DEI has taken root in the world of video games for years, but it may soon be game over for that hopelessly woke initiative.
The fight against woke culture spans every industry, and often makes headlines in relation to schools, libraries, retailers, and restaurants. But there’s another space infected by the relentless scourge of wokeness that has likely affected the teenage boys in your life.
It turns out the gaming industry has more pressing issues than just screen time limits. The industry has become a battleground for the culture wars, especially for younger Americans. Now, after one of the most expensive failures in Sony’s history, fans are wondering if the obsession with DEI quotas and virtue signaling in the video game industry has finally reached its breaking point.
Less than a year ago, Sony pulled the plug on Concord, a highly anticipated first-person shooter that was billed as the next Overwatch. The game reportedly had a development budget of up to $400 million, though this figure is disputed.
Overwatch, the wildly successful shooter that Concord aimed to rival, boasts an estimated 30 million active monthly users.
Instead, the title was pulled from online servers just weeks after launch, with full refunds offered to players. Fans had warned early on that the game looked like yet another case of developers prioritizing politics over fun. Still, the absolute magnitude of the disaster was shocking even for the most dialed-in gamer.
When it premiered last August, Concord only peaked at 697 concurrent players on its release day on PC, which is a terribly low number for a major release from a company like Sony. By comparison, competing hero shooter Marvel Rivals reached a peak of approximately 600,000 concurrent players shortly after its December 2024 release.
Analysts also estimate that only 25,000 copies of Concord were sold, according to IGN.
Amid such dismal sales and widespread ridicule, Sony was forced to shut the whole thing down and issue refunds within two weeks of the game’s release date.
In a statement from Sony in September 2024 that seemed to echo those sentiments, the company said that “aspects of the game and our initial launch didn’t land the way we’d intended.”
The studio attempted to blame the flop on other factors, but users and industry insiders pointed out a major issue with the game that likely contributed to its lack of resonance with players.
A former World of Warcraft developer wrote that Concord was “so focused on ‘inclusive’ teams that they forgot the white guys in their game. Inclusive should not mean racist against white people, but it too often does.”
Another person on X agreed, saying the game “features five black women, four aliens, three robots, and one white man. It’s incredibly diverse and non-heteronormative. Plus, it has pronouns. Are you excited?”
Concord is a new progressive and modern shooter for Pc & Playstation. It features five black women, four aliens, three robots, and one white man. It’s incredibly diverse and non-heteronormative. Plus, it has pronouns. Are you excited? 😆 pic.twitter.com/DpLfjIvpp1
— LearningTheLaw ✝️ (@Mangalawyer) May 31, 2024
Even Elon Musk chimed in to say that he was frustrated with “DEI woke bullsh*t” that’s ruining video games.
Elon Musk: Can you just leave the video games alone?
“It’s really annoying when a video game gets interrupted by some DEI woke bullshit.
And I’m like, Jesus, I was playing a video game here. Can you just leave the video games alone?
You don’t want to do things that damage art.… pic.twitter.com/cMrMZZBctN
— ELON CLIPS (@ElonClipsX) November 24, 2024
And it’s not just this one game. Last fall, Call of Duty caught heat for introducing Volta Rossi, a “nonbinary” character who uses they/them pronouns.
One person who understands why gamers are so fed up is Jason Ruchelski, better known online as jasonR. He’s a former professional Counter-Strike player who now streams to thousands of fans on Twitch. He’s lived through the rise of DEI and cancel culture in gaming firsthand.
“As far as I’m concerned, there has been a massive shift in how people and how the demographic of this industry kind of looks at this cancel culture, woke type stuff,” Jason said. “If you would have asked two or three years ago, everyone was terrified. Every developer, every gamer, every streamer was scared to say anything wrong because of cancel culture.”
That fear was not unfounded. Jason himself went viral in 2019 when he revealed that, as a married man, he refused to play online with women to avoid drama and protect his relationship. The backlash, he explained, was extreme.
“I was trending on Twitter for two weeks straight,” he recalled. “I was called a sexist, a misogynist. They even went after my wife. All because I set boundaries.”
Jason’s story highlights a broader trend where traditional boundaries are punished in the name of “progress.” But he says, fortunately, the tide is starting to turn in the gaming industry.
“In the last year, maybe two years, there has been a dramatic shift,” he said. “Games are flopping because they’re adding in woke or DEI stuff. Movies are flopping. The industry is so dry because people are turning so heavily against it. There’s just nothing these games can hold on to, so they’re dying.”
Concord is the most recent example of a massive flop. Players mocked the game’s roster of “ugly,” DEI-inspired characters and complained about being forced to use preferred pronouns. On Reddit, fans pointed out that developers seemed more focused on “representation checklists” than on actual gameplay.
As one commenter said, “They keep insisting we asked for this stuff. We didn’t. No one did.”
Jason said he believes there may have been some activists asking for leftist elements in games, but that group was far outnumbered by normal players who either didn’t care or were annoyed by it.
“The people these [developers] are listening to are just the loudest. They’re not the ones actually playing your game,” he said. “They’re the ones offended on Twitter. But they’re not buying your product. And finally, people are starting to realize that.”
That “vocal minority” effect has been seen across industries, from Cracker Barrel to Hollywood. In gaming, it’s played out in absurd ways. Jason recalled one instance from Valorant, another massively popular first-person shooter game, where developers introduced a “they/them” character.
“The whole community of streamers started banning viewers for not using the right pronouns,” he said. “If you called the character a ‘he’ or ‘she’ by accident, you were permanently banned from the chat. They even pinned comments saying, ‘if you don’t respect the pronouns, you’ll be banned.’ And this was all over a fictional character.”
The result? Players were on edge in a space that was supposed to be fun. For Jason, it all circles back to authenticity.
“Back in the day, you’d turn on your stream because you loved the game and wanted to build a community. Now it’s, let me turn on my stream and see what people want me to love,” he said. “It’s all fake people, fake content creators, just searching for income. The genuineness has flown out the window.”
Still, he’s cautiously optimistic.
“Yes, there’s been a shift. But now you have people trying to be edgy, standing on that line of being canceled because that’s what gets them fame. So it’s fake in a different way,” he explained. “Nobody knows what anyone really believes anymore. It’s just a big show.”
He also offered some advice for game developers who want to avoid creating the next Concord.
“Focus on your product. Quit worrying about what Twitter thinks. Be innovative. Stop recycling the same boxes to check. Just make the best game you can,” he recommended.
That may sound simple, but as Jason pointed out, too many developers have convinced themselves that the majority of gamers care about pronouns, rainbow flags, and inclusiveness. In reality, they just want to play the game.
And at the end of the day, it’s all about the money. The Concord flop led to a major shakeup at Sony, with leadership admitting that “increased oversight” was now necessary for future games. It’s safe to assume they won’t let another $400 million flop happen because developers are obsessed with pushing some DEI agenda.
Meanwhile, gamers are making their preferences loud and clear: make great games, and keep the identity politics out of it.
