WTF are WOKE games & their source? | RE: Thor (Pirate Software)

[@TheDezembro]

Related videos + Timestamps: Exposing the Hypocrisy of Defeminization / Uglification in Games - kzbin.info/www/bejne/mIHCXnWaarRkl8U Unfair Demonization of Gamers: kzbin.info/www/bejne/a5CpZouqj61kj6c Gamers should speak up - kzbin.info/www/bejne/m3jVpGV8n9l3arM "Goonergate" lol - kzbin.info/www/bejne/on6kan2Ym72taas «» Sick timestamps: 0:00 - Intro 1:24 - Thor Clip 4:59 - "Stop playing those games" 6:04 - Define Woke 16:54 - ALSO... 24:02 - Second Argument 31:08 - Conclusion «» SOCIALS & SUPPORT X: x.com/TheDezembro ko-fi: ko-fi.com/thedezembro

[@blargblarg-jargon9607]

i love how you say he 'clearly knows about hacking, game industry and programming' when in reality, if you listen to that clown, he actually knows basically nothing about programming aside from what he's done in his own game so far. he was never a dev, he worked qa and as some sort of bs 'hacker' position of which he doesn't explain ever how to hack something correctly or even the process. he's a clown, oh yeah, and he probably had sex with kids too.

[@a.m.pietroschek1972]

Besides entertainment & escapism, there also was recreation: When people wanted some fun while resting, so they can go back to work. I have no appreciation for the pseudo-psychologizing herein, and I noticed similar in other streams, as one punchline remains: Even, when you are a therapist who graduated properly at university, you are still NOT my therapist, so skip the effing sermon! 🤮

[@KopitioBozynski]

"They made their own games" meanwhile in reality they did not make their own games but instead hijacked and degenerated already existing game franchises.

[@citizen4610]

It's true they are incapable of making anything brand new. Concord and Dustborn proved that.

[@Alberto-wu1mj]

I think that’s an excellent point. Changing a a game franchise by ignoring its history is not making your own game.

[@capnphuktard5445]

That guy's a moron

[@bigbeefy111]

Exactly my first thought. I wouldn’t care if they just made their own games. They don’t though. They make their own game and wear a famous franchise as a skin suit to ship their product to the masses. Because they don’t make enough money on their own on average. Life is strange has always had a LGBT angle. I’m not into that, so I didn’t play it and let others enjoy it. I’m not the target audience and that’s ok. The problem is when you get a game like Intergalactic. I am the target audience, but they ruin any good will they might have with their choice for the character design. I don’t need to play it now.

[@Asriel_Cypher]

I like Pirate Software, and I think he's great but I think he's missing the point heavily here because as you said as well; "They hijacked" the Franchises and ruined them like Veilguard. It ruined Dragon Age Franchise as a whole. A lot of people has made videos about it. The Lore was ruined as well. It's not that simple but I think that's why Thor doesn't see it. I get his point about don't buy or don't play them. I get that. However, he's not talking about the consequences as well but I also think maybe he doesn't care that those studio gets shut down, because they made a horrible game, right? "They should be gone" might just be his take here because we hate it or we don't like it.

[@russellscout4957]

"It doesn't take a great actor to recognize a bad one." -Jason Nesmith Similarly, I don't need to be a game dev to recognize a bad video game.

[@TG-ge1oh]

And if anyone disagrees, serve them a pile of horse crap for dinner. Unless they're Michelin star chefs, how dare they judge the quakity of the "food" you prepared! I mean this in all sincerity, btw.

[@RIBANNI]

"No bro you dont know how hard is to be a game dev bro"

[@sparda9060]

@@RIBANNI Yep its so hard to use UE5 with premade default assets and quick slap of textures and call it a new game. Even tho UE5 has so many tools that lets them create their own custom assets but most UE5 games don't even bother to change from default asset models. Doesn't take a game dev to spot a lot of UE5 games using same polygon model/object model with different texture slapped on top to notice how lazy devs have become and its usually the woke ones who are that lazy.

[@kiethveseyofficial]

@@sparda9060Like many mobile games nowadays?

[@vgamedude9811]

​@@RIBANNI people that say this couldn't work one day of manual labor or a trade lol

[@1InVader1]

Thor is mischaracterizing the problem. We told them to "make their own games" but instead they hijacked existing franchises. Games that people grew up with and have an emotional attachment to. After hijacking the game/studio they decided to not respect the source material, they don't know why people grew to like this franchise of games and don't want to know either. And then on top of that they go out of their way to inject modern western propaganda into the "sequel". The only game that really fits the description of "their own game" is Dustborn (or maybe Life is Strange, idk, I don't play walking simulators) and that game got exactly the reception Thor asked from people - they didn't buy it.

[@ClockworkGearhead]

He does this a lot, because he only ever does superficial research into a subject before making a snap decision.

[@terrancecloverfield6791]

In fairness, social media makes it easy to build a scarecrow to your own liking. We can all be better for future generations to learn from our mistakes.

[@jeremygonzal8603]

In fairness, Last of Us 1 was an amazing game. And then something happened and suddenly Neil is, well, what he is today.

[@cobaltfog]

Then the devs, publishers, and journalists freak out and blame consumers for not buying their stuff and calling them -ists and -phobes for not handing over their money to people who often despise them anyway.

[@chrishaven1489]

People who complain about "woke" games are people who hate bad games but misdiagnose why those games are bad. Anti-woke grifters have a tendency of believing that bad games are somehow a modern problem and conveniently forget that games like Baldur's Gate 3 exist. "they go out of their way to inject modern western propaganda into the "sequel"" I promise you, the games you like will most definitely have "western propaganda" in them

[@Sly_404]

His 2nd argument on why modern games have androgynous character models is very dishonest. If this is happening organically, why only in western entertainment products? Why do you then need DEI initiatives, that are intended to ENFORCE behavior, if all of that is happening naturally anyway? Schroedinger‘s policies: They are outmost important and present everywhere while not doing anything that wouldn’t happen anyhow.

[@mrbigglezworth42]

His entire argument is dishonest as he's effectively ignoring actual arguments that he either can't counter or doesn't want to engage in favor of a strawman he can beat.

[@domm6812]

Dishonest and disingenuous are the two main words that come to mind when anyone mentions the pirate software guy. He has a massive ego that's puffed up by his followers, and has come to love the smell of his own farts. According to him, he's all wise and all knowing, while he doesn't even attempt to understand opposing arguments ....just assumes that nobody could ever be as smart as him. When he does decide to argue, he misrepresents everything the other side is saying.

[@CJS3637_MforAone]

​@@mrbigglezworth42 that's how all of them act though because they know they are wrong. That's why they gotta pick on the small people who just scream it to make us look bad when they were the ones that do that stupid crap. Come in and make an ideology out of a personality trait they don't need to make an ideology out of. Their raft made of grass crumbles the second a raft maker shows up and criticizes it without being a condescending snob. That's all I see them do tbh and it's sad. They don't have a genuine argument so they just bully someone that says woke. That's why you say it as is, identity politics. I don't want identity politics in games that don't need it, but instead of making their own games about identity politics. They shove and complain about it in our games and force us to accept it.

[@ElfireII]

@@domm6812 agreed. Ever since Jason’s whole thing with stop killing games, I’ve realized how two faced and disingenuous he is.

[@daskampffredchen]

@@ElfireII He had to be against it. He was working on a sure to die Live Service game at the time

[@not_my_fn_real_name2689]

I was starting to enjoy Thor's videos, but then his video about stop killing games came up in my feed. I watched it to see what his take was, and I learned that despite him working at Blizzard, which owns World of Warcraft and has had to shut down multiple community servers, he is against any laws that would grant customers rights over their games. The community servers are relevant here, because the server side code was reverse engineered by the community. He completely missed the points in that situation, and he was unwilling to even discuss his thoughts with anyone who knew what was actually going on. At that point I realized he was not really a gamer. His attitude was so bad some of the other creators took splash damage and I have a hard time watching many of the people who collaborate with him.

[@LoperoperMandalei]

his career of being a dev is also questionable

[@Xazamas]

He used 'League of Legends' as an example of a game that wouldn't have ever been created had the "Stop Killing Games Law" been in effect since 2000 or something. Most people's response to this was "I'm already on board, you don't need to sell it to me." In his defense, maybe he used LoL simply because it is still one the most played games that fit into the category of "online only, developers can't just flip a switch to add offline mode." (League of Legends currently runs most of the "game-state" completely server side to prevent cheating - in early days even Summoner Spell cool-downs were client-authoritative. Cheat software could reduce said CD to *zero*.) Ironic thing is - he still kind of had a point, but some additional conjuncture is required to "excavate" it. Had the "Stop Killing Games Law" been in effect since 2000, Star Wars Galaxies most likely would've never been created. LucasArts would realize that they need to allow (or even payroll) the official servers to run indefinitely, or all the Star Wars IP included in the game becomes de facto Public Domain. Even if there was a compromise, where someone was willing to build a 'Space Conflicts' community server that *somehow* has replaced *all* Star Wars IP with generic/legally distinct versions, that would destroy the game preservation aspect. Other solutions are even more convoluted and raise additional questions like "who is the authority that decides what is fair community server usage" and "how do they decide who is right when IP holder and community server have a disagreement?"

[@daskampffredchen]

@@Xazamas You obviously dont understand what Stop Killing Games was about Nobody wanted them to run servers indefinitly And giving access to a server exe doesnt make it public domain or open source It is liars like you that harm the whole idea

[@Xazamas]

@@daskampffredchen "Server exe" either contains, or relies upon, various assets that are part the IP in question.

