I think you're making a lot of assumptions.

A big problem is that there's not two groups. There's not a group for "DEI", and another group against it. There's an entire spectrum of what people are pushing for/against and also there's a spectrum of what they're aware of. 

On the awareness part, most of what we talk about people is viewed through race and not ethnicity. We talk about broader groups of white people and black people, even if those things are poorly defined. 

"It's born from the obsession to compartmentalize people in easily identifiable checkboxes."

You're right, but I'm guessing you're blaming the pro-"DEI" people for it. I hope that I'm wrong about my guess, because that's absurd. We live in a cultural context that has a lot of history of putting people in boxes. "You're not white if you're Irish" That is the framework that a lot of western culture has built itself around. 

Pretending that the culture and context doesn't exist, doesn't make you enlightened. 

"Let's put a Nigerian, Senegalese and Aboriginal all in the color coded bucket 'black', because of something arbitrary as similar shade of skin color. Totally ignoring their vastly different cultures. Then pretend if Samual L. Jackson stars in a Marvel movie, the Aboriginal feels representation."

And I don't think most people are pushing for this massive strawman. 

No media is going to "check all the boxes", no one is pushing for that. But we need to push for variety, to get more representation. 

People do push for aboriginals and all these other groups to get some kind of representation. And it is dishonest to boil it down to "we just need black people".

I feel like this is a different kind of shoehorning tbh and it's not true, I have seen more PS fans dancing on its grave than I have seen xbox or Nintendo fans. Probably because the studio is the tip of the GAAS spear that Jim invested heavily in, the same spear that gets blamed, rightly or wrongly, for SIE's poor output. 

No one said "it was because it was $40". The reason given was that it is a competitive space with bad characters.  

Redfall isn't in the same genre. 

Some have convinced themselves that the game failed because DEI/Woke despite **nobody** playing it, not even the progressives who care about this stuff, Lol. You really think shouting out "WOKE!" is a better argument for why the game failed than what I have said which is NOT just that it was $40, I listed multiple reasons why I believe it failed, all which I consider far more impactful than someone vaguely screaming "WOKE" with not much to back it up.

It doesn't have a white character despite that one character looking white as fuck? It has pronouns despite multiple massively successful games having pronouns? It has DEI writing consultancy agencies on it despite the credits listing none? I don't know why you opted to only single out one portion of my argument for why it failed, the $40 price tag. I wouldn't even consider that the most important reason why it failed of all my reasons, Lol.

What I said in the past in this thread was...

1. Probably what I would consider the biggest reason as to why it failed, it was launching directly against an extremely competitive market, its direct competition was some of the biggest IP around today, from some of the most well known developers in the industry, played by millions, its competition was GaaS which already have their claws hooked into players.

I've said multiple times that even if Concord was a great title, there would be a good chance it would have failed, that's why I've said Sony should spend less time trying to directly take on some of the biggest games around and instead try to fill gaps in the market, that's why I used the example of Helldivers 2 and Sea of Thieves which don't really have much direct competition.

It has to compete with Valorant, Overwatch, Apex Legends, Rainbow Six Siege, etc. People only have so much time in their day and when they've already invested hundreds of hours and 100s of $ into one of these games it's an incredibly difficult task to convince them to then swap to something completely new even if your game is great.

Concord joins the graveyard of Battleborn, Lawbreakers, Gigantic (Temp Back; Died Earlier), Crucible, Paragon, etc. Did all these games fail cause woke too? No. If you're going to compete with massive IPs from extremely well known developers then you better damn well be the best and not only be the best, you better hope you offer something unique which pulls people to your game.

By comparison Concord was an average title from a new developer and a new IP deciding to fight against the biggest IPs and studios in the industry.

That's ultimately the #1 reason why I say Concord failed, now you tell me how that is worse than "FAILED CAUSE WOKE!"

2. Game was mid, even "good" isn't good enough to compete with these big juggernauts so "average" definitely isn't good enough, these "woke" critics didn't like it, the progressive gamers didn't like it, few people liked it, it was average and didn't offer anything new. Even if it was good it would be a tall order, plenty of "good" things fail in crowded markets.

The other reasons I stated for it failing were...

1. Character Designs are bland as fuck, not because "woke" but because the simple matter of them being bland. Overwatch is more "woke" than Concord FFS, Lmao. But Overwatch character designs are great and it's full with LGBTQ+ characters.

2. The marketing was shit and I'd argue the release timing was unfortunate too, like days after Black Myth was an absolutely gigantic success and during Gamescom felt like weird timing for marketing, it would have just been drowned out in the noise.

