We really gotta stop equating quality with the topic of inclusion. You could remove every reference to anything LGBT and you'd still have a marvel-fied narrative, the writing wouldn't suddenly be good if you think it is currently bad, it'd still have watered down RPG & team mechanics and overly whimsical artstyle which is pretty but against fan expectations. We do not need a scape goat of "the developers were too focused on" to explain the clear & intentional shift towards a popcorn blockbuster that they were trying to achieve. The reveal trailer back ended by an anthemic David Bowie "Heroes" mimicking a Guardians style character moments is speaking to what they wanted to achieve and how wanted to market the game. 

Top comments on the trailer before social was able to latch onto the culture wars topics:

"What are we some kind of dragon suicide squad?"

"Fuck, this is gonna be a "He is right behind me isn't he" kind of script right?"

"i didn't know disney bought bioware"

"As a die-hard Dragon Age fan, my first reaction is that someone hired the Devs from Valor"

"Went from Dragon Age to Imagine Dragons."


Before being baited people were more effectively highlighting what was going on (these comments are all 4months old). It's extremely lazy and regressive to keep tying down the games issues with social politics, inclusion is not it's problem.

Your right that those issues are bigger than the social politics.
However, my thing is, I believe the social politics to play into all those issues.

You can't separate them, because of how they are implemented.
That's why we talk about it. 

Also have you noticed how many games that have these DEI issues, are poor games in general?
Is that because the game is bad, and thus, we blame the DEI?
Is it because it has this DEI focus, that the game then turned out bad?
Is it just bad luck? that seemingly so many DEI focused games turn out bad?
Is it the people hired that want DEI in the games?
Is it the consultant firms? like sweetbaby inc?

Whatever it is, there appears to be a connection.
Its one of the reason for the backlash to it.

Its becoming this thing, were if there is a huge focus on DEI, you kinda expect the game to have issues.

When I say DEI, I mean don't even mean diverse cast. Theres nothing wrong with that, or having a gay guy or trans character.
Games have had that for ages, and there wasn't really anyone blinking eyes at it.

Its this pro-noun stuff, and the lecturing stuff.... the game devs calling people (their customers) bigots (on twitter, in interviews on sites, on youtube), and hating the people they make games for. The games journalists seem to dote on this stuff, and follow right along, their sentiments matching.

Its some odd sh*t tbh.  What happened to customer first, they are always right? Developers seemingly don't care about antagonizing their consumer base. They do this, to win brownie points from the LGTBQA+ crowds and their supporters.... that are like 3-5% of actual gamers.

And then they are surprised when their games don't sell.

This is why it keeps being brought up.
There is a outcry from gamers, I honestly think.
Even the avg joe shmoe... 
They don't want their escapism ruined by this stuff. 
Meanwhile DEI hires seem to get a kick out of putting it into games, so they can constantly battle the "norms" or "chuds" or whatever they call non-binary people. This means more to them, than making a good game.

Course it's not universal, it doesn't even fit in English so dozens of new words and terms have to be invented. Go call a Latina a Latinx and you'll see them laugh in your face. 

Call yourself whatever you want for all anyone really cares but start asking people to have to cater to you, especially strangers and you will draw their ire but force it on people and force the world around us all to change just for you and then you're really going to get some well deserved pushback. It'll never work and it shouldn't work and as much as I hate the other side of this who are filled with a lot of clear bigots and hateful people masking themselves as neutral people with that same argument I find myself agree with them more and more as the years go on. We had it all, we had equality for gay people, we had trans people pretty much widely accepted for a brief moment and now we have years of hate and bigotry ahead with people likely going back to the closet to get away from this shit that the damn corporate fueled and US college educated, tactless and talentless fools going into these industries and screwing it all up for us. 

Acceptance is people not caring what you are and treating you as everyone else, not people having to constantly validate your personal struggle with your identity. Ah, they've done so much irreparable harm and it's so maddening.

I hope this place isn't like ERA and the above will get me banned but it's worth saying.

I think the connection is 100% internal bias. Lets look at Sweetbaby inc and recent AAA consultancy efforts

Marvels Spiderman 2
God of War Ragnarok
Alan Wake II
The Suicide Squad
Gotham Knights
The Crew Motofest

Of those games Suicide Squad and Gotham Knights are the obvious flops but their lack of quality obviously has nothing to do with DEI to anyone who is actually going to think about it critically. The other games we're just going to ignore because they're successful right? 

