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Тема: Activision Blizzard разработали «Diversity Space Tool» для оценки репрезентации персонажей игр  (Прочитано 9627 раз)

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Wishko

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В опубликованном сегодня ночью пресс-релизе Activision Blizzard объявила о разработке инструмента "Diversity Space Tool", который помогает оценить характеристики виртуального персонажа на предмет того, насколько самобытным он получился и не закрались ли в его концепт каких-либо предрассудки.:cut:
  • Diversity Space Tool разрабатывается King уже более 6 лет – с 2016 года. Сейчас им пользуется некоторое число сотрудников Activision Blizzard, но, начиная с лета, планируется его более широкое распространение по командам разработки всей компании, а в будущем, в теории, по всей игровой и иным индустриям.
  • Инструмент оценивает персонажа по самым разным характеристикам, как визуальным (поза, внешность, движение и т.д.), так поведенческим (как он ведет себя и взаимодействует с другими персонажами) и личностным (раса, возраст, ориентация, предыстория, физические и умственные способности и т.д.) и позволяет понять, нет ли в образе героя каких-либо перекосов в определенные стороны, шаблонов и предрассудков, а также выявить слабые места. Затем с помощью этих данных разработчики могут вводить изменения, делая персонажей более инклюзивными, разнообразными и глубокими.
  • В статье отмечено, что им в своей работе воспользовались разработчики Call of Duty: Vanguard и Overwatch 2.
Первоначальный анонс вызвал большую волну критики. Сообщество, например, усомнилось в том, а стоит ли так сильно полагаться на автоматическое определение, когда разработчики должны с самого начала учитывать все эти параметры и создавать героев должны образом, а не менять их по факту. Многие считают, что оценивать и сравнивать персонажей по подобным параметрам вроде "предыстории" и "сексуальной ориентации" – слишком сильная предыстория и недостаточная сексуальная ориентация? – как минимум бесполезно, а то и вредно, ведь это может привести к появлению еще более шаблонных героев. Да и можно ли оценить неоценимое? Также некоторые возмутились тем, что вместо серьезной работы над улучшением атмосферы компания занимается разработкой бесполезных инструментов.

Поэтому спустя несколько часов компания отредактировала статью и дала дополнительные комментарии. В частности, она отметила, что этот инструмент не используется в активной разработке игр, а лишь тестируется небольшим числом работников, и что он вообще является исключительно справочным и не должен играть большой роли, поскольку основная задача по дизайну персонажей по-прежнему лежит на людях. Из статьи была удалена часть пояснений и все иллюстрации, но в сети они остались, так что можно посмотреть, как инструмент, например, оценил разных персонажей в целом и конкретно Ану из Overwatch.


Изначальная версия статьи:

King’s Diversity Space Tool

With this innovative new system, the character design process now has a tangible way of avoiding tokenism, stereotypes, and exclusion

We want to see ourselves represented in games, we want the barriers to access lowered, and we want games to be a welcoming environment for all. Just look at the 2019 International Game Developers Association (IGDA) “Developer Satisfaction Survey,” which asked developers what they considered to be the most important factor in the growth of the gaming industry. The most common response? “More diversity in content.” It’s not even a question anymore.

However, the question that does remain is this: How do we convert this feedback from collective desire into tangible reality? As expected, the people at King are already thinking a few moves ahead.

In 2016, King began developing a method for guarding against unconscious bias and exclusion when it came to the creation of their games and characters. At the time, this idea existed as an intangible philosophy, but the potential was obvious.

Enter the MIT Game Lab. Alongside King, the MIT techs helped turn a mission statement into tangible software that would create and monitor guidelines for character conception and creation, looking into all the ways basic elements such as gender, body type, roles (“heroes” vs. “villains”) and even such granular factors such as pose, or body movement, can suggest powerful things about a character one way or another. According to King Globalization Project Manager Jacqueline Chomatas, once MIT handed over the basic software, the team at King spent the last few years honing and developing it, mostly as a volunteer effort. People were spending their off-hours working on the tool, simply because they believed in its potential so much.

