Do the DEI developers of games such as concord and veilguard still have an audience?

[sick duck]

Concord is an infamous failure, and veilguard didn't do badly but it was very far away from breaking any sales records. I look at social media groups that built up 10+ million subscribers like IGN and ther videos today have hardly any attention. Kotaku was a titan of games media too, and barely anyone looks at anymore.

The only reason I am asking about this is that modern year games aren't my main focus for gaming anymore. None of my past 5 games were developed in the 2020s. I am not opposed to DEI in principle, and I recognize that as filled to the brim as veilguard was with the stuff, I probably would have disliked it for a whole lot of reasons related to gameplay and the lack of continuity it had with the dragon age series from an artistic and lore point of view.

[Zarineth]

Diposting pertama kali oleh D. Flame:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Zarineth:

I don't think, that they are the one constantly moving the goalpost...

Then you are objectively wrong.

Them: "It's not X."
Me: Here is proof that it is.
Them: "You think people care that it is X?"

That is text book goal.post moving.

You mean something like this?

Diposting pertama kali oleh D. Flame:

Diposting pertama kali oleh The nameless Gamer:

You gave a handful of examples at best. "Concord", "Dragon Age Veilguard" and... ? I can list MANY more games which are unaffected.

If you break a bone, does the doctor go, "I can list 205 of your bones that are unaffected"?

[Start_Running]

Diposting pertama kali oleh The nameless Gamer:

Diposting pertama kali oleh D. Flame:

If you break a bone, does the doctor go, "I can list 205 of your bones that are unaffected"?

Apples and oranges. Games are ENTERTAINMENT. If a game isn't entertaining to you, MOVE ON!

What's not entertaining to oone operson will be entertaining to someone else out there. Which is why entertainment is all about defining your niche and making it profitable. Once a niche is being fed it will grow overtime and once it grows to a certain size it becomes part of the mainstream.

Many now are too young to remember when Video games were a niche market. , many are too young to remember when rpgs were a niche genre...

The problem is gaming has become an identity for some rather than a hobby and thusly they define themselves by it. WHich means they feel gaming should only represent what they desire to identify as.

[D. Flame]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Zarineth:

Diposting pertama kali oleh D. Flame:

Then you are objectively wrong.

Them: "It's not X."
Me: Here is proof that it is.
Them: "You think people care that it is X?"

That is text book goal.post moving.

You mean something like this?

Diposting pertama kali oleh D. Flame:

If you break a bone, does the doctor go, "I can list 205 of your bones that are unaffected"?

No. An analog is not moving of a goal post.

[The nameless Gamer]

Diposting pertama kali oleh D. Flame:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Zarineth:

You mean something like this?

No. An analog is not moving of a goal post.

But you still are cherry-picking and jumping topics. To my reply that I forfeit a number of franchises, you latched onto the tangent of a very specific character in a specific video game. The post you originally replied to

Diposting pertama kali oleh The nameless Gamer:

Diposting pertama kali oleh D. Flame:

If you break a bone, does the doctor go, "I can list 205 of your bones that are unaffected"?

Apples and oranges. Games are ENTERTAINMENT. If a game isn't entertaining to you, MOVE ON! I named a few examples myself, here they are again:
Command & Conquer 4
Warhammer 40.000 Dawn of War 3
Torchlight 3
Guilty Gear Strive
Company of Heroes 2
Front Mission 2 remake
(not ONE of them was "woke")

And guess what? I still have more games in my library and on my wishlist than I have time and money for.

Wasn't really about games being "woke" or not, it was about letting go of a franchise and finding something else to get entertained by. Which kind of proves my point of looking for something to be outraged by.

[Ben Lubar]

Does the phrase "DEI developers" mean the same thing as "diversity hire" or does it mean that there's some kind of procedure and restrictions that developers are required to follow if they want to put a character into a game that isn't a straight white man? Both options are a pretty disgusting thing to say about game developers.

[xBCxRangers]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Ben Lubar:

Does the phrase "DEI developers" mean the same thing as "diversity hire" or does it mean that there's some kind of procedure and restrictions that developers are required to follow if they want to put a character into a game that isn't a straight white man? Both options are a pretty disgusting thing to say about game developers.

This "DEI" and 'woke" matter as it relates to games, or anything else for that matter needs to be done in ways it can work.

Woke on a WW2 based game is likely not going to work. Though it may work on Anime games. Woke issues being sold to Joe Six Pack at Budweiser is not going to work. But it may work at Pepsi or Coke.

It won't work in the NFL, but worked for Kapearnick at Nike.

Companies just have to be cognizant on who is buying their product.

[RiO]

Diposting pertama kali oleh The nameless Gamer:

Diposting pertama kali oleh D. Flame:

Strive is. They changed Bridgette from being a cross dresser to being trans in a pretty ham fisted manner, that really didn't fit his character. And the way they did it deprives non-gender-conforming people of their own representation simply so ArcSys can add a check mark on a list.

They could have handled it in a much better fashion.

