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Totoki: "We create infinite realities"; He wants to promote DEI, combat climate change; Sony's profit growth will be driven by PlayStation (margin of

Soodanim

Soodanim

Member
Woopah said:
This. We do DEI at our company and it's done some good, sensible stuff.

They don't say they'll hire based on race and gender though.

Because the human race is very diverse. If you want to attract/develop/retain the best talent, you need to cast a wide net).

Depends on how Sony does it. The right way is to do DEI and hire based on merit.
Click to expand...
I can understand the desire/need to be vague, but the problem with that is being vague doesn't change minds.

The problem with DEI is that it paints the picture that everyone excludes by default unless you fly the flag and that you can't just be, for lack of a better term, good.

The sad irony of it all is that it reduces people to immutable characteristics in order to focus on them in the fight against... focusing on immutable characteristics over treating people as people.

You could be a company that quietly supports refugees getting visas and happily flies people in from other continents if they will be good for the business because you aren't looking at people through that lens, but other companies have been retrained to be so shallow that you're asked how many minorities you employ like it makes the blindest bit of difference. How many gays or ethnics do you employ? Who the fuck cares, that's their business and companies shouldn't feel the need to ask their employees for that information. Where you stick your dick or where your mum's from is irrelevant. And if a company is asking that it's because they're judging. And if you don't have enough of X immutable characteristic you'd better get some more unless you want to be seen as turning them away.

When society overcorrects by pushing too far and forcing things it causes problems.

Of course Sony doesn't care about any of that, it's a means to an end and the end is more money. At least they aren't hiding it.
 
Loomy

Loomy

Thinks Microaggressions are Real
LordCBH said:
Oh fuck off you useless hack. Just make good games. Sony, get rid of this fuck.
Click to expand...
Keep in mind that he's the Senior Vice President, Director, Executive Deputy President, Chief Financial Officer, and Representative Corporate Executive Officer of Sony as a whole. Not just SIE or Playstation.

Sony is also a Japanese company with a mostly Japanese board and Japanese executives. They're looking to increase/broaden their global business. Him saying this likely means something very different than a western company saying it. If that matters to you.
 
Woopah

Woopah

Member
ap_puff said:
Here's the problem: people hate being lectured to and told that they're bad. The most ardent proponents of DEI all have the attitude that people who disagree with them are bad and aren't shy about screaming about it. And they aren't respectful about other cultures either, many of them are guilty of the white savior syndrome that they say they hate. It's also a huge distraction from the real problem of our current power structure, which is that the wealthy and powerful (read: top 0.1%) continually grab more and more of the wealth and power share away from the rest of the population, who see their earning and buying power eroded, their job security in question, and the future of their kids in doubt. The DEI stuff is great in theory but isn't nearly worth as much effort and attention as it's getting in the workplace.
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Agreed. If the purpose of your DEI programme is to tell people they are bad then you're doing it.

Dealing with some shitty behaviour can sometimes be part of that work, but it shouldn't be the goal.
 
E

Elbereth

Member
go away gtfo GIF
 
Woopah

Woopah

Member
Soodanim said:
I can understand the desire/need to be vague, but the problem with that is being vague doesn't change minds.

The problem with DEI is that it paints the picture that everyone excludes by default unless you fly the flag and that you can't just be, for lack of a better term, good.

The sad irony of it all is that it reduces people to immutable characteristics in order to focus on them in the fight against... focusing on immutable characteristics over treating people as people.

You could be a company that quietly supports refugees getting visas and happily flies people in from other continents if they will be good for the business because you aren't looking at people through that lens, but other companies have been retrained to be so shallow that you're asked how many minorities you employ like it makes the blindest bit of difference. How many gays or ethnics do you employ? Who the fuck cares, that's their business and companies shouldn't feel the need to ask their employees for that information. Where you stick your dick or where your mum's from is irrelevant. And if a company is asking that it's because they're judging. And if you don't have enough of X immutable characteristic you'd better get some more unless you want to be seen as turning them away.