“An important principle for us at King is that all players should feel welcome,” says Chomatas. “The intention is to inspire game teams not just at King, but throughout the Activision Blizzard King network, to think outside the box and challenge pre-conceived notions around how characters should look and act. As a result, hopefully we will create more characters that break the mold, and better represent women, non-binaries and other under-represented minorities in the industry.”

How It Works

The idea of a “tool” to make characters more diverse and inclusive may seem a little hard to wrap your head around. In practice, it has to be more than just, say, a pop-up reminder that between 2017 and 2021 nearly 80% of the highest selling games in the world featured white, male protagonists (according to a study conducted by Diamond Lobby). It needs to become a part of the incubation process from the start, baked into the pipeline as an unmissable and consistent step - which is exactly what this tool was designed to be.

“The Diversity Space Tool is a measurement device, to help identify how diverse a set of character traits are and in turn how diverse that character and casts are when compared to the ‘norm’,” explains Chomatas. Once it establishes a baseline for typical character traits (which is done by the creative team working closely with DE&I experts), it can then weigh new character designs against it to measure their diversity. During this process, the tool can also uncover unconscious bias, such as why certain traits are seen as “male” vs. “female,” or why characters from certain ethnic backgrounds are given similar personalities or behaviors.

In this effort, the Diversity Space Tool can clearly delineate between token characters and true representation. “[The tool] identifies what stereotypical characters in different genres look like, which are not always the most conducive or representative of diversity,” says Chomatas. “It helps identify those stereotypes, while also helping creatives look closer at their designs, so they can dissect their own assumptions and presets. It also helps identify opportunities for more diverse character narratives, to ensure that we are not only creating diverse characters in appearance alone.”

By starting at the character conception stage, the tool allows King and others, to ask these important questions at the earliest possible moment, to promote more thoughtful creative choices from the ground up – which, in turn, leads to games that are more representative of their player base.

Sharing and Caring

Over the past few months, King has let developer teams at Activision and Blizzard “beta test” the Diversity Space Tool, and the results have been immediate and enthusiastic.

Alayna Cole, DE&I manager at Sledgehammer Games, says the tool was tested by developer teams working on Call of Duty: Vanguard, and it left a sizable impression. “We used [the Diversity Space Tool] to figure out what ‘more diversity’ looks like across all of our characters in both campaign multiplayer and Live seasons,” says Cole. “And now we’re going to use that data going forward into the next games that we’re working on.” The Overwatch 2 team at Blizzard has also had a chance to experiment with the tool, with equally enthusiastic first impressions.

The plan is to release the tool internally across Activision Blizzard starting this summer and into Q3, with an eye towards what Chomatas calls “the ultimate goal”: Making the tool available to the industry as a whole.

“We strongly believe in the tool’s potential to change the gaming landscape,” says Chomatas.

Beyond Gaming

While the Diversity Space Tool was designed for use in game character conception, Chomatas also sees it as having broader applications across all entertainment and media platforms. “The traits and measures are applicable to wider entertainment verticals including TV, film, and literature. The only change required if used in these verticals would be the baseline traits, which would need to be calibrated to be relevant to the genre and universe each character exists in.”

Chomatas admits that the application is still evolving – and, in fact, is designed to continuously evolve as “norms” shift and platforms change. In the end, you get out of it what you put into it, and what you choose to take from it.

“Like anything, this is simply a tool that provides insights,” says Chomatas. “It’s up to the teams that create the characters and games to apply them.”[Источник]

Отредактированный вариант:

King’s Diversity Space Tool

EDITOR’S NOTE (7:42pm PT - May 13, 2022): There has been conversation online regarding the Diversity Space Tool, particularly concerning its intent and our commitment to diversity. We’ve edited this blog post to clarify that this prototype is not being used in active game development. We would like to add the following comment for additional context:

Started in 2016, the Diversity Space Tool–currently in beta–was designed as an optional supplement to the hard work and focus our teams already place on telling diverse stories with diverse characters, but decisions regarding in-game content have been and will always be driven by development teams. The tool was developed at King, and has been beta tested by several developers across the company, all of whom have provided valuable input.

