https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwskOkyFY_E

"Flea" is dressed in a feminine manner, but is described as “he” in the game. - Thus either Gender-fluid or Gender nonconforming.
Plus... "Male or Female what's the difference" further adds to that character.

People being upset about something being woke is simply stupid.

It's like people getting enraged because of the 'war on christmas' when people say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas.
..But if they looked into it, Happy Holidays has always been a thing anyway, they literally just demonstrate to the world they don't have a clue.

And just like "woke in video games" most people don't realize that there has been inclusion for over a quarter of a century.

The Alan Wake 2 example shows exactly what I meant earlier, every single game is slapped with the woke label so when one of them doesn't perform to expectations they can latch onto that one and use it to justify their rage-bait whilst ignoring every single other reason as to why a certain game unperformed and also ignoring all the games that do the same shit that are successful.

I'm not sure by what metric Alan Wake 2 was hurt because of "woke" and is there any proof that actual fans of Alan Wake 2 are upset? 4.7/5 Stars on PlayStation Store from 33k reviews. 4.8/5 Stars on Epic Game Store (I can't see how many reviews). 8.5/10 on Metacritic user reviews after 3,029 reviews. 90/100 on OpenCritic user reviews (I can't see how many reviews). Also it reached 6th in Round 1 of Player's Voice in TGAs 2023 behind Baldur's Gate 3, Phantom Liberty, Tears of the Kingdom, Spider-Man 2 and Resident Evil 4.

Why Alan Wake 2 has not yet recouped profits (but is on track to) is for multiple reasons and none of them have to do with "woke" for starters, lets not act like Alan Wake is a huge IP, Control is likely Remedy's most profitable title, Alan Wake released May 2010 on Xbox 360 and February 2012 on Windows, Remedy announced 2m sold as of March 2012 across Xbox 360 and Steam so it took just slightly under 2 years to sell 2m copies. By March 2015 the "franchise" (Alan Wake + American Nightmare Standalone Spinoff) sold over 4.5m units, with 3.2m of those units being Alan Wake 1.

So it took just slightly under 5 years for Alan Wake 1 to sell 3.2m units across Xbox 360 and PC.

There's a reason why it took 13 years to make a sequel, why Microsoft rejected a sequel multiple times and instead opted to try a new IP instead. Sam Lake himself said that Alan Wake 1 was not financially successful enough for a sequel back in 2013 (and it wasn't because woke), it was repeated multiple times that Alan Wake would never receive a sequel despite Remedy wanting to make one since it was not financially successful, it was never a huge title, instead a fairly humble sized IP. Also hard to grow a fanbase when it goes 13 years without a sequel.

In comes Epic Games Publishing who are throwing the cash around and have Fortnite money to burn in desperate attempts to drag people away from Steam to Epic Game Store so they fund cult classics like Alan Wake 2 and try to garner good will, I doubt Epic had any ideas that Alan Wake 2 would be a huge success, their entire Epic Game Store enterprise has been designed to lose to try to have long-term gains.

Thankfully for Remedy, it got them funding for their sequel they've always wanted to make and before anyone says about how they can live on unprofitable adventures, take a look at Epic Game's Publishing contracts, Lol. IIRC the way Epic's contract with Remedy works is that they funded absolutely everything for Alan Wake 2 (salaries, development costs, marketing costs, etc).

So Remedy hasn't really "lost" anything but they haven't gained anything yet either because the Epic contract also stipulates that Remedy will only start seeing revenue once 100% of Epic's costs have been returned to them, so lets say it cost Epic $100m to make Alan Wake 2, even if Alan Wake 2 makes $99m, Remedy won't see a single penny until it exceeds the $100m because Epic funded the whole thing in its entirety, then once it exceeds that, Remedy is entitled to 50% of the revenue of proceeding sales.