[@daskampffredchen]

@@Xazamas Publishing a server exe is no different then publishing a game. Battlefront 2 didnt make all those assets public domain

[@enkiduthewildman]

Thor isn't some consumer advocate. He's an industry shill that only cares to protect corporate profits. He doesn't even try to hide his anti-consumer leaning. He went after Ross Scott's StopKillingGames Initiative with arguments that 1) it would be hard and 2) it would cost money -- both of which reduce to "it would lower profit margins". I don't know why any gamer would listen to anything he has to say. Don't give money to people who hate you.

[@Xazamas]

StopKillingGames Initiative has some downsides. In a reply to another comment, I used 'Star Wars Galaxies' as an example where an IP holder would look at the licensing agreement and when they get to the part about "SKGI compliance" they would go "wait, unless we keep the servers up forever, we basically have to let all of our IP in the game 'de facto' go into the Public Domain? In the context of current industry, I would probably still support the initiative. It's perhaps a nuclear option to bring down such government regulation, but Game Publishers have made billions exploiting the legal gray area.

[@daskampffredchen]

@@Xazamas Lying here again. Publishing a server exe doesnt make those assets magically public domain. You literally know nothing about copyright Or is Minecraft public domain cause you can host servers?!

[@supimzazz]

​@@XazamasIt's an initiative not a law, it'd be discussed to cover those areas properly with experts on the topics. I don't think they'd have to let go all the rights they acquired to give it to someone else, doubt the community servers could use all Star Wars rights without paying for them either. Also it's a very good way to prevent the ones forcing always online mode in a single player game and the ones that exploit the live service to grab the bag and leave the players that paid or spent money in a subscription that lost all the hours and efforts dropped in the game. A real game developer would also hate all their work and passion fade into oblivion cause some corpo decision. So I found it awfully telling when Thor went completely against the idea over assumptions rather than talking it out and fixing the holes for an ideal scenario and a movement that benefits the gamers over corpos.

[@Pers0n97]

Don't ask question, just eat the far left historical revisionism.

[@ANDELE3025]

@@Xazamas 1) Selling by Berne convention already transfers full non-commercial rights of all the goods to the buyer 2) Releasing bins has nothing to do with IP status of a product

[@MarxMaster69]

We had our own games... Then the activists invaded and changed our games to spread their message! And about the "don't like it, don't play it" thing, is exactly what gamers are doing... I don't think he's seeing what is happening with all the games pushing those ideologies... A lot of failures and studios closing... Look at Ubisoft, a once great studio that ppl trust, with high quality games! Today is but a shadow of that, almost bankrupt. This guy is living under a rock, or in Narnia, La La Land, or whatever...

[@b_g_c3281]

Wilfull ignorance -- perhaps synonymous with Cognitive Dissonance? -- is the worst form of ignorance....

[@Kratos1902]

He wont ever admit it. He was a dev himself. His ego wont let him admit there is a problem with devs right now.

[@PaulieMcCoy]

Ferret Land.

[@nicechock]

its not activists. swej are paying all these companies alot of money to do this.

[@captainbube1217]

@@Kratos1902he glazes aktivision blizzard… nuff said

[@Sly_404]

Follow up: Game flops, studios get shut down and somehow we are supposed to feel bad for devs loosing the job. Devs that intentionally made the games worse to „own the chuds“.

[@MC_DesmondSparrs]

Im not sorry 1 bit. They did it, and they get what they deserve. Lose their jobs because they SUUCK at it!

[@danhillenburg4487]

This one really irritates me too. "It's never good when a bunch of people get laid off" -Yes! It quite literally is good sometimes; think of all the people that lost their job when slavery was abolished. If people are detracting from the world more than they're adding, then it would be in everyone's best interest if they did something else.

[@truefox1259]

​@@danhillenburg4487 The thing that's crazy is that in many cases people are expected to not lose their job no matter how bad they do, and in many instances genuinely deserve to lose their job but don't, it seems to be an entertainment industry thing, people who are genuinely terrible at their jobs like Kathleen Kennedy and Yves Guillemot, or any time someone hires one of these "DEI consultancy" agencies like Sweet Baby. That they're not just fired immediately? Imagine if you went to a restaurant, probably one that you've been to many times before. And they had some of the best damn spaghetti around, then one day one of the servers comes along and throws a box of toenail clippings onto your spaghetti. You'd rightfully be angry and genuinely curious about why they just threw a box of toenail clippings onto your spaghetti, only to be told that "Toenail clippings are part of the recipe, and if you don't like it you're an awful person". And then you expect them to NOT be fired?

[@PiterburgCowboy]

@@danhillenburg4487 Devs were baited to join the company because they promise stability and a career, like at any other workplace, you cannot blame people not knowing that some hunger-game characters will be at key positions ruining the company for their own agenda.

[@vergillives9890]

They are just lazy and dont want to leave a "hostile environment"

[@Jikuri]

It's like telling a restaurant costumer to cook the food everytime the customer complaint 🤣

[@Halo3ninja28]

Bingooooo. When consumers stop consuming because the chef is cooking up trash, your business will go bankrupt, so heed the feedback!

[@freelancerthe2561]

I think it would even more embarrassing if the customer does come up with a better dish, and leverages the kitchen staff to make it even better. Theres failing to accomplish greatness, but then theres squandering talent that might been able to salvage it. A thoughtful assembly of flavors, mediocre on their own, can fine tuned by those with the skills to amplify its best qualities. As an example. Concord, mechanically, is not a "bad game". Its just so bland and uninteresting, that theres nothing to focus on and bring center stage. Compare that to Fortnite thats now held up almost entirely by its option for cosmetics, and its whole ecosystem designed to push it. A microcosm of the fashion industry that captures a massive demographic (ie Kids) desperate for social acceptance.

[@Jikuri]

@@freelancerthe2561 Contemplating the costumers feedback is always a good way to be great

[@Xazamas]

"You don't need to be a rocket scientist to tell that something went wrong, when a rocket explodes on the launch platform."

[@kenonerboy]

​@Xazamas yea but u need one to know what went wrong.

[@mr.sarcastic8833]

i would agree with pirate if it wasn't for the little fact that publishers and media are in cahoots to deceive and gaslit gamers. and of course how some devs publicly hate us.

[@daviderwin4705]

That is the defining point. Who would make a product for a market they openly despise? Only vandals and saboteurs would do that. These are not people making entertainment with elements they always wished were there. These are people punishing the world for excluding them.

[@Hbr0wn]

That and the fact that a lot of those franchises that he says "stop playing them" probly a lot of us did, cuz they got invaded by said woke shit, pretty sure a lot of DA fans are pissed af with what they did in veilguard, cuz they loved the franchise, and how many other games are like that, games whose fan base just got ignored? Desgingenuous takes imo.

[@blindedjourneyman]

And payment processors and some governments

[@ProxyDoug]

Let's not go far, Hogwarts Legacy, a game with no controversial content in it, literally just for fans, top selling game of 2023, not even nominated for Player's Choice on TGA. Hell, people were lying about the Wukong devs throwing a tantrum after losing best game. This is the industry right now. It's not just politics, it's sheer corruption and all they are doing is making themselves cheaper for Tencent.

[@everyonethinksyoureadeathm5773]

​​@@ProxyDoug that is the goal. You should read China 100 year military strategy to destroy the US. Their first target was to pretend there's a large market for entertainment. To goad the western capitalist pigs to chase the money. More or less their views of western investors who chase unlimited growth over sustained profits. This is why Hollywood in the early 2000s had a pro US-RU cooperation bent to a sudden China are also the good guys. Then you have them funding DEI along with some small hat bankers. China spent billions to buy up bits of US entertainment apparatus. Then with Blackrock, Vanguard and State Street inject DEI/ESG into everything. The goal is for China to gut us from the inside out. Have our politicians sell us out to China without them ever firing a shot.

[@blackcat7k]

2:00 Yes, because people didn't make things like Quake 3 that had tons of different body models. From fat, lithe, cyborg, burly, monstrous... I don't care about his accolades if he spouts BS like that coming out of the gate.

[@Plxlinixy]

Thor has no actual accolades in terms of finished projects or games sold, he's an influencer and that's about it.

[@ElfireII]

@@Plxlinixy *jason* calling him Thor just strokes his ego. And yeah, Jason was brought into blizzard primarily as a game tester via nepotism.

[@Pers0n97]

Because Mario was OBVIOUSLY a massive beef cake. Everything he said is total bs, the dangerous kind that reveal him as a woke drone pushing for nefarious changes based on lies.

[@ElfireII]

@ yep. Mario, link, even megaman. The list goes on.

[@mauricesteel4995]

And the thousands of games where the protagonist isn't even a person.

[@lyndina8492]

"Stop playing our games if you dont like it" 1 month later: "Why is nobody buying our slop we catered to a nonexistance audience?"

[@lyianx]

haah no.. more like "Only bigots dont play our games and we dont want them in 'our' industry".

[@MasticinaAkicta]

I am sure that Ubisoft is happy they attacked their old audience.

[@Halfrican-Jones]

I think he is scared of his friend group accusing him of being a bigot if he drives into the details of the difference between actual inclusivity versus tokenism. You and Sungrad Studios (Jorrel) have proven it can be discussed without outrage

[@Klaymore-QT]

I think it’s crazy how this has suddenly become an issue. I don’t remember anyone crying that Sgt. Johnson from Halo was black. He was a cool character that happened to be black. It wasn’t shoved in your face, it wasn’t his whole identity. Modern writers have no clue how to write a like-able diverse characters and it shows.

[@MC_DesmondSparrs]

no one cared about skin color in games before the woke shit started. Then it just became ALL about that and thats the game at that point compared to before when it was just a natural thing. Like in basketball games, most of the best players are black. But now skin color and alleged social status in relationship to that. Look at fighting games, the most "inclusive"(I fucking HATE this term, but alas) games on the market. Every single nationality and skin color on display. no one cares, we just care about cool characters and Cool Gameplay

[@Asriel_Cypher]

That's an understandable fear. I don't entirely disagree with the things he said. Don't like it, don't play them. Let the studio suffer, right? We play better games. That's what we've been doing. The franchises that we love suffering is the result of that, though. However, I still think I agree with him on that, because money will talk. If we don't buy them, the studio will see why eventually, and we'll get less of those games. The problem is that he isn't talking about it enogh, I think.

