r/KotakuInAction • u/CaracallaTheSeveran • 1d ago
GAMING "why there is an avalanche of DEI games" - video by spy (developer of Intravenous games)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNV_BWOdnsQ85
u/NordicHorde2 1d ago
This attitude of "woke is dead, it's just lag" is EXACTLY what they want. People have rejected the most outlandish, in your face DEI slop fests like Concord, but all they're gonna do is go back to being even slightly subtle about it and people are going to eat it up. They have succeeded in taking 5 steps forward, 2 steps back.
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u/IridikronsNo1Fan 1d ago
And then they will double down again and go 10 steps forward once the timing is right.
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u/Therenomoreusername 21h ago
The woke main tactic is boiling frogs, they did it before and during Covid, and they would do it again now.
They retreat and feign its own death, and stealth attack particular fictional content to regain momentum, and takeover important positions.
It is why gatekeeping is necessary, it quite literally checking if the cancer spreading and keeping it under control since it can’t “die”.
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u/softhack 21h ago
Doesn't help when most mainstream content creators that discuss games bend over backwards to avoid addressing the elephant in the room. I even saw some say regarding games that go full mask off like Dustborn that you're not hating them correctly.
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u/HamOnBarfly 22h ago
A lot of games coming out now were cooked up 4-5 years ago, people thought shit like veilguard was gonna be a hit with the kids in 2020
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u/depressionxnobody 17h ago
I feel like the only people who unironically think or pretend to think "woke is dead" are the "anti-woke grifters"(we know exactly who) and their fans and there's no one who can actually represent anti-woke side in a way that everyone would understand.
Woke is not dead, its here to stay. Most studios changed labels or went into hiding with its bs or just simply walked some shit back, because they realized they cant bombard people with all of it at once, so they will do it in portions.
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u/Headsinoverdrive 1d ago
I mean they put these writers in the boardroom and are too cowardly to shoot them down. Was just watching love death and robots amd every single universe and dimension somehow has 33% black 33% Asian 33% white and 65% women lol.
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u/CuTTyFL4M 18h ago
Netflix propaganda
Too bad some good IPs and ideas are over there, because they're ruined by unnecessary "changes"9
u/Headsinoverdrive 18h ago
Yep for sure. And then look at the people leading its always old white liberal men 💀
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u/1984Needs1776 12h ago
They might have white skin but they probably wouldn't identify themselves as white if you asked them lol.
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u/Headsinoverdrive 11h ago
Depends which. Netflix owners definitely just white dudes. The white liberal is its own plague
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u/RainbowDildoMonkey 1d ago
The thing is i am not seeing a shift in the status quo in games industry. We just had Gamescom platforming a Microsoft supported game that promotes illegal immigration into US. Gamescom also had a live on-stage segment that quite literally went ''Democracy and minority rights are under attack!''.
Perhaps some corpos in the industry are thinking about dialing it back, but people who actually make games remain ever more radical true believers who'd rather see the industry go up in flames than ceding an inch to 'chuds'.
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u/YetAnotherCommenter 1d ago
His argument may be true - the content of video games will be a lagging indicator due to development time and thus devs will always be a bit behind the exact target - but I am scared it might lead to complacency.
i.e. "woke isn't a big deal, we have to just wait and it will vanish."
No, we can't just wait. We need to absolutely punish woke content and devs who won't keep woke politics out of their products.
Not to mention, given how woke people in HR only hire other wokes and too many woke academics run game dev education, the talent pipeline is itself corrupted. So either we need anti-woke activist investors to force change at the top or we need to put devs-who-make-woke-content out of business.
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u/NordicHorde2 1d ago
Woke won't vanish, they'll just rebrand and go back to being even slightly subtle. The fact that people think woke only means things like Concord and Veilguard is proof they've succeeded in moving the goal posts.
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u/YetAnotherCommenter 1d ago
What do you think counts as "woke"?
What does "slightly subtle woke" mean?
Because I think it is possible to draw relatively bright lines around "woke" and there is a potential downside to not making a clear distinction.
For example, I think a character in a video game can be gay or bisexual and portrayed as non-evil without that video game being "woke." I think a female character in a video game can be designed in a manner that is sexually unappealing to typical-gynophilic-male tastes and portrayed as non-evil without being "woke."
Would you contest those propositions?
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u/NordicHorde2 1d ago
Look at Kingdom Come Deliverence 2. Or Baldur's Gate 3. Or the God of War reboot games. Or Mass Effect Andromeda.
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u/YetAnotherCommenter 1d ago
That's not very exact.
