Waypoint Podcast: Manveer Heir (Ex-BW Montreal) Talk EA Woes, Andromeda, Race, and Sexism

Yeah I can't imagine I'd agree with Manveer on colonialism considering his views but the game did pretty much ignore the subject entirely and the plot most certainly did suffer for it. IDK if what I would want to see is what Manveer would want but shying away from exploring subjects like that too much when that is basically what the entire game is about is an incredibly bad decision.

It's hard to talk about the colonialism aspect because we have no idea what that early version of the story looked like. We know that Christopher Sclerf left mid-production and that Gerard Lehiany was basically fired, both of whom were responsible for crafting the early narrative of the game. I'm guessing that whole part of the story was wiped away when Mac Walters finally took over. But, one of the many things that hurts Andromeda's overall narrative, which I will be discussing in my video once I'm done editing it, is how boring and safe everything is. There is no real ethical or moral conflicts at play in Andromeda. We just have a big bad enemy to fight and no interesting philosophical, moral, or ethical concepts to explore or debate with unlike the original trilogy. The entire Krogan plotline from Mass Effect 1 to the end is a direct exploration of many topics including colonialism. And, it's what made those games so much more interesting. A galaxy where everyone just kind of gets along and fights a big bad enemy isn't exactly compelling.

Though back to the main "white dude" point, I think he was mainly pointing out how the lack of diversity in games development leads to homogenized games or large blind spots. You don't know, what you don know. So, a white dude is probably going to be totally oblivious to certain racial aspects that someone who is a minority might pick up on. I think BioShock Infinite is a good example, I love me my Ken Levine but I think most agree that Infinite's attempt to tackle race and racism is just really poor and laughable. And, it's precisely because Ken doesn't really have much experience in that area as opposed to Ayn Randian socioeconomic philosophy and the plight of post-WWII Jews which is something he does have personal experience with. Had Irrational had some more diverse individuals helping write that game I doubt it's tackling of those issues would have been so bare bones and thin. Diversity in games development means more view points which typically leads to better games, less diversity means the same viewpoints being regurgitated over and over. 

Lastly, I'm glad they never did Mass Effect: Contact. Moving to Andromeda was the right call, they just bungled it completely. 

What the actual hell? So creators are only allowed to write about things they or rather their ancestors experienced?

What the actual hell? So creators are only allowed to write about things they or rather their ancestors experienced?

I'm not sure how you possibly got that from what I wrote. Seriously, how can that possibly be your take away? What I stated was that it's hard for a writer to write about things they have virtually no experience with even with the best intentions. A straight dude writing a story about the difficulties of a character growing up gay or transgender is likely going to suffer problems precisely because the writer has never experienced such issues and will likely be blind to certain issues related to the experience. That's not to say they CAN'T write such a story but to do so would require a ton of research, meaning speaking with people who grew up gay or transgender. If a writer just wrote such a story in a vacuum it would undoubtedly be shit and at worse disrespectful. This is also why it pays to have a diverse writing staff that can recognize certain blind spots in other's stories and provide insight. 

You want an example of having really bad blind spots look no further than the infamous Pepsi ad a few months back. Do you think whatever marketing team came up with that had a diverse staff? I'm going to guess not because at least one minority would've spoken up and clued them into the shitty and insulting an ad that it was. Those people weren't malicious, they were just blind to those issues and when you have a homogenized staff then you're all not going to see those blind spots.

Diversity of skin color =/= diversity of knowledge. Knowledge is not automatically ingrained in your mind because of your skin color or sexuality or w/e. It comes from life experience and/or studying about the area in question.

This explains why, for example, despite Japanese creators being in incredibly homogeneous, they are capable of writing incredible stories and characters in other cultures and times different than their own.

CDPR would not have been afraid to tackle the issue....

Yeah it’s called research, a unique concept I know, and having a team that was created around merit, another foreign concept, not diversity hires that are treated as experts on an area just because of their attributes and not their field of knowledge.

So you are saying that a white male will know more than a black male about living in a society where your race is a minority and all of the conflicts that come with it?

Funny thing, these "white dudes" first created Witcher 1, a game that had some really awful things and characters, with all females having big boobs and mostly all of them fucked with Geralt out of nowhere (There was even one that fucks with you in exchange for bread). 
The game was heavily criticized about that, and what did the creators do? Did they say "This is SJW bullshit, we will keep making women for Geralt to fuck and big boobs and sex cards!"? No, they actually LISTENED people (something as, you can see by the interview, ME:A manager failed to do), adressed their concerns, and The Witcher vastly improved because of that, especially in The Witcher 2, and even better in The Witcher 3, with a really strong set of female characters that were no longer there just to be "boobs" or for Geralt to fuck. 

Wow, you have a difficult time understanding the difference between primary sources and development team.

Not surprising.