do devs get subsidised for going woke?

[Isaax]

because it only effects sales negatively. People hate wokery.

[Coops]

No, but they feel better and lowers the chances of getting cancelled.

[keesio]

How is this game woke? Because it had a black female protagonist? That identity hardly factored into the game anyway.

[Calabus]

Do you get subsidized for trolling?

[Master Roshi]

For the sake of argument, let me make a comparison.

Days Gone - The main character was a white male, and I saw at least one 'woke' article calling the game boring trash for this reason.
If you think Subnautica is woke for having a black female protagonist, you're just as much a moron as the person who hated Days Gone for having a white male protagonist...

I will say the PDA having an Indian woman accent feels forced and out of place.
(Edit regarding PDA: It's not that an Indian accent feels out of place, it just sounds like it was forced in quickly, and doesn't sound very polished.)
However, I wouldn't say this was woke. I think it's just for the sake of variation, but feels forced/rushed.

The only place I can maybe understand where you're coming from -
The only two white males I've heard so far were either evil and corrupt, or a kind and easily manipulated moron.
All the females have been virtuous, intelligent, strong, brave, humble, other buzz words, yadda yadda.
It does get old having the artificial 'all man weak/evil/dumb, all female strong and smart' trope over and over without hardly any variation...
But it doesn't feel forced down my throat here, at least not yet 2 hours in.

Further Edit: This post was from 2 hours of gameplay. I understand the story changes, and I do see stuff unfolding in ways that doesn't feel woke.
Some of the stuff actually sounds like it's making fun of 'woke' ideas. Like the manager man with the strange name asking his boyfriend if they could continue not seeing each other. That was pretty damn hilarious in a way that felt like it was making fun of the extreme fruitcakes.

[Ludivinia V.]

It has nothing to do with feelings. It is a marketing tactic with proven efficiency. Being "woke" is simply the latest form of muddying the waters with an additional benefit of free publicity.

If this game was simply bad, people would say so and leave. Now they have people endlessly arguing about their game for whatever reason. Newcomers that read all this don't quite understand why the game is bad besides "woke", which is a vague and nebulous term.

Free publicity. Vague and deflected criticism. Free people that defend the game no matter what based on their principles. That's smart business.

[Jupman]

Is this still a thing. or just trolling. OMG the character you hardly see has polygons that are dark. Let me complain. leave this ♥♥♥♥ in 2015.

[JonathanR]

Honestly it's almost the opposite considering the roboticist sister's great invention is a drone with a slightly unusual animal facade and she was completely at fault for causing her own demise (along with killing another innocent person) with completely unnecessary explosives. I'm guessing that wasn't deliberate though, the writing is just terrible.

Robin is an idiot too... particularly seen in her interactions with AL-AN, but also just in going on a suicide mission to rescue a sister that she apparently didn't interact with well enough to know what she was working on. At least she summed up my feelings about the story by the end of the game... ready to move on.

tl;dr; probably just bad writing, but secretly based? I mean, the plot *is* about an incompetent scientist releasing a killer virus onto the world. Er, universe actually.

[Wylie28]

Whats woke about it?

[JonathanR]

Originally posted by Wylie28:

Whats woke about it?

A couple lousy jokes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUi_T1r1AwM&t=2290s

EDIT: Steam doesn't like timestamps, so jump to 38:10

It's actually funny again on a meta-level when you remember that it's an Alterra PDA, so it's like the corpos are making the cringey commentary on injustice much like in real life.

[Hiro Protagonist]

Originally posted by Master Roshi:

The only place I can maybe understand where you're coming from -
The only two white males I've heard so far were either evil and corrupt, or a kind and easily manipulated moron.
All the females have been virtuous, intelligent, strong, brave, humble, other buzz words, yadda yadda.

Margeurit Maida is _far_ from virtuous once you explore all of her story...hell, some of Sam's actions are dubious at best. Although in both cases the game doesn't actively call out those actions (or not as much as some people would prefer)

[Shadeem]

Originally posted by Master Roshi:

For the sake of argument, let me make a comparison.



I will say the PDA having an Indian woman accent feels forced and out of place.
However, I wouldn't say this was woke. I think it's just for the sake of variation, but feels forced/rushed.

India has 662 million women, not to mention large populations in other countries. Tech infrastructure is pretty good. I don't see how it is forced, if anything it is natural to include such a large % of the population. 8 billion people and 662 million indian women, that does not even include surrounding countries.

[admiral1018]

Yeah, I definitely don't agree with the claims about the women in this game being the "strong and brave" tropes.

Marguerite is clearly a psychopath who engages in terrorism, murders innocent people, and mounts animal body parts to her home and gear. She gets Sam killed and is probably the most despicable character in the game, if not the outright antagonist.

Sam is a fairly incompetent and gullible enough to carry out a terrorist plot that gets an innocent person killed and doesn't even achieve its goal. Aside from that, from her PDA logs, you can tell she's just a fairly ordinary, somewhat shy individual who doesn't exactly read people well (note that she is convinced of the bioweapon conspiracy without any evidence even after her friend tells her that's not the case).

Robin strands herself on the planet without any supplies, means of escape, or real plan in what basically amounts to a suicide mission. Her decisions throughout the game are suspect, and she survives far more due to luck than skill or aptitude.

I don't think you're supposed to view any of those women as infallible heroes. They're as flawed and dumb as any of the men in the game. In other words, pretty realistic humans.

[Voodoojedizin]

The developers could have avoided any problems quite easily by allowing the game player to choose male or female and written the story in a way that did not signify either sex. But then I guess you would have transvestites complaining, these days you just can't win. Personally I feel the entire woke thing is just stupid.

[admiral1018]

Originally posted by Voodoojedizin:

The developers could have avoided any problems quite easily by allowing the game player to choose male or female and written the story in a way that did not signify either sex. But then I guess you would have transvestites complaining, these days you just can't win. Personally I feel the entire woke thing is just stupid.

That choice couldn't be implemented "easily" as it would have entailed recording multiple versions of all the voice audio, which adds considerable time and expense. Robin is clearly not intended to be some faceless avatar representing the player who can be customized how they want; she's her own character who has a defined gender and racial identity. There's nothing woke or political about that, but it was a deliberate design decision.

[Nathaniel Prime]

Make sure not to drown in all the tears while you cry yourself to sleep over having to play a woman or whatever has made you this hysterical. You only have 30 seconds of oxygen without an O2 tank.