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u/Blkwinz 1d ago
KCD 2 having a black muslim lecturing you about how much he respects women (ridiculous, he might brag about respecting god, but bragging about what they've done for the benefit of women is nonsense)
BG3 first removing the ability to choose your sex, then allowing characters who are ostensibly male (insofar as it could be inferred by body type) to pretend to be female even among matriarchal societies like the drow without needing to pass a giant deception check
God of War making norse fables subsaharan africans
I don't know if andromeda did anything in particular other than having the usual masculine female characters, never played it
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u/Headsinoverdrive 18h ago
Muslims now even on Instagram tell women they should cover ankles or get the beating they deserve since they are owned by their husband and have no independence rights. Imagine in Medieval times 💀
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u/Arminius1234567 17h ago edited 16h ago
The Musa character makes no sense. Mali wasn’t known for great scholarship during that time either. Craziest blatant quota character I’ve seen in a while. Warhorse selling out (there are many more issues like this in the game) was a huge disappointment for me. I loved KCD1 and Hans and Henry’s friendship that wasn’t gay at all. Finally a good bro story. Now the new community is all about them being gay and lovers (it being in the game is enough for that, regardless of one’s own non gay playthrough). It’s so insane I still can’t believe it.
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u/YetAnotherCommenter 11h ago
Thank you. This is what we need - to be *specific* about what makes something woke.
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u/headqarters 1d ago
What do you think counts as "woke"?
woke means 'intersectional', nothing more.
like uglifying female characters on purpose ( Bioware)
making all men characters beta or pieces of shit (Horizon Zero Dawn)
forcing a very specific ideology down people's throats (Last Of Us Part II)
Or designing a game along "diversity" & "inclusivity" which are the foundation of intersectionality
That's what woke is.
Is game having LBGT+ characters "woke", I'd say not necessarily, is making a female character the protagonist? neither. It's about how and why it's done (intersectional activist, blaming straight white men for all the problems). I don't consider the great majority of Shoujo or Yaoi manga / visual novels "woke" for instance, because they don't feel the need to shit on male or tear down straight sexuality to tell a story. That's the difference, they are not trying to push intersectionality.
I think it's time to stop using euphemisms, woke == intersectional activism;
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u/YetAnotherCommenter 1d ago
I agree with you. You're absolutely correct. My problem is that some people see (for example) yaoi manga and scream "its woke" even if it contains no activism and is just smut for fujoshis.
Hence, we need to be careful in drawing our lines. We must be precise.
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u/some_random_weeb_88 1d ago
For example, I think a character in a video game can be gay or bisexual and portrayed as non-evil without that video game being "woke."
In theory, I agree but in practice I have only seen that as soon as these types gain a foothold they start subverting and making everything about them and their sexuality. They also should definitely not be in every damn game.
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u/YetAnotherCommenter 1d ago
In theory, I agree but in practice I have only seen that as soon as these types gain a foothold they start subverting and making everything about them and their sexuality.
I agree this is generally what happens, but that's about who is making the game rather than the content of the game.
Hence, as I said in my previous post, the industry (especially AAA sector) has massive pipeline problems with wokeness. If woke people are making the games we'll almost certainly end up with woke content (since woke people have proven themselves incapable of being able to make something that isn't All About Their Politics).
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u/kiathrowawayyay 1d ago edited 1d ago
I think woke is better described as the root ideology of a game/media, not just the symptoms we see. Right now it is a mistake to think of it as just the symptoms we see: the blackwashing redheads / race-swapping, censoring old content, adding trigger warnings, adding SJW talking point dialog and writing in an anti-men misandric way to make men look like idiots while women are all written as good.
Woke as a root ideology is when a developer says they know the original meaning and intention of the game isn’t bigoted, but decides to hate on it and change it anyway. Like Tomb Raider or Resident Evil 5. The symptom of this bad thinking is the trigger warnings, censorship and interviews attacking the game, devs and fans.
Woke as a root ideology is when the writer mentions how they wanted to avoid writing certain contents because they are “problematic” for SJWs. The symptom is that they avoided situations where a man explains things to a woman. Or if they wanted to “balance” the number of women in positions of power over men. The symptom of this bad thinking also results in there being more perfect girlbosses and many bad men.
Or woke as a root ideology is when the writer sees everything as “objectifying women” and yet has double standards for male fanservice, and does things to remove such offenses to their own oversensitivity and prudishness. The symptom is when all the women become censored and covered up but then the perfect men appear topless with rendered muscles, veins and nipples. It results in uglifying women and policies that punish if the women are too attractive, even when the actual artist wanted to draw them as beautiful (that SJW complaining how his black women characters were uglified).