Alan Wake 2 is Remedy's "fastest selling game" as of February 2024 with 1.3m units (4 months after launch) and 1.8m units a year after launch, it took the first Alan Wake, almost 2 years to sell 2m units so Alan Wake 2 is roughly a year ahead of Alan Wake 1 in sales launch aligned. I think Alan Wake 2 was a success in critic and user reception, but it is an expensive AAA to a fairly modest sized IP, Epic has not yet recouped 100% of its costs which means Remedy has not yet received a single penny, this is not a surprise for the IP, but it is close to recouping those costs and it's doing so without Steam, the biggest PC store by far and we've seen repeatedly how reluctant Steam users are to use EGS.

Sometimes, good titles aren't profitable immediately, sometimes they aren't profitable at all.

Well heck, my friend just got me the game for Christmas! I should give it a look-see! (I've wanted to play it forever since Final Fantasy VI is my favourite game and both it and Chrono Trigger are considered the best JRPGs of their era)

Even though I am impressed by your knowledge on the subject, it doesnt really change my mind. There can be many reasons why Alan Wake 2 didnt sell well. The fact is that some people were put off by the game when it was labeled "woke". Go look on several comment sections for Alan Wake 2 videos on Youtube or X or whatever and you will see several of them. Now you might just shrug them off and call them mindless sheep influenced by grifters, but these are gamers saying they wont buy the game because of it. 

I know several of you dont want to admit that woke is hurting video games, because that would maybe mean that you are wrong in your beliefs. I dont think that is the case, but I mean according to you, the anti-woke crowd is just loud and doesnt really affect game sales anyway. Yet you hate them so much. Yes anti-woke people hate woke stuff, but woke people hate anti-woke stuff. So neither one is better that the other. Its just that you have such low opinions of eachothers and you both think you are on the right side of history, that the hate for eachother becomes justified in your mind. "I mean so what if I call these people racist, bigots and sexist? They are on the evil side after all, right?"

Im not taking any high ground here either btw. I have a tendency to lose my cool as well when it comes to discussing stuff like this. Like several people on this site can attest to. I think "wokeness" is being pushed a bit too hard by certain companies. I dont think its as bad as many make it out to be, but there definitely is a problem that needs to be adressed imo. How do we do that? I dont know, but I guess we just need to find common ground. However difficult that may be. Because we cant seem to agree on much except for our love of video games.

Yes I hate the fact that people are bothered by inclusion. 

Yes I hate the fact that people are bothered when they see black people included in video games.

I hate the fact that people are bothered when they see a woman on screen, that doesn't fit their type.

I hate the fact that people are bothered when they are reminded of the existence of trans and nonbinary people. 

"So neither one is better that the other."

There's a huge difference. One side hates the fact that there's so much vitriol and hatred directed at people for simply existing, and the other side hates that there is a push for those people to exist at all. "Woke" people are not trying to push anti-"woke" people out of the gaming industry, they just want them to grow up and accept the fact that they exist too. 

"Woke" people don't feel that they're opposed to anti-"woke" people. They're not trying to push white and straight characters out of the industry. They don't throw tantrums when a character happens to be a straight white male. They're just pushing for everyone to be included in the conversation. 

"Woke" people want everyone to be included. Anti-"woke" people do not. They're not opposite sides of the same coin. 

I have no problem when people complain about badly written characters, badly written stories. There are plenty of stories that are written badly with awkward inclusion, and plenty of "woke" people have no problem calling out bad stories. But to act like everything bad that happens is because of inclusion is absurd. That is the crux of the problem. 

I had a conversation with a friend about Dragon Age Veilguard, despite being a "woke" individual, he had no problem calling out how awkward a lot of the writing was. But he did it without blaming nonbinary people. 

It is possible to have conversations about how badly written a nonbinary character is, without it devolving into whether that nonbinary character should exist or not. 
It's even possible whether it makes sense to have pronouns on a character selection screen, without devolving into whether trans characters should exist in a sci-fi game.

I think I posted about Alan Wake 2 in the past.

