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[DeltaPolarBear]

I certainly think the 'DEI' factor was a reason why Veilguard and Concord sold badly - but it's always a combination of factors. As far as Star Wars is concerned - it's a dying IP that no one cares about anymore and has been milked to the ground. And as you've mentioned, Outlaws is an awful game full stop.

The CLEAR common factor is that the DEI additions also involve having incompetent gamer developers.

Look, bad games get made every year. it's just that recently, bad games also tend to have DEI at the same time. Usually you need to play a game in order to find out it sucked. However, the DEI virtual signalling is so loud that it became a convenient marker to avoid bad games quickly and efficiently.

The DEI isn't what makes it bad, but since there is a high correlation between DEI and outright incompetence, it is a useful way to make purchase decisions with.

Saying "it isn't DEI's fault" isn't going to change our minds, the correlation is too strong.

 

[Jaybe]

Indy didnt flop.. stop trying to make that a thing

If we are strictly speaking about sales, Indy definitely flopped. We are having a good laugh at Dragin Age here but Indy’s Steam CCU peak is 12k and DA is 89k, so it’s likely a fifth or lower if DA’s sales on Steam. In the UK, its first week sales in the physical chart were #18 and it was no longer in the top 40 in its second week. In Xbox paid games list it was low, somewhere in the 40s i believe but that was like a week ago. The only sales ‘good news’ for the game comes from Circana/NPD’s Mat talking about it being #2 in its launch week, that there is no comparison being made to allude to sales revenue or volume, it’s the analytical equivalent of new movie was #1 at the box office this weekend level.
Again, this is sales, and it’s a flop. Yes, it’s probably had lots of Game Pass players though we have no numbers yet. yes it reviewed well, and most people that have played it seemed to at least think it was ‘good’ if those are non-sales things you want to feel positive regarding Indy’s performance, you can point to those things instead.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Dragon Age had the market to itself and it couldn’t find an audience,”

you mean.... it couldn't find the modern audience?

he continued. “And that’s really scary as we move into the following year.”

you mean, encouraging, inspiring, motivating, reassuring, promising?. This is awesome news, concord levels of happiness.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Genuine question. If this game went with a macho/hetero vibe to it would it of had a big impact on sales?

you mean Tassh?

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Indy didnt flop.. stop trying to make that a thing

did Aaron tweet yet?

---

 

[Fess]

He‘s right though, even though some right wing manchilds think of it as the no.1 factor to decide whether or not a game is a success, outside of their tiny bubble no one gives a shit. PR has a much bigger impact and DAVs PR was terrible.

He’s not right. Target a small audience, sell to a small audience. It’s really that simple and we’ll see more games underperform going forward for the exact same reasons. The industry needs to wake up on this or more jobs will be cut and studios will close. It’s just how it is. The industry is extremely social now, bad reception and an agenda snowball rolling about can destroy anything. And a game even without PR that is perfectly aimed at a big audience can become a success just from positive word of mouth.

 

[EN250]

Guess the target audience they were aiming for didn't show up or don't care about gaming at all and just use it to push their agenda on social media

 

[Hookshot]

A gay game for gay gamers only sells to a small portion of that small portion of gamers? I'm surprised!

 

[Kerotan]

Yes.

Not a genuine answer, but your question most certainly isn’t genuine either.

It was indeed genuine.

Your "genuine question" betrays your bias, because the premise of your question presupposes a reason for the game not resonating with audiences that is not even close to being true; nor even argued by anyone.

You're gaslighting and it's transparent.

To correct your ignorance, Veilguard turned off audiences because it was a shit game, made by people who hate the audience of the previous games, for a new audience that doesn't even exist.

The art direction was wank. The character design was offensive and the writing was so bad a 13yo could have done a significantly better job.

But all of the above are symptoms of a deeper problem, i.e. the capture of the dev by activist extreme left ideological bad actors whose prime directive is to spread their poisonous message using the game as a platform, instead of just entertaining gamers by giving them what they (i.e. gamers) want.