It's clear that people are first seeing something they dislike "references to pronouns" "Ethnic Minority leads" and then backwards engineer a game flopping to be tied to that thing they dislike. Games flop all the time, series dissapoint constantly, studios fall short. We didn't need DEI narratives to look at the decline of Square Enix, Bethesda, Rare (although coming back to form). 

When Concord flops its a DEI problem (DEI has nothing to do with quality character design before anyone tries it lol), when Immortals of Aveum flops it's just a quality problem. People are just being selective.

Conversely we don't know if the games would have been even better, if Sweetbaby inc didn't mess with them.

I think Sweetbaby inc, probably consulted / wrote for like 70 other games.
If you wanted to prove your point, you should look at them all.
See how many of them turn out good atleast, compaired to bad, or flopped.
Vs how common it is for games (without consultant firms).

Maybe your also falling into " internal bias" when you say, your take, without backing it up.
I havn't looked either, so like you, this is just my "gut" feeling.
More often than not, I think this DEI stuff hurts games.

Oh, and now the other side has started to go against Baldurs Gate 3, you can really filter out the bigots with this one. I seen someone say something along the lines of "Baldurs Gate 3 is worse cause it does the propaganda so well that it's harmful" and then people posting images of them killing the LGBT characters with the dark urge saying your playing the game wrong and half the replies agreeing with only a few pointing out the stupidity of it. Fuck Biowares writing team and their talentless hack writers for causing this shit.

No one had any issues with LGBT stuff in BG3.
I remember people loving that you even had the freedom... too.... with the bear...

Its just how its done, and the quality of the writing.

There's no issue with a diverse cast of characters or there being a gay/lesbian/trans character in the game.
Its when the game starts lecturing you, about pronouns.
When the writing treats you as if your a kid (I prefer the cookies, but fruits are healthier cut scene).

When you have developers come out, calling people bigots, their customer base.

BG3 is an amazing game.
There was non of that, no issues with the devs or the quality of their work.

Hell my take, is that people love larian studios.
Most would love to see them take on more old RPG IP, because they trust them to do justic to the works and treat the IP properly.

"It's clearly favored over basic cohesion, actual quality of writing and narration."

The game has inclusion, it does not have good writing. I'm outright stating that the game has poor writing, that this has not been a priority overall. Nowhere have I stated that the writing itself would be good with less inclusion - there is no basis for such an interpretation. The writing is poor, but there is inclusion, one has clearly taken precedent over the other. With actual skill and dedication, they might have been able to both write well and be inclusive (in a less on-the-nose manner). They have focused on one of the aspects and foregone others; I can't make it simpler or clearer, I think. I don't equate quality with the topic of inclusion by default; I'm stating that most productions can't seem to implement both. It's not impossible, far from it, but it's a rather clear trend.

I have not been "baited", I've stated all along that this title is clearly beyond my preferences in almost every facet of its design. From hack&slash combat to complete lack of control of the party and any form of strategy, to enclosed level design, dumb "puzzles" and overall visual style. To imply that I belong in the "regressive and lazy" category is your choice, but I find that doing so is considerably more regressive and lazy. You're essentially reducing me to a simple-minded caricature who only follows the current, while failing to grasp the very basics of creative endeavors and writing. I don't appreciate that at all.

Just a couple of examples of my stance on current writing and production standards in the entertainment space:

https://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9540372

https://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9547203

"The entire entertainment-industry is in a massive slump, both in terms of creativity and stability. Writing is almost universally terrible across big-budget productions, people get canned left & right, and boardroom directing rules the day."

Clearly the words of someone baited into ignorance. With all due respect; get off the proverbial high horse.

Exactly. Straight from the character screen you can put whatever fun parts you want where ever you want and barely a bit of pushback, pretty even sure I seen the character screen use the term non binary  Same with Cyberpunk 2077. You have the point exactly right, it comes down to Bioware writers being tactless, possibly even talentless but there's more like you said that they force it. 

Someone put it so well, that this is the same as when evangelicals make content, they care about the message more than making a quality product and then they end up making pretentious on the nose garbage. 

I literally grabbed all of the their recent "AAA" so it's actually a fair test without bias. We are after all talking about an AAA games. I didn't grab small indie games or AA because we rarely know their exact success rate or what equates to success for them. 

"Conversely we don't know if the games would have been even better, if Sweetbaby inc didn't mess with them."

This is the point at which I'm very happy to leave this discussion alone because what is there to even warrant this investigation beyond the original bias? What games are you think of when you suspect DEI ruining their quality?