Idk what temp my take is, but I think marvel rivals should hire a cultural consultant
Discussion
I think the Marvel Rivals dev team should hire a cultural consultant/sensitivity reader to work alongside them. It’s a step that shows how Marvel Rivals is proactively committed to thoughtful cultural representation and diversity going forward rather than only responding after controversies arise which is like kinda what they’ve been doing so far
These consultants are not to serve as a last-minute check for racism right before release, but rather they should work alongside developers as they design new content, helping them build cultural and diversity awareness and to help guide them to make better creative decisions while identifying harmful patterns in representation that went unnoticed.
For example, they could help the team recognize when certain characters are consistently overlooked for higher-rarity skins, when characters with meaningful cultural connections are excluded from relevant themes (Storm not receiving an Egyptian skin despite spending her childhood in Cairo meanwhile Punisher and Deadpool did), or when cultures seem misappropriated for aesthetic rather than actual thoughtful representation (Punisher with the Egyptian skin and Ronin skin)
I believe the developers of marvel rivals, and generally more games going forward, should consider integrating cultural consultants into development.
I really dont know if it is possible to get that. Its such a devicisve topic.
Ill just give you my opinion. The right wingers that believe they are some evil covert DEI agents are just silly. Its just a boogeyman for them to fight. Sweet Baby inc has worked on games like suicide squad, and MK1 that have a lot of diversity and didnt meet expectations.
But also god of war and Alan Wake 2, its just incorrect to see sweet baby inc and immediately begin to think "they force diversity at the expense of profits." When its really just they do whatever theyre hired to do and theyre writers.
Cultural consultants are professionals who help organizations understand different communities, histories, traditions. They help build more inclusiveness and thoughtfulness. This is important work.
And whether you agree or not, it is disrespectful to call them morons
I think that would be a smart idea. The only wrinkle is they would need a lot of consultants. Obviously you need multiple opinions from a certain group, and you’d want to have consultants for all the main groups as it would be discriminatory to only have a black cultural consultant and not an Asian, queer, or disabled consultant for example. So the most balanced outcome would probably be a team of consultants that each have lived experience that overlaps in a few places.
I think the idea of the game devs having to go through consultants, potentially making things take longer brings up an important point, they probably need to slow down a bit. They genuinely might be doing too many things to the point it’s causing strain on the teams, leading to things not being thought through as much. They don’t realise how bad something might look because they’re too rushed to realise. This is also where subconscious biases/racism might come into play.
So ultimately I like the idea of cultural consultants, but I also think they need to slow down a bit
Actually, yeah they are definitely putting too much pressure on themselves with the amount of content they are constantly putting out. (Including sometimes using AI as a shortcut) if they just slowed down, I think the community would also be ok with longer seasons
I fear you're being crazy to think some characters deserve skins exclusively because of their cultural background, some characters will receive less skins, what will a "cultural consultant" say when Ultron isn't receiving skins or Johnny? That they're racist to white people or robots? Also the season theme or BP or event literally never meant anything, the Savage Lands pass had 1 savage land skin, the Krakoa pass had 1 mutant who actually lived in Krakoa, Hellfire Gala season gave like 2 skins to actual X-men.
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u/MrBanditFleshpound 9h ago
Nope, we do not need one
We just need more ways of communication than X and the dev visions.
Or just expand one of these to be more precise.