LogInThe company introduced a "Diversity Space Tool" designed to help developers ensure that there are no underrepresented characters in a game. The tool was soon widely criticized as its approach to the development of diversity looks too cynical and dehumanizing.
Recently, Activision Blizzard released a blog post introducing a "Diversity Space Tool" made by King, the mobile arm of the company best known as the Candy Crush developer, in collaboration with MIT Game Lab.
According to the description, the new tool is designed to help developers evaluate the characteristics of characters and identify how diverse a set of character designs is to avoid unconscious biases and ensure that there are no underrepresented characters in a game.
The company said that the system has already been tested by the creators of Call of Duty: Vanguard and the developers of Overwatch 2. It was also reported that the company plans to introduce the tool to other Activision Blizzard studios and offer it to all representatives of the gaming industry.
While the idea generally seems like a noble thing, its implementation is quite questionable as the tool measures how different the characters are in terms of character traits, skills, race, appearance, age, and sexual and gender identities by assigning special "ranking" numbers.
Along with the announcement, the company released some screenshots of the software, where an analysis of Ana from Overwatch is given as an example. The screenshots show that the "normal" value is 0, while the remaining numbers show the degree of deviation from the "normal". Ana, for instance, received "zeros" for socioeconomic background, cognitive abilities, sexual orientation, and body type, while the fact that she is a one-eyed Egyptian Arab and her age (60 years old) gave her some additional points.
The Diversity Space Tool was then massively criticized – according to users of Reddit, Twitter, and other websites, this approach to the development of diversity is too cynical. Players began to ask questions about how Activision Blizzard evaluates races, cultures, and other character traits and why one race, for example, is more valuable than another.
Following widespread criticism, Activision Blizzard apologized to players who may have been offended by an article about the Diversity Space Tool. The publisher said that the tool is still being tested and is not used in game development. The Diversity Space Tool, the company clarified, is also not seen as a replacement for diversity and inclusion development consultants.
As a result, the publisher edited the blog post about their tool and removed the screenshots taken in the program, as well as mentions of its testing by the developers of Call of Duty: Vanguard and Overwatch 2.
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