#fanbyte

Check it out, and let me know what you think. =)

Actvision Blizzard decides to "improve" diversity in their games by quantifying things like ethnicity, culture and sexual orientation.

Just another, sadly unsurprising step in Blizzard's long, long journey of promising a more diverse respesentation followed by more sexism and tokenism every time.

If you don't see what's wrong with that picture, please stop to ask youself how you'd represent something like ethnicity or gender on a numeric scale. And what would 0 on that scale be.

Thankfully, most of the fandom and media seems to react to this idea with well-deserved bewilderment and mockery (like comparisons to phrenology, a racist pseudoscience). Also with obligatory mentions of how this does the opposite of improving the company's image in the light of their bigoted, toxic work culture and corrupt business practices.

Moreover, despite now edited-out claims in the official announcement about the diversity tool, Overwatch 2 developers deny using it or even knowing about it prior to the media buzz.

If we could put a number on how out of touch this is, ActiBlizz PR would score off their little dystopian charts!

But hey, it's not like we've been pointing out for years that Blizz seems to do diversity by begrudgingly ticking off boxes on a list of superficial character features (and only after ticking some boxes multiple times), right?

~Ozzie

Media reporting on the matter:

Activision Inexplicably Introduces Tool to Rate Character Diversity Metrics - FanByte

Activision Blizzard Discusses Tool to Calculate Diversity in Video Game Characters, May Also Be Investing in Lab Coats - The Mary Sue

Activision Blizzard's New Diversity Game Tool Comes Across Terribly & Activision Blizzard’s Diversity Tool Has A Long, Even More Embarrassing History - Kotaku

‘Overwatch 2’ staff say they never used Activision Blizzard’s diversity tool - NME

Activision's "Diversity Tool" Is F*cking Awful - The Jimquisition (video)

Some more updates on other promotions cancelling in light of the state of emergency, as well as an update about another form of wrestling in Japan:

The biggest news is that advance ticket sales for the May sumo basho, due to start on 5/9/2021 running until 5/23/2021, have been halted. This basho, like every other one since lockdown started last year, will be at Tokyo Ryogoku Kokugikan. The Sumo Association has held several bashos as empty-arena, and they will likely do that in this case, at least untl the current state of emergency ends on 5/15/2021. As I keep reiterating, this could get extended. If nothing else, this might stop creepy sumo fans posting about a certain fan in the audience. And if you don’t know whom or what I am referring to, you’re better off. 

GAEAISM, a revival of the mid-1990s joshi promotion GAEA Japan by Chigusa Nagayo, has postponed its show on this Thursday 4/29/2021 at Tokyo Ota Ward Gymnasium. No word as to any rescheduling or ticket refund information on that as yet.

Pro Wrestling ZERO-1 has cancelled its show on 5/8/2021 in Kumamoto, which has declared its own state of emergency outside of the government’s. ZERO-1 is heading for its own tournament, the Fire Festival, and there may be some disruption to it as well. Between them, AJPW and BJW, not a good year to run a tournament so far it would seem.

More news when I get it.

Meanwhile, I’ve now debuted as a pro writer about pro wrestling. FanFyte has an article written by me ostensibly about Keiji Muto’s extraordinary 2001, and how it compares to his 2021 so far. It’s a topic I’ve thought a lot about over the years (I was trying to do this initially as a comic strip for a long time and never got it off the ground), and to be a new, PAID writer about wrestling, talking about my favorite year of my favorite wrestler of all time was something special, after having written about puroresu on the interwebz off and on since 1998 for free. My thanks to Colette Arrand of FanFyte for giving me the opportunity, and I’m hoping to do more for them. 

In addition, it’s been fun writing about puroresu other than New Japan for once. Sure, this blog is ostensibly a NJPW blog (and trust me, the article talks a fair bit about historical NJPW!), but it isn’t all I watch, especially since 2021 has rolled around, and I’ve been trying to see more again besides NJPW and AEW. NOAH and Dragon Gate have been part of my viewing habits lately, for example. After 5+ years of concentrating on NJPW, maybe I’m just eager to branch out a bit. 

Topics include the expansion of the free trial, politics and social topics in FFXIV and how they relate to the real world, how character popularity does NOT impact their determined fates, how main characters with sidequests don’t have plot armor, Yoshida’s thoughts on WoW making gender swaps free and the FFXIV take for that, and finally about the 5.3 scenario and dungeon, “The Hero’s Gauntlet”:

“You have the player as the Warrior of Darkness, who saved the realm of The First. And so now, the people of The First come together to help,” Yoshida shares. “It’s going to feel like a lot of things that the player was involved in throughout the story connect in this content. Of course, it’s an instance dungeon, but as you fight through this dungeon, you’ll see. The scenario is going to get really exciting as well. So perhaps it might be nice to take your trust NPCs to go in there and enjoy the story.”

Before MMOs, There Were Muds