There are No Such Things as Woke Games

[seeker1]

Since wokeness is a slang connotation word which like all slang words has several meanings and no agreed upon meaning, complaining about wokeness is simply stating a subjective feeling about a game which has no real objective meaning.

And while you are entitled to your subjective feelings, just don't pretend there is anything objective about what you are saying. And you have every right to not buy a game because you FEEL it is woke, but stop complaining about changing the game to suit your feelings. The developers do not have to care about them. It's their creative product and their freedom of expression.

The latest whines are about Assassin's Creed: Shadows. But most of the people whining about the Black Samurai, Yasuke, seem to be white people, not Japanese folks, who understand that Yasuke, by embracing Japanese culture and becoming a Samurai, was just as much Japanese as the native born other protagonist. It's people outside of Japan who say Yasuke isn't Japanese because of his race. Yasuke was a real life person, an African slave brought to Japan by Portuguese missionaries, not a made up character (though Ubisoft HAS said as always the game is not a historical sim and isn't meant to be taken as such).

It's interesting, even the Japanese PM got involved, but the real issue he mentioned is he was afraid the game would encourage "real world" vandalism of Shinto Shrines in the country.

There were many foreign born Samurai in Japan. "Nathan Allgren" (Tom Cruise) was a fictional one, but there were white people who became Samurai. You can find a list of foreign born Samurai on Wikipedia, there were many of them. I wonder if there would have been as many complaints about the game if the Samurai was named William Adams (he was another historical figure, but was a white British guy who became a Samurai around 1600 or so).

[The nameless Gamer]

Just passing by to say that I fully agree. There are good games, bad games, games for a wide audience, games for a specific audience... but there's no such thing as "woke" games.

[seeker1]

To me, there is only one real definition of "woke" (as a slang connotation term used a an adjective - in its denotative form it just is the past tense of the verb to wake) .

This one. Merriam-Webster, definition 1a:
1a : aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)

The original word was first used as a slang term by U.S. A-A's as part of AAVE: "stay woke, there's Klan in the next town." The singer Lead Belly used the word this way in a famous song he did about the Scottsboro Boys in the 1930s.

Used this way - I would say, yeah I guess, some games are "woke," but that would be a good thing.

[BJWyler]

Sadly, it's where we are at as a society right now. Because for the last 12 years or so, promoting ignorance has been the political strategy of the US, spurred on by agents of our enemies on the Internet. It makes it much easier for the Group Think to get their pavlov's dogs barking in tune whenever key words are mentioned.

The actual crux of the matter is that for a couple of generations at least, we've been trying to downplay the importance of personal responsibility as a society. Politicians have latched on to that in order to give people a "bad guy" to be angry at. It's not because of someone's own poor choices or lack of motivation to improve their situation, it's because of Group A why someone is struggling to pay their bills, or can't find a better job. And now we have entire political parties that base themselves around that concept and set up demagogues as the mouthpieces to sound as ignorant as they do, so they can feel connected to them. And as we can see, the drones are more than happy to oblige.

Gamers are not a homogeneous group, nor should they be. There are going to be different things and different business models that appeal to different people, and as an industry, it makes perfect business sense to appeal to more than just one narrow mindset - especially when that narrow mindset believes and demands that all gamers should think and feel as they do, otherwise they are sheep, shills, or whatever other ad hominum is the flavor of the day.

[Zarineth]

Diposting pertama kali oleh seeker1:

And while you are entitled to your subjective feelings, just don't pretend there is anything objective about what you are saying. And you have every right to not buy a game because you FEEL it is woke, but stop complaining about changing the game to suit your feelings. The developers do not have to care about them. It's their creative product and their freedom of express.

I would love if people could understand that. But people seem really hell-bent into "if it's not for me, no one should enjoy it" mentality.

Overall agreed with OP.