Alan Wake 2 is selling better than Alan Wake 1. Personally I believe there's a difference between "selling well" and "being profitable" because Alan Wake 2 is also Remedy's best selling title, but it is not yet profitable for Remedy or rather, Remedy hasn't seen a single penny from Alan Wake 2 yet because Epic needs to first recoup 100% of costs. Essentially due to Epic funding it in this way, Remedy is basically at the "break even" stage from release to now, because Epic already funded everything from development to marketing to salaries, so business wise, Remedy's not really lost anything, they've not gained anything, they're at break even for Alan Wake 2.

But as I said, Alan Wake IP is also a modest sized IP in sales/players, it does not and never has had a huge fanbase, it's a heavily story focused horror title and I can't really think of many of those that are huge, Resident Evil is the biggest that comes to mind. You take Alan Wake's modest sized fanbase, add on a much larger budget due to AAA budgets massively inflating in recent years, take away the biggest PC store by far and it being a 13 year old sequel which makes it hard to see where it grows its fanbase rather than retains its already achieved fanbase except now with more than double the budget of Alan Wake 1.

And by all accounts, that fanbase is buying Alan Wake 2, as pointed out, Alan Wake 2 is selling at a much faster rate than Alan Wake 1. I'm pretty certain that Alan Wake 2 will reach profitability and when it does, the narrative will have to vanish but I bet another excuse will pop up like "It should have reached profitability years ago" for these guys.

I'm fairly confident in saying that it would have achieved profitability already if it wasn't exclusive to EGS.

You lump all anti-woke people together. Just like anti-woke people lump woke people together. People who hate the inclusion of a character simply because they are of a different skincolor or sex than themselves is not in any way the majority. There are too many of those people, but thats not what most people have a problem with. It usually is about forced diversity just for the sake of it, it feels disingenuous. It is the writing that is the main problem. Its not that they only want pretty characters, its that the less attractive characters feels like a statement from the developer. I think a lot of this is just people being so sick of wokeness that any indication of a game being so will set them off. Its like with the latest presidental election. I dont think a lot of people voted for Trump because they like him. I think they voted against the democratic party because they are sick to their stomach of having to walk on eggshells and the fear of being cancelled. So as soon as people see red flags, they will react. Some times in an aggressive way. 

Its like me saying woke people hate straight white men, because I have seen several woke people say that. But thats obviously just a loud minority. 

Of course you can have a conversation about how badly written a nonbinary character is without accusing eachother of anything. I just think that is a conversation that is very difficult to keep under control on a public forum where anyone can just join the conversation.

Who decides if diversity if forced or not? 

Why is it different if a gaming studio says "we need to make sure our character is an attractive white man" so that it'll sell? 

Shouldn't require any "control" in the first place. 

People are just saying what they're mad about. If you're mad about bad writing, you just say that. 

If you're mad about a game forcing a woman with a shaved head on you, that's not really the same thing. 

For example Intergalactic is "woke", and I've seen several people talk about how "we're playing as a man from prison". Am I supposed to take that they're complaining about the writing in the trailer somehow? 

And critically, if you don't want to be grouped in with those people, and you want to talk about bad writing, maybe just stop labelling yourself that way? 

The Outer Worlds has Parvati who is asexual and at the time was adored.

Skip to Avowed where people lost their shit seeing "He/Him" in the character screen, Lol.

Who decides if diversity is forced or not? We all do individually. Every person has their own view on what is considered forced.

Why is it different if a gaming studio says "we need to make sure our character is an attractive white man" so that it'll sell? It isnt any different. Especially if the character is like "Im a white straight man, you NEED to respect me" I would go "Fuck you! You dont tell me what I have to feel. Youre a made up douchebag."

You can group me in with whoever you want. I just agree with some of what they are saying.

And again its about red flags. People see something that reminds them of "the woke agenda" and they will call it out. Whether its valid or not.

A lot of it is reactionary and over time you become very defensive. Like J.K. Rowling. She didnt just wake up one morning and decided to dislike trans people. She was an ally as they call it. But she had one opinion that trans people disagreed with and she recieved so much hate and so many threats over time that now she cant even go 20 minutes without shit talking anything trans. I think she even hates the Transformers movies at this point. She was pushed to the brink and now she sees red flags in whatever news story or blog or movie or game about trans people.