It was a genuine question so you might aswell highlight my bias because I've no idea what you're waffling about. The second half of your post does in fact answer my question though.

I don't know. Midnight Suns had more of a macho vibe, but it sold even more like shit. Veilguard even did moderately well in comparison. I think that grown up dudes are just not that thrilled by AAA games that seem to be more than 50% young adult visual novel/dating sim.

Yeah see this is what I'm asking. This isn't my type of game even the old style the series used to have so I'm wondering if the game has done shit because of the woke stuff, if it's just a shit game or a combination of both.

 

[PeteBull]

A gay game for gay gamers only sells to a small portion of that small portion of gamers? I'm surprised!

I would say it targeted women(straigt, lesbians and bi) too, but they barely buy AAA games at launch so ofc it bombed hard, when it comes to market.
They definitely made sure majority of straight men(so most of ppl who buy AAA games at launch) get offput by character design in the game, we will never know if coz of that 70, 80 or even 90% of sales were lost, but even currently less than 2 months after game's launch we get 35% discount on DA:V
Personally if some1 likes the genre and IP, i suggest DA:I instead, yes its 10yo but it still looks solid maxed out, and its on 85% discount on steam.
Here review on how actual game holds up:


And here how it looks maxed if u got beefy modern pc btw, runs flawlessly too which u can see in the vid:

 

[SF Kosmo]

Veilguard honestly had one of the worst marketing cycles I have ever seen for a game of that size.

 

[Fake]

A trash game sold worst than a trash game..

Surprise surprise.

Intergalatic will have the biggest shock of reality in the game history. I praying for that.

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

That will teach them to stop believing that they are the best.

They outdid themselves, they couldn't make a worse game than Anthem.

Now Obsidian are next.

 

[Wildebeest]

Yeah see this is what I'm asking. This isn't my type of game even the old style the series used to have so I'm wondering if the game has done shit because of the woke stuff, if it's just a shit game or a combination of both.

Most people here couldn't care less. All they know is they have watched 500 youtube videos by rage baiting grifters whose only expertise is working their audience.

 

[firegamer273]

i hope intergalactic meets the same fate just to send sony a message .

 

[cormack12]

 

[ricardo_sousa11]

The CLEAR common factor is that the DEI additions also involve having incompetent gamer developers.

Look, bad games get made every year. it's just that recently, bad games also tend to have DEI at the same time. Usually you need to play a game in order to find out it sucked. However, the DEI virtual signalling is so loud that it became a convenient marker to avoid bad games quickly and efficiently.

The DEI isn't what makes it bad, but since there is a high correlation between DEI and outright incompetence, it is a useful way to make purchase decisions with.

Saying "it isn't DEI's fault" isn't going to change our minds, the correlation is too strong.

I think its precisely because the game is bad that they lean into the DEI agenda,

Theres nothing worst than a luke warm meh bellow average videogame with nothing to talk about, at least with the DEI crap it gets talked about.

In this specific case, had it not had DEI, it would be bashed by the awful writting, it still did, but the LGHD4k+ crowd blindly claims its the best game in the history of gaming, so the writting isnt the focus.

Also the reviewers are afraid to give it anything less than a 9 and be called homofobic.

 

[YOU PC BRO?!]

> make a big budget dark fantasy game
> beloved, popular franchise with a dedicated player base
> development hell, takes ~8 years to make and costs > 150 million
> market research shows the genre is comprised of a majority straight male audience
> previous game in the series saw 82% male vs 18% female player character split
> remove dark fantasy theme
> introduce a more cartoon like art style
> fill the game full of gender theory and lgbt themes
> glowing praise from critics
> game fails commercially and is forgotten in a month
> game loses money
> future of the company in jeopardy
> all involved are moved onto the next project

 

[Wildebeest]

I think its precisely because the game is bad that they lean into the DEI agenda,

Theres nothing worst than a luke warm meh bellow average videogame with nothing to talk about, at least with the DEI crap it gets talked about.

