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[Morrigi]

@OP:
1. No, that's just silly.
2. In what insane world would people be obliged to spend money on games that they don't want to play?
3. Throwing stuff into a game for no other reason than the fact that a small minority of the target audience is loudly demanding it, with no background or relevance to anything in particular, is simply bad game design (in my opinion). And considering the main target audiences of Nintendo and Blizzard, there's no real reason for them to write more "culturally enriching" or "diverse" storylines, when the ones they've already got are working just fine.

Let us all remember that the entities creating these games are corporations, and corporations work for their bottom line. Political correctness is not a market that corporations like Blizzard or Nintendo seem to give a damn about, and I really can't blame them. Regarding their profits, appealing to the PC crowd is just as likely, if not more so, to drive away paying customers to other games than bring in new people.

[Bauglir]

Depends on perspective, I suppose. In terms of what a corporation's job is, absolutely, these are all non-questions. In just about any other sense of what should be, though...

[Morrigi]

Depends on perspective, I suppose. In terms of what a corporation's job is, absolutely, these are all non-questions. In just about any other sense of what should be, though...

Why should corporations have moral obligations to promote diversity? "Diversity" is no utopia, and even so, in the free world, there's no real way to force it on the population without violating all kinds of basic rights. In fact, it would probably lead to widespread boycotts.

[GavJ]

In just about any other sense of what should be, though...

Actually I would argue that it is in fairly few senses of what "should be" that there would be any sort of obligation to diversity.

Running through the various classic ethical theories in my head from my philosophy days, not very many of them are applying one way or the other to this issue...

For example, a Kantian approach would have ourselves asking "Should it be a universal law that all peoples should be obligated to include representations of diversity in media?" The answer clearly to me seems "No." Also "No" to being obligated to NOT show diversity, of course.  The current status quo of individual choice seems much less noxious than either of those.

[Bauglir]

The current status quo of individual choice seems much less noxious than either of those.

Does that mean we can have no opinion about the merits of those choices?

[Morrigi]

In just about any other sense of what should be, though...

Actually I would argue that it is in fairly few senses of what "should be" that there would be any sort of obligation to diversity.

Running through the various classic ethical theories in my head from my philosophy days, not very many of them are applying one way or the other to this issue...

For example, a Kantian approach would have ourselves asking "Should it be a universal law that all peoples should be obligated to include representations of diversity in media?" The answer clearly to me seems "No." Also "No" to being obligated to NOT show diversity, of course.  The current status quo of individual choice seems much less noxious than either of those.

I definitely agree. Control of the media to such a blinding and overarching degree tends to end badly.

[Bauglir]

I agree. It's not what I'm arguing in favor of.

EDIT: It's also not what I think anybody in the thread is actually arguing for, either.

[GavJ]

Does that mean we can have no opinion about the merits of those choices?

The Kantian perspective (or almost any other moral system) is supposed to BE a method of forming accurate opinions about morality. So, although most theories wouldn't state it as morally "wrong" merely to have an opinion in general, certain opinions would still be consistent with the moral theory and others wouldn't.

In other words, the opinion wouldn't be "wrong" as in morally abhorrent to have it. It might be "wrong" as in not correct, though. (The whole point of any moral code is to take logically indistinct and unclear issues like "should" and "must" and turn them into something resembling facts that can be evaluated accurately)

[Neonivek]

For the record, I don't think anyone is saying "Do nothing." I think the message is "Keep doing what you been doing, because it seems to be working."

Essentially that is what it is.

[Bauglir]

Does that mean we can have no opinion about the merits of those choices?

The Kantian perspective (or almost any other moral system) is supposed to BE a method of forming accurate opinions about morality. So, although most theories wouldn't state it as morally "wrong" merely to have an opinion in general, certain opinions would still be consistent with the moral theory and others wouldn't.

In other words, the opinion wouldn't be "wrong" as in morally abhorrent to have it. It might be "wrong" as in not correct, though. (The whole point of any moral code is to take logically indistinct and unclear issues like "should" and "must" and turn them into something resembling facts that can be evaluated accurately)

So I'm confused. Are you telling me that I cannot at once believe both of the following in this context:

A) More important than the particulars of most possible decisions is that a choice is allowed between them
B) Many of those decisions are better choices than others

Because that is what I'm asserting.

[alexandertnt]

"Should it be a universal law that all peoples should be obligated to include representations of diversity in media?"