Do you think real GG players care about it? Only people looking for something to be outraged about care about Briget being trans in a pretty shoddily told way.

Japan in particular blew up over it, apparently.

Diposting pertama kali oleh The nameless Gamer:

Diposting pertama kali oleh D. Flame:

What I think is that you are trying to shift the goal post again.

I think you are cherry-picking. I've visited the Strive forums at a number of occasions, watched a bunch of videos on Strive before it released AND partook in discussions before release on the GG Xrd forum. The overwhelming amount of concerns were regarding:
<snip>

Except Bridget was announced late as DLC. And the way his story played out wasn't revealed until people actually were able to buy the DLC and have a sit down to play it all the way through.

A considerable part were quite outraged at a decade of character development going down the tubes in the final moments of his story. To the point that they actually had to write in to the publisher to verify what the hell their intent with this was.

Where we can draw a parallel with red-shirt guy's infamous: "I'm sorry; is this an out of season April Fools joke?" for Diablo Immortal.

[The nameless Gamer]

Diposting pertama kali oleh RiO:

Diposting pertama kali oleh The nameless Gamer:

Do you think real GG players care about it? Only people looking for something to be outraged about care about Briget being trans in a pretty shoddily told way.

Japan in particular blew up over it, apparently.

Diposting pertama kali oleh The nameless Gamer:

I think you are cherry-picking. I've visited the Strive forums at a number of occasions, watched a bunch of videos on Strive before it released AND partook in discussions before release on the GG Xrd forum. The overwhelming amount of concerns were regarding:
<snip>

Except Bridget was announced late as DLC. And the way his story played out wasn't revealed until people actually were able to buy the DLC and have a sit down to play it all the way through.

A considerable part were quite outraged at a decade of character development going down the tubes in the final moments of his story. To the point that they actually had to write in to the publisher to verify what the hell their intent with this was.

Where we can draw a parallel with red-shirt guy's infamous: "I'm sorry; is this an out of season April Fools joke?" for Diablo Immortal.

Huh... the more you know. Well, I can't speak Japanese, so most of that didn't reach me. I stand corrected. Was that also why Ruu didn't pick Bridget back up and ditched GG Strive for Street Fighter III?

[RiO]

Diposting pertama kali oleh The nameless Gamer:

Huh... the more you know. Well, I can't speak Japanese, so most of that didn't reach me. I stand corrected. Was that also why Ruu didn't pick Bridget back up and ditched GG Strive for Street Fighter III?

:: shrug :: Dunno.
I'm also just an outside observer to all of this.
I didn't dig further into it.

What I just wrote is just what I still remembered about it.

[The nameless Gamer]

Diposting pertama kali oleh RiO:

Diposting pertama kali oleh The nameless Gamer:

Huh... the more you know. Well, I can't speak Japanese, so most of that didn't reach me. I stand corrected. Was that also why Ruu didn't pick Bridget back up and ditched GG Strive for Street Fighter III?

:: shrug :: Dunno.
I'm also just an outside observer to all of this.
I didn't dig further into it.

That's fair. Well, not that GG Strive is a particularly interesting spectator sport anyway. Xrd was more entertaining both to watch and to play, even though I ♥♥♥♥ at it.

[Realigo Actual]

Danger to conflate Japanese shemale stuff like the kind you see in the fighting games with this DEI thing.

It is not American DEI, it predates American DEI, and is tied up in foreign culture.

ArcSys' character, like Poison, isn't DEI. It's a whole separate thing from a whole separate culture and has been going about 30 years longer than DEI.

Supposedly Poison was originally change from female to shemale about concerns over controversy because the Japanese didn't know wtf they were doing when it came to navigating the crossroads between Murica values and Murica litigators. Might have been a similar situation with ArcSys and this character. History doesn't repeat itself. People make the same mistakes.

And also, my headcanon Poison is female. bc vjj

[D. Flame]

Diposting pertama kali oleh RiO:

Diposting pertama kali oleh The nameless Gamer:

Do you think real GG players care about it? Only people looking for something to be outraged about care about Briget being trans in a pretty shoddily told way.

Japan in particular blew up over it, apparently.

Diposting pertama kali oleh The nameless Gamer:

I think you are cherry-picking. I've visited the Strive forums at a number of occasions, watched a bunch of videos on Strive before it released AND partook in discussions before release on the GG Xrd forum. The overwhelming amount of concerns were regarding:
<snip>

Except Bridget was announced late as DLC. And the way his story played out wasn't revealed until people actually were able to buy the DLC and have a sit down to play it all the way through.

A considerable part were quite outraged at a decade of character development going down the tubes in the final moments of his story. To the point that they actually had to write in to the publisher to verify what the hell their intent with this was.

Where we can draw a parallel with red-shirt guy's infamous: "I'm sorry; is this an out of season April Fools joke?" for Diablo Immortal.

Exactly.

[RiO]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Realigo Actual:

Danger to conflate Japanese shemale stuff like the kind you see in the fighting games with this DEI thing.