[@ClockworkGearhead]

He put money into some things that turned out to be confrontationally woke.

[@Asriel_Cypher]

@@ClockworkGearhead Really? Source?

[@russkijnemez5911]

Yeah we do stop playing this games. That is why they financial flop.

[@dissimulii]

But you’re a bigot for not buying games full of shit you don’t like. Just open your wallet you istophsobe. Just consume the shit that’s being shit out.

[@ramonalves2388]

You need to realize that they get more money by doing so. Thats is the Problem.

[@VampireNoblesse]

no one gives AF about "identifying" as a character model.., they want, cool, hot, interesting, fresh, appealing, buffed, curvy, athletic, cute, etc. ... realism can work too, depending on the games true vision.., but inserting it (+ uglyfied) for the sake of pandering is unappealing and will get rejected by gamers.. ... gawd, some devs are so braindead.., but as soon as you go extreme / activist mode, the brain turns off..

[@DifficultyYT]

this. These people have to understand that the earth isn't just the American Continents, and that there are gamers worldwide, a majority of gamers really do not give 5 craps about politics - left wing or right wing - or one's skin colors, they want *good* games, with *good* well written characters, and not just preaching about political stuff. I'm not saying "YES, MAKE ALL THE CHARACTERS WHITE MEN!!! MAKE THE WOMEN JUST S3X OBJECTS!!!", I'm saying that we do not want horribly written, buggy, or "politics first escapism never" games. As for Uglification, while yes, some examples were exaggerated (i.e.: TW4 Ciri, she looks pretty Average.), many characters in modern AAA games look ugly - Take the Concord Cast as an example - for the sake of pandering and appealing to a few people. Even sadder is, People Call Stellar Blade and First Descendent "pr0n games", this is just comparing them to HoneySelect, an actual pr0n game. STELLAR BLADE ACTUALLY LOOKS GOATED, HOW DARE YOU :(

[@ElfireII]

Yep. Despite being a man, I identified with Samus, Lara Croft, Bayonetta, 2B, and others because they were pretty and had good designs.

[@daskampffredchen]

Reminder that one of the most popular Franchise in South America is Dragon Ball which has basically no latino characters

[@TG-ge1oh]

Even if we did, say for the sake of argument. Then what? How many games can even SBI themselves make if they started a studio this very day? How many ethnicities and gender identities can they make their protagonists? So one game is meant to sell to just one ethno-gender niche? After you sink 400-500 million dollars making it? Did anyone think the matter through?

[@DifficultyYT]

@@daskampffredchen you can make peak without appealing to people around the world. Never put your politics first.

[@johnysimps1191]

Yeah this take is a stinker from Thor. Either he's out of touch or he is just part of the industry himself. Saying "go make your own games" is like saying "go make your own song" if you don't like a song someone made. The whole they made their own games is disingenuous as fuck. These people are using established IPs and patching their woke nonsense (political/moral grandstanding, tacking on unnecessary race swaps, low effort LGBT characters and themes to virtue signal and max out ESG points). They didn't make their own games and i shouldn't HAVE to go make my own game to enjoy a good game. These video games are PRODUCTS. If you buy an iron that takes 30 minutes to heat up, regardless of whether the designers intended it to be so, you've made a shitty iron PERIOD. We can express our displeasure with these flawed products and ask for better quality products instead. One thing i do agree with was the "stop playing those games" comment. Eastern game devs have been and will continue to drop absolute gems year after year. Just look at black myth Wukong. No other single player RPG from the west comes close to it this year. You can play tons of indie games on steam if you play on pc. You can find great games every year despite the western bs that releases alongside it. I also completely disagree with the lack of diversity excuse they bring when injecting this nonsense. In any case, Thor's mistake is hand waving this issue away as if people are being unreasonable by saying "just..." as if the solution is so low effort you'd have to be stupid to not consider it. Literally NO ONE played concord, NO ONE is playing veilguard, NO ONE is playing unknown 9. We're already not playing and the industry remains stubbornly playing the ESG meta and feeding the suits at the top while firing everyone at the bottom.

[@ElfireII]

“Am I so out of touch? No, it’s the gamers who are wrong” -Jason.

[@boguslav9502]

The biggest lie about this is that "go make your own games" means making a game that will be censored to all hell by him and everyone else. Basically you can't make your own games because the entire industry is set against you from the start. Its a long winded and gaslighting way of telling people to go find a different hobby if they dont like the community anymore. (meanwhile they are the community managers that choose what goes). Even on steam these people making games have literally no marketing and their games fail time and time again. It sucks. ANd the main method of advertising is... content creators. Many of who are also woke leaning. So it becomes very hard to actually get things off the ground for many. Not only that but many people play games as a hobby, something fun to do, instead of watching movies or reading books etc. They have work that consumes their time, and they cant stop work just to make something that used to bring them joy. At its most basic woke seems to be an attempt to make the lives of XYZ group (usually white, straight, christian) as miserable as possible. A genuine attempt to take away everything that brings them any comfort.

[@BungieStudios]

@@boguslav9502 I'm trying. We all ought to try. We got AI and plenty of documentation to guide us. I got a prototype being constructed and am sticking to a limited scope. This stuff takes time, though, as I'm deconstructing what takes teams of professionals years to RND and refine, but by myself.

[@SpiralKingScorch]

"Just look at black myth Wukong. No other single player RPG from the west comes close to it this year." I feel like I'm being propagandized any time I hear someone bring up BMW. People keep saying BMW is doing so well, but wasn't the vast majority of those sales in China? I suppose there is no reason for those sales to not count. Yet, from what I heard the gameplay wasn't anything special and the story wasn't anything amazing. IDK why people keep talking about it being snubbed by some game awards. Was it really good enough to be a contender? And do people usually agree with the picks these game awards show make anyways? I think Raz0rfist is right on this one. I think the CCP is afoot here. BMW didn't stand up to DEI. That was just to try to drum up sales in the West through culture war BS. Just like how it happened with Hogwarts Legacy.

[@johnysimps1191]

@@SpiralKingScorch my brother in christ. I think you are lost... I didn't say anything about it standing up to DEI and I didn't mention anything about game awards. You brought these things up yourself. You try to dispute its success and you check yourself. You're bringing up the CCP and Hogwarts legacy. I think you might be fighting ghosts here. For the sake of clarity, what i meant by the Wukong comment is that its the most successful "RPG" of the year with the most successful single player RPG launch in steam history. I said this because i was trying to show that we can play other games instead that are awesome. Looks like you read the comment with a bias locked and loaded and that's fine. Just wanted to check the "propaganda" implication you made. I'm only addressing Thor's opinion in the post. American politics isn't my jam. Also it sounds like you haven't played Wukong for yourself. If you like soulslikes then definitely give it a shot and see what the hype was about. I did the same for cyberpunk and dragon age origins and was pleasantly surprised with the former and kinda confused about the latter.

[@mrbigglezworth42]

I'd have more respect for this guy if he wasn't an actual example of nepotism being the sole reason he even had a job at Blizzard. Or the fact that he's barely produced anything of note as a developer himself despite constantly saying "I'm a game dev". If you are, where are the games? David Szymanski has been an off and on developer as well and put out damn near a dozen games, Dusk being his most prominent. By comparison, this guy just coasts on that one time he was at Blizzard as a tester. Likewise his argument is complete bunk, it's not that people are complaining about "woke games" they're playing. They're upset that woke BS keeps creeping into games they were playing that they never asked for and are now being told exactly what his dismissive attitude of "well just play other games". Everyone would've been fine with another Dragon Age game. Nobody wanted T(r)aash and the Patrick Weekes projecting his ideology into a fantasy game and breaking its back to do it. That's the issue.

[@DraxFyre]

Indie and eroge devs has released more games than this guy. Why am I playing those woke games? I don't even play it. What I don't like is how they are forcing OTHER games that I like to change. He utterly fails to see the point for most people. Those that buy games they don't like are mostly content creators. I won't waste my money nor time. What I DO hate is when I spend money on something only to find out it has elements that I do not like and it wasn't obvious in trailers nor mentioned. Censorship and localization being one of it. Changes to dialogues that totally changes the meaning of the source e.g.

[@MrJay_White]

he is a blatent "i hate gamers" dev. he hates game preservation and is happy to see the cultural heritage of a generation deleted he opposes right to repair, and firmly supports corpo "you own nothing" denial of private property his response to twitch censorship and descrimination was "its not happening to me and my frineds, so its not happening at all"

[@MrJay_White]

@@DraxFyre yea. he does that on perpose. he knows what the point is, but lies, deflects and misdirects to dismiss your pooint and assert his own. whats more infuriating is, he is clearly smart enough that its not aqn accident. he thinks it through and goes right to the gaslight.

[@domm6812]

He is a charlatan. He has a face and voice that people like, and once worked for a little while at blizzard, and he exploits these factors to trick people into thinking he's a smart person with a balanced take on things, when that couldn't be further from the truth. He has a massive ego, and is incredibly biased. I listened to his video explaining why game preservation was a bad thing, and it was incredibly disingenuous. He misrepresented other people's arguments, and kept gaslighting everyone. I was willing to hear him out, but after that, I trust this guy about as much as a rattlesnake.

[@MrJay_White]

@@domm6812 its called intra-aural audio. aka, between the ears. pretty much any audio softwear can do this. listen to him at february game awards where he isnt the one setting up his mic.

