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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   4313 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 25, 2024

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Is the video game industry woke? Or are you just updating on a few high profile titles?

As others have pointed out, Japanese games are largely not woke. The big mobile titles and Mihoyo stuff coming out of China are very much not woke. Indies are rarely woke. Eastern Europe and similar nations largely don't produce woke stuff.

So we're largely talking about AAA/AA titles from the larger publishers in NA and Western Europe. How many of their titles are woke? Is Call of Duty woke? Fortnite? FIFA/Madden/NBA?

Before we dive into other titles, we need to define what is and isn't a woke game. Something like recent (indie) flop Dustborn is clearly, explicitly woke, but most titles aren't nearly so clear cut. The biggest seller of 2023 was Hogwarts Legacy. Is this a woke title? Supposedly it had a very diverse cast for 19th century England, but Rowling's reputation has become poison amongst woke-types, so much so that there was a big backlash against the game.

How about Battlefield V? I recall there was a furore around the announcement trailer because one of the main characters was a 'girlboss' in WW2. But as far as I'm aware there wasn't much else that would be woke in there. Is a single character enough to make a game woke or not?

What some of the big GaaS titles? LoL's character design branched out from big titty anime girls years ago, but are a handful of 'diverse' characters enough to deem it woke? Rainbow Six Siege has get some shit recently because of a character in a wheelchair, and I believe the much criticized recent 2B design was a skin from that game. But again this is just a handful of characters available.

Here's the top selling US games from 2023, 22, and 21 (with duplicates/yearly entries removed). Which ones are woke?

Hogwarts

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Spider Man 2

Diablo 4

Jedi: Survivor

Mortal Kombat 1

Starfield

Call of Duty

Elden Ring

Madden

God of War: Ragnarök

LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga

Pokémon

FIFA

Horizon: Forbidden West

MLB: The Show

Battlefield 2042

Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

Resident Evil: Village

Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury

I can't figure out whether Diablo IV is woke because it has a non-binary boss (Lord Zir), or anti-woke because ze's monstrously unattractive and ill-tempered.

Horizon: Forbidden West
Spider Man 2
Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales
Mortal Kombat 1 ( heard they are covering the women up, haven't played it myself)

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