The objective of using the tool is to uncover unconscious bias by identifying existing norms in representation and acknowledging opportunities for growth in inclusion. It is not a substitute for any other essential effort by our teams in this regard, nor will it alter our company’s diversity hiring goals. Over the past several years, the development of the tool was done with the support of all our employee DE&I networks, and we collaborated with external partners to create an even more robust tool.

The tool isn’t meant to be used in isolation;  teams would sit down with company DE&I staff to identify existing norms and then discuss, educate, consult, and collaborate on how a character’s representation is expressed beyond those norms. This process is intended to create a conversation where our developers, assisted by the tool, challenge assumptions, assess choices, and find opportunities for authentic representation to be fostered in our games.

Activision Blizzard is committed to reflecting the diversity of its millions of players around the world through representation and inclusion in its games as well as its employees. Our intent with this blog entry was to share an in-progress piece of our journey in this endeavor. We recognize and respect that all people may be on their own, unique point in their journey with DE&I. The Diversity Space Tool is not a definitive evaluation of diversity in game content; rather, it is a bridge in opening previously unspoken conversations into how thoughtful inclusion can happen – and thrive - in games.


--

We want to see ourselves represented in games, we want the barriers to access lowered, and we want games to be a welcoming environment for all. Just look at the 2019 International Game Developers Association (IGDA) “Developer Satisfaction Survey,” which asked developers what they considered to be the most important factor in the growth of the gaming industry. The most common response? “More diversity in content.” It’s not even a question anymore.

However, the question that does remain is this: How do we convert this feedback from collective desire into tangible reality? As expected, the people at King are already thinking a few moves ahead.

In 2016, King began developing a method for guarding against unconscious bias and exclusion when it came to the creation of their games and characters. At the time, this idea existed as an intangible philosophy, but the potential was obvious.

Enter the MIT Game Lab. Alongside King, the MIT techs helped turn a mission statement into tangible software that would create and monitor guidelines for character conception and creation, looking into all the ways basic elements such as gender, body type, roles (“heroes” vs. “villains”) and even such granular factors such as pose, or body movement, can suggest powerful things about a character one way or another. According to King Globalization Project Manager Jacqueline Chomatas, once MIT handed over the basic software, the team at King spent the last few years honing and developing it, mostly as a volunteer effort. People were spending their off-hours working on the tool, simply because they believed in its potential so much.

“An important principle for us at King is that all players should feel welcome,” says Chomatas. “The intention is to inspire game teams not just at King, but throughout the Activision Blizzard King network, to think outside the box and challenge pre-conceived notions around how characters should look and act. As a result, hopefully we will create more characters that break the mold, and better represent women, non-binaries and other under-represented minorities in the industry.”

How It Works
 
The idea of a “tool” to make characters more diverse and inclusive may seem a little hard to wrap your head around. In practice, it has to be more than just, say, a pop-up reminder that between 2017 and 2021 nearly 80% of the highest selling games in the world featured white, male protagonists (according to a study conducted by Diamond Lobby). It needs to become a part of the incubation process from the start, baked into the pipeline as an unmissable and consistent step - which is exactly what this tool was designed to be.

“The Diversity Space Tool is a measurement device, to help identify how diverse a set of character traits are and in turn how diverse that character and casts are when compared to the ‘norm’,” explains Chomatas. Once it establishes a baseline for typical character traits (which is done by the creative team working closely with DE&I experts), it can then weigh new character designs against it to measure their diversity. During this process, the tool can also uncover unconscious bias, such as why certain traits are seen as “male” vs. “female,” or why characters from certain ethnic backgrounds are given similar personalities or behaviors.

In this effort, the Diversity Space Tool can clearly delineate between token characters and true representation. “[The tool] identifies what stereotypical characters in different genres look like, which are not always the most conducive or representative of diversity,” says Chomatas. “It helps identify those stereotypes, while also helping creatives look closer at their designs, so they can dissect their own assumptions and presets. It also helps identify opportunities for more diverse character narratives, to ensure that we are not only creating diverse characters in appearance alone.”
By starting at the character conception stage, the tool allows King and others, to ask these important questions at the earliest possible moment, to promote more thoughtful creative choices from the ground up – which, in turn, leads to games that are more representative of their player base.
 