[@ricardotaut7498]

DUDE...! Thor's argument is so asinine. Here's an equivalent: Your favorite restaurant used to be a steakhouse. 30 different dishes with steak, all so delicious. Then management changed and instead of adding a new section to the menu, they removed 29 steak dishes and replaced them with vegetarian food only. You can still find ich that one steak on the menu if you really really look for it, but they make it very clear at the entrance that this is a vegetarian restaurant now, and whoever orders the steak is looked at with disdain by both the personelle and the other customers. ...yeah, people started to go and eat somewhere else because there are so many places to find food out there. But they are expressing their frustration about their favorite restaurant changing like this, and rightfully so.

[@Nighthawk3721]

His whole argument: "just don't play those games, but sit down and shut your mouth. Only I can share my opinion on this issue."

[@mauricesteel4995]

"Don't ask questions, just consume product and be excited for next product"

[@19CD91]

Funny how all he does is share is opinion for money. But he wants everyone else to stay quite. If only we had a word for people like that.

[@masterdyeapp4512]

Pirate software is just like actman. bunch of assh0les who sides whatever they pleased

[@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778]

If someone tells you to shut up in an argument. they already have lost and it shows they have nothing of value to say

[@mattmartin6493]

I had felt he was disingenuous before and now think about it he uses social engineering in his previous job which is essentially manipulation so of course he's good at doing it to his audience. Seems like an industry shill.

[@I-ONLY-BUILD-MECHS-AND-DUSTERS]

"15 years ago there were two body models (citation needed) but people didn't feel represented (citation needed) so people said make your own games (citation needed) so they did (citation needed)" He's talking out of his ***** and this is all fantasy. But I've already taken his advice long ago and don't financially support these companies anymore. Just waiting for the rest of you to catch up. Adversarial relationship to your customer = no buy, EVER AGAIN

[@JLW2490]

I'm with you on that.

[@ElfireII]

Yep. I’ve become nonbuynary in wake of all these stupid games. Seems to be going well. On another note on his “only 2 body types” point. Link, megaman, and Mario… some of gamings most iconic characters and none of them fit into those two body types.

[@elgatochurro]

15 years ago, 2 body models werent a real thing, or popular... southern americans and blacks from the USA identify with goku who is asian. they really tell you they need to identify with them, see themselves in media, they are narcissists

[@ericv00]

Literally the most famous videogame character, and arguable the most famous character ever, is a short, fat, plumber with a comb mustache. Neither a "buff dude" or a "beach babe". And existed from before Thor was even born. His argument is utterly ridiculous and out-of-touch

[@elgatochurro]

@@ericv00 His argument is born of twitter, this is the kinda thinking you have when you exist in an ideological bubble.

[@followertheleader]

The whole problem is that they are doing these changes in games that are already established. They should do it in brand new IPs. That being said gamers will still criticize those games because they don't like it.

[@LimC.A]

when ur target audience is the 1% u wonder why ur game failed Lmao

[@citizen4610]

Concord and Dustborn are brand new IPs. You can pretty much guess how both of them went.

[@lyianx]

If they did that from the start, id bet they wouldnt have criticized them nearly to the same extent. The problem we have now is *anything* that appears diverse in anyway, even if it isnt forced upon us, is judged and scrutinized with hard suspicion simply because its been so invasive that gamer's are on high alert for any sign of it. These activist "developers" and sewn so much distrust in the industry that a game now has to prove its *not* forcing a political message in your face before they will even give it a chance. And I dont blame them. 'Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me'.

[@ElfireII]

@@citizen4610 and in comparison, marvel rivals comes out and outdoes the entire hero shooter genre consistently lol.

[@nathanperquin9910]

it goes deeper, they are actively using ideologically guided hiring to make it so no good merit writer not part of their cult gets a job, they didn;t make their own games, they drove out the people who made the games they didn't like

[@MaidenlessScrub]

It's pattern recognition. Games have been having politics and messages since forever. You can's write a good story without a theme, and themes themselves are messages of something. However, back then they're written subtly with actual good writing. Now, the writing is crap and overly preachy, and most of those games have "woke" elements to them. It doesn't help that for some reason, even the gameplay aspect of those game are lacklustre, so now gamers just associate "woke" with low quality. Thus, games that have obvious "wokeness" to them tend to be seen with sceptical eyes at best and met with strong push back at worst. Now just imagine an IP that you love with all your heart being changed to have these woke elements.... HMMMMMM oh wait, some of us don't have to imagine.

[@GreatFox42]

"for some reason, even the gameplay aspect of those game are lacklustre" It's because THE MESSAGE takes priority above all else, so so much more of the work and budget gets dedicated to making the most hideous character designs down to the last detail, ensuring the writing is as safe and infantile as possible, and many studios just burn even more of the budget on "consulting firms" that only exist to assist with the aforementioned aspects. There's no money or time left to make an actually good _game_ because making a good game is secondary to spreading the agenda.

[@freelancerthe2561]

My entertainment interests crosses most of geek culture as recognized around the 90s. One by one I've seen what was once creative and/or intellectual heavy hobbies and media, all fall victim to corporate greed, unchecked industrialization, and pseudo-relgious ideology. Wokism, as we see it, being functionally the same as the last thing in that list. Those that don't have that kind of overlap will not easily recognize how wide spread the problem is. If you're a gamer, but you don't like anime, you are missing an entire Forrest fire nearby. Tech is affected by a different problem; but the patterns are eerily similar. What I'm getting at with this is pretty simple. We're running out of places to go. Even if we all collectively decided to completely abandoned a hobby/entertainment sector, very few things remain that aren't already on a similar trajectory to some of kind implosion. And it won't be long before those few things get swept up into tire fire, along with so many other things. I can't even turn to classic games, because the collector market is nearing saturation with speculative investors and the grifters that skim off of that. We can't abandon it; theres almost no where left to go. We can't overtake it (IE make our own stuff); The capital investment required is just too high, attention is too scattered to reliably gain traction, growth into stability is practically a matter of luck and timing, and institutional knowledge is literally dying out. And with the way economics are going, pretty soon whatever power crowdfunding currently has is going to start fading, as people's ratio of disposable income shrinks. So trying desperately to hold on and push back is our ONLY reasonable option, to slow the decay down, long enough for other resources to hopefully make a comeback. its become bad enough that the average person, who is usually ignorant to the goings on of most industries they don't directly work in, recognizes theres a problem. We just need to get people to recognize how interrelated most of these things are, so navigating the assault from all sides stops feeling impossible. But with no clear path to even rolling back the current onslaught of dumpster fires, I don't blame people for feeling overwhelmed, and unable to focus in on the common links. However....until they do, its gonna be hard to get people oriented toward recovery. All sides are playing a game of divide and conquer. And with recent events, I don't think even an Alien invasion is going to get most people on the same page.

[@Xazamas]

There's also the conflation of "real world identity politics" and "fictional in-universe geo-politics." Good example is probably the Great War in Fallout, and the fact that USA in that universe wasn't exactly the "good guys" considering how the entire continent seems to be filled with wide range of vaults/labs/facilities that performed highly unethical experiments, some of which continued after the bombs fell and have caused great deal of harm to the surviving Wastelanders.

[@ANDELE3025]

Imporant not-just-semantic distinction. Back then any politics served as a in universe caused, justified and relevant part of the plot. Now politics is meta wank from the writer forced in without any value and very very often at the cost of the existing lore (thus inherently per IP law and rule of death of the author making that new product non-canon and worthless to fans).

[@foreverokami16]

@@GreatFox42 Bingo it's socialism taking over everything

[@westisnt]

For as much credit as people give him, he really doesn't know anything about the industry or current affairs.

[@chadkleckler5180]

Exactly. The guy has some coding knowledge, but zero common sense and his work "experience" doesn't seem to have provided him with any useful experience or insight. Guy is just a run of the mill ideologue pushing all of the popular talking points.

[@theanonymspysandwich]

Does he have credit on any project or did he just intern at Blizzard for a couple of months?

[@madnessobserver]

@@chadkleckler5180 And even his coding knowledge is very questionable, it's worth remembering he wasn't actually a programmer at Blizzard, and that his biggest hacker/coding accolades were part of a team effort. On his gamedev streams Thor shows a complete lack of understanding of proper coding practices (e.g: he's making a gigantic and impossibly hard to maintain array for every single piece of dialog in an RPG, with no use of enums to boot, on an engine that's JSON compatible), and straight up lies about in-game features (e.g: claims to have made his very own raytracing lighting system in GML when it's actually just simple baked-in lighting, claims to have made "unpirateable" games but it's actually an extremelly widespread and an extremelly easy to bypass antipiracy measure etc.). It's really no wonder he's taking more than half a decade to finish his poor man's Undertale game. People give Thor credit because most people have no clue whatsoever of what he's talking about, they just assume he must be a wise industry expert just because he gives a lot of "inspirational feelsgood" life advice (most of which is actually terrible and shows how much of lucky nepo baby he is) and he doesn't stop yapping about how he's an elite hacker that worked at Blizzard and Amazon, so it must be true, why would someone lie about that amirite. Anyone with any degree of insight on the topics Thor declares himself an expert in (gamedev, coding, etc.) will immediately identify he's a bullshit artist that only got there by being family/friends with the right people, the average person doesn't have this knowledge. Thor's mistake and the reason he's getting so much shit lately, is thinking people also aren't able to notice shit like blatant political/woke messaging in their games, or the fact that the system is rigged so you actually don't own any of the games you purchased with your hard-earned money.

[@AscendantStoic]

Yeah, he is a nepo baby, only reason he got into Blizz in the first place was that his father was one of the founders of the company.

[@Grobut81]

I suspect he knows full well, just doesen't want to burn any bridges by telling the truth. So basically he's like any shill youtuber. Repeat the company line, get cookie.

