It has been branded woke, so it doesnt really matter if it is or not unfortunately. So I did answer his question.

You didn't. This game:

-Didn't release on Steam

-Had no physical release on consoles until 3 months ago

-Launched very close to Spiderman 2 and Mario Bros. Wonder

-It's a sequel to a game that didn't sell very well to begin with

-It's a survival horror. Even beloved games in the survival horror genre fail to sell well.

But sure, it didn't do well because of the black woman.

Games don't fail only because they're woke. Usually there's tons of factors involved in their failure. Concord is a famous one, but even that one didn't fail just because it's a woke game.

We even have woke games that are very beloved and successful, so this whole 'go woke go broke' is just nonsense that people say when a shitty game fails. But then we have Baldur's Gate 3, which sold very well, it's beloved by many and it's a woke game... and these people are all very quiet. Curious.

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.

The bolded part really is the crux of the whole issue, isn't it? That mixed with some other stuff you've said mostly about how you get to decide what is and is not forced inclusion show it's never really been about what's right or what's fair, it's about not giving these people ANYTHING. 

You don't want them to have representation because you do not approve, and it's likely because their existence is either uncomfortable for you or you don't feel they deserve respect. 

Sorry, but that puts you on the wrong side of history pretty handily. The people pushing back against progress never end up looking good in the history books. Today, being anti-woke will look the same as being against women's suffrage or the ending of jim crow laws. Yeah, change can be tough and can feel like it's taking away from the status quo but this idea that you're fighting back against oppression is just wrong on so many ethical and logical levels. And the fact you feel you're entitled to make judgements on who and what does get to be represented is pretty gross, honestly. 

You do not get to chose what is and isn't 'forced representation', or what is too woke. You get to chose what you are comfortable with. and if you chose to not be comfortable with the OPTIONS to chose your pronouns or OPTIONS to be a sex you weren't born with or being expected to play as a woman from time to time despite like 95% of all games that have static protagonists being male (And thus women had to play as men for most of the existence of this medium), then you're not fighting the good fight, you're just petulant and unwilling to learn and grow. And the fact that you started with 'I am impressed with your knowledge but it won't change my mind' proves that point. You're just stubborn, which is why inclusion NEEDS to be pushed. If people like you didn't exist, we wouldn't have to make such a big deal out of pronouns or diversity. In an ideal world we'd just BE diverse and that would be fine. but we don't live in an ideal world, we live in a world where a loud portion of the population are aggressively saying 'no' to all efforts to diversify and progress, and that means YOU are the ones that society has to fight back against. 

You are the bad guys here. 

You'd have to completely ignore pretty much all of human history to not see that. 

Kinda sick of you insulting everyone that doesnt agree with you tbh. You twist what people say to make them look bad. Focusing on only part of what they are saying. You are the exact kind of person that makes people hate anything woke. You are mean and you think you are some kind of white savior to all the poor people who was unfortunate enough to not be born white. Thats a disgusting way of thinking and you should take a hard fucking look in the mirror before you call someone a bad guy.

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

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

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. 

I'm not 'insulting' you, I'm making a well-reasoned observation based on tonnes of evidence. 

I'm not doing it because you disagree with me, I'm doing it because the shit you say and the values you seem to uphold are genuinely pretty terrible. 

HAvign a 'disagreement' is not being able to agree what movie to watch or whether we're making steak or chicken for dinner. not being able to agree what people deserve basic dignity isn't a difference of opinion, it's a human rights violation. I'm not the one placing myself as an arbiter for who is and who isn't worthy of inclusion or who is and who isn't an appropriate amount of diversity in an entire medium. 

You just don't like being rightly called out for exactly what you're trying to dance around saying the quiet part out loud.

I think it's extremely problematic to have a subjective view on "forced". 

Pretty much every post I've been making has been poking fun at these groups and labels - "woke", anti-"woke" in the first place. I'm not the one grouping anyone into anything. 

No one would care if you took issue with certain writing or certain characterization.

If you have to feel the need to call out "wokeness", or complain about some arbitrary character existing at all, then people are going to call out that behavior. 

Or if you have to make a conspiracy theory about some random company "forcing" its viewpoints on everyone. 

This is abuser logic. 

"look what you made me do"

Maybe its "the quiet part" because there isnt anything there. Ever think about that? Maybe not see the worst in people all the time. I mean you just said "If people like you didn't exist, we wouldn't have to make such a big deal out of pronouns or diversity. In an ideal world we'd just BE diverse and that would be fine" and the fact that you said it so casually is horrifying. Thats not a comment you make if you truly care about diversity and inclusion. That is more the rethoric of Adolf Hitler than someone like Martin Luther King Jr. Hitler also wished for an ideal world by not wanting a large part of the world to exist. You really have zero idea how hurtful a comment like that can be. You believe that you are so in the right that you can say whatever you want to people. Most people want racism and sexism to not exist obviously. We just disagree with the way people like you go about doing it. But of course you cant see that because you are so far up your own ass that you see your own words as the only truth. You only cause divisiveness with your comments. You have never helped humanity to do better. You have never incouraged someone to be better. You just call people names and try to make them look bad so you can sleep at night thinking you are the better person. 

Im done talking to you here and everywhere. But the most important thing you should take away from this in your delusional fight for a better world is

YOU...........WILL..........NEVER..........MATTER