MIcrosoft has been pursuing “diversity” quite strongly. Phil Spencer self flagellated at E3 last year to promote more minority leads, The Coalition revealed that Gears of War 5 is part of Facebook’s feminist social engineering program called “Women in Gaming“, and Xbox rolled out the new “diverse” Xbox Avatars that seems to be designed for everyone else other than straight males. The writing is definitely on the wall, but it could get worse.
If what 343 Industries studio head Bonnie Ross says is true — that “diversity attracts diversity” — and the company continues to focus on that as a driving point behind their business decisions, then I don’t think 343 is going to be in business for long.
Speaking with CBS News, Ross talked about how “diverse” 343 Industries’ corporate culture is, and how it reflects in the games they make, saying…
“Across Xbox, we are really deliberate in making sure that we have opportunities for people to play the way they want to play. And that does impact diversity and gender, what you look like, what your skin color is, what size body you have. And we try and make sure that you can play how you want to play. […]
“I think diversity does attract diversity. So I think we have a more diverse team than in the past, which I think the team actually really appreciates. And I also think that diverse teams do kind of create a more diverse output, diverse thinking, and innovation on where you’re going.”
This hasn’t worked out so well for other companies, though.
BioWare decided to put diversity ahead of development skill with Mass Effect: Andromeda, and the entire thing came out a broken mess. It also tarnished the good name of the excellent Swedish-designed game engine, the Frostbite.
Mass Effect: Andromeda went on to have poor sales, terrible user feedback and resulted in Electronic Arts shelving the brand, which resulted in it ending up on the Get Woke; Go Broke Master List.
DICE’s Battlefield V also ended up on the list when they decided to put “diversity” ahead of historical accuracy, which resulted in the game failing miserably at retail and it, too, ended up on the Get Woke; Go Broke Master List.
The same thing happened with Volition Software’s Agents of Mayhem, which focused more on sociopolitical diversity rather than gameplay quality, and it, too, ended up on the Get Woke; Go Broke List.
Sunset was a game that was more about bashing whites than delivering quality content, and whatever message of diversity the developers tried to deliver was lost in the game’s panned feedback and poor sales, which also netted it a spot on the Get Woke; Go Broke List.
Are you starting to see a pattern here?
Those are just a few examples of many where putting politics ahead of polish results in the games failing… hard.
Game projects that decide to abandon quality control, neglect developers who are actually skillful, and forego concepts that are actually fun, all in place of pursuing agitprop, usually end up getting woke and going broke.
Halo 5 was a game that just barely escaped the Get Woke; Go Broke list. It was poorly planned game with samey design, a non-sensical plot, and a focus more on diversity than property character or story development. If 343 Industries repeats history with Halo: Infinite then it’s pretty obvious where the franchise is headed, and it doesn’t matter how much their diversity attracts diversity if it doesn’t attract a profit.
(Thanks for the news tip Ebicentre)