[@Katie-hb8iq]

I even disagree with Thor about beach babes and buff men being the only two body types in gaming. Link is one of the most recognizable characters and appeals to both men and women. Pokémon has been around for over 20 years and features a wide variety of characters who have gained mass appeal. Mario is a short, chubby guy who jumps on mushrooms in bizarre geometric worlds. None of the characters from the early Final Fantasy or Chrono Trigger games fit that description either. And what about characters like Guybrush Threepwood, Mega Man, and others?

[@recruit-legionary]

Left 4 Dead 2 where you can play as a fat black man and a skinny redneck

[@genericweeb7300]

Exactly, bodytypes from these old games were hardly realistic, it's something more important: CREATIVE

[@TJK10]

Even if you looked at the timeframe in question, you had characters like Bob and Rufus from Tekken and Street Fighter. But, of course, evidence contrary to his point doesn’t count, you see. Don’t trust your lying eyes.

[@MadsterV]

Mario is peak buff

[@mattallred]

He's totally bought into all the propaganda. His dad got him a job at blizzard and he thinks he's the hottest shit around. Just ignore him. Absolutely shameless shill and industry plant. Can't stand listening to him, reminds me of all the most egotistical "nerds" I've met who think they're inherently better than the rest, especially normies. I certainly won't ever give him views or money.

[@crimsonpotemkin]

In a way I agree with Thor. We shouldn't be buying games just to be mad at them. We shouldn't be buying them at all and watch the studios burn Laughing at them going bankrupt and losing jobs is far superior in terms of fun than the games they make. And the best part? We can do all that at the same time as we play better games, like Path of Exile 2.

[@beneditoxanichamaximiano6008]

I absolutely disagree with you sir. The woke mindset is no different than the far right feminist. They starve i mean STARVE for attention and will do anything to get it. That's why they are going after studio's, ruining franchises, invading conservative male space's and more. Turn your back on them they call you Bigot, Misogynist and incel. They are the New Nazi's.

[@sivasankar2784]

They're banking on the fact that most normies don't have more than 2 brain cells and if the anti woke influencers can be banned, then they can essentially sell any woke slop without monetary loss

[@sirebellum0]

That's not good either because then we're losing studios and franchises that we'd otherwise want. Its lose-lose

[@kada0420]

yep, I have a few hundred games I can play while that happens

[@Asriel_Cypher]

I agree with that we shouldn't be buying the games that we don't like. We shouldn't be playing them. That's what happened with Veilguard. The problem is that the consequences of doing so, the studio gets it. The good people there, the ones who aren't involved with the Ideology Politics, gets thrown out. Not the ones with the Political Views. They get to stay sometimes because of certain views or "priviledge..." and meanwhile; the Franchises we love, gets ruined. I don't think Thor knows that much and hence why he's saying so. He's also a content creator and a developer. He's not likely to watch other people's content that discuss these things sometimes. He'd be busy with developing his game and streaming. So he won't understand it deep as we all do.

[@SomeCanine]

This is an inversion of what we told the woke types to do 10 years ago. We said, go make your own games if you insist on all of this woke stuff. Instead, they got all of wall street to force wokeness in every publicly traded company, which included every AAA game dev. As a consequence, we stopped buying games and the industry is crashing.

[@MadsterV]

This is it. It's not complicated. They didn't want to make, they wanted to take. This stems from an ideology that doesn't understand production and markets, so it infiltrates and then crashes, every time.

[@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778]

Yeah back in the 2000s they were the ones crying gaming was dead and that every game was problematic. Even though it wasn't true. Now they infected the industry into nothing more than a propaganda wing for their politics. They only have themselves to blame for failing.

[@dokdirge]

Thor is the Neil Degrasse Tyson of gaming, and I mean that in the worst way imaginable.

[@a_rat_named_mouse]

Very strong analogy, actually. While Thor is highly educated and generally pretty intelligent, he absolutely holds singular and extreme stances on many matters, and will assume he is correct solely because of his education. I mean, he has years and years of experience in all kinds of fields of gaming, ranging from programming to design to maintenance to playing them... But, like, you can still be wrong, and your accolades can lead to be even worse off due to becoming arrogance. Ultimately, he either stands with DEI programs or simply doesn't care and wants to be seen as virtuous. Neither end point is ideal.

[@crimsonpotemkin]

Realistically though, is it not obvious how he'd be in favour of DEI and woke shit when he himself is a nepo baby himself and a fed on top of that, from California no less. If he didn't support it, his side would eat him alive. He pats himself on the back a lot for making an indie pixel game that nobody gives a shit about, like he's Toby Fox (who made Undertale). But he's not and I still haven't heard anyone in the industry say anything about his game.

[@VerminaeSupremacy]

For real. First world privileged clueless guy through and through

[@PaulieMcCoy]

It's not released yet. Despite being an RPGMaker-esque game.

[@italianspiderman5012]

@@PaulieMcCoyoh so he didn’t even make a game, yet?

[@wownice2927]

@@italianspiderman5012 the games is still in early access

[@italianspiderman5012]

@@wownice2927 ah that’s fair I suppose, though, I wouldn’t call myself a painter if I never finished a painting.

[@Plxlinixy]

FYI Thor is a questionable influencer who's only real claim to fame is not only not having a single finished game or project out in the indie market, but he's a nepo kid related to one of the old core guys from Blizzard Software from the early days of wow. Everything he's said on both the woke games nonsense, his support of the insane crashing of Godot (because as a corporate founder he mattered more than the oldest contributors to that project). And he's against the stopkillinggames campaign. To put it mildly you don't just take a grain of salt with the words of Thor you need a pillar of salt to question his commentary.

[@ClockworkGearhead]

Nah, he should just be ignored. He straight up ignored facts about the Godot situation as, "Just a joke," after trying to convince people those things didn't happen, like Godot's CM taking shower pics of herself and directly insulting Asmongold on Twitter to keep the hate going.

[@GinraiPrime666]

I had never actually heard of him even while all of this was happening, only in the last few months I have come to know who he is and from the first words coming out of his mouth when I heard his opinion about StopKillingGames all I could think was "Yeah you sound like a snake oil salesman" as a gut instinct, so finding out that he's misleading with information and probably has a questionable history as a game developer doesn't really surprise me.

[@NoraNoita]

I only followed him for a brief moment, when he had a take on the Apex hacking thing, since he worked at Blizzards security sector and goes to hacking conventions I guess. But I unfollowed him after some really stupid takes, and the general vibes were off.

[@TheLastSoundNL]

So how many bodytypes does the Veilguard have Thor? Is it for everybody? Or only the ones they deem not to be problematic?

[@hentype]

>just make your own games >it's your fault the sales are low The absolute state of woke mind virus

[@The13thRonin]

*Looks at the bug defending the woke hivemind* "It's afraid... IT'S AFRAID!"

[@jacklonderr]

thor is a nepotism baby

[@lemmonsinmyeyes]

I really don’t understand his statement about “I don’t have a character model to identify with”. I’m not arnie shwartz , I’m not entering into any iron man competitions, I never even thought about my character not being like me. Hell the new Tomb Raider games are in my top ten favourites. No, I do not secretly see myself as a woman on the inside. It’s just a good character in an action adventure game. Blade has got to be in the top 5 favourite movie or comic book characters. I’m not of the darker persuasion, it doesn’t matter, because it’s a bad ass character. Does anyone realise how big captain America is in non-western countries?? I mean, you’d actually have to go to these places and not hang out in the tourist traps and hotels to see how regular folks dress & whatnot. But without fail, many people like the CA character, while in the same breath hate americans. It’s not americanophilism I’ll tell you that much. Just make good characters, their dialogue, their loves and hates, their flaws, their virtues, how do they act when they do something wrong? If you had to sum up a persons life with no more than 10 words, how many people would sum up Riply as hetero or not? How many would say that Indiana Jones was a mass murderer? Vash the Stampede SA’ed nearly every woman he comes across, I guess everything else he’s done in TriGun just doesn’t matter. They are imperfect, they do wrong, bad, sometimes horrific things. That isn’t why people like these characters, it’s because the story is well done. People will sign up and watch anti-heros like Homelander, he’s an amazing character and people can’t get enough of him. Is it because he’s a mass murdering racist freak? Just, please, go back to basics, and stop using a list of check boxes.

[@19CD91]

Bad example with Indiana Jones lmao Pretty sure its canon hes a PDF file.

[@wownice2927]

are you talking about the newer trigun with vaush

[@imjust_a]

@@wownice2927 haha I was wondering the same thing. OG Trigun Vash was a bit pervy at times, but there's a specific scene where he has the opportunity to sleep with a bunch of women and fakes a hangover instead. I wouldn't say he "SA'd nearly every woman he came across"

[@nathanperquin9910]

you forget their target audience is in fact deeply racist and so are in fact progressive devs

[@Saint_Wolf_]

Or they could make it for me, Thor, as they used to, until like 2014.

[@MadsterV]

"People are like 'hey this doesn't showcase a character model that I can identify with in any way'" Yeah he's fully woke. The thing is people that say that don't really like games, but they like mirrors. So they don't buy games, they just want mirrors to be around them.

[@Iceisnice1]

This Thor guy is either ignorant, in which case he should be ignored, or is deliberately lying, in which case he should be ignored.

[@dylives7667]

I can't believe we're heading into 2025, and some people are still stuck at the 1st stage of grief. How many more big name studios and companies have to disappear for these people to finally exit the simulation? Denying GWGB being real, is denying reality. I fear for Pirate Software to start going down the path of David Jaffe. An industry hazbin, now an L take factory.

[@masterdyeapp4512]

well sadly Thor is already into that path. Were just burning bridges with him. He doesn't deserve any attention and love from us

[@Chuck.1715]

It is one thing when people make their own game to inject their ideology in it. But what we are seeing times, and times again is people injecting their ideology into already established franchises, bending the original narrative to their wishes, and alienating the core player base.