When society overcorrects by pushing too far and forcing things it causes problems.

Of course Sony doesn't care about any of that, it's a means to an end and the end is more money. At least they aren't hiding it.
Click to expand...
It wasn't my intention to be vague, so I can give further details if you want (within reason).

Fully agree with the rest of what you said. We've been working to make sure our company is welcoming to LGBT people and they they can be themselves. But there's no measure or target of how many LGBT people work for us.
 
J

jason10mm

Gold Member
Woopah said:
No it's not. For example, I've been involved in a project to make our company more inclusive for people who have disabilities or long term illnesses. That doesn't mean we're going to give people jobs just because they have a long term illness.
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Thats compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and its been around for DECADES. If you are not in the US then its still not the DEI movement because the ADA faaaaaar predates it. Folks may call it 'DEI' but here in 'murica thats ADA and its LAW, not virtue signalling. DEI in a nutshell is about getting people hired into high paying jobs that don't have many people that look like that. But it's strangely quiet about applying the filter across ALL mediums.
 
Bitstream

Bitstream

Member
I understand everyones fear, and believe me I'm with you. This looks like the typical shareholder drivel that companies put out to appease investors.
I'm not asking you to forget about Concord, just asking you to remember the same company published Stellar Blade.
 
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Soodanim

Soodanim

Member
Woopah said:
It wasn't my intention to be vague, so I can give further details if you want (within reason).

Fully agree with the rest of what you said. We've been working to make sure our company is welcoming to LGBT people and they they can be themselves. But there's no measure or target of how many LGBT people work for us.
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If you can give an example or two without giving too much away I think people will benefit from the insight or at least it will add tithe discussion. Up to you though mate, not pushing for it
 
Warspite

Warspite

Member
Good idea on combating climate change, so I assume Sony will lead by example and move all their manufacturing out of China and build all their products in countries with C02 emission limits and absorb all those cost themselves? They can then explain to share holders why they are not getting any dividends for the next few years.
 
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Vick

Vick

Member
And this is why I'll always welcome Remasters and Remakes (faithful, super conservative ones like TLOU Part I or MGS Delta) of games made in free times by creative input only.

Every company is nothing more than a slave of investors.. and doesn't take much these days to know what those really want nor especially why. All we can do is vote with our wallet and support the Stellar Blades and AstroBot of the industry while pushing back on the rest.

It sucks so incredibly bad we achieved such amazing visuals and machines to run them right at this point of gaming.. but eh, it is what it is.

Warspite said:
Good idea on combating climate change, so I assume Sony will lead by example and move all their manufacturing out of China and build all their products in countries with C02 emission limits and absorb all those cost themselves? They can then explain to share holders why they are not getting any divides for the next few years.
Click to expand...
It's all talk.. they're just being good boys in front of their rulers.

CO2 percentage in the atmosphere is 0.04%, if it goes under 0.02% Earth's vegetation dies.
 
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Woopah

Woopah

Member
jason10mm said:
Thats compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and its been around for DECADES. If you are not in the US then its still not the DEI movement because the ADA faaaaaar predates it. Folks may call it 'DEI' but here in 'murica thats ADA and its LAW, not virtue signalling. DEI in a nutshell is about getting people hired into high paying jobs that don't have many people that look like that. But it's strangely quiet about applying the filter across ALL mediums.
Click to expand...
It's not about the US law. Our accessibility programmes are in all regions and are about doing more than what we are required to by law. We want to go beyond that.

Likewise it's not just about high paying jobs. We have a DEI projects on increasing gender diversity in our factory workforce as well.
 
Angry_Megalodon

Angry_Megalodon

Member
Woopah said:
Right. So you don't hire based on things like race and gender. I agree that would be a bad way to do DEI.
Click to expand...

You mentioned in other posts people with disabilities. IMO that is outside what we broadly know as DEI. For example, in my country laws force companies to hire some people who suffer from mental or physical incapacity. I support this 100% because modern societies can't be like ancient Sparta and unlucky people shouldn't be left behind.

