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Ugh, DEI has even infected the past now!

Woke isn't being progressive. It's being progressive to an extent beyond any sort of logic, virtue signaling constantly, and then calling anyone who disagrees with you morally or intellectually inferior.

In entertainment, that often results in some really annoying elements that I think we can all acknowledge are a thing after almost a decade of this:

• There is a minority protagonist. Said protagonist is disproportionately a straight coded conventionally attractive white women in their 20s.
• The only flaw the protagonist will have is not being confident enough
• There is then a minority side character. Said character will disproportionately be a black woman obviously less attractive than the protagonist, or a upper middle class gay fuckboi.
• If there is not one of these two things, a minority side character will be shoehorned in somewhere. The character will feel visibly out of place, and no explanation will be given. For example, they'll do some random black character in a fantasy setting that's clearly based off Scotland in the 1200s.
• Important character goes on a monologue that feels like a political PSA
• The IP's understanding of progressive politics and social justice is roughly equivalent to Tumblr circa 2013.
• Absolutely terrible writing. Even if you swapped all the "woke" elements for generic entertainment elements, the IP would still be terrible.
• Likewise, the IP itself is often put together in an extremely lazy and mediocre way. If said "woke" content was not there, it would be universally panned for its low quality.
• Amazing reviews. All aspects of the IP get 10/10 from the "professional" critics. All the reviews are similar enough that the critics either collaborated or read off the press release.
• The critics care more about the social justice aspect than the game itself.
• You get the sense both the creators and the critics of the IP not only don't consume this type of IP in their spare time, but actively resent people who do.
• Constant fucking gaslighting. Anyone who doesn't like this ultimately mediocre IP is either morally and intellectually inferior. This usually comes in the form of accusations of being a bigot, a Nazi, or a Trump supporter.
• Bigots, Nazis, and Trump supporters will then try to recruit people who are pissed about the gaslighting.
• At some point the IP itself fades into the background, and it just becomes yet another culture war battleground.

I think there's a reason Star Wars gets more shit for being woke than Spiderverse, or that Arcane hasn't become a culture war battleground in the same way She-Hulk did. The reason being those shows are actually good, and most people are happy to watch good shows.

A game is only called "woke" when it's bad. Balder's Gate 3 is one of the most "woke" major releases in the last few years but you hardly hear them complain about it.

It's the same thing with cyberpunk 2077. The anti-woke crowd can't agree on whether it's woke because many of them like it.

This is just my take on things. Feel free to agree or disagree.

Woke nowadays has a different meaning depending on where you are on the political spectrum, but I think most gamers think of it as corporate virtue signaling with often counterintuitive "not actually progressiveness" and ends up just stereotyping minorities. For example the DLC character in Kill the Justice League is an old lesbian stereotype and rarely represents what modern lesbians actually look like. In fact lesbians don't have to "look like" anything, but then you wouldn't know they're lesbians, and the companies don't understand how to do this.

Gamers can tell when a company is trying to "be progressive" while also having no idea how to do it properly, and it all comes off as incredibly cringe (Like DragonAge: The Veilguard) But when the developers are capable of telling a story, and integrate their modernized views into it, while making a great game (like Baldur's Gate 3) it no longer is "woke", just great.

Games with progressive views have existed for a very long time, and have generally been well received. But they never really started this "fake progressiveness corporate virtue signaling" until recently and I think gamers really only care about this happening. So it isn't about and never was about the political messages themselves. And proof of this lies in the fact that the same people who complain about woke games also complain about censorship in other countries (like the Arcane lesbian relationship being erased in the Chinese release, or game companies logos not having rainbows only in middle eastern countries).

I know a lot of people see in black and white, and you're either pro woke slop, or you're racist/sexist/transphobic. But reality is that most gamers (even those who complain about wokeness) actually are progressives. They actually don't care if someone is gay or trans or not. They only care about how that is portrayed, how belittling the message is, and how honest it is.

Is that dude waiting for an American Black Woman to invent punctuation marks?

I'm just tired of being lectured in video games. Sorry if that makes me anti woke.

Spiderman 2, veilguard were both worse off because of poorly done DEI. BG3 was fantastic and created characters that weren't talking about pronouns like I'm a 5 year old. Sorry not sorry.

To be fair, though the early video game industry was created by and included a diverse group of people, the games themselves were made to sell their niche demographic. At the time that was young white boys. As a result not many games of the early era showcased the positive side of diversity, and often times portrayed it negatively, even if it wasn't intentional.

The past these people are comparing modern games to isn't imagined, it's real. As the gaming industry has grown to the now extremely large range of people it has, and through a shift in social culture over the years, the content, intent, and purpose of the games themselves have drastically changed.

The people who complain about "woke" games main program isn't an issue with games, but more about their inability to accept the societal and cultural changes happening around them. They refuse to accept that the types of games they loved as a kid had a lot of problematic cultural issues.

So basically they're mad that the racist and/or homophobic and/or sexist themes that they loved in old in games aren't acceptable anymore.

Caper in the Castro came out on BBSs in 1989 to encourage people to donate to AIDS research.

As much as I despise the “anti-woke” crowd, this is not a good argument and completely misunderstands what they’re angry about.

They are angry about what they perceive as “forced diversity” that destroys modern media and that corporates like Disney are pushing a “woke agenda”.

I disagree with this view. I think representation in media is good. Games and movies usually turn bad for unrelated reasons (like rushed production or poor management).

People are mad about the weirdest thing.

When I was fully a gamer(tm), I used to get mad when people said that video games would make people to murderers. Now a bunch of the people, who probably used to get mad with me, are afraid that somehow video games makes you gay. Like dude, you know it is bs. You said it is bs.

"But it is about how the narrative suffers from the woke shit" yup totally true which is why the political right hated the harry Potter game for jk rolling's wokeness with Dumbledore's homosexuality and her rewriting of history by lying about what her notes would mean. Because they "hate" when authors don't respect the story but go for clout. (For those, who don't know, once jk said in an interview that a David star meant that the character is a wizard, later she claimed the same David star meant the character was a Jew) oh wait, they didn't boycott the game but hyped it up? Surely not because jk is a terf. No way.

Yes this man is absolutely correct. Aside from the obvious strawman's. The difference between the games he mentioned and the games currently coming out showcasing "wokeness" is that the old games are good.

No one actually cares how "woke" a game is as long as it's good.

Baldurs gate 2, arguably one of the best games ever made. Concord on the other hand... Ya.