[Tito Shivan]

As Syndrome said in The Incredibles: "When everyone is super, no one will be"

Nowadays we have a business model built on top of piggybacking trendy content (Videogames, for the purpose of this discussion) finding a way to call it 'woke' somehow, make a big and melodramatic scene about it and sit to reap the likes and interactions of all the people whose jimmies you've rustled while you eat mommy's freshly cooked tendies.

Nowadays every new trendy game has the content creation leeches latching upon it to try getting as many panties in a bunch about that content to reap some ad revenue on the saturated market of the fabricated outrage.

Or as the other meme said:

"We paid a freelancer to say a thing you like is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ because the Google/Facebook duopoly ate the whole digital ad market and now harvesting hate clicks Is The Only Viable Business Model For Online Media"

[Chika Ogiue]

It all depends on your current definition of "woke game" as to whether there are "woke games" or not. My preferred definition of a "woke game" is one that can grab my attention so thoroughly that it wakes me up from my usual lethargic state. I've found a few like that over the years, so for me, there absolutely are "woke games" just not very many of them. There's far more "tired slop" that just sends me right back to sleep...

[seeker1]

It's weird, if I posted this on the BG3 forums, I'd have three jesters by now.

Thanks for the genuine award, though.

[superblake_]

You said that feelings are not real that is 100% false. I do agree with the other stuff though.

[seeker1]

Feelings are real to the person having them, they just are not objective. My point being, you can evaluate a game on an objective criterion, like how long is the game, what types of graphics it uses, what is the basis of gameplay (though whether you like or dislike those things could be subjective) ...

"wokeness" is not an objective criterion.

[superblake_]

I gave the op the clever reward I said some of the same things before in a different way.

[superblake_]

Diposting pertama kali oleh seeker1:

Feelings are real to the person having them, they just are not objective. My point being, you can evaluate a game on an objective criterion, like how long is the game, what types of graphics it uses, what is the basis of gameplay (though whether you like or dislike those things could be subjective) ...

"wokeness" is not an objective criterion.

I know that thank you for explaining that more.

[superblake_]

Like I made my game collection to help people and to protect the gaming community from the people that don't like games in the way that they say it is woke for no reason. My game collection is not DEI either I made it to keep games away from DEI. My game collection has fixes for games that have not been updated in some time and fixes for games that can't be updated by their original developers. it also has new content for the games and it brings some old things back.

[MonkehMaster]

your late to the table, ac shadows has come and gone with the wind, just like ubisoft.... its old news, everyone has moved on.

thing is, it doesnt matter if people complained or not, the fact they "voted with their wallets" and the game didnt sell and the company sold off its best ip's to tencent, means the money is first, the complaints were just icing on the cake.

not to mention, if we as customers arent able to relate to these narrative driven games, then why would we buy them at all? that leads to trying to sell a 300k+ video game to a niche crowd of which most dont even play games and are only around to support the narrative, so you wont even come close to making the money that was spent with niche crowd catering.

best bet would have been to make their own games and leave the big titles as is, sadly that would point to 2 issues, one they cant push their narrative on people who already support it (thus the need for those who dont support it) and if it is its own game and not forced into a big title, it would clarify the sale around said narrative, like we see all the time and even currently with a new title who worked directly with sbi and the game is barely selling.

in any case, companies need money, if people dont buy, then they lose money and in the end shut down or sell out.

[seeker1]

You are correct Ubisoft is having financial troubles and sold some IPs to Tencent. However, as to one of your points ...

Assassin's Creed Shadows is One of the Best-Selling Games of 2025 So Far
https://gamerant.com/assassins-creed-shadows-us-sales-march-2025/

[BJWyler]

Which has nothing to do with "wokism." Game companies have been selling of IPs and going out of business for decades long before the current Group Think theatrics. Ain't nothing new here, just business as usual in the industry.

Also nothing new about all the outrage drama queens conveniently ignoring all those successful games threy tried to brigade, and failed. It's almost like good games will succeed despite what race, creed, or gender the characters are, and bad games will still fail, likewise.