But the value lies in being able to talk about it with a group of people who aren’t deeply embedded in it, experts and consultants on hand, and a lot of data. Sikka adds that conversations like these are rarely binary, either, and are usually very nuanced. But this is why assigning ownership, which is creative ownership, is always with the team.” There will be disagreements in point of view, of course, and I think that's an inevitable part of the creative process. Imagine if it's hundreds of people working for years on a very highly creative and personal endeavor. “It's difficult for five or six people to agree where they want to go for lunch. “We provide the team with the player feedback, and then the team are the owners of their creative vision and then they make the decision on how they want to proceed with their game considering the feedback,” Mesmar replies. Imagine hundreds of people working for years on a creative endeavor. What happens, I ask, if there’s a conflict between something the editorial team suggests and what the development team wants? It's difficult for five or six people to agree where they want to go for lunch. Mesmar explains that depending on where they are in the project, these conversations can take different forms, ranging from high-level internal design discussions to asking outside consultants for their thoughts to dissecting player feedback and data. Practically, this involves having conversations with development teams at multiple project stages to determine where diversity and inclusion topics might have a role in whatever they’re making. While Sikka’s role covers Ubisoft’s people teams, it also intersects with Mesmar’s in that they both work with creative teams to ensure game content is more diverse and inclusive. “And what we've tried to do really is come together with a common direction, common vocabulary and language and a north star that the entire organization – 20,000 people – can get behind and help us move in that common direction.” “Things were happening, they were just happening in different places used by different teams using different words and language,” she says. She tells me that while D&I efforts had previously existed at the company, they hadn’t all been united under one banner before. Sikka is Ubisoft’s VP of global diversity, accessibility, and inclusion – a role that Ubisoft previously didn’t have at all. Joining Mesmar in his efforts is Raashi Sikka, another recent hire who joined Ubisoft in February of 2021 on the heels of the same storm of allegations that shook up the editorial team. You can show up at a skate park, even if you don't want to skate, you just sit there and hang out.” I'd like to think about it as similar to a skate park. “If work is your first space and home is your second, then the third space is this…You can just pop in, pop out, and connect with like-minded individuals or groups of people in which you can express yourself and connect with freely. The third pillar is a bit different – Mesmar wants to “create third spaces.” So, quite bluntly, games that are made well and that a lot of people like – fairly straightforward. The second is to make games that are culturally significant, which Mesmar describes as a drive to make games that form the overall fabric of pop culture at large. The first, “complete focus on quality,” is fairly self-explanatory. So what is this framework? Mesmar’s alluded to it before, and it effectively centers around three pillars. Games need to be focused on what they are and who they're for.” We wouldn't expect even the games that want to follow through with the guidelines or take some of those criteria into consideration. Think of them as a framework that you can use to activate your creativity, but not a checkbox that you need to address…and one game can't be everything. “So that these are not things that every single project needs to have or that every single project needs to abide by. “We treat these as guidelines,” Mesmar says. They put the pillars in place, then help teams reach them throughout the development process. Speaking to IGN, Mesmar describes the broad strokes of his role as working with senior leadership to put together a “creative framework” to help direct individual game teams in their creative visions. He stepped into the role at a particularly tenuous moment, and while his team’s overall directive of shaping the company’s creative direction remains intact, the nuances appear to be changing. Mesmar joined Ubisoft as VP of editorial just over a year ago, coming with almost two decades of industry design experience at companies including Atlus, Gameloft, King, and EA DICE.
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