In this specific case, had it not had DEI, it would be bashed by the awful writting, it still did, but the LGHD4k+ crowd blindly claims its the best game in the history of gaming, so the writting isnt the focus.

This is often the case when these supposedly damaging "woke" scenes or trailers are released to the internet. What they are expecting is the wave of hate because they expect a kickback from people who want to distance themselves from the hate, which just seems deranged and uncool to them. The thing is that almost everyone now is bored by this and have other things to worry about. The juice isn't worth the squeezing any more.

 

[Fbh]

I wonder if behind closed doors at places like EA and Ubisoft they are actually having honest conversations about all the DEI stuff and how it's negatively affecting games and sales.
Or if these places are so infested by people with this mentality that even in that context everyone is just beating around the bush and pretending they don't understand why their games are performing poorly: "It must be it took too long since the last entry", "maybe people have been overexposed to fantasy", "it's the economy", "it must be because Jupiter wasn't aligned with Uranus on that day".

 

[HerjansEagleFeeder]

I'm so gonna play this just for shits and giggles when this is sub 20 Euros used.

 

[ricardo_sousa11]

This is often the case when these supposedly damaging "woke" scenes or trailers are released to the internet. What they are expecting is the wave of hate because they expect a kickback from people who want to distance themselves from the hate, which just seems deranged and uncool to them. The thing is that almost everyone now is bored by this and have other things to worry about. The juice isn't worth the squeezing any more.

They also seem to forget that characters need to be relatable.

Almost no one relates to girl-boss-stud types, and even the people cheering for it do not buy the games, kinda like women sports.

Strong female characters are IMO even harder to write than the average GI JOE male characters.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

2024 is the year woke went broke.

- Suicide Squad flopped
- Sweet Baby Inc games all flopped horribly and people have gone out of their way to identify and avoid anything they worked on
- Flintlock bombed
- Dustborn bombed
- Concord bombed
- Star Wars: The Acolyte canceled
- Star Wars Outlaws bombed
- Veilguard bombed
- Unknown 9 Awakening bombed
- Kamala Harris bombed
- Alyssa Mercante got laid off from Kotaku and became a cam whore
- AC Shadows delayed and Ubisoft on life support
- Intergalactic trailer comments disabled and ratio’d to hell
- Obsidian’s art director got called out by Elon on X

The rare incel victories just keep on coming. Here’s to a happy and successful 2025!

 

[Wildebeest]

They also seem to forget that characters need to be relatable.

Almost no one relates to girl-boss-stud types, and even the people cheering for it do not buy the games, kinda like women sports.

Strong female characters are IMO even harder to write than the average GI JOE male characters.

It isn't that complicated, but I guess marketing people don't care, and trends in game making are against it. Strong characters are often silent. The more good people yap and make empty gestures, the less strong they seem. If someone is dangerous and yappy it is because they lie or manipulate a lot. Which doesn't seem strong in a respectable way. It's the classic good, bad, ugly thing. Silent, sadistic, or dishonest.

 

[Plague Doctor]

Are we seeing people who said that "DEI/Forced virtue signaling is absolutely, positively not a factor" beginning to say "Okay maybe it is a factor, but not a big one" in flops?

Yep, we are a few months from articles saying, "Is messaging in video games a little too preachy"

We are getting there. It looks like gravity is finally kicking in.

 

[Kotaro]

2024 is the year woke went broke.

- Suicide Squad flopped
- Sweet Baby Inc games all flopped horribly and people have gone out of their way to identify and avoid anything they worked on
- Flintlock bombed
- Dustborn bombed
- Concord bombed
- Star Wars: The Acolyte canceled
- Star Wars Outlaws bombed
- Veilguard bombed
- Unknown 9 Awakening bombed
- Kamala Harris bombed
- Alyssa Mercante got laid off from Kotaku and became a cam whore
- AC Shadows delayed and Ubisoft on life support
- Intergalactic trailer comments disabled and ratio’d to hell
- Obsidian’s art director got called out by Elon on X

The rare incel victories just keep on coming. Here’s to a happy and successful 2025!

