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More below the fold:
So.
On May 7, Rob Pardo, the Chief Creative Officer at Blizzard Entertainment, gave a talk for the MIT Media Lab as part of their "Conversations" series.
As I was posting some bullshit last week about the upcoming modifiable character accessories in World of Warcraft, a columnist and researcher at MIT Media Lab named Tom Harper posted this column in response.
Go ahead and watch the video and read the article. I'm going to fair-use blockquote a chunk of Tom Harper's column here dealing with questions that he asked Pardo after the talk:
After his talk, I asked Pardo to talk about how Blizzard's values — "epic entertainment experiences," emphasizing the Blizzard brand, focus on gameplay and de-emphasizing narrative — and the company's perception of their audience might impact how they portray socially progressive content.
His answer was disappointing. "I wouldn't say that's really a value for us. It's not something that we're against either, but it's just not something that's ... something we're trying to actively do."
His subsequent list of justifications, reasons and examples became increasingly problematic. Pardo argued that Blizzard works primarily in sci-fi and fantasy because they're "kids at heart," reinforcing the idea that games — specifically Blizzard games — are not a place for "real world issues" to be discussed:
"We're not trying to bring in serious stuff, or socially relevant stuff, or actively trying to preach for diversity or do things like that," he said. His example of a place where Blizzard struggles is portrayal of women.
"Pardo reinforced the idea that games — specifically Blizzard games — are not a place for "real world issues" to be discussed"
Pardo notes that "because most of our developers are guys who grew up reading comics books," Blizzard games often present women characters as a sexualized comic book ideal that "is offensive to, I think, some women."
Yeah.
Tom Harper goed on to say that we shouldn't lay the blame solely on Pardo's shoulders, that this is how the industry is.
By setting up a false choice between "fun" and "social responsibility", between "gameplay" and "representation", what the industry is telling us is that we don't belong. We aren't welcome.
And as Matt Rossi points out in his column at WoW Insider,
it's not like representation and inclusiveness affect gameplay. It would be childishly easy for Blizzard to include instead of exclude, to have diversity instead of comic-book sexualization and insulting stereotypes.
But they don't. Ten years into this game and they don't, when it would be childishly simple to and make them money to boot.
I hesitate to speculate as to why. At some point, however, I have to start wondering if these professional game designers still can't figure out how to not make the next expansion Dudebros of Warcraft... or if they just don't want to.
And when they portray putting the minimal effort required into inclusiveness as "we don't want to get into politics"..well, they have. By not putting the minimal effort in, by setting up inclusiveness and enjoyable gameplay as a false choice, they explicitly do get into the politics of equal rights and equal opportunity - and they do so on the side of the dudebro, the "not all men", the "homophobic slurs are just part of gaming culture", the "rape jokes are funny", the "tits or gtfo" side.
The wrong side.
It's easy for me to say "stand and fight". I don't have to deal with this shit in my everyday life like you do. I don't have to turn on the computer looking for escape, only to find the people that write and create my escapist fantasy world bring the very same bullshit there and call it "just having fun".
But, well, you all are my tribe. And if you're not welcome, then I am not welcome.
With that, here's the Flexorama and Team Kaels report from Ninotchka:
The flexorama team continued their domination of the tyrant of Orgrimmar this week, downing him in one shot with (I think) one total death. We had 23 people, and guess how many heirlooms dropped? Yeah, a big fat zero. Disappointing. We’re killing him again next week, where I will probably once again have a no-heirlooms night. Stupid RNG.
Team Kaels took last Friday night off, too many people developed other plans that did not involve being online. We returned to raiding on Tuesday and made quick work of the first 3 bosses, then stalled trying to repeat our kill last week of the Sha of Pride. It was quite frustrating, and I ended the night feeling quite terrible about myself, especially once I realized that I had spent the whole night in the wrong seal and had been giving the healers a terrible time trying to keep me alive. So, we returned on Wednesday night rested and ready and we were able to stomp on the Sha quite handily. Galakras gave us no problems that I care to mention, which left us with a little time on the night to work on the Iron Juggernaut fight. We had read that some people 4-heal this fight because the damage going out is just insane. So Tay dusted off his priest (who is quite decently geared) and away we went. Tay switched to his mage last expansion, but when I first met him he was a dedicated healer. And my earliest memories of raiding and of learning a new fight are of Tay saying, in plaintive tones, “How are we supposed to heal that? It is LITERALLY impossible to heal that fight.” (profanity redacted) So last night, after our first wipe and run back, I heard those words again and it made me smile.
There are two ways to clear the Iron Juggernaut fight – uberhealer mode and wussy mode. We tried uberhealer mode last night, staying relatively close by during the Siege phase. We still died.
Next time through we’ll try the ‘run awaaaaaaay!’ mode and see if it’s any easier/more viable for our particular group. The boss’ giant hurty damaging ability has a 60 yard range – if you stay 60 yards away during Siege he doesn’t hit you. Of course you have to put up insane damage numbers during normal phases to make up for doing 0 damage to the boss in Siege phase, but hey, we’ve got some insane dps. Or at least, profoundly disturbed dps. But we also have some profoundly amazing healers, and on last night’s last pull they were saying that they might be able to get us through the siege mode without everyone having to run away.
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I don't have a Team RP report - Pamena says she covered it last week. I don't have a Team Z report either, but I can report that they downed Siegemaster Blackfuse while I selflessly and heroically tanked the floor for them.
And that's pretty much it for me this week. For the Horde!