Woke as a root ideology is when the SJW treats fictional characters like real people and real people like fictional characters instead of separating fiction from reality. The symptom is the uglifying policies against female characters and censorship again. But also statements bragging how they remove “problematic” content. Llike Sam Maggs’ fights about Rivet from Ratchet and Clank being “oversexualized”, or JelloApocalypse bragging about changing the localization of Lovely Complex because he finds it problematic and hates it.
And also when they brag about using their media as a vehicle for their ideology, even at the expense of their story, IP, audience and customers. The obvious symptom was The Walking Dead series director bragging that he tricked viewers into watching a gay love story even though it had nothing important in the story. And how Spiderman 2 inserted quests promoting SJW ideology when they shouldn’t have anything to do with Spiderman.
And also the root ideology of hatred against non-SJW groups. The symptom is the blatant double standards and cult-like belief systems and policies of hatred. Like when mods showing American flags were banned on Nexus but mods to add more pride flags were promoted. Or when fanservice showing men was promoted but fanservice showing beautiful women was banned. Or even bragging that HR hiring policy of the game dev discriminates against men in favor of women.
Until these ideological roots are truly changed, the symptoms will keep appearing, and maybe even evolve in worse ways...
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u/YetAnotherCommenter 1d ago
I agree with you. Woke is an ideology, not just "character X is black/gay or female character Y isn't fuckable therefore the game is woke."
That's the point my post was attempting to highlight. We can't let wokies get away with claiming "but you just want to get rid of characters with characteristic Z" etc.
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u/CaracallaTheSeveran 1d ago
Spy, the developer of Intravenous 1 and 2, explains why he thinks there are so many DEI-riddled games.
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u/nogodafterall Mod - "Obvious Admin Plant" 1d ago
This guy is the one that makes Intravenous 1 and 2. Those games are best described by me as "the number one games I would like to be built around co-op with the same gameplay and probably a better script/story". The story is completely serviceable, and you will remember some of the characters, especially the protagonist from the first game.
He puts his money where his mouth is. Both games are not woke. You can be a horrible shitbag in both, with variously terrible endings. As much as he pumps the stealth for the games, going loud, even at the hardest difficulty, IS possible. It just requires effective usage of traps, grenades, and environmental darkness to lose pursuit before a mob of twenty dudes show up to turn you into swiss cheese.
My favorite playthrough is the "I am death, destroyer of anuses" with a full auto rifle, the deagle, and enough boom to make a black Scottish cyclops proud.
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u/Complete-Minimum-656 1d ago
Agree, been a huge fan of both of his Intravenous games since I craved for something like the old Splinter Cell games like Chaos Theory.
He clearly don't like DEI and leftist stuff, like he said in the video, claimed that he just make "normal & fun non-political games".
There is another video that titles " thoughts on the gaming culture war" he uploaded. Can be boiled down to simply as "Don't buy games that you don't like, don't agree with, vote with your wallet" which I agree with 100%.
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u/softhack 21h ago
After Warhorse pulled a Judas, I'm more inclined to follow devs that are open about their opposition to "the message."
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u/Go_To_The_Devil Mod 1d ago
Going to point out another factor that Razorfist recently brought up in a video. Most of the DEI games coming out in the last few years were fully in development during covid, when everything went Work from home and there were delays and cost overruns, studios turned to DEI grants/loans to make up the shortfalls.
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u/Fedballin 1d ago
It's funding, games need funding, DEI groups gave it out.
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u/drewbreeezy 22h ago
For a private company, this is perfectly acceptable. I'm okay with any game being made, and the customer gets to make their choice.
That no longer applies to a public company (I think companies like Ubisoft should be able to be directly sued by their investors, with the CEO/Directors liable if it can be shown that the unpopular choices were known - Like investors telling them and the CEO avoiding it) or if it's an established IP which is changed - then the anger is warranted.
Private companies? New IP's? Add as much woke BS as you want, go nuts! I'll watch it flop.
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u/TheSnesLord 1d ago
Have not watched the video, if this guy uses only umbrella terms like "woke" and "DEI" and fails to mention the real cancer that is feminism then he's a coward and is part of the problem.
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u/HSR47 20h ago
The title is likely just for clicks.
The content is basically that it takes a long time to make games (~3-5+ years), and that significant course correction of bad concepts is rarely done due to time & cost constraints.
So the “AAAA games” that keep flopping are the ones that were greenlit during the “peak woke” era of ~2018-2022, and leaned heavily into that worldview.
Also, since the industry saw no need to course correct until these games stated flopping, it’ll likely be ~2027-2029 before they start releasing truly “normal” games again.