Concord did not just bomb, it got blown out of the orbit. Sony literally finger-snapped it to a different dimension

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

Are we seeing people who said that "DEI/Forced virtue signaling is absolutely, positively not a factor" beginning to say "Okay maybe it is a factor, but not a big one" in flops?

Yep, we are a few months from articles saying, "Is messaging in video games a little too preachy"

We are getting there. It looks like gravity is finally kicking in.

Check out his coverage of this New York Times article that is absolutely insane. No way in hell they would’ve printed an article like this pre-election

 

[TheCed]

These DEI games are eating dirts one by one.

Avowed, Assassin's Creed: Shadows are next....then Yotei and Intergalactic in the next 1-2 years

What's the problem with Yoteï ?

 

[Mr Moose]

The chuds and incels right now:

We stay winning.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

Concord did not just bomb, it got blown out of the orbit. Sony literally finger-snapped it to a different dimension

Yeah I guess “bomb” is the wrong word. It’s probably the most expensive failed video game of all time.

 

[Deleted member 848825]

Yep going to a 40% off sale within two months, doesn't bode well. Not surprising.

Only concerning aspect is. Is if they put this down to Dragon Age no longer being popular and bin the IP, rather than acknowledging the real reasons for its failure.

 

[FoxMcChief]

Just sat down at my desk and saw this. I lol’d way louder than I should have.

 

[Kacho]

 

[Humdinger]

Genuine question. If this game went with a macho/hetero vibe to it would it of had a big impact on sales?

It wouldn't be necessary to go with a "macho" vibe to be more successful. "Macho," to my mind anyhow, connotes an exaggerated form of masculinity, almost a caricature. Bioware has always been a gay-friendly dev. They've included gay romance options in most of their games, including previous DA games, and been quite successful. So it isn't necessary to go to the other extreme - "Macho, Macho Man" - just to get sales.

But if you want to appeal to a broad audience, you do have to remove the heavy-handed promotion of modern-day trans and LGBTQ+ priorities. That turned a lot of people off. There were bigger problems with the game, of course - poor writing, safe space tone, lack of RPG elements in an RPG, ignoring DA fanbase, etc. - but that was a factor.

From the way people were talking I thought the game was pretty successful, but then I checked and the all time high on Steam was only 12k. I guess my disconnect was that the game wasn't actually as woke as people thought, but that definitely didn't translate into sales in this case.

Early indications are that it isn't doing all that well. It's not all bad news, but most of it is deflating. Its troubles aren't related to any "woke" elements, btw. They are due to it being released on Xbox (where people don't buy many games), to it being a 20-25 hr SP game (most people are reluctant to pay $70 for that), and that the Indy franchise doesn't have nearly the pull it used to.

 

[Fake]

Didnt he delete this tweet also?

Yes as usual, but internet never forget.

 

[Horseganador]

Console sales in Europe are not yet known, strange.

 

[Nydius]

Indy didnt flop.. stop trying to make that a thing

The reality of the games industry is that sales is the ultimate arbiter of success, not reviews or engagement metrics.

What limited data we have on game sales for Indy Jones isn’t painting a very rosy picture. In terms of engagement metrics, I doubt it will have a significant impact on long term Game Pass users since most people who have played it on Game Pass are people like myself, who have a year’s worth of Game Pass already stacked, or people like my best friend who resubbed for a single month, beat Indy, beat Black Ops 6 campaign, played some BLOPS multiplayer then cancelled.

We’re going to have to wait and see how sales do when it launches on PlayStation but Indy is a shining example why Microsoft is going to end up going full multiplatform. They need to sell games and they can’t do that on Xbox (and are struggling now on PC thanks to PC Game Pass).