[@bubbadumps3747]

Thor is a great example of hubris. He genuinly thinks he knows everything, simply because is an expert on some subjects. He is so deep in the sauce that he cant see the forest for the trees.

[@TJK10]

>“Ten years ago, there were only thin buff guy and thin busty girl character models.” >Street Fighter, Soul Calibur, and Tekken: Exists

[@Zuranthus]

they didn't make their own games/movies/comics ...they hijacked ours

[@blaynebittencourt5076]

He's going against what he said about asmongold. He said if you don't listen to asmongold you are not listening to the fans, because he and his audience are the average customer.

[@GinraiPrime666]

Consistency isn't a strong point for these types of people.

[@ZeroRulz0]

He's dismissive of it because he either believes in the things that are being peddled or He knows it to be true but also knows that if he states that it's true the mob is going to come after him. But he's also attempting to be disingenuous with what the actual issue is. The whole "we used to have bikini babes or muscle men" as if that's what made characters like Lara Croft or Solid Snake good to begin with. The main issue with modern game characters is that they just aren't likable, they just also happen to be unattractive(by design) too And the whole "they made their own games" is bullshit too. They hijacked beloved series just because they could

[@ZeroRulz0]

Just to add, I don't think these people actually play games or ever did.

[@eriksmith2411]

deep history take "let's go 10 years back" give me a break. how anyone has the stamina to engage in a legit conversation w ppl like this is beyond me. i just smile & walk away

[@Grobut81]

You simply can't. They do nothing but lie, strawman, gaslight and move the goal posts. It's not possible to have a legit discussion with someone who refuses to.

[@Mewsashi-cz9fo]

"15 years ago there was only 2 body models in games" ah yes, because jrpgs, and even westerner games didn't already have a variety of body models in games.. From Musashi Brave Fencer to Bust a move or parappa the rapper, jack and daxter, kingdom hearts, sonic, Jet Set Radio, Ico, shadow of the colossus, Mario, Metal Slug, even GTA 2, 3 , 4 didn't have buff characters or stereotypes he talks about, the only games that maybe had buff and barbie looking characters might be Duke Nukem ? Anita sarkeesian did a mountain of mole holes overblowing the issues with borderline fake and exagerrated exemples.

[@XellosNi]

Man, I TOTALLY remember Buff Body Mario back in the 80's. :/

[@AscendantStoic]

lols, and buff Dhalsim too XD

[@PaulieMcCoy]

Ferret boy is a literal babe. This is the wisdom out of the mouth of babes. 👶 It is natural he doesn't remember the culture of this time as he wasn't alive. I recommend reading his KF thread - it's pretty accurate I reckon.

[@jademirror]

I don't understand this obsession with projecting onto a character. Some of my favourite games involved main characters who looked nothing like me, or had personalities that were nothing like mine. Okami, Psychonaughts, Kingdom hearts, Sly Cooper, etc. Then there were games that gave ME the freedom to make truly absurd, diverse characters like sims, dynasty warriors, saints row, etc. But now I am being forced to play with either androgynous self-inserts of developers, or they give me a character creator that is laughable at best and pointless at worst.

[@GinraiPrime666]

The obsession they have with projecting themselves onto characters can be explained by one word: Narcissism.

[@TheDezembro]

Sly Cooper mentioned! 💙✨

[@scuffeddeimos]

Now if you like any character that isn't a 1:1 of yourself (like who the hell is?) the wokies will project their failed logic onto you. Example: Play a game with a non-human character, like Atlyss = im a furry now Play hot female characters = im trans now? Play handsome male characters = im gay now? No, let me just play games with cool characters; my IRL life is always seperate from my gaming life, gaming is my escape not a continuation of my inner world 💀

[@MistaWells]

Maybe the wokies should go make their own games instead of ruining established franchises

[@I-ONLY-BUILD-MECHS-AND-DUSTERS]

They did. All of those terrible unplayable walking simulators and bizarre dating sims are woke as hell, and if they didn't try to ruin anything else, no one would have cared.

[@TheDezembro]

Yeah, what @I-ONLY-BUILD-MECHS-AND-DUSTERS said. That black lady, for example, who only hired white people for her indie studio? She made ValiDate. A game that was literally only relevant because the devs got upset at their players when most of them were choosing the only lightskinned character to date. Game came and went, nobody hassled them, nobody @ed them (only reason why any buzz happened at all was their own doing 'cause they're the ones getting mad that players lmao) And theres so many more examples of this type of game and others that aren't exactly like it but that are appealing to those kinds of audiences. The only reason why this friction exists is because of trying to brute force it onto other audience's games

[@GilesFAhrun]

ValiDATE, Dustborn, Concord, Today We Riot, Buck Up and Drive... just to name a few. If they're not a terrible dumpster fire they don't sell much. I think it's not about the wokies to make games but to the anti-wokes to really make their own games as well instead of complaining about it. The Great Rebellion is an example of this. Now you don't need to make a anti-woke game in the same vein as Great Rebellion. just make a normal game with good stories and character and the engine don't matter. Be it UE, Godot, LÖVE or even RPG Maker. "Ahh but I'm not good t make a game solo" Well Skullgirls was made by two guys, a programmer and an artist. Make contacts with people with the same worldview as yours and work on it. "Ahh but those I could work with lives in another country." So was the whole MANE6 during their MLP Fighting is Magic fan game. As Razorfist said: "Don't cry about the culture. BECOME the culture. You don't need to ask permission from them to make your comic."

[@enkiduthewildman]

@@GilesFAhrun But I can't make _Mass Effect_ . I can't make _Star Wars_ . I can't make _The Witcher_ . And I can't make a 1st-person RPG in the _Pillars of Eternity_ universe. It's not that I lack games to play, it's that the games I'm looking forward to -- entries in the franchises I care about -- _those_ are the ones being ruined by all this. And yes I _do_ get to complain about that. If you don't want to hear it, why don't _you_ plug your ears.

[@MistaWells]

@GilesFAhrun we had our own games then the snow flakes came in and ruined them. You can't take a niche community like these dei liberals and incorporate their fringe world view into a AAA game with a huge budget and expect it to do well. You would need to appeal to a niche audience and budget accordingly.

[@CyberChud2077]

Woke was created by the Frankfurt school. They got kicked out of Germany for the same reason

[@everyonethinksyoureadeathm5773]

Funded by KGB and now the Chinese. On that note it's most likely because they didn't comply with tiny mustache man's version of socialism. As the Frankfurt school was more aligned with Lenin view of socialism& communism. Odd given the fact that he and Stalin were bffs and spit roasted Poland+ most of Eastern Europe happily. Then again communism always spirals into a purity chase. A snake eating it's own tail.

[@sulimanthemagnificent4893]

That clip of him at the beginning had an instant fallacious argument. He said “people” (not specific) wanted X, and when “they” (again, not specific) got what “they” wanted, then complained. Except the people complaining were a minority, he had to know this, and he’s subtly equivocating that minority with *all* gamers, which he knows is false, not to mention “you only had two character models” *false* and he knows it’s false, as far back as ME1 (*fifteen years ago*) this is disproven.

[@pollodeshebrado6761]

yup. Mass Effect, Skyrim, The Sims (1,2,3), Fallout 3, Dark Souls (2011), Dragon Age*, etc in fact, do you know which company seems to almost perfectly fit that """flawed""" hot babe/muscular dude character design?... Blizzard

[@footthumb]

‘Just ignore them’ is exactly how things got so out of control in the first place.

[@zanzazaar]

So, Thor made a choice in GG. And he choose to be wrong.

[@DraftFaun919]

It’s crazy how people will be so dismissive about this problem just because they don’t wanna be called an -ist or a -phobe

[@DJFlare84]

Something tells me that his "body types" quip was specifically about Concord. "If you don't want that kind of things in your games go make your own." - Okay, but I can't make games so how about a compromise. Instead, I just won't play the games that have those things in them. See how that worked out?

[@Sanquinity]

My issue with this is that the woke left have taken over multiple big, good, and popular franchises. It's less about the games themselves being bad, and more about them ruining what could have been a new game in a beloved franchise. For instance I didn't care about Concord failing. It's just a new IP. Who cares if it fails? It just means the execution of their idea for a game was bad. But if you're talking about Star Wars, The Witcher, Dragon Age, TES, Mass Effect, or other such big and popular gaming franchises, it's a whole different story. There's already established lore, established experience with the previous titles in the franchise, gameplay expectations, character design expectations, story expectations, etc. When you ruin something that already has all of that, it has an actual impact. Even to people that aren't necessarily direct fans of said franchise but have maybe played the games a bit or heard a lot about them. The woke left doesn't just make their own thing. They infest already existing and popular media studios (not just game studios), take over, and turn already established franchises into things they and the very small group that actually agrees with them (not just pretends to agree to fit in/not lose their job) likes. And lastly just not buying the games they don't like is what gamers are already doing this year. But that ALSO pisses off the woke crowd. It's a damned if you do damned if you don't situation. Now instead of "if you don't like it don't play it" its "our game failed because of hate campaigns and toxic gamers." So yea, of course people are going to prefer the option where they don't lose their hard earned money on a shit game. It's not our fault that it's entertaining as hell to see these studios, who got taken over by the woke mindset, imploding because of their own actions.

[@ClockworkGearhead]

The issue runs deeper than that. They parasite ratings boards, too, journalism, and any awards ceremony. Just "go make your own game" as he demanded still won't solve the actual issue, because you're still going to get sieged.

[@zombieslayer4415]

Excellent video sir. As a boring white guy who just wants to provide for his family and relax with a video game and not be preached at, I refuse to buy any game where the devs come out and blatantly say I’m the problem and that I’m a bad person for having a lighter skin tone. I will not give you my hard earned money and if your studio fails I just shake my head and move on. As for all of these games where everyone has to see themselves in every single game, this is an absolutely foreign take that I truly cannot even fathom. I have played as a literal ball of slime and an earthworm in a spacesuit. I’m about as far removed from these characters as can be and enjoyed them thoroughly, not because the characters looked and acted like me but because they were fun and didn’t accuse me of being the equivalent of a yazi slaveowner. If I get even a hint of that attitude towards gamers then I’m out, plain and simple.

