The Enemies of Modern Game Design Are Once Again Bragging About Their Accomplishment.
The gaming industry is plummeting. In 2024, record layoffs in the tens of thousands, widespread studio closures, and an avalanche of AAA financial failures have left developers and publishers struggling to stay afloat. And yet, in the midst of this chaos, the 2025 Game Developers Conference (GDC) has decided to highlight a supposed “success”: the fact that women and non-binary developers now represent 32% of the industry.
In a year where the gaming landscape has hit rock bottom, access media is celebrating identity politics as though it’s the answer to all their problems. While this so-called achievement in diversity is paraded as a victory by journalists and activists, it’s a hollow symbol of progress at best, a distraction from the crumbling state of the industry, which is buckling under the very ideals it’s championing.
The reality is, this shift toward Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) has done nothing to fix the systemic issues plaguing the sector. Instead, it’s becoming clearer that these hollow gestures are what’s driving the industry to its knees.
The Game Developers Conference (GDC) has released its 13th annual State of the Game Industry survey, offering a sobering look at the industry’s current trajectory. With GDC 2025 approaching, set to take place from March 17-21 at San Francisco’s Moscone Convention Center, developers and industry veterans are bracing for a chaotic future in an industry almost certain to crash once more.
The figures are hard to ignore: 11% of game developers lost their jobs over the past year. The hardest-hit roles? Narrative designers, who saw a staggering 19% termination rate, a trend that feels all too familiar given the ideological stranglehold narrative teams have adopted in recent years.
Meanwhile, business and finance roles were hit the least, with only a 6% layoff rate, ensuring that those responsible for the disastrous financial decisions that have rocked the industry continue to collect their paychecks without consequence. The message is clear: as the industry falters, the people funding it get to ride out the storm allowing ideological activists to cry victim.
Even among the developers who managed to survive the layoffs, 41% reported feeling the lingering effects of the mass cuts, either witnessing colleagues get axed or dealing with disruptions to their work environment. With declining revenues and failed market strategies blamed for the layoffs, one has to wonder: why is the industry still barreling down this unsustainable path?
The GDC’s report celebrates the rise of women and non-binary developers, now making up 32% of the workforce, framing it as a victory. But this “win” comes hand-in-hand with a collapse in job security and financial stability. The industry’s growing focus on DEI hiring over merit-based recruitment has shifted priorities, turning the gaming world into a place where ideological checkboxes take precedence over actual skill.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in narrative teams, which have suffered the highest termination rates, suggesting that diversity hires aren’t bringing real creativity to the table.
GLAAD’s recent report on LGBTQ+ representation in gaming highlights just how deep the ideological grip has taken hold. They pushed for greater representation in games and even called for content rating systems to penalize developers who don’t meet diversity quotas.
Meanwhile, industry developers like Mary Kenney, formally of Insomniac Games who jumped ship to CD Projekt Red have openly admitted their focus isn’t on crafting compelling stories but on forcing identity politics into every corner of the gaming world, regardless of its impact on the quality of the product.
One in three AAA developers is now working on a live-service game, with 16% of the industry currently tied to such projects. The live-service model, which thrives on microtransactions, relentless monetization, and player retention gimmicks, has become the go-to strategy for studios desperate to make a profit in a dying industry.
But as seen with failures like Sony’s Concord, one of many colossal AAA bombs from last year, the industry’s ideological overhaul, driven by feminism and DEI hires, often leads to catastrophic outcomes. The shift towards a more politically correct industry may have ticked the boxes for a few, but it’s leaving the rest of the gaming world in ruins.
The push for diversity and inclusivity has irrevocably altered the gaming industry over the last decade, with many modern games now designed by feminists for feminists, or by developers more focused on ideological representation than delivering engaging gameplay experiences.
While representation in gaming is “important,” the hype fixation on modern-day diversity initiatives has led to a creative regression, where checkbox diversity is prioritized over innovation, beauty and fun.
Modern game design increasingly panders to feminist and progressive ideologies, often valuing inclusivity over core elements like challenge, immersion, and escapism. Titles such as The Last of Us Part II, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Concord, and Dustborn serve as prime examples of this trend, offering narratives and character designs that polarize rather than entertain audiences.
Instead of providing an immersive escape, these games often feel more like platforms for socio-political messaging, alienating long-time fans who simply want to enjoy compelling gameplay.
Another glaring symptom of this ideological shift is the rise of “unattractive realism” in character design, an approach praised by progressive circles for supposedly rejecting traditional beauty standards. What this really demonstrates, however, is how activism has overshadowed artistry in modern game development.