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

Geoff's mafia plans already wanted to make it the game of the year... and he couldn't do it.

 

[NickFire]

History keeps repeating itself. Some of these clowns would still be eating dinner on the Titanic and talking about how remarkable the ship was when their shoes got wet.

 

[mckmas8808]

Jason is right here though. DEI is not a factor in whether games do or do not sell. The game's quality does.

 

[PeteBull]

Jason is right here though. DEI is not a factor in whether games do or do not sell. The game's quality does.

Him and whole bunch of woke sellout journos decided the game's quality is high tho, we all saw those stellar reviews after all, so it doesnt check out if we only go by that, unless, and here comes a catch- those professional reviewers are full of shit and they give mid games inflated scores

 

[NickFire]

Jason is right here though. DEI is not a factor in whether games do or do not sell. The game's quality does.

Quality always matters. But how did we end up with so many low quality games with massive budgets? What is the more likely alternative causation? Honest question.

 

[Kacho]

Jason is right here though. DEI is not a factor in whether games do or do not sell. The game's quality does.

Dragon Age got a 9/10 from IGN and lots of praise from users here.

 

[mckmas8808]

In what universe is Yotei woke?
We've seen one trailer with a female protagonist and you declare it woke?

You live in the same bubble as Era users, only on the other side of it.

They have lost their ever-loving minds.

Did you see this druckmann? This is your future as well.

Yeah right LOL!!!! If Intergalatic is good, it'll sell great.

I mean Schreier isn't wrong when he said DEI isn't a factor whether it sells or not. Okay, maybe it's a small factor but not that big of a factor like some of you wanted it to be.

Dragon Age just sucks as a video game in many many areas and there's like 20 things on a list supporting that claim and DEI may just be one of those. So it's impact is relatively small. I've compiled a list a while ago in another thread.

I haven't done so for Outlaws but I'll do it here:

- dumb and broken AI (slightly fixed after the major patch but utterly broken when sales matter the most)
- non optional stealth missions (also fixed, but again, too late)
- mediocre stealth mechanics
- bodies can't be moved and have to be left where you struck them
- no character-arc/progression for the protagonist
- uninteresting activities/jobs with unsatisfying rewards (paint jobs... this is so typical video gamey and un-immersive, you sneak and break into a facility and in a chest you find... a paint job. how does that even work in-game-universe?)
- non-reactive environment with little interaction
- people not responding properly to things you do (which includes e.g. run over people)
- gameplay becomes repetitive and none of its cores are more than robust, only mediocre (the shooting, the racing, the melee combat, space combat); it's just serviceable and nothing is outstanding
- on PC late Steam release, again, release it what matters most
- bugs and glitches (some what fixed?)
- some image quality and performance issues (some what fixed? again, release it what counts the most for these games)
- Star Wars as a brand is flooded with products which may reduce desire to explore a new product because it lacks perceived "freshness", especially after a highly divisive and polarising new film trilogy

Obviously this list isn't as huge as for DA:V but I'd argue it's not as bad as DA.

Also this is not to say it can't be fun or has its moment (I like the faction loyality system which has actual gameplay consequences), but it does not excel in any of its areas. The "uglyfied" protagonist (I still can't comprehend how they could make such a beautiful actress look like this in-game...) is just a small point you might want to add to that list.

If you had a great product, DEI wouldn't matter that much. Even Elden Ring usés "body type A/B" and no one cares because it's irrelevant in the grandness of that game. If Geralt had been gay it wouldn't matter for TW3. At least that's my point of view.

Perfectly said!

 

[CompleteGlobalSaturation]

The CLEAR common factor is that the DEI additions also involve having incompetent gamer developers.

Look, bad games get made every year. it's just that recently, bad games also tend to have DEI at the same time. Usually you need to play a game in order to find out it sucked. However, the DEI virtual signalling is so loud that it became a convenient marker to avoid bad games quickly and efficiently.