[@OneColdtruth]

Not gonna lie i saw this coming in all honestly also he is part of the issue because he isn't neutral about this its more than about not playing their games its that activists are invading the games/media we hold dear trying push out the reasonable people who don't want that and in not wanting that those ppl get called the most vile things like ists,phobes, etc i mean ffs am centrist but demonizing the opposition who disagrees with you is insanity.

[@italianspiderman5012]

Not insanity, it’s calculated, dehumanising your opposition is a common tactic, and it might sound silly at first, “dehumanising? That’s bit much” but think about it, calling someone after a mass murderer, someone who used to murder and torture people, just for difference in opinion is dehumanising.

[@OneColdtruth]

​​@@italianspiderman5012you sound like you are used to and understand these tactics so I thank you for the knowledge drop. It's not hard to understand we humans are very hateful towards each other been this way since the jump.

[@everyonethinksyoureadeathm5773]

​@@OneColdtruth this is why 1984, Animal Farm and Saint Elmos Fire should be required reading. I'm not saying the right is pure in this either. Moralists like Jack Thompson gave the left moralist fuel to accelerate. The goal should be educating, guarding and being a watchmen for the moralist barbarians who want to swing society into their version of utopia without reason.

[@bernardallen1507]

I think he's so dishonest in say stop playing games you hate and make your own games. We had our games, but they try to hijackam and turn them into woke crap. That's what we have a problem with. We did not have a problem with games like dustborn, Forespoken and Concord. We just laughed at it. At least it's a new I. P, and for him to not understand that he's is being totally dishonest. We are not playing games that we hate. That's why they're not selling the normies play those games 'cause they don't understand what's going on the journos, and the weirdos, that just want to own the chuds.

[@ainternet239]

This is not evolution it is revolution. These activists are aiming at the social engineering of society as a whole. The gaming industry is just one vector to achieve this - others are film, tv, education and so on.

[@laju6398]

It's a Cultural revolution. It follows Maos playbook almost by the word, this is evident for anyone who has studied chinese history.

[@everyonethinksyoureadeathm5773]

​@@laju6398why do you think they gutted the humanities and installed communist yes men. They need to hide the horrors of what communism does.

[@KhavostovRasputin]

I don’t agree with the last few seconds of the video at all. The reality is, these game studios have been getting too comfortable. They expect us to buy their games while disrespecting their customers, and the rampant activism within these companies only makes it worse. Yes, I know I’m throwing everything out with the bathwater, but I’ve reached the point where I don’t care anymore. These companies need to be reminded of their true audience, and if it requires burning down a majority of these old gaming institutions, then so be it.

[@TheDezembro]

The part about not caring about it while it all burns down? I'd rather see the brands and the IPs salvaged. Not the people in charge of these studios and certainly not the people who bought into this DEI sh*t and put them there. But I would be sad to see certain IPs be forever lost, even though I know new ones would come to replace them. I'm STILL heartbroken since.... January? February? When the news dropped that an upcoming Deus Ex game had been cancelled and the studio got like 50% of its workforce fired. Embracer Groups has them working on some live service instead. It will flop and the rest of the studio will shut down, with Deus Ex likely to never be seen again.

[@KhavostovRasputin]

@TheDezembro I get how you feel, man. But for me, I've reached a point where I’m just indifferent to it all. I’m starting to accept that nothing lasts forever. I know you want to protect what you love, but the way I see it, it's still going to end up in the hands of a company that's focused on making money. Whether they tarnish it or stay true to the fans, in the end, it’s still owned by a corporation that doesn’t really care. It'll just be a constant cycle of changes or attempts to return to the original roots. For me, I’m treating all the entertainment I’ve loved as nothing more than products, knowing that eventually they’ll lose the soul that made them so special. In many ways it's like a like wooden sculpture, I can’t preserve it forever, but at least I can hold on to the memories.

[@italianspiderman5012]

@@KhavostovRasputinI’m with you. Most of these IP’s we used to enjoy are dead anyway, and people making them aren’t going to magically change. And I’ll admit, I’m at the point of “a woman lead? Yeah idk about that chief” and i feel many people are, but what’s even worse, it’s true most of the time. They are literally hurting their own cause by being extremely authoritarian, something they claim they hate, you just can’t make it up.

[@KhavostovRasputin]

@italianspiderman5012 Yeah, these beloved IP's I would not exactly say are dead, as some of them can continue on forever. The only problem is that the people making them either don't understand, are unqualified, have an ego, or want to intentionally bastardise it. Take Star Wars, for example, that is a franchise that could go on forever, but because of activism, arrogance by the corporate execs who thought it was too big to fail, and general incompetence, it was run into the ground.

[@italianspiderman5012]

@@KhavostovRasputin yeah that’s what I mean, Star Wars went from one of the biggest, most profitable franchises on the planet, to a low quality tv. Can they salvage it? Not with the current attitude, and it’s not gonna change, they’ll see it burn rather then give it back. I love mass effect, favourite sci-fi franchise, and even back in andromeda you can see the red flags, ignoring the lore, characters being insufferable teenagers, horrendous writing and so on. ME is dead, it is what it is.

[@GregoryShtevensh]

Stop telling people they can't have an opinion in something. This guy seems like the doc hollywood of games

[@ali-xe7qu]

never take anything thor says seriously he has zero problem pushing anti consumer bs if it means to benefit him that was clear since the stop killing games controversy

[@superspreaders1]

Glad you're covering this guy's cold-take. Is it me, or is anyone else increasingly convinced that he's wearing a wig? 🤔

[@mysteriousstranger2814]

Wig, fake voice, fake experience, fake "hacker skills" He was useless at Blizzard, only got the job thanks to his dad being one of the OGs and was constantly shifted around the company because he was just that useless at everything he attempted. He wasn't some resident superhacker, he was little more than a janitor for WoW.

[@superspreaders1]

@@mysteriousstranger2814 WHOA! Reply of the Year Award 2024! He's a nepo-baby? Not shocked. He came outta nowhere and instantly rose to millions of subs. Can you direct us to links for this info? You sound like you even have personal links to him!

[@superspreaders1]

@@mysteriousstranger2814 I especially want evidence of the wig lol💈

[@mysteriousstranger2814]

@@superspreaders1 There's info for him all over the internet, honestly. I've always hated his smug "I know a lot :)" personality he tried to come across with. As for his nepo-baby status, that's how he got the job working for Blizzard, his dad has worked there for a long time, or at least had. He's pretty much unemployable otherwise (which is why they kept shifting him around the company, if you actually look at his "game" that he will never finish, you'll notice that his code is absolutely abhorrent.) The one thing he did figure out was that the youtube short system was practically broken and used it pretty exclusively to farm engagement from the algorithm, which is why we need to listen to his corporate shill takes.

[@DJFlare84]

Thor's complaints basically boil down to "God I'm tired of listening to people complain". Tough luck pal.

[@DaRealKovi]

He is complaining about people complaining. Quite ironic. Not surprised that he misrepresented legitimate points people make because he cannot or does not want to argue them.

[@MrJay_White]

thor is too smart for his sleaze to be accidental. he is overtly on the side of corpo copyright being used as a reason to destroy the cultural heritage of a generation in his opposition to game preservation. he supports corpo "you own nothing" denial of right to repair his response to twitch censorship was "me and my friends dont have this problem, so neither do you".

[@shinobi197]

These developers don't care if their game flops, they already got payed for making it. The ones that care are the investors. We should be keeping a list of the writers who did the stories of these games and send them to every pitch meeting together with the sales of those games they've worked on so they don't get swindled.

[@alanmoon2448]

Trust me, that guy is a fraud and he didn't even finish his mediocre game still

[@desertdude540]

Yeah, it's going to be one of those games that remains in permanent "early access" so he can grift forever off his Patreon without having to ever come up with a new idea. It is weird that he's doing it with pixel art, since this sort of thing is usually done with coomer games for fairly obvious reasons.

[@averagelok1959]

2:18 you see thor they didnt go make their own games they got jobs in studios because of their politics and changed current ips to fit their agenda.

[@arostwocents]

Thor is the kind of guy who spent years running defence for micro transactions just saying "don't buy them" - while anyone with eyes could see this was going to end with a total disaster - where not only mobile gaming went from amazing to completely ruined but console gaming too. I guarantee even when full price SINGLE PLAYER console games had £100 macro transactions he was still running cover and just saying "don't buy it." Deliberately pretending it's not true that MTs completely change the design.

[@OldManJ3nkins]

Thor is also leaving out that if you are a straight, white male you are not going to be hired by any large studio, or any small studio that's getting loans from Blackrock or Vanguard. And in today's ultra-capitalistic hellscape most people are struggling to just stay afloat, opening your own studio becomes less and less possible by the year, certainly less possible than it was when these so-called titans of the industry were getting their starts. Todd Howard got his start by continually pestering Bethesda (might have been called something else back then) until they gave him a chance. Today he would be shot down right out of the gate for his intrinsic characteristics, but even if he WAS able to get his resume looked at most places require an associated post-secondary education from a respected school (the prices of which continue to climb beyond the point of absurdity because hey, the government is paying for it! (oh but then you're paying the government back)), most places want to see at _least_ a year of experience in the industry which, again, as a white male ain't happening. You gotta have references and a LinkdIn and all this other shit that just makes it harder and harder to secure a good job, not just in gaming in many fields.

