The idea that a business going woke will result in it going broke is becoming more evident with the latest big example measured by consumers’s reaction to modern video games. You can say whatever you want about “woke” being overused but it is ridiculous to think the saying holds no discernible truth in today's culture.
I touched on the current state of video game culture before and this one serves to show how consumers have reacted. I used a video before from Oney Plays as an example of an overly-politicized game receiving due criticism, but a few years ago outspoken views like that were more of an exception, not the status quo. Now we’re here years later and people can sniff out woke games from a mile away with the hallmarks they choose to adopt: Cheap art styles, monotone voice acting, and the sad Star Wars favorite — heavy use of nostalgia.
Franchises get modern reboots and left leaning studios make it their life's mission to take well grounded characters and story lines and destroy it for the nonsensical “wow!” moments that last for a moment. Take the game Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, and their controversial character, Mrs. Freeze.
This was a bit of a soft spot for me, being that Mr. Freeze isn’t a traditional Detective Comics (DC) villain. Many of them were either too greedy, self destructive forces of chaos or like the Joker, clinically insane.
Mr. Freeze, to summarize his story, froze his wife in order to prolong her lifespan and use the time to find a cure for a very deadly disease she contracted. After his project was on the verge of being shuttered at work, he became a criminal so as to fund his research, eventually morphing into a cold-hearted monster to everyone but his wife Nora. For her he sacrificed his literal being.
This is all important to note because before Suicide Squad games nearly had his story almost fully established, with Mr. Freeze coming from Arkham games that served as in-universe prequels to this one. So when Rocksteady, the studio behind the new Suicide Squad game, decided to ditch that entire plotline to make Mr. Freeze a gay chubby Asian woman that had the character of a wooden board, actual long time fans of the franchise promptly left the scene (even though they largely already had with the game’s terrible gameplay and writing.) This is just one example in a myriad of terrible choices that video game enjoyers find themselves having to either accept or reject in their escape from the real world.