The industry’s obsession with politically correct ideals is so pervasive that even major publishing giants in the West, and now even Japan, have fallen victim to the socio-political pressures of ESG initiatives. These demands for censorship of heteronormative femininity and the erasure of traditional gender distinctions in favor of androgynous hybrids are part of a disturbing trend.
Modern game designers, it seems, loathe the concept of escapism altogether, dismissing the desire for idealized characters in escapist entertainment who don’t mirror the unappealing reality of their dysgenic creators.
What has been lost in this ideological arms race is the heart of gaming itself: creativity, challenge, and the ability to transport players into worlds where they can momentarily escape their own. Instead, we are left with a game industry that feels more like a lecture than a leisure activity obsessed with political agendas.
The 2025 GDC report highlights a troubling reality: 58% of developers are now worried about potential future layoffs, underscoring the growing instability of the gaming industry thanks entirely due to themselves. While they themselves point to poor leadership, post-COVID overexpansion, and escalating production costs as the primary culprits, it’s impossible to overlook the role that the industry’s ideological priorities have played in deepening these problems.
When development budgets are diverted into “diversity councils” or marketing campaigns that celebrate representation instead of focusing on improving core gameplay mechanics or crafting compelling stories, the final product is bound to suffer.
The emphasis on ticking diversity boxes rather than investing in quality game design has led to an industry where the product is secondary to ideological posturing, and developers are left scrambling in an environment where the only thing certain is uncertainty.
Ironically, these very diversity initiatives have cultivated a workforce that’s increasingly young and inexperienced. The 2025 GDC report reveals that 60% of developers now have 10 years or less of experience, signaling an industry that’s rapidly being dominated by fresh talent rather than seasoned veterans.
This influx of new voices may bring diversity, but they lack the creative vision and experience needed to drive the industry forward. Instead of steering the industry toward innovative gameplay and storytelling, these individuals are more focused on reshaping it to fit their own ideological sensibilities.
The result? A flood of somber, uninspired games that prioritize being inoffensive over being engaging. These games often lean heavily into androgynous characters, where diversity is presented as an unquestionable reality, and the villains are frequently cast as White men. The emphasis is no longer on crafting compelling experiences, but on adhering to a narrow set of social expectations that stifle creativity and alienate players looking for something more than just political correctness.
Tenured employees are being cast aside in droves to make room for inclusive hires who treat game development like just another 9-5 job while simultaneously pushing an agenda that threatens to burn the industry to the ground, all in the name of social-ethics.
The report also highlights that 24% of game developers now identify as LGBTQ+, a 3% increase from the previous year. Among developers aged 18-24, a staggering 43% identify as LGBTQ+, a statistic that raises serious questions given that this is the result of ideological gatekeeping within a companies hiring processes.
We’ve seen firsthand the disastrous impact of putting LGBT employees in leadership roles in major companies. Dragon Age: The Veilguard serves as a prime example of how pandering to diversity and inclusivity has led to commercial failure.
The game, helmed by a transgender director, dramatically underperformed, falling short of EA’s expectations by more than half. With its overt focus on diversity, featuring unattractive companions, pansexual romance, non-binary characters coming out to their families, and even transgender top surgery scars. The Veilguard alienated the fanbase and ultimately failed to deliver the compelling experience fans of the series expected.
This push to inject politics into game development is proving to be a failure time after time, and the industry is suffering the consequences.
Companies like BlackRock and Vanguard have wielded their economic power to push for DEI initiatives, embedding them into their broader Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) mandates.
Their CEOs openly boast about forcing “behavioral changes” within corporations, using their financial influence to reshape company cultures for ideological purposes. By controlling vast financial portfolios, these firms pressure companies to conform to DEI standards or risk losing essential funding. This form of corporate extortion is subtle yet insidious, quietly dictating the priorities of industries across the board.
Game developers like Ubisoft and CD Projekt Red are simply playing along, capitalizing on this lucrative investment by constructing mentorship programs aimed solely at female and non-binary applicants to bring them into the industry.
This influx of DEI hires has contributed directly to a noticeable decline in the quality of games. Storylines that once prioritized engaging narratives and immersive world-building have now become riddled with social justice rhetoric.
Character designs, once a place for artistic expression, are now being twisted to fit feminist and “body-positive” ideals at the expense of traditional feminine aesthetics, replaced by androgynous or overtly masculine depictions. The push for political correctness has overshadowed creativity, and the result is a gaming landscape where ideological conformity trumps quality design.
CD Projekt Red, for example. Once a studio revered for its commitment to quality, it has long since succumbed to diversity-driven hiring practices. Their CEO has even gone on record dismissing concerns that “diversity hires” are harming the studio, despite The Witcher 4’s controversial design choices sparking backlash.