Sharing and Caring

Over the past few months, King has let developer teams at Activision and Blizzard “beta test” the Diversity Space Tool, and the results have been immediate and enthusiastic. The plan is to further test the tool internally for preliminary feedback across Activision Blizzard starting this summer. “We strongly believe in the tool’s potential to change the gaming landscape,” says Chomatas.

Beyond Gaming
 
While the Diversity Space Tool was designed for use in game character conception, Chomatas also sees it as having broader applications across all entertainment and media platforms. “The traits and measures are applicable to wider entertainment verticals including TV, film, and literature. The only change required if used in these verticals would be the baseline traits, which would need to be calibrated to be relevant to the genre and universe each character exists in.” Chomatas admits that the application is still evolving – and, in fact, is designed to continuously evolve as “norms” shift and platforms change. In the end, you get out of it what you put into it, and what you choose to take from it.

“Like anything, this is simply a tool that provides insights,” says Chomatas. “It’s up to the teams that create the characters and games to apply them.”[Источник]
« Последнее редактирование: 14 Мая, 2022, 12:37:27 by Wishko »

jenechek

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WowIsDead64

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Да нафиг какие-то инструменты? Просто сразу делаем черную-транс-гейшу и сразу убиваем всех зайцев одним выстрелом.

Мне плевать на Wow 11.0, если это не соло-ММО. Ждать в очереди своей возможности быть униженным - не та игра, в которую мы хотим играть.

eduhud

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В материалах по евгенике можно похожие диаграммы найти :-*

Tigras

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Какая важная разработка, явно вместо вова делали  ;)

4k

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Лол, теперь точно заживем

angmarec

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Вы опоздали, там уже гига срач, статью отредактировали и извинились.

psy

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WowIsDead64

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Во всех последних фильмах, которые я смотрел, кроме может быть, как ни странно, шматрицы, вместо сюжета было одно сплошное так называемое соблюдение новых стандартов голливуда. Т.е. не важно, о чем фильм. Главное, чтобы там были сильные и независимые, плоские и мускулистые тетки, чтобы не обижать всяких трансов, лгбтшники, черные/цветные/мексы/азиаты/даже бедные индейцы, какие-нибудь бомжи, ветераны войны и т.д. А сюжет? Ну. Как нибудь с горем пополам натянем. Теперь все это и до игр добралось. Главное не сюжет. Главное повесточка.

Мне плевать на Wow 11.0, если это не соло-ММО. Ждать в очереди своей возможности быть униженным - не та игра, в которую мы хотим играть.

zimitriy

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А я все думал, как скоро они смогут переплюнуть раклайт срамбл.
:')

Zangarmarsh

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Пи..ец у них там фляга свистит.. :facepalm:

Apotheosis

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Тот самый момент, когда из близзард ушли все талантливые люди, набрали геев, лесбиянок и феминисток, но никто не подумал что люди должны быть ещё и талантливые и все на что у этих людей теперь хватает ума это создать табличку в экселе которая будет создавать персонажей. О, господи. Надеюсь, майки смогут хоть что-то с близзард сделать или хотя бы закрыть их уже...
Sapere aude.

FluffyPaw

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Когда уже будем смотреть на митинги стройных рядов работников Близзард, с радужными повязками на руках, вскидывающих руку от сердца к радуге?

Жалко, что там уже срач начался в комментах и пошли корректировки. Могли бы просто предложить использовать эту программу для найма работников. А вводные данные да, транспортир, штангенциркуль и разного рода шаблоны, которым должно соответствовать лицо и тело.

Вот веселуха то была бы.
« Последнее редактирование: 14 Мая, 2022, 12:34:11 by FluffyPaw »

Lirsenise

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Тот самый момент, когда из близзард ушли все талантливые люди, набрали геев, лесбиянок и феминисток, но никто не подумал что люди должны быть ещё и талантливые и все на что у этих людей теперь хватает ума это создать табличку в экселе которая будет создавать персонажей. О, господи. Надеюсь, майки смогут хоть что-то с близзард сделать или хотя бы закрыть их уже...
Так-то это вообще разработка подразделения King

Гримфанданго

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как же заебали все эти новости, начиная с сирии и украины заканчивая разноцветными пидорасами. надо заставить себя просто играть и не читать новости

 

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