The Bridget thing is not that. It was definitely influenced by gender politics to try and find an in with a new audience in the west.

Bridget's backstory is that he was raised as a girl by his parents to hide him from the townfolk, because of some crazy bit of folkloric superstition that would've ended in him having been murdered had he been a boy.

His parents forced him into cross-dressing and adopting girly manners and eventually shipped him off to live in a convent with the nuns, to try and protect his life.

He grew up and became a fighter. And he spent a decade of games building up character development to try and escape the female role that society had boxed him into; and to try and actually be more manly. Which very often would backfire, to his chagrin. But he'd just pick up the pieces and try again.

Strive up-ended all that by at the very last minute of his story line having him literally go: "Ohmygosh! I've finally figured it out! I'm a girl!"

Which was just -- ...
yeah...

People were not happy with that conclusion after a decade of buildup.


[...]
And come to think of it -- if you're actually aware of his backstory, it's not even proper trans representation but rather it promotes birth-gender conformism. The message it sends is: "Don't try to resist what society wants to label you as; you will fail. Just be beaten and accept it gracefully."

Which makes it very clear that this was a superficial and shallow stunt meant to snag a particular slice of market audience, which is just ... well-- sad, really.
It just sends the wrong message in every possible way to everyone on all angles and viewpoints.

[D. Flame]

Diposting pertama kali oleh RiO:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Realigo Actual:

Danger to conflate Japanese shemale stuff like the kind you see in the fighting games with this DEI thing.

The Bridget thing is not that. It was definitely influenced by gender politics to try and find an in with a new audience in the west.

Bridget's backstory is that he was raised as a girl by his parents to hide him from the townfolk, because of some crazy bit of folkloric superstition that would've ended in him having been murdered had he been a boy.

His parents forced him into cross-dressing and adopting girly manners and eventually shipped him off to live in a convent with the nuns, to try and protect his life.

He grew up and became a fighter. And he spent a decade of games building up character development to try and escape the female role that society had boxed him into; and to try and actually be more manly. Which very often would backfire, to his chagrin. But he'd just pick up the pieces and try again.

Strive up-ended all that by at the very last minute of his story line having him literally go: "Ohmygosh! I've finally figured it out! I'm a girl!"

Which was just -- ...
yeah...

People were not happy with that conclusion after a decade of buildup.


[...]
And come to think of it -- if you're actually aware of his backstory, it's not even proper trans representation but rather it promotes birth-gender conformism. The message it sends is: "Don't try to resist what society wants to label you as; you will fail. Just be beaten and accept it gracefully."

Which makes it very clear that this was a superficial and shallow stunt meant to snag a particular slice of market audience, which is just ... well-- sad, really.
It just sends the wrong message in every possible way to everyone on all angles and viewpoints.

Yes, the path they should have taken is that they should have had him eventually realize that he like dressing and acting the way he did. And that being a boy doesn't mean he was required to act or dress in a certain way.

He could have continued to be an icon for non-gender conforming and non-binary persons.

Also, I find it kind of strange that the people virtue signalling the hardest in these threads don't seem to know these characters by name or even know their backstories. Like you would think that if they cared even one tenth as much as they claim to, then they would at least be familiar with the most famous examples of said subject matter.

[Realigo Actual]

Diposting pertama kali oleh RiO:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Realigo Actual:

Danger to conflate Japanese shemale stuff like the kind you see in the fighting games with this DEI thing.

The Bridget thing is not that. It was definitely influenced by gender politics to try and find an in with a new audience in the west.

Bridget's backstory is that he was raised as a girl by his parents to hide him from the townfolk, because of some crazy bit of folkloric superstition that would've ended in him having been murdered had he been a boy.

His parents forced him into cross-dressing and adopting girly manners and eventually shipped him off to live in a convent with the nuns, to try and protect his life.

He grew up and became a fighter. And he spent a decade of games building up character development to try and escape the female role that society had boxed him into; and to try and actually be more manly. Which very often would backfire, to his chagrin. But he'd just pick up the pieces and try again.

Strive up-ended all that by at the very last minute of his story line having him literally go: "Ohmygosh! I've finally figured it out! I'm a girl!"

Which was just -- ...
yeah...

People were not happy with that conclusion after a decade of buildup.


[...]
And come to think of it -- if you're actually aware of his backstory, it's not even proper trans representation but rather it promotes birth-gender conformism. The message it sends is: "Don't try to resist what society wants to label you as; you will fail. Just be beaten and accept it gracefully."

Which makes it very clear that this was a superficial and shallow stunt meant to snag a particular slice of market audience, which is just ... well-- sad, really.
It just sends the wrong message in every possible way to everyone on all angles and viewpoints.

What you are saying is the point I was making. The Japanese guys at ArcSys wanted a shemale, so they made a shemale. Here we don't have this thing, or at least don't have it to anything like their level. They wrote some fluff for the shemale they made. Then, in response to somebody's big idea for or worry about the West, they made a change which they thought would yield some happy sneaky result, but this instead connected different things which should have been left alone, and all hell breaks loose.