What is a "Woke" Game

[JackHandy]

sundin13 said:

JackHandy said:

As an artist, my goal is to create my story, my vision. Whether people buy it or not, that is for the suits to figure out. Of course, I am not owned by a publisher etc, but then again, I never would allow myself to be owned by one. If I want to tell a story about a straight white male, I will. If I want to tell a story about a black lesbian, I will. But what I won't do is create worlds with some sort of diversity checklist in mind. Doing that is the antithesis or art, imo. I refuse.

As to your last point, I completely disagree. Why? Because you can not choose one without also inherently excluding the other, and isn't that how we got in this mess to begin with? Excluding groups because of their identity?

Again, merit is the only ethical way to choose the right person. Anything else is wrong and exclusionary.  

As for your point about exclusion, I don't think that makes any sense. I am arguing in favor of diversity, which means we aren't excluding straight white men, we are just including more groups in the room. If you think hiring a black person to help reflect the black culture that a game is attempting to portray is comparable to segregation, I don't think I can help you...

I think you're missing my point.

If you have two applicants, one straight white male and one black lesbian, and the black lesbian is less qualified for the job, but you hire her over the straight white male simply because you want a more diverse work environment, you are committing two sins.

One, you are intentionally hiring lesser talent, thus lowering the level of output for your company and guaranteeing a subpar product.  

And two, you are hiring based on someone's identity... which is exactly the same as hiring someone simply because they are white. You can not hire based on identity and not have it be exclusionary. If you hire a black person because they are black, you are not hiring a white person because they are white. If you hire a white person because they are white, you are not hiring a black person because they are black. One comes with the other. There is no way around it.

Do you understand, now?

The only fair way to hire people is to do it based on qualifications and merit.