However, the liberal concept of DEI is based on personal circumstances that aren't an objective obstacle to getting a job. Unlike the previous case, this is actual segregation.


mckmas8808 said:
This is a lie and not true at all. It just depends on what your talent pool looks like.
Click to expand...


Talent/skills is blind to whatever other circumstances: family status, beliefs, gender, etc. The only case in which diversity might be correctly applied is that everybody has the same skills to do the job. Then, you apply the next filter. What I mean is that hiring by merits comes always first or else it's not hiring by merit. It's something completely different.
 
Woopah

Woopah

Member
Soodanim said:
If you can give an example or two without giving too much away I think people will benefit from the insight or at least it will add tithe discussion. Up to you though mate, not pushing for it
Click to expand...
So to give one example, we found we had cultural issue where some women in our company were seeing a negative career impact from having children.

We had instances of people not being considered for roles because they had just had a child. Or even having career development opportunities withdrawn after the hiring manager found out they were pregnant. People were scared of telling their boss they were going to start a family.

Part of the fix for this was on policy (increasing paternity leave to match maternity leave, which benefits men too of course). And the other part was cultural change and making sure that, if you were hiring, you didn't discount a qualified candidate just because they were having a baby.

Now we have instances of women getting new roles in the middle of their maternity leave, which wouldn't have happened a few years ago.
 
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ProtoByte

ProtoByte

Weeb Underling
So funny to watch people be dispelled of the notion that all of this comes exclusively from the west. Japan has its fair share of this stuff, just not so much with ethnic visibility.

No, I don't support this stated DEI, to be clear. I think it's counterproductive.

DeepEnigma said:
They literally cleaned some of Bungie's house due to that DEI shit that led them to be a money burning inefficient operation.

Then the Concord bomb, UbiSoft bombs, either this is all talk on the global stage, or they haven't woken up yet.
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SlimySnake said:
Learned nothing from ubisoft i see.
Click to expand...
Go_Ly_Dow said:
*Checks how Ubisoft is doing*

Yeah, good luck with that. I wish you all the best... :messenger_tears_of_joy:
Click to expand...
There's nothing to learn from Ubisoft other than "don't make an endless factory of increasingly buggy open world games with PS3-level mechanics and design, certainly not of the worn license variety".

LordCBH said:
I hope their DEI initiatives cause them to lose record amounts of money. People have been clear for a while now: nobody wants it.

I will enjoy seeing this idiot being shown the door when he loses them even more billions.
Click to expand...
SJRB said:
Try creating a reality where DEI doesn’t tank your business.

Good luck, buddy.
Click to expand...
Concord was especially bad example. But let's be real for a second:

Miles Morales is DEI personified. His game sold 13-15 million units.

If Horizon Zero Dawn came out today, there would be people to call it woke (it isn't, obviously, but it does star a woman). It sold 19 million units.

Ellie was confirmed lesbian most of a decade before TLOU2 released, post leaks. It still sold 10 million copies. Below expectations, perhaps. But most AAA games don't get there.

Concord was just so bad, so neck-deep in the most offensive aesthetics of DEI, and so unappealing in a worn genre from a no name studio that it was never going to work.

SlimySnake said:
I watched some random youtube video on why these companies are going all in on DEI and while it might all be bullshit, it seems the biggest investors in these companies decide to invest based on ESG scores and DEI initiatives.

Again, might just be conspiracy theorist youtube bullshit, but it made sense. it's not that the corporations are woke, it's all about the money.
Click to expand...
Yeah, this isn't news. And it goes beyond this as well.
 
Pejo

Pejo

Member
I've only read the first page of this thread so far, but I'm willing to bet that that because this is 💕💕Sony💕💕 (their favorite plastic box) we're talking about, several people in this thread will have shown up by now to defend blanket DEI and tell us how it's actually a good thing for gaming.