The new design for Ciri in the upcoming Witcher installment is emblematic of this shift, with revisionist changes seemingly made to appease DEI mandates and push a pro-female narrative rather than to serve the character’s lore or appeal to the fanbase.
The numbers from the GDC report paint a revealing picture: only 35% of game developers are White, male, and not part of the LGBT community. This means the majority of the industry now belongs to so-called “marginalized groups.”
It’s no coincidence that the same companies aggressively championing DEI initiatives are also the ones producing uninspired, underperforming, and often outright broken games.
Ubisoft, for example, has made diversity hires a key priority, yet its recent releases have suffered from poor sales and lackluster reception. And let’s not even get started on Assassin’s Creed Shadows, which fictionalizes a historically insignificant Black man in feudal Japan as a samurai warrior, a decision that smacks of historical revisionism at its worst.
The same troubling pattern is evident at Bioware, which has openly embraced identity politics, causing the destruction of once-beloved franchises like Dragon Age and Mass Effect. Instead of focusing on what made these series iconic, engaging stories, compelling characters, and immersive worlds the studio has chosen to prioritize ideological conformity over quality, leading to the franchises’ decline.
Gaming media outlets have become active participants in this ideological takeover. Any criticism of the impact DEI has on game development is immediately dismissed as “bigotry” or “gatekeeping.” The press fervently defends DEI hires, gaslighting fans into accepting lower-quality products under the guise of “progress.”
Meanwhile, organizations like GLAAD and GDC themselves are pushing gaming studios to increase LGBTQ+ representation to meet arbitrary diversity quotas, with the explicit goal of aligning the industry with their ideological agenda.
These quotas are not just being met, they’re being oversaturated. The AAA gaming industry is being overtaken by feminist hires and consultancy groups like Sweet Baby Inc., with little regard for talent or creativity.
It’s worth noting that women like Amy Hennig, Roberta Williams, Christy Marx, Michiru Yamane, and Naoko Mizuno achieved success in the industry decades ago without the need for such quotas, proving that talent, not identity, should determine success.
Yet, today, the industry is dominated by individuals whose work often mirrors their own self-image rather than skillful, nuanced design. These hires are more concerned with checking boxes than creating compelling characters, resulting in games populated by poorly written, insufferably annoying characters that fail to resonate with players.
Critics of this agenda are routinely labeled as “toxic” or dismissed as a “vocal minority,” despite overwhelming evidence that audiences are rejecting these forced changes. The repeated commercial failures of woke reboots and ideologically driven game narratives should serve as a wake-up call.
Yet, instead of acknowledging their mistakes, DEI activists and their allies in gaming media choose to double down, gaslighting fans and blaming “bigotry” and “racism” for the failure of their uninspired, agenda-driven products.
As gaming journalists continue to celebrate the industry’s so-called progress, they refuse to acknowledge its rapidly declining quality and the growing dissatisfaction of its core audience. Representation in gaming is not inherently a bad thing, but when it comes at the expense of solid gameplay, immersive storytelling, and true creativity, it ceases to be about inclusivity and instead becomes an exercise in ideological domination.
The reality is that gaming’s most successful and beloved franchises were not the product of diversity mandates or corporate ESG initiatives—they were created by developers driven by passion, creativity, and a commitment to crafting exceptional experiences. Their only limitations were their imagination and skill, whereas today, the greatest obstacle in game development is ideology as the industry proliferates with nepotism and incompetence.
Unfortunately, a return to meritocracy and genuine artistic integrity seems neigh impossible now. The unchecked influence of DEI radicals has allowed them to multiply like a cancer, hollowing out the industry from within.
They aren’t here to create, they’re here to deconstruct, destroy, and ultimately hijack and dismantle the hobbies that millions once cherished. The longer they go unchallenged, the more they will erode everything that made gaming great, replacing passion and craftsmanship with ideological purity tests and identity politics.
This is precisely why the industry is now collapsing under the weight of its own self-inflicted delusions. Major publishers, SEGA, Sony, Ubisoft, Microsoft, EA, and Take-Two are all bleeding money, with layoffs surpassing ten thousand in total across 2024 alone, and no end in sight for the string of commercial failures plaguing the industry.
Game after game flops at launch, unable to justify the bloated budgets that now stretch into the hundreds of millions, all to fund projects that prioritize ESG compliance over actual player enjoyment.
At this rate, it’s only a matter of time before the industry faces another gaming crash, as AAA publishers find it increasingly unsustainable to develop games when their break-even points require millions of sales just to offset reckless spending and failed DEI-driven marketing strategies.
When the dust settles, only the studios that put gamers first will remain standing, while those who treated gaming as an ideological platform will crumble under their own hubris with these fat ugly feminist wenches being cast aside and into the street where they belong.
