The Xbox giant monopoly of studios behind games like World of Warcraft and Diablo is making some changes to the guidelines to make a new title. This will involve some inclusion, which is not always organic. Apparently, this will be a mandatory practice from now on.
Mark Kern, a former CEO and team lead for games like World of Warcraft and Diablo, has discovered this new “mandatory” change that Microsoft is implementing. In a post on X, he also mentioned that numerous Xbox studios are hiring the services of Sweet Baby Inc. to improve the inclusion of its games in their narratives.
Mark Kern says Microsoft is changing to make things more inclusive in all of its games
After many games failed horrendously to sell well or even have an average reception, many players started to notice a possible pattern. This was after they discovered Sweet Baby Inc., a consulting company that helps studios make games more “woke” or inclusive, regarding race, female characters, and how they respect minority cultures.
According to Sweet Baby Inc., no major changes are made in the narrative of these titles, but the pattern is a little more notorious every time.
Mark Kern on X has explained that these types of changes are almost becoming “mandatory” for inclusion in future games.
(correction, website is https://t.co/ClGJBZBMuA)
— Grummz (@Grummz) March 28, 2024
Microsoft made a splash at GDC, announcing their Product Inclusion guidelines for all of their studios.
Such changes have been reported elsewhere as "woke", including de-feminization of female characters and cite widely… pic.twitter.com/8ntVHLNlTJ
Kern mentioned that he talked to some former developers of studios like Compulsion Games (South of Midnight) and Avalanche Studios Group (Contraband), and they said that DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) is ruining and altering studio culture and games.
Are companies forcing inclusion into games to make everyone happy?
Kern, Microsoft, and Xbox talked about this at GDC, saying that it was not mandatory but was in the guidelines for all the studios that are part of this monopoly.
@Xbox @XboxSupport @Microsoft @MicrosoftHelps @satyanadella you gonna ignore this too? answer you multi-billion dollar cowards.
— Anthony Waldsmith (@anthonywaldz) March 28, 2024
He also mentioned that Xbox is making studios question the type of clothing women’s bodies wear in order to make characters as inclusive as possible. Fans were not so happy with this, and they said that they were doing this to make everyone happy and sell more.
The majority of the community has responded negatively to this, stating that it is overly dramatic to assume that future games will make such decisions solely to satisfy demands that no one is asking for.
In future titles, this could bring a change in the narrative and in the character design that affects narratives, but at the moment, no game was really affected by these decisions and ends up being bad only for this kind of “inclusion.”.
What are your thoughts about the almost mandatory inclusion? Let us know what you think in the comments.