The DEI isn't what makes it bad, but since there is a high correlation between DEI and outright incompetence, it is a useful way to make purchase decisions with.

Saying "it isn't DEI's fault" isn't going to change our minds, the correlation is too strong.

Well it is no surprise with the advent of DEI and diversity hires the quality of game developers has plummeted.

 

[SF Kosmo]

A trash game sold worst than a trash game..

Surprise surprise.

Intergalatic will have the biggest shock of reality in the game history. I praying for that.

If you're even drawing a relationship between these two games you're on the wrong track. Veilguard's failure was predictable long before it released, because it had an awful roll out and zero hype.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

Jason is right here though. DEI is not a factor in whether games do or do not sell. The game's quality does.

I don’t believe that for a minute. FFS they made one of your party member’s story arc about her telling her parents she’s nonbinary and wants to switch to they/them pronouns. You honestly don’t think that turned some gamers off?

Or look at Concord. They couldn’t even get gamers to try the free beta, thanks in large part to the ugly DEI character roster.

 

[mckmas8808]

Him and whole bunch of woke sellout journos decided the game's quality is high tho, we all saw those stellar reviews after all, so it doesnt check out if we only go by that, unless, and here comes a catch- those professional reviewers are full of shit and they give mid games inflated scores

I think the bolded is true. I think you have it correct here. The game overall got a 82% on Metacritic for the PS5 version (77 reviews). But interesting enough.....it got a 76% on Metacritic for the PC version (40 reviews). I'm of the belief the game is closer to a 76%, than the 82%. So, yeah some scores were inflated by the mainstream media for "certain" reasons that we can clearly see.

Quality always matters. But how did we end up with so many low quality games with massive budgets? What is the more likely alternative causation? Honest question.

Publishers were passing money out as if interest rates were 0%......hold on they were LOL! 2017-2020 was a crazy time for some games to get made. And I do honestly believe Covid hurt alot of game production. Remember the whole "work from home" push? I do! And saw many devs say that working from home would be the new normal for devs. Well guess what........THAT IDEA HAS FLOPPED!! Hard! Most are going back into the office like they should be.

Dragon Age got a 9/10 from IGN and lots of praise from users here.

IGN inflated score. And most on GAF didn't love the game. I'd be surprised if most on GAF that played the game would give it an 8/10 or higher.

I don’t believe that for a minute. FFS they made one of your party member’s story arc about her telling her parents she’s nonbinary and wants to switch to they/them pronouns. You honestly don’t think that turned some gamers off?

Or look at Concord. They couldn’t even get gamers to try the free beta, thanks in large part to the ugly DEI character roster.

Concord look uninteresting from day one. And even if Taash wasn't in the game.......DA:Veilguard still would be an average RPG. It's just not interesting.

 

[Holammer]

I think it's time to look into Youtube ratings as a predictor for poor sales. 4 year old trailers for Suicide squad had pretty good ratings (same with Avowed for example), but from a cursory look, it seems like past 1-2 years made viewers more suspicious. Just a shame the videos are posted by several accounts like Xbox/IGN/Playstation etc.
Also the more we poke at it, the more publishers will start botting likes to shape public opinion and Ubisoft is already looking suspect.

Official Launch trailers:
Veilguard - 26k 41k
Concord - 2.3k 44k
Unknown 9 - 1.7 36k
Outlaws - 6k 14k

Notables in development/about to release are Fairgame$ with 4.1k 51k for its reveal trailer and Ass Creek: Shadows with 300k 599k.

 

[proandrad]

Yotei will be fine. The same way Witcher 4 will be. This isn't about games having female protagonists, no matter how hard some people want it to be.

Woke warriors are desperately trying lump any game with female lead, diverse cast, and progressive ideas as woke. Plenty of games have had all these things in the pass and have been successful. Forcing these elements in games and making a game with these themes are not the same.