Frankly I'm over shit like this, won't be buying another Sony product of any sort for the foreseeable future. I can't control what they do for their internal policies, but I can control how I react to it.
 
N

nial

Member
Pejo said:
Frankly I'm over shit like this, won't be buying another Sony product of any sort for the foreseeable future.
Click to expand...
That includes anything Aniplex is involved in?
Servant collecting in FGO is over.
 
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Woopah

Woopah

Member
Angry_Megalodon said:
You mentioned in other posts people with disabilities. IMO that is outside what we broadly know as DEI. For example, in my country laws force companies to hire some people who suffer from mental or physical incapacity. I support this 100% because modern societies can't be like ancient Sparta and unlucky people shouldn't be left behind.

However, the liberal concept of DEI is based on personal circumstances that aren't an objective obstacle to getting a job. Unlike the previous case, this is actual segregation.
Click to expand...
At least in a corporate sense, accessibility can be part of DEI. Making sure our company is inclusive for people who are colour blind or neurodivergent is as important as making sure we are inclusive for people who are gay or from an ethnic minority.
 
E

EN250

Member
Been months since I logged in the forum, mostly to avoid getting banned back when the MS-Activision deal was going on because I'm a pony 🤷‍♂️

This news is F#cking wild, like they're totally oblivious to the devs and pubs going down in flames thanks to DEI and politics (Californian politics mostly, F#ck You ROTW, you're not diverse enough 🤣)

It's over, seems like I'll have to witness Playstation going down in flames as well 🤦‍♂️

Me in a third world country trying to enjoy gaming like I used to, when I read this news:

giphy.gif
 
SJRB

SJRB

Gold Member
ProtoByte said:
Concord was especially bad example. But let's be real for a second:

Miles Morales is DEI personified. His game sold 13-15 million units.

If Horizon Zero Dawn came out today, there would be people to call it woke (it isn't, obviously, but it does star a woman). It sold 19 million units.
Click to expand...

Don't get it twisted, Spiderman didn't sell 15 million units because of DEI. People just tolerated that because it was only a small portion of a bigger part.

But as has been proven time and time again: the more you focus on DEI the less quality your game will be and the more resented your consumers will be. There is a clear tipping point in agenda/politics-driven development and the hundreds of millions of losses are piling up.

If any, Totoki saying he wants to focus on DEI literally three weeks after Sony took a 400 million dollar loss on a DEI driven piece of dogshit game should be massive cause for concern at the Sony HQ.
 
Rat Rage

Rat Rage

Member
I swear, creating important-looking, but ultimately meaningless information charts has to be a secret power of some of these snake-oil CEO's.
It's probably something they've learned and mastered in con-artist-school.
 
J

jason10mm

Gold Member
Woopah said:
Likewise it's not just about high paying jobs. We have a DEI projects on increasing gender diversity in our factory workforce as well.
Click to expand...
See, I would then ask what anti-women policies did you have in place preventing women from being hired in your factories. Since you can pay them 80% of what you pay a man it's just financial suicide to NOT have an all women labor force!

I would also wonder WHY you specifically want more women in your factories. What skills do they alone possess or what attributes do they alone bring? Small enough to fit inside a tight machine? Light enough to stand atop a flimsy scaffold? Less squeamish about doing something unethical or unpleasant?

I'm being semi-facescious to illustrate how odd it is, objectively, to just say "more women in our factory labor force, yay!" as a goal in and of itself.
 
B

BattleScar

Member
TintoConCasera said:
Why? Why the need to have people from different backgrounds? I'd say talent and passion are much more important than race and background, specially when it comes to software development.
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Because people with different backgrounds bring their different life experiences, which believe it or not, is usually a net positive.
If DEI wasn't a thing in Software, you wouldn't have random tech prodigies who have no formal education getting into top jobs because of their experience. Software development isn't like medicine or engineering where formal training is necessary.
Software development requires problem solving, life experience funnily enough contributes fairly effectively to one's ability to solve problems.
Different life experience = different problem solving skills.
 
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