[@nathanperquin9910]

i'll do you one better, if you are even slightly misaligned with the current social political movement no matter what your race, or gender is you wont be hired, because these people dont actually care about groups they just care about reinforcing their power and authority in every field, the only REAL thing they hire on is ideological lockstep

[@matteocesa9017]

Fair enough, Ill go make my own game, are you giving me 200 million dollars thor? Cause sure as shit blackrock, sony, microsoft and ubislop are not.

[@calebb7012]

There is just so much woke being pushed. He completely side steps that fact.

[@TRUEMIXEDBLOOD]

I do somewhat agree with the idea of not playing those games. The only way these companies will shift is if they lose money, and it's why we should vote with our wallets. Just look at this year's failures and successes. At the same time, we shouldn't be blind to the issue and or misrepresent it, orherwise it cannot be fixed.

[@Specterofthepast]

My biggest problem with Thor's statement is that it's a compete lie. They didn't just go make their own games. They coerced the market and removed the people who weren't part of their ideology. They are parasites not game developers.

[@nakedbeekeeper9610]

He's a twitch streamer. He's friends and business partner with a lot of twitch treamers and game devs. Pragmatism is what informs his opinion on this issue, not honesty. He knows what's going on.

[@SinCityRadio2077]

I can see from a mile away he's playing this confident character for tiktok soundbites, we had character selection screens and mods 15y ago, what he wanted to say is that he considers the 2000s shooter era as the white male toxic era because xbox and cod lobbies were not safe for the easily offended, I can confirm a very diverse toxic fanbase enjoyed those nonetheless, it comes with the competitive part and it plays pretty much the same on 'diverse' competitive games, see league or overwatch

[@swarmX]

it was dismissive on thors part more than likely because he agrees w/ the messaging

[@mattmartin6493]

His last job in cyber security included social engineering which is manipulation so of course he does it to his audience. Really feels like an industry plant.

[@Xearrik]

He's just lying. He seems at least reasonably intelligent or more from the stuff I've seen, so there is no way someone as connected to the industry as he is can be so oblivious to what is going on. He is just plain lying. He's not mistaken in anything he said, he's intending to lie. It's a shame because he seems nice guy. I could only speculate as to why he's lying. So I won't bother.

[@voidboi0]

I've noticed people like Thor turn a blind eye to these very apparent problems of wokeism. I appreciate your constant effort to keep the gaming industry accountable and about the gamers. Thor, like Act Man, is showing us his true colors and we should believe him.

[@supalegendary1313]

This is how I see it. I would rather have a full year of game releases like "Sonic 06" than a month of releases with games like "Dragon Age Veilguard"

[@psychoticball1]

Brilliant video man. Thank you for the honesty. Thor is someone I've had a lot of respect for at times, and at other times he has shown that he wants to put his head in the sand and ignore the reality. He's very intelligent about the business and consumer ethics sides of the games industry, but he needs to wake up and realize there is another threat trying to take control of our video games. I get it, I really do. I don't want to talk about wokeness in gaming because it's exhausting and mentally draining, and you always end up with one side hating you, painting you as the enemy. But sitting on the fence and pretending it doesn't exist is HOW WE LOSE. Dismissing these problems as he did is cowardly, and I hope more people push back. Being online makes it feel like normality is now the minority, but it isn't true. People know the truth, but they're afraid to say it because "popular culture" has dictated that you are a bigot and you're hateful if you do. Don't fall for the lies.

[@VocalSynthUtau]

You're assuming he's well intentioned but naive and I don't see any evidence of that. He's an industry shill. It's a club, he's in it, you're not, and he looks down on you for it.

[@joelhodoborgas]

Nobody ever said "this character doesnt represent me" if you did, you need shrink.

[@CHN-yh3uv]

That was so me in the ps3 era playing God of War. Like wtf why isn’t kratos a nerdy 14yo kid with social anxiety? Damn you PaTriArChy!!!!

[@FlyingBystander]

The argument that people never saw themselves in games or couldn't identify is just ridiculous. It's GAMES people! I don't know about the rest of you, but I wanted to be something more than I am in everyday life. Maybe people using that argument should go and play "Washing dishes simulator" or "Brushing my teeth and being a lesbian before bed simulator". What if Superman's super power was Flawless makeup or The Dragon Born's power was "Conflict Resolution in a Safe Environment". Then go make your own games . . . WTF. How 'bout we pay you for a game we'd like to play! Go work on your next troll of a game and call it "Tupperware Sluts 3 - The Reckoning"

[@mikemikemikemikemikemeup]

Hyjacking existing franchises isn’t making your own games. Also he said “if you don’t like them don’t play them” we already do that. We complain about them ruining franchises and we stop buying them. I’m not going to make my own games. I’m going to complain until others make what I want again. Get over it. If I don’t like what they did to a franchise I Will endlessly complain and you can’t stop me. If I’m devastated by what they have done to my favorite franchise I’m not going to just stay quiet like he wants me to.

[@Rinchen8192]

We're not buying their games and letting them know why. What they do with that information is up to them, not our fault if these studios go under or shut down.

[@timbow1833]

''just make your own bro'' we hadd our own! you took it!

[@sompret]

>"Just make your own games" >Actually tries to make own game >It gets popular through sheer dumb luck >It doesn't align with his crowd >Game gets sabotaged in retaliation >All that remains is his slop once again 🤷‍♂

[@bluelyoko1041]

I'm not a creator I'm a consumer I don't want studios to get shut down cuz they never listen to their audience like volition

[@JayPeaTea]

Ah, I remember when we had just the beach babe body model and the buff man body model - good times ... I wish we could get those back into entertainment. And as for representation - the dude from the Starwars survivor looks like a younger version of myself, and I hate it. Could not pick the game up because of it, lol.

[@ZeroSignalG]

It's a self correcting problem, it's going to do a lot of damage before it's done.

[@Hbr0wn]

it reminds me of a talk i recently had with a friend, he is sadly the type that just goes "dont ask questions just consoome", as soon as you start to talk negatively about something he just say "it does nt matter is not real", its so infuriating cuz you just cant have any sort of talk with him about games, all things good are good, but bad things juts ignore.

[@red-merlin]

17:19 good point and analogy. Basically his approach seems to be "just ignore it" which is why we have this going on to begin with. To use your analogy, you sit there and say "oh this wound hurts" and Dude comes in and says "don't touch it then, the rest of your body doesn't hurt does it?". And when he's saying "we told them to make their own games and now people are mad they are making them". He should know damn well that's not the problem. I relentless mocked and relished Dustborn flopping, cuz i didn't have any skin in the game. But when you have "bioware" wrecking dragon age or more recently "cdpr" who's undoubtedly wreck my favorite series of all time then I'm gonna get mad. And no, i have no desire to play the games nor need to in order to criticize them. I can recognize a game is a dumpster fire from looking at it. Like if i see a pile of horse shit on the ground i don't need to taste it to know it's shit. With cdpr I'm already so pissed to see them breaking the lore. I spent the last few year's raging about how bad the Netflix show did the witcher. Now seeing this complete bs of making ciri a full fledged witcher unnecessarily when title and deed would be more than fine is maddening. Even more so watching many (not all tho) fans, some whom fancy themselves as an authority on the matter, twist themselves into a pretzel or use semantics to excuse this decision. Saying things like "well the books never said this". I don't need to specifically see the words to know what is inferred in the lore guys. But now we're seeing it come out that the new lore master of this latest game is, much like most of the studio, completely new. He only joined the studio after first working as a journalist for TheGamer. A journo that was particularly antagonistic towards gamers. So much so he's got an insane amount of Unhinged tweets about it. And the dude, Cian Maher is his name, defended the Netflix series which that alone should be alarm bells since that show messed up all kinds of lore and this is the guy who's supposed to keep it true. If people aren't seeing a correlation between "brand new lore designer" and "world changing lore retcon witcher ciri" then they are just to naive...or to prideful since they put themselves out there. Ironically defending a guy who had nothing too do with witcher 3, all because they have w strong emotional attachment to the witcher 3

[@adrianmartinez8125]

The same happened in 40k with female custodes, What's the point of having "lore" if it can change on a whim? Minds as well make the Witcher in space...

[@Halvos12]

"Go make your own game." Makes their own game "I am getting you canceled for not making your game to my standards." See Black Myth WuKong, Stellar Blade, and Hogwarts legacy.

[@jesustyronechrist2330]

I do agree with Thor in a sense. There are TONS of games. But his example goes both ways: There are so many games that have "woke stuff" but nobody is playing them. Instead, people demand those things to be implemented in EVERYTHING. And without any quality control. I like Thor. But he also comes off across as an "enlightened neo-centrist". Yeah, having a Bluesky account is a... salmon-colored flag already, but he definitely should stay out of politics. He has incredibly programming knowledge and should really just stay in that brand. Toxic positivity is quite rife in the "cozy" communities.

[@threemoo]

What do you expect from a guy who has built a reputation for being an experienced game dev who has never worked in actual production. He has always been security and in some cases QA, nothing else, at least in AAA.

[@thehatter9400]

The reason why thors comments are wrong is because we aren't playing the games, but we would have if they were actually good. We wanted them to be good and we are mad because we can see how they could have been good but the dev's and the consultants chose to go the other direction.

[@IamPotion]

A KZbinr did the math of woke games losing money the past 4-5 years and he shows that woke games caused the game industry to lose about 4.3 billion dollars. Which is crazy to think about when some of the most popular games were made with 200 million dollars or less. Some of the games didn’t even reach 1 million dollars in cost. Edit: what he used for determining factors of what made a “woke” game was if they company itself or someone within the company classified it as for the “modern” or “wider” audience as well as factors like pronouns, purely gay characters(and if the gay characters took away from the experience of the game), as well as other factors. Personally I think any game with homosexuality is woke. I also believe any game that pushes a female character in a masculine way is woke. Laura Croft is capable and endearing but I wouldn’t classify her as masculine. While I’d label Abby from The last of us as masculine.