Michiel1989,
“its forced when they are going to put in certain types of people to check boxes because they think thats what a certain group of people/gamers want”
Okay, but how do we *know* it’s forced? That’s my question. It just sounds like we’re going on gut feeling. When I read these comments from this developer, it just sounds like they’re saying they’re going out of the way to EXCLUDE certain themes or characters or whatever. In that case, is deliberate exclusion better than deliberate inclusion? I mean, coming out and saying this makes it blatantly anti-DEI, which I cautiously interpret as “ok, fair enough….?”. But you’re never going to placate anyone. “Force inclusion” and they’ll call you woke, “force exclusion” and they’ll call you bigoted. Really, what is even the point?
“instead of characters to enrichen their world from a genuine place that will make the world more interesting, regardless of race, gender and what have you”
Do we know what’s in their hearts though? What does it mean to come from a genuine place? There doesn’t seem to be any decent resolution here.
Why not just allow developers to make the game they want and judge the final product without fixating on this stuff? People say for example that it was forced in The Last of Us Part II. Personally, I loved the game: none of the LGBT+ themes bothered me and it gave an interesting perspective that isn’t even impossible in our world. None of it detracted from the overarching theme of the cycle of violence. Arguably, it did more for it. Then you’ve got other games like The Witcher that don’t seem to care about it at all that was great.
The way I see it, include it, don’t include it, it doesn’t bother me at all. But when we start saying we’re avoiding it or doubling down, you lose me. Just make the game you want to, whether it’s “woke” or not. If it’s a great game, who cares. Whether it was “forced” or not, again, who cares and who really knows unless they tell you? Outside of that, we’re speculating.