the time on executive level. Look at any executive board meeting and count the non-whites.

How would I be able to look at an executive board meeting? Are those public?

[The nameless Gamer]

İlk olarak SKARDAVNELNATE tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak The nameless Gamer tarafından gönderildi:

This happens all the time on executive level. Look at any executive board meeting and count the non-whites.

How would I be able to look at an executive board meeting? Are those public?

No. I do have a few contacts in the States and they all said the same: non-whites are almost never in executive positions.

[SKARDAVNELNATE]

İlk olarak The nameless Gamer tarafından gönderildi:

No. I do have a few contacts in the States and they all said the same: non-whites are almost never in executive positions.

I don't know how someone becomes a board member. I assume it has to do with owning a large portion of the company and not with the hiring practices of that company.

[The nameless Gamer]

İlk olarak SKARDAVNELNATE tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak The nameless Gamer tarafından gönderildi:

No. I do have a few contacts in the States and they all said the same: non-whites are almost never in executive positions.

I don't know how someone becomes a board member. I assume it has to do with owning a large portion of the company and not with the hiring practices of that company.

And there you have it. It doesn't matter how competent you are, only how rich you are when becoming an executive. And decades of segregation and oppression left most of the wealth in whose hands? Edit: and promotions are STILL handed out based on race and sex. Promotions are still handed overwhelmingly to white men.