3. I stand by the price tag being a factor, I would concede that number for the beta is bad but I still stand by that for any chance of success it needed to be F2P because its biggest competition is F2P, almost every MP title nowadays in this market or similar enough is moving to F2P because it's quickly becoming the only way to compete, unless you're already a massive IP or a well known developer. If a game doesn't have success as a F2P title then it sure as shit wouldn't have success as a paid title, at the very least, the price tag didn't help it, Lol.

Left wingers constantly criticize games, and movies for bad representations. 

A ton of games have gotten criticized for using stereotypes or having unrealistic hairstyles, characters being voiced by the wrong actor/actress, and a million other things. 

The Last of Us Part II even got criticized for how they portrayed black people. 

To act like anyone is just asking for a list of appearances is dishonest. 

Stop getting your left wing views on right wing sites. 

Overwatch

• Tracer - Lesbian.
• Soldier 76 - Gay.
• Lifeweaver – Pansexual
• Baptiste – Bisexual
• Pharah – Lesbian
• Venture – Non-Binary

Valorant

• Killjoy and Raze: Lesbian
• Clove: Non-Binary.

What LGBTQ+ characters does Concord even have because I'm struggling to find it? All I can find is the game allows pronouns, I could only find this "There is no indicator to what the sexuality of any character in the game is, just that one uses they/them pronouns." and nobody would give a fuck about it having pronouns if it was a good game as evidenced by multiple other games with pronoun options.

Does Overwatch and Valorant have more LGBTQ+ characters than Concord? Lol.

WOKE Overwatch and WOKE Valorant utterly destroyed Concord. Gamers must want WOKE stuff!

Are we only upset about the game "not having a white guy" but having a guy that looks like a generic white dude anyway, Lol.

Concord should have launched on PlayStation Plus if it was going to have a chance. Perhaps if it found a small player base on there with the smaller hurdle to try it out, different characters could have been added in time, or some variants of existing characters tried out.. but otherwise with its 'pro-woke' approach, and the hurdle to try it, and the fact the competition is free, better established, has better characters and by all reports has better gameplay it was always going to be a big ask.

Being pro-woke definitely hurt the game, and you'll see that with the next Ubi release as well, but whether it alone would have been enough to totally kill it.. probably not if it had of launched free to play... but whilst asking gamers to shell out for it? It definitely didn't help.

The forced diversity/desire to antagonise (conservative) White males has a lot of time to still to fully play out, but studios (both in film and game) might now be beginning to second guess how much they want to deliberately lose out on one side or another over pursuing a more middle road path.

The Disney release of 'Willow' is a case in point. A series that was *ideal* for those who'd grown up with cherished memories of the former, sharing the new version with their own young kids.. only for it to be given over to promotion of LGBTQ themes, failing to find an audience, and then being unceremoniously dumped from their service.

A better approach would have been to make an unabashed G rated (no adult themes) series for Willow, and something a little more niche to hit the LGBTQ/modern progressive teen market, perhaps not attached to an old and beloved IP. At least then if the latter failed, it wouldn't have sunk one of their assets along with it.. and if it was a success would have added a new IP they could profit from, without necessarily antagonising their audience as much as their chosen approach did.

If it was Sony players not wanting GAAS Helldivers 2 would have received some flack too. Helldivers 2 is perhaps their most successful game this year so suggesting it's because Sony players not wanting GAAS is ignorant of that fact? 

Why is "woke" Overwatch a success?

People will accept an average game that is thematically aligned with their values/interests, and may even stretch themselves to allow for a great game (or movie) that isn't..
..but they are far less likely to accept a game that is average or poor, that also runs counter to their interests or values.

There are woke successes, but it may be too much of a hurdle for a game that is woke.. and not great.. to climb, while a game than is non-woke, and just average, might still find some success.

Yes.

You basically have to ignore Helldivers 2 success and how almost all the most popular games on Xbox/PlayStation/PC are GaaS titles to suggest people don't want GaaS. It is very "ignorant" to say Sony players do not want GaaS or rather, it would be nicer to say that people on forums live in a bubble, little forums like ours or ResetEra or even Reddit do not represent the majority of the gaming community.

I don't even play multiplayer titles that much nowadays, I used to when I was younger, now I'm mostly single-player.

But I do think Sony needs to focus more on niche/filling gaps in the GaaS market which Helldivers 2 does, I can't really think of much direct competition which Helldivers 2 has, unlike Concord which picked a fight with some of the biggest games in the world, Lol. That's why Microsoft acquired COD instead of trying to compete with it, Lol.

I think Sony needs to pick its battles more carefully, but I can't deny that the allure of "what if one day we did break into this extremely competitive area" would be a tempting one to a financial person, who wouldn't want to sit alongside Overwatch, Valorant, etc...You achieve that then that would make up for multiple flops.