Developers at Activision Blizzard King have created a tool to quantify how diverse game characters are based on several attributes, in hopes of better representing women and minority groups in its games.
As reported by Fanbyte, the tool breaks down character attributes and rates them on how diverse they are.
In a blog post, Eric Alt explains that King’s intention is to “inspire game teams…throughout the Activision Blizzard King network, to think outside the box and challenge preconceived notions around how characters should look and act.”
The end result, King hopes, is for characters to “better represent women, non-binaries and other under-represented minorities in the industry.”
The tool uses a set of character traits, including culture, race, age, cognitive ability, physical ability, body type, facial features/beauty, gender identity, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic background, to determine how diverse the character is.
Once it establishes a baseline for typical character traits, which is set by the creative team working in consultation with diversity and inclusion experts, the tool can then weigh new character designs against it to measure their diversity.