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u/centrallcomp 21h ago edited 21h ago
It's not bad. Despite using "DEI" in the title, the commentator in the video thankfully doesn't use buzzwords like "woke" or "DEI" in the actual video itself. I myself was hesitant that the video might have been made by some far-right tinfoil asshat complaining about far-right tinfoil shit, but I can confirm it's not the case.
If you still don't want to watch it though, the commentator in the video is a game developer. He explains that the reason why we're seeing a lot of recent games with excessive political themes (themes that seem like they can only be enjoyed by far-left leaning people) may have to do with the timing of the games' development cycles.
Specifically, the commentator theorizes that the proliferation of far-left themes in recent games has to do with what was trendy when the games began development.
He estimates that games take about five years to develop. It's now it's the year 2025 and we're now just starting to see games that began development in the year 2020 being released right now. As you might know, 2020 was a time when far-left messaging (BLM, Defundthepolice, etc) reached peak mainstream popularity.
Developers incorporated such themes early on in the development stage back in 2020, when such messaging was in-vogue, and now we're beginning to see them being released off the production line. Even though far-left messaging is no longer trendy nowadays, it's too late/expensive for devs to course-correct now, so they just release the games with such messages as-is.
Believe me, the video is nowhere near as bad as the title might suggest.
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u/some_random_weeb_88 1d ago
There's a lot of grifters out there doing it for clout and viewership. Even if they are not grifters it would still mean going political and risking being deplatformed.
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u/TheSnesLord 3h ago
Even if they are not grifters it would still mean going political and risking being deplatformed.
Yeah, but how long can you keep avoiding the tumor itself? Attacking just the symptoms doesn't really get you anywhere.
And besides, when people mention "woke" or "DEI" and talk about these two aspects, it's already been made political.
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u/HSR47 20h ago
The title is likely just for clicks.
The content is basically that it takes a long time to make games (~3-5+ years), and that significant course correction of bad concepts is rarely done due to time & cost constraints.
So the “AAAA games” that keep flopping are the ones that were greenlit during the “peak woke” era of ~2018-2022, and leaned heavily into that worldview.
Also, since the industry saw no need to course correct until these games stated flopping, it’ll likely be ~2027-2029 before they start releasing truly “normal” games again.
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u/centrallcomp 22h ago edited 22h ago
Sounds reasonable. It also explains the recent proliferation of ugly and unsexy women characters in gaming--A lot of games with these kinds of characters began getting developed around 2018, which was when the metoo movement was in full swing.
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u/TheCeejus 1d ago
While I appreciate that he's a super rare example of an anti-woke dev that's speaking out, he's wrong. DEI is very much still infesting even early game development in 2025. There's too many wokesters at the helm at these dev and publisher companies and not even dwindling sales and angry shareholders can get them purged.
We're gonna have to settle for watching these woke devs die a slow death. We can all help speed it up by sticking to playing much older woke-free gems and doing our best to expose social justice identity politics in newly released titles to help our fellow based gamers avoid buying the wokeslop.
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u/dmgkm105 22h ago
all these gaming companies need to do to convince most of you that ‘woke is dead’ is by hiring Sydney Sweeney to advertise their game. Influencers will all simultaneously talk about her and tell you ‘woke is dead’
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u/D3Construct 20h ago
Course correcting may be expensive, but not more expensive than losing tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars. Don't forget those pushing for DEI are the ones holding the money and that hasn't changed since.
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u/SweetFangzBby 1d ago
Insightful breakdown, Spy! It’s eye‑opening to see how DEI’s rapid rise reshapes game design—sometimes enriching, often clashing with creative merit. Thanks for sparking a thoughtful, nuanced conversation.
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u/JustiniZHere 20h ago
Its the final deluge of games that have been in production for years, probably since 2021-2022, way too long to cancel development now and way too far in development to redesign it. A lot of these studio heads probably know these game are doomed but their publishers are forcing them to release it still, not much they can do.
We won't see an end to these kinda games until probably late 2027 when games that started development around the start of this year start to show up.
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u/Arminius1234567 17h ago
I don’t see it changing for the better in the west unfortunately. Since I care very much about western games this is a shame. The Warhorse betrayal was the last straw for me.
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u/Teary_Oberon 9h ago
It's the 3-5 year mid to large game production cycle. Most of these games started development right after the Saint Floyd racial awakening so the devs tried to jump on the Social Justice fad not realizing it would no longer be relevant when the games released.
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u/blackest-Knight 1d ago
Games launching now have been in production for years. There was a time when it seemed that sanity wouldn't prevail, hence all the projects coming to market now adopt progressive tropes.