We could also use Utilitarian ethics. "Does including diversity in media lead to a net positive happyness?". It would in my opinion.

[GavJ]

"Does including diversity in media lead to a net positive happyness?"

That seems impossible to answer without actual data. It might be that having one game here or there is good enough to make people feel happy and represented, and that the majority wouldn't mind playing as somebody else now and then.
OR
 I could easily imagine it being the reverse. Minorities at best would still only ever get occasional games they identify with the characters in, just statistically, and don't get that much more utility, and the majority players lose utility on every game by being unable to identify with all the minority  main characters.

So I'm confused. Are you telling me that I cannot at once believe both of the following in this context:

A) More important than the particulars of most possible decisions is that a choice is allowed between them
B) Many of those decisions are better choices than others

Because that is what I'm asserting.

1) Those two are definitely not mutually exclusive logically. It is possible to believe both, sure.

2) That said, I don't think (A) is consistent with most traditional moral systems. Traditionally, the priority would usually be more like "figure out the best thing and then make all the folks do that thing because it's best."  Unless it's just something so inconsequential that it isn't part of the moral system at all. Which is also pretty possible when talking about video games... but if so, neither (A) nor (B) would really be specifically endorsed. More like just an unregulated free for all due to the minor importance. For instance, the Old Testament doesn't say anything about whether or not you should step on cracks in the sidewalk. But that shouldn't really be construed to be an active respect for your "right" to step on cracks or not, nor is it a position on one choice being more correct.

3) (B) as stated would be consistent with every moral system ever that had anything specific to say about a choice, because this is the purpose of moral systems. But of course, it's also useless as written. You have to actually say WHICH choices are better for it to mean anything, and once you start filling in those blanks, moral systems will either agree or disagree with you.

[Bauglir]

It doesn't seem strange to me to place a moral value on the ability to make a choice - indeed, that's exactly what people advocating creative freedom as an objection to diversity in gaming are doing. That's all I'm doing with A. Saying, "Yes, creative freedom is a valuable good, and no possible system can be implemented to force diversity into the marketplace without causing undue harm to it." B is then going on to say, "That being the case, there are still some creative acts that I'm free to object to on their own merits, even though you have the right to take them."

That you have a right to do something does not excuse you from all possible criticism, and that's what this comes down to - people criticizing a group and being told that they have no right to make that criticism, because the group in question is only motivated by profit, or creative expression, or whatever, and the criticism has nothing to do with that.

Some quotes from earlier in the thread about exactly what I'm pushing for:

... The point is that [we] want diverse characters, but with only as much emphasis within the work on their diversity as the standard white alpha male protagonist gets on their own qualities. That already varies from game to game, and so it should with a wider range of characters too.

Games have as much obligation to do any of this stuff, when relevant, as they do to, for instance, have balanced mechanics.

I would posit that nobody, and nothing, can meet every possible obligation it has, and trying to do so is a recipe for failure. So I'm not saying "X fails to check Y box, it should never have been published!" So, yeah, I think our difference of opinion has more to do with what "obligation" means than with anything to do with the actual issue at hand...

Only quoting myself because I only want to speak for myself, but there are tons of quotes from the rest of the pro-diversity crowd specifically refuting the whole rainbow dystopia thing.

[GavJ]

Yeah I understand the position. It's a very modern one that I don't think is much in line with most traditional moral systems.

I probably agree with you. I'm just reacting to the claim awhile back that "in just about any sense of what should be, [diversity should be prized]"

[alexandertnt]

That seems impossible to answer without actual data. It might be that having one game here or there is good enough to make people feel happy and represented, and that the majority wouldn't mind playing as somebody else now and then.

Your right, that would be quite hard to prove, but its still plausable. My experience with ethical debates is people chose the school of thought that best suits their theory (with often valid reasoning), and then throws (often valid) critism at the other school of thought (Kantianism's reliance on assumptions about human nature, utilitarianism's difficult-to-measure reliance on utility etc) until everyone comes to the conclusion that their ideas may or may not work. It becomes harder in general to work with statements like "More people should include diversity" (as opposed to "all people should include diversity"), which is difficult to quantify in the first place.

Most of this comes from my opinion that these ethical frameworks often end up resulting in people attempting to overly-simplify the issue, applying some axiom derived from one of the frameworks to everything regardless of the situation or outcome. That doesn't mean they are useless, just not the be-all-and-end-all. I probably just should have stated all this in my original post